What issue exactly? If you think it is going to allow playback of DRM video streams, it won’t.
What’s important to one user isn’t necessarily as important to others
I think the OSMC skin as it is, is very good. It ignores the tendancy with a lot of these type of things, to over complicate things. I enjoy the simplicty of it. I even like the white to yellow selection highlight.!
I do like the Gradient version, above, with the layered selections. I’m less keen on the picture version as the pictures aren’t relevent to anything. I like fanart sometimes when browsing movies, however even this can be disapointing as some movies, bands, tv series, have awful fanart.
Keep it simple, clean and fast. Good work though.
One thing i’m not sure about, which might not be related to the skin, but what is the simplest way to turn substitles on and off when watching a movie? When using the Kodi remote on my iphone for the pi, there was a button i would use, but now i’m using the vero 2 i use the supplied remote, so was wondering if there is a short cut.?
It would be nice if there would be a color picker (gradients/solids) and image picker.
Hi Sam. First of all, thank you for spending so much effort to OSMC, I really like it. Of course, DRM streams wouldn’t be possible with web browser. Admittedly, my use case is not a classic home theater solution for which I’d definitely go for Vero. I’d like to use OSMC as a performant smart home server running 24/7 which should have easy-to-use possibility to switch between web-based informative screens and media center capabilities.
Probably this is not the most common use case, but I saw a bunch of people out there in the forums also thristing for browser support why I was so happy when I noticed Ocelot was announced about a year ago. It’s just a little bit disappointing for me that redesigning the UI seems to have higher priority now because I think the current interface is pretty good and OSMC with browser support would be exactly what I’m looking for.
The skin may appear satisfactory for you but it is currently incomplete. It doesn’t support all Jarvis changes and will stop working entirely when Krypton is released.
The skin is something we ship currently, and as such, must continue to support. A UI overhaul while we’re at it is an added bonus.
No one has stepped forward with web browser development. I’ve fully documented what needs to be done as well as try and get a couple of people involved, but to no avail. As such, I’ll need to work on it myself. I had something last year with Qt WebEngine but wasn’t impressed with the performance. Conversely, we have two developers who are eager to work on a new skin and want to make that a reality. It makes sense to work with them on the skin. Resources spent on developing the skin are not taking anything away from web browser development.
There are about 50k users using the OSMC skin. This takes a higher precedence. It would be inappropriate for me to add another feature with limited support and ignore essential work that needs to be done on something we already support.
Sam
The new skin looks promising.
Here are my two cents:
Color :
- make the color configurable with a selection of palettes, assigning a color per section. I.e. dark for movies, yellow for music, purple for tv shows etc … to make it easy to know what’s going on
- or make plain background color dynamic based on the currently selected artwork “a la” iTunes
- combine fanart/pictures as background and color hue based on dominant color in the current background picture
Focus:
my biggest concern with the current theme is the difficulty to identify which item is currently selected
- increase the font size of selected item
- increase the contrast between selection and non selected items
Thanks again for the great software !!
Thank you for this extensive statement which helps me to understand why the skin is currently on the top of your agenda. This “documentation what has to be done”, is it public? I’d like to take a look 
As I also did some projects before I know this “get a couple of people involved, but to no avail” problem so I don’t want to feign that I’ll get involved and steal your time. Reality is, probably I also won’t have enough time and may also not enough knowledge (depends on what exactly has to be done…). But if it’s no effort for you to let me take a look, I’d appreciate it.
Thank you.
Patrick
The first task involves getting Qt WebEngine working reliably on all devices. This is a bit hacky as it isn’t intended for Pi.
It may be better to discuss this in a separate thread.
If you choose a gradient - I personally think blue is easier on the eye and more neutral compared to green.
If you choose an image, make sure it is something everyone can relate to and from a high quality photographer (which you already probably know).
Personally I think it should be a mixture of both gradients and professional photography - settings = gradients and other pages photos.
If you choose an image, make it selectable out of the pictures album.
Last time I used the stock skin was last spring, guess its time to switch back and give it another try. This looks really nice now!
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I’m a professional designer my 2 cents. This new layouts feels much better than the one we have right now. That said i just dont know why you changed from the original background. It had a really nice radial gradient and was much better on the eyes. The new one its more agressive not so good on the eyes. Well i guess we’ll never know why you changed from the original gradient it seamed like everyone liked it.
I currently use the Confluence skin, because the first time I tried the existing OSMC skin I didn’t get on too well with it. If the skin is getting a refresh then I might give it another try, HOWEVER, the colour scheme shown in the screenshots is a non-starter for me. It’s waaay too bright, and I would much prefer something with darker tones. Plain gradient would definitely be preferred over photos as well.
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+1 on this. The gradient in the screenshots is too bright and too aggressive.
I like the way Hitcher’s FTV skin has implemented the OSD. Hit left/right on the remote for play, pause, FF, REW, etc. Hit up to select video, audio, subtitle settings. It’s a lot faster to turn subtitles on and off when you miss a dialog. With the current OSMC skin, you have to hit right multiple times to get to the audio setting, then hit up multiple times to turn subtitles on and off (and why is subtitle under audio???)
I like it, specially that you will see more clearly your position in the hierarchy of contents… but i would leave this as optional in case people want to use this skin in some low performance device.
As a feature I would appreciate, in the confluence skin is possible to show few quick access icons to the plugins directly in the home screen… like youtube… this helps a lot to make it friendly, specially to my kids… or exwife.
OSMC is a breath of fresh air for me.
I just want to make sure there will be a color picker ( for gradients/solids).
Love it. Looks fresh and much better than now.
If You could make it compatible with the PlexBMC Kodi Add-On, then this would be my personal #1 skin for 2016.
Regards,
I thought the OSMC skin is included in the OSMC test builds for Krypton 17? But it seems it is not.
Looks very cool! Nice design, will definitely use it.
One suggestions: Would be nice if the background photographs change with a smooth blend effect every 20 sec. or so. This would make a menu much more “alive” and not as static as it is now most often…