INTERACT FORUM
Windows => Third Party Plug-ins, Programs, and Skins => Topic started by: sirganty on March 22, 2013, 07:14:32 pm
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Hey all.
Inspired by Maverick07's MetroX skin I decided to have a go at skinning Theater View along similiar lines.
Obviously theater view doesn't offer anywhere near as much flexibility so doesn't match up to the quality of the original MetroX, but hopefully Maverick07 won't be offended by my use of his skin name ;)
Its a two-parter in that there is the main skin folder and a complimentary theme that should also be installed.
The theme is an old adobe after-effects project from many years ago, so isn't particularly media centre related right now, but my intention is to create another one of these growing vine animations to replace it; I'm thinking with speakers and film-reels busting out from the vine heads instead of flowers.
Its quite a slow process though, and I dont have a huge amount of free time, so don't hold your breath!
(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/081/6/e/metrox_theatre_by_sirganty-d5ywur5.png)
Anyway, grab it here:
http://sirganty.deviantart.com/art/MetroX-Theatre-360970673?q=gallery%3Asirganty&qo=0
put both folders from the zip file into the "program files\media center\skins\theater view" folder, and select them from the "tools > options > theater view" menu.
and then let me know what you think!
UPDATED: Added vairulez's modified main.xml to allow switching out Zone for Time for those who don't use zones...
As I didn't need the zone info (I only have one zone) I modified the main.xml to show time instead. The modified main.xml is attachd to this post, rename it main.xml, paste it in "Program Files (x86)\J River\Media Center 18\Skins\Theater View\MetroX Theatre - Dark" and replace the old one.
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Very good. I like.
Thanks ...
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i really like it! love those icons.
but is there a way to disable the "zone= player" in the main menu?
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Why,I prefer to see the Zone Info???
By the Way,Nice Skin,Thanks!
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Hey kurushi,
Sorry you're not a fan of the zone display, but it's one of the most important features for me as I regularly switch between hdmi and dac outputs for video/audio and was always sending to the wrong one without it!
If you rename your zone, you can get it to display anything you like e.g. living room or office etc?
Mine displays the name of the device I'm pointing to like "HDMI: Yamaha RX-V2067" or "Audio-gd NFB7.32 DAC"
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The other option is to modify the main.xml file and delete the <text> tags with [zone] in them, but you'll need more tweaking to get rid of the boxes that contain them.
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Thx i 'll try it. i don't use multi zone.
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Congratulations for this skin sirganty!!! :)
I really like it.
I've just increased the fontsize for date and time that were too small to read them on my 10" tablet and I've repositioned them in "Main.xml".
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Glad you like it!
I have it running on a 10.1" netbook (with a touchscreen mod), but the resolution is so poor, the font is automatically scaled up anyway.
I guess you've got one of these funky surface thingies?
I suppose your other option would have been to increase the font size in theater view options, although all text gets bigger then.
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yep i have do this for my 13"8 :)
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Glad you like it!
I have it running on a 10.1" netbook (with a touchscreen mod), but the resolution is so poor, the font is automatically scaled up anyway.
I guess you've got one of these funky surface thingies?
I suppose your other option would have been to increase the font size in theater view options, although all text gets bigger then.
It's an ACER Iconia W510 with Windows 8 full version not RT. ;)
In fact I've just increased fontsize on Date and Time in Text item just to get its taller in views such as "Playing now", "List" or "Info".
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Very Nice. Thanks!
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let me know what you think
Wow... My new skin of choice.
The theme is an old adobe after-effects project from many years ago, so isn't particularly media centre related right now, but my intention is to create another one of these growing vine animations to replace it; I'm thinking with speakers and film-reels busting out from the vine heads instead of flowers.
Its quite a slow process though, and I dont have a huge amount of free time, so don't hold your breath!
Sounds great. Looking forward to it.
it's one of the most important features for me as I regularly switch between hdmi and dac outputs for video/audio and was always sending to the wrong one without it!
This feature rocks.
I love the zone info box.
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Seems to be going down pretty well, so I may consider making another one!
Thanks for your feedback guys.
Keep it coming
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Well the skin looks good indeed, maybe the best ive seen, but....
imo it isnt "Metro" at all. Neither my MetroX or the original "Modern UI" of Windows.
For me it looks more like Android / Google inspired.
Also i personally dont really like the rounded icons - if you sharped the edges, the skin would look way more "adult" - coz the rounded icons look kinda kitchy
And ofc if it should be a Modern UI, you have to use the "original" Windows icons.
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Yep Maverick is right not so Metro but i like it anyways and i love rounded icons.
Here's a more metro style inspired:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=73592.0
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All good points.
I hadn't really realised that maverick's metrox was supposed to be like an m$ 'modern ui'; i cant say that it bares much resemblance to the mail, IE, or xbox video / music modern uis that i have seen, and I haven't really seen any others.
My metox theater was simply inspired by mavericks skin, hence took its name.
More than anything it was the colour scheme and 'boxy' nature of the menus.
Anyway, I'm more than happy to change the name if you guys aren't happy or don't believe it's suitable :)
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good work, your skin made theaterview even better
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Every time I enter this forum, I'm hoping to see that someone made a new Theatre View skin. So I am happy to see this thread, downloading and will try this later :).
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As I didn't need the zone info (I only have one zone) I modified the main.xml to show time instead. The modified main.xml is attachd to this post, rename it main.xml, paste it in "Program Files (x86)\J River\Media Center 18\Skins\Theater View\MetroX Theatre - Dark" and replace the old one.
ps : hope it's alright with you sirganty
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@vairulez; of course it is, hack away!
@Sesam; how did you get on? Check back again soon, as I have another 2 to upload before too long.
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Thx verulez for the main.xml maybe sirganty can attach this file to the first post :)
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@vairulez; of course it is, hack away!
@Sesam; how did you get on? Check back again soon, as I have another 2 to upload before too long.
Can't wait to see what you have come up with :)
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This is my default skin. Thanks sirganty!
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Yes, it is nice to see something new on the screen.
Thanks for your effort!
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Love the skin. Couple of issues for me though:-
1/ in YouTube "search", or any view that uses an on screen keyboard, moving the cursor b/w the list and rollers can be quite a challenge. This is due to the new orientation of the roller menu from centered to left.
2/ the background flower animation eventually causes MC to hang for me. It happens if i drop back to theater view from full screen video playback (usually requires a few attempts). If I remove the animated video from the theme, the problem goes away. This is not a new problem though as I've always had issues with these kind of backgrounds (in any skin). I think it has more to do with MC than your skin.
Thanks.
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2/ the background flower animation eventually causes MC to hang for me. It happens if i drop back to theater view from full screen video playback (usually requires a few attempts). If I remove the animated video from the theme, the problem goes away. This is not a new problem though as I've always had issues with these kind of backgrounds (in any skin). I think it has more to do with MC than your skin.
I might have experienced this too...
I made a few movies to run as backgrounds and noticed when they stopped that MC would hang.
I quit using them and used pictures as my backdrops for the various menu options.
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Check back again soon, as I have another 2 to upload before too long.
Have you abandoned the project or when can we expect to see more?
This is not a new problem though as I've always had issues with these kind of backgrounds (in any skin).
What other Theatre View skins have you seen with animated backgrounds?
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Must admit I've seen that a few times too (hangs caused by the mpg backgrounds), and I need to alt-f4 out of theatre view and switch back to correct it.
Doesn't seem to matter which video you use either, so my guess is its an MC issue too.
I did notice that it really chokes when you try and use a really high res / large file, but thought I'd hit a sweet spot with my one, but obviously not quite :(
My new skins are still coming.
I decided to take a different route, as I really wanted personalised content based on the MC library, so i'm coding up an extension to MCWS services to serve up some pretty pictures.
I'd include some screenshots if I could add them directly to this board, but it appears I need to link to them which means a bit of faffing around.
there will be a v1.1 of metrox theatre too, with some fixes (like the on screen keyboard position), and some added eye-candy from your library.
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First screen shots of my next skin...
I'm calling it MC:UX
As it requires the installation of a small service that I've coded (.net), I'll be looking for beta testers in the coming weeks...
Root screen with "spotlight" images.
configurable using jrmc search functionality, but shows most recently added, recently played, most played etc and can take images from lastfm, tmdb, thetvdb, jrmc itself etc
(http://s8.postimg.org/6tb96qixh/MCUX_1.png)
Context menus pop up throughout as you select certain options
(http://s8.postimg.org/ys5exlkk5/MCUX_2.png)
(http://s8.postimg.org/j3zmd2fkl/MCUX_3.png)
(http://s8.postimg.org/3jwu09utx/MCUX_4.png)
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Looking good 8)
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This is amazing! I can't wait to see this skin in action. Thank you for your obviously hard work.
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Now we're talking!
Will try anything you come up with.
Also like XBMC random movie on spotlight.
(I was using Aeon Nox)
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awesome, by far the best Theater View i ever saw - even if the icons are not custom made :P
just one suggestion...is it possible to remove the square of the selected object?
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This look fantastic :)
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even if the icons are not custom made :P
about 50% are ripped straight from windows 8, the others had to be hand crafted ;)
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Awesome!
Looking forward to see it in action.
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1/ in YouTube "search", or any view that uses an on screen keyboard, moving the cursor b/w the list and rollers can be quite a challenge. This is due to the new orientation of the roller menu from centered to left.
raym, I'm struggling to reproduce your problem with the navigation between list and roller when searching
I've tried the standard search and youtube search, and every time I press up from the top of the list I end up on the roller; which is as I would expect.
anytime I press left when on the left most item in the list I move to the on-screen keyboard; also as I would expect.
Can you explain anymore?
Is it specifically moving from the roller to the list, avoiding the on-screen keyboard you are talking about?
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Preview is very good if you want a beta tester i can help you pm me ;)
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+1 I'd also be keen on beta testing this when you get to that stage.
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First screen shots of my next skin...
I'm calling it MC:UX
As it requires the installation of a small service that I've coded (.net), I'll be looking for beta testers in the coming weeks...
Root screen with "spotlight" images.
configurable using MC search functionality, but shows most recently added, recently played, most played etc and can take images from lastfm, tmdb, thetvdb, MC itself etc
http://s8.postimg.org/6tb96qixh/MCUX_1.png
Context menus pop up throughout as you select certain options
http://s8.postimg.org/ys5exlkk5/MCUX_2.png
http://s8.postimg.org/j3zmd2fkl/MCUX_3.png
http://s8.postimg.org/3jwu09utx/MCUX_4.png
Holy Cow!
Count me in for beta testing as well please :-) This looks fantastic!
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Looks like my dream theater view. Amazing work you're doing.
Can't wait to see this released.
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I've been rather busy the last couple of weeks, but fear not, "UX" is still coming!
As there's been such a good response, I may release it in an "Alpha" state sooner, rather than spend much longer polishing the edges
I have a tendency to be a bit of a perfectionist, so the beta might take longer than people would like to wait.
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Looking forward to it.
Thanks!
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Hey sirganty, any news to report? :P
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Yeah I'm patiently waiting too.
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Add me in too, can't wait to see it.
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Add me to your Beta
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Add me to your Beta
mee too pleez
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Waiting patiently, any news on UX? :D
Thanks.
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I would help road test this too. Looks tidy and elegant, informative, but not too 'busy'. Interesting.
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Sorry guys, everything's been a bit hectic so i've not looked at it for weeks
work got crazy
had a drinking related accident which left me with pins holding my wrist together
then took the kids away on vacation
I'm back and refreshed, and get my arm back in a weeks time, so should be pretty soon after that!
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I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you make a full recovery.
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Sirganty - this looks really promising, thanks for putting the time in to show what is actually possible with a theater view.
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Just a Thank You for MetroX - really appreciating it. MC:UX looks like it will be fantastic, too. Hope you get 100% healed up and thanks again for putting the energy into making this awesome player even cooler.
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Release date?
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Hows it coming Sirganty? I'm getting itchy. Ready for testers yet? :P
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Any chance we can get a beta version for a Christmas present?
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any news on this new skin? looks fantastic
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Since build 108 this skin causes crashes and hangs on my set up. Andy ideas why this may be?
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I have had this happen to me as well. And the animated background video does not work anymore with the latest version of MC
Edit: oops, I guess it got fixed in the latest version. Will have to check
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Any progress on MC:UX or is it still a pipedream ?
Could see this transforming theatre view.
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The second one to go MIA (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=76982.0) ... ? :'(
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That MC:UX skin sure looks good! Looking forward to testing it in action. I hope stuff like this will be natively possible in MC one day.
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Sorry guys,
Have been AWOL for a good while :(
Right, bad news...
Runtime querying performance (MCWS, last.fm, tmdb, TheTVDB) was so bad (making the theatre view UI really unresponsive) that I decided the only way I could make mc:ux work was to have a 'background' process constantly creating/saving images on a timer in the background, and leave the only 'live' images based on playing now info.
Sort of worked, but I didn't like the fact my service was effectively building loads of stuff in the bg, which ultimately would never even be seen, as it would be created and overwritten before anyone ever saw it.
I also got frustrated with the fact I could never target every 'location' the way I wanted...
For those who haven't tried, you use a 'location' variable to determine what to display on a given page, but certain 'locations' are repeated within the traversal hierarchy, but in fact the true path is different, and so the same 'location' logic displays images etc I didn't want displayed in that scenario.
Anyway, it all annoyed me enough I stopped temporarily to see if I could code a 'complete' theatre view interface using nothing but MCWS.
This was going really well... Looking beautiful, data enriched, nice user interaction, just felt good.... Until I hit a brick wall ensuring 'focus' changed correctly.
Effectively I wanted MC to run in the background all the time... except when I kicked off a video.
Then I wanted to be able to start playback in display mode until the video stopped (manually or natural end) and then MC back to bg and get focus back.
Almost impossible :(
So I've now given up on that too.
Long story short, I've given up with theatre view.
I've spent my spare time over the last 3 weeks learning objective-c
I have an alpha, and will be releasing a jremote competitor before I grow old and grey
Sorry guys :(
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Sorry to see this fail to come to fruition, but it's impressive you stuck with it that long!
I know how you feel after wasting countless hours on things like this. Hopefully J River will wake up one day and take theatre view out of the dark ages one way or another.
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Bad news indeed :(. But yea I guess there is a reason why we get so few third party Theater View skins. I briefly looked into skinning Theater View myself and quickly gave up, because it appeared poorly documented and complicated, and most importantly very limited in what you can actually do. I have hoped that skinning Theater View would get more advanced, and that we would get more professionally made standard skins for it already included. While MC has gotten lots of other features, almost nothing in Theater View appears to have changed with recent versions.
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You may have posted about it, but we need a few simple requests. We would also like Theater View skinning to be easier.
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Yes. Please give some suggestions for improvements. Perhaps in a dedicated thread. It's time we get a bit more options and flexibility in TV. We really need that sort of feedback from people who know how to skin. I've tried, but I know to little about it to give concrete suggestions.
These kind of things should be possible in TV. At least I hope so, one day...
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Yes. Please give some suggestions for improvements. Perhaps in a dedicated thread. It's time we get a bit more options and flexibility in TV. We really need that sort of feedback from people who know how to skin. I've tried, but I know to little about it to give concrete suggestions.
These kind of things should be possible in TV. At least I hope so, one day...
+1
exactly what he said. We need more room to show all that customization of JRiver in Theater View. I'm no programmer or artist and barely understand customizing. I have played around with Theater View and made my own personal clone of some other not name skin. Its hard to list things when I don't understand exactly what can be done. Maybe a list of what we'd like? Then you can see if it's possible?