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[Siafu11]

I described my basic situation in this post: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=52123.0. To summerize, I am basically limited to a 1024x768 display 90% of the time and am somewhat irked by the "jumping" behaviour whenever I select a category that only has one artist/album. I just upgraded to the latest version of MC13, as JimH suggested.

Let me explain what happens:
I have one view scheme with Artist (grouped) > Artist > Album. This works fine, unless I only have one artist under one letter, and only one album under that artist. My example from before was that the only "K" I have is Kaiser Cheifs, and I only have one of their albums. When in theater view, if I scroll to "K" and select it, it skips directly to the song listing. I'd prefer to have to explicity go though each category so you know what artist/album you are selecting, instead of having it jump, but can't figure out a way to do this.
This brings me to my other idea. For the first category (Artist (grouped)), I could display the number of artists for each letter. So if I have 5 artists in A and 10 in B, the list would look like: A (5 Artists), B (10 Artists), etc. Then with an if statement I could make it so that if there is only one artist in the group, it will display that artist, e.g. K (1 Artist, Kaiser Chiefs). Unfortunatly I am not too familiar with the logic when creating a custom expression for view schemes and haven't been able to get this so far. Does anyone have suggestions on how to do this, or if it is even possible?

There are a few other things I am working on. I am trying to customize the obsidian view right now, and shifted the PIP in the playing now to take up approx. the bottom third of the screen. I also made a custom visualization That just displays Artist/Album/Track/Time remaining with a spectrum analyzer behind that. My first problem is that I can't seem to get the spectrum analyzer to take up the whole width of the screen, it just seems to resize itself to take up a chunk in the middle. Can I stretch this to take up the full width?
Another issue I have is that the PIP section seems to overlap the song list in the playing now section, so if you scroll down, you can never really see the last selection. I am guessing there is a way to change where the bottom of the song list box in the main.xml or base.xml, but I can't seem to find where.

Finally, is there a way to customize the left hand display (where it gives you the play/add/etc menu and then below that is artist/album/year/etc info)? Basically I want to get rid of that artist/album/year/etc info at the bottom. Yea, you could call me a little anal  .

I will try to get some screenshots of the various issues when I get a chance.

Oh, and one more thing. There seems to be a few bugs when creating visualizations. Like I said before, my current vizualization has Text and then a spectrum analyzer. If I hit the save button once, the spectrum analyzer disappears entirely from the vizualization. If I hit save again, it will reappear. This also seems to happen with the screen refresh element (I forgot what it was called). Hit save once, it stops working, hit it again and it works again.

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text!

*Update* Added pictures below....


This shows the PIP overlapping the song list. Does anyone know the parameter that changes where the end of the list box is in the xml file?


Here is the squashed spectrum analyzer. I would like it to stretch across the entire screen like the text does if it is long enough, even though it isn't shown well in this image.


The date/genre/track info on the right is what I would like to remove. Some of that info could stay, but I don't need all of it. I'm trying to make this skin look clean and simple.


If you look at the lower left, this you can see that the visualization isn't 'flushing' even though flush is listed in the Vis Studio. This happened right after I hit the save button. If I hit it again, the Vis will flush, but then the spectrum analyzer will disappear. I have to play around with it to get it to sync back up so that when I hit save, the Vis will flush and the spectrum analyzer will appear.
Also, if you look in the Vis Studio window, the options on the left only appear if I hold the mouse button down. If I click normally, they appear and disappear really fast. Even when I hold down the button to select move down....nothing happens. This seems like another bug.

Also, I am currently running WinXP SP2, 32 bit.

Any suggestions on any of these issues?

Thanks in advance!

[gappie]

many questions in one post... 
let me try a few:

This shows the PIP overlapping the song list. Does anyone know the parameter that changes where the end of the list box is in the xml file?

my first guess would be that you should change the order. so the "view" after the "PIP". the order in which the items are set is important.

The date/genre/track info on the right is what I would like to remove. Some of that info could stay, but I don't need all of it. I'm trying to make this skin look clean and simple.

that is not possible. i have some hope that it will be possible though somewhere in the development of 14.

There seems to be a few bugs when creating visualizations.

yes there are..
the setting of for instance the mainretangle seems to be broken. and i think you set the size there. using old vizes seems to work as long as you dont change them.

I have one view scheme with Artist (grouped) > Artist > Album. This works fine, unless I only have one artist under one letter, and only one album under that artist. My example from before was that the only "K" I have is Kaiser Cheifs, and I only have one of their albums. When in theater view, if I scroll to "K" and select it, it skips directly to the song listing. I'd prefer to have to explicity go though each category so you know what artist/album you are selecting, instead of having it jump, but can't figure out a way to do this.

the skipping cant be changed. one thing i did is üsing this feature. put in the view after "album" a new item, make it an expression and put for instance [album] - [album artist (auto)] in there. this item will always skip when you choose an album, but will give you the album and the artist in the upperroler. dont know if it is a bit of help. just an idea.

 
gab

[MrHaugen]

You lost me some place down in that text. Sorry about that.
One comment though. You know that you can set the size of the Theater View objects smaller right? Options -> Theater View -> Size. Looks like way to little info on each page with that resolution. If you like it that way, then don't mind me

[Siafu11]

Thanks guys. I plan on messing around with the "Playing now" section in the xml file to see what I can come up with, I'll mention my results after I do that.

The date/genre/track info on the right is what I would like to remove. Some of that info could stay, but I don't need all of it. I'm trying to make this skin look clean and simple.

my first guess would be that you should change the order. so the "view" after the "PIP". the order in which the items are set is important.

I figured this was the case....but I was wondering, do you think it would be possible to create another "blank" section in the xml and simply place that over the info I want removed? Sort of like a mask.

yes there are..
the setting of for instance the mainretangle seems to be broken. and i think you set the size there. using old vizes seems to work as long as you dont change them.

For now I removed the spectrum analyzer, and just have the text in there. I think this will suffice (boring, I know) until these bugs get worked out.

the skipping cant be changed. one thing i did is üsing this feature. put in the view after "album" a new item, make it an expression and put for instance [album] - [album artist (auto)] in there. this item will always skip when you choose an album, but will give you the album and the artist in the upperroler. dont know if it is a bit of help. just an idea.

Actually, putting the info in the top roller was my other idea, thanks! I will try this out....

Looks like way to little info on each page with that resolution. If you like it that way, then don't mind me

You're right, everything is large with that resolution, but I have to be able to read everything on my little 15 inch screen from across the room. I wish I could get a larger screen, but my shelf height won't accomodate for one. 

[gappie]

I figured this was the case....but I was wondering, do you think it would be possible to create another "blank" section in the xml and simply place that over the info I want removed? Sort of like a mask.

i dont think so.  but who knows. an extra problem i see is that if you find a way to place the maks, it will be on the pages before also (except when you do it in playing now only). but when you find something, please tell it. im cusious and it would resolve a skinning problem im trying to solve.

 
gab

[Siafu11]

OK, so I finally got around to messing with this program again. I changed my previous view scheme from Artist (grouped) > Artist > Album to simply Album Artist [Auto] (also grouped), which displayed what I wanted on the top roller bar. Unfortunatly, the search logic for this category seems to be missing something....



...the first level down seems fine...



...as does the second. Notice that "311" was selected.



This is where the problem is. I previously selected 3 > 311 > All albums. Given the criteria selected above, this level is unnecessary. I am also not fond of the "All Expression" text above. Is there a way to make a view scheme that skips this part, yet still displays the artist and album on the top roller bar? And is there any way to change the "All Expression" text to something else like "All Songs"?



Here is the "Playing Now" screen that I settled with, for those who are interested. I never found a way to create a mask of sorts, but this will do. I'm guessing there is no way to turn off the reflection on the album art so that that image could be expanded a bit.


OT, but the Pix01 feature is super convenient!

[gappie]

This is where the problem is. I previously selected 3 > 311 > All albums. Given the criteria selected above, this level is unnecessary. I am also not fond of the "All Expression" text above. Is there a way to make a view scheme that skips this part, yet still displays the artist and album on the top roller bar? And is there any way to change the "All Expression" text to something else like "All Songs"?

this is indeed the week point of making this extra step with the expression. but it should only occur when choosing all albums, not when you choose one album.

to change the 'all expressions' open up the expression again and change the name, above where you typed the expression. 

 
gab

[laerm]

There are a few other things I am working on. I am trying to customize the obsidian view right now, and shifted the PIP in the playing now to take up approx. the bottom third of the screen.

hey -

i would love to take a look at your modified XML for the PIP box thing. i have been trying to change that window, but i can't figure out. as far as i can tell, it isn't in the main.xml for obsidian (!). i'd love to make it taller, so that i can display cover art in the top 2/3 and then put a spectrum analyzer in the bottom 1/3. i had a perfect layout for the previous obsidian skin, but the new one screws it up (obviously). if the navigation in the new obsidian wasn't so darn good, i'd go back to the old skin.

thanks...
micah

[Siafu11]

Sorry, haven't been on the forums in a bit. I am still working on optimizing my media center for a complete home theater experience....but it is a very slow process, and free time seems to be dwindling as of late.

i would love to take a look at your modified XML for the PIP box thing. i have been trying to change that window, but i can't figure out. as far as i can tell, it isn't in the main.xml for obsidian (!).

To get the PIP window, you have to modify the base.xml that is referenced in obsidian's main.xml. Since I didn't want to screw up the other skins that use the base.xml, I made a copy of base.xml and changed it to "Base 2-2.xml", and made sure that obsidian's main.xml references this new file. The base.xml is in the shared folder with all the other skins.

To add the pip window, I changed the base.xml as follows....

    <Layout Name="Playing Now" Location="Playing Now\***" >
       ...
      <!-- View -->
      <Item Name="View" Base="ViewBackground" Placement="Top" Size="60%" />
      <Item Name="PIP" Placement="Bottom" Size="30%" Crop="1%" />
    </Layout>

So, basically, just add the PIP line and change its sizeand placement as follows.. Also note that if you don't want the PIP screen to overlap the main view, you will have to change the view size also.