Media Center SE

[MFan]

m_ski,

Thank you for your input. These are the kind of suggestion I need. I will work on these.

Don

[gu5tav0]

@MFan

I removed the event and going from the artist list to the album list works great. I do have one request though: As you can see in the picture, when all artists are listed, the artist names are not listed under the art. The names are displayed if I press the "Artists" button but that messes up the album names as I described in a previous post. I assume it would be pretty easy to put those text fields in (I am not too experienced at skinning though).

[MFan]

gu5tav0,

The screen you displayed is, I think, the 'music' screen. This is configured to show the album name below the album cover (Why? I seemed like a good idea). We can change this to show the artist. The fact that the album name also does not appear below the artist name (I assume 311 is an artist name - I am out of touch with current music - must be a generation gap thing) at the top of the screen suggests to me that the screen is not picking up the album name from your music.xml file.

I am not sure why the skin is not picking up the album name from your database. When you use heavymetal, does it show both the artist name and the album name below the collection of album covers on the main music page?

Do you want to show the artist's name on this screen? If yes, open the skinning window, select the category and change %albumname% to %artist% on the display line.

I have posted a new version of mediacenter800 at:

http://www.xlobby.com/files/MFan/MediaCenter800.zip

I have changed the nativation within the music section so that going to the music page no longer resets the database. The database is only reset when first entering the music section or when the operator presses the reset button on the screen. I have made a few other changes - see the release notes document in the file.

m_ski - I still have your suggestions in mind, but want to wait to see if the bug I reported about category displays can be fixed. I also noted your comment about the way the album name appears slowly - this happens on my 2.8gHz machine, so it is worth looking into.

Hope these things help you guys - keep me posted so I can work through the problems with this skin. I guess I should have called it an alpha rather than a beta!!

Don

[m_ski]

MFan,

your latest release did not seem to have a release notes file in it. I am very interested in exactly what has changed as I have made a few minor mods myself and want to incorporate your latest changes as well.

How exactly did you make it so the music category does not keep getting reset? - I had a look and could not see any ovbious differences in the Event manager.
I'll try and post a list of the mods I have made and upload a copy to a website somewhere if that is OK with you?

[MFan]

m_ski,

Sorry for the delay in not getting a new version posted - live intervened. I hope to post a new version in the next couple of days. I made new buttons for the category selected indicator and changed the size of the graphics to make them easier to see on the screen.

Regarding your question about the events - I did not change the events, but assigned new events for the buttons that navigate around the music section.

Please feel free to post what you have - I am always ready to learn (and steal from others).

The release notes should be in a notepad file intermixed in the skins in the highest level folder - however, it may not have as much detail as you might wish.

BTW - are you working on 1024x768 or 800x600? I have made my most recent changes to 800x600, because I will be moving soon and will most likely have a SDTV.

Don

[m_ski]

MFan,

I still can't find the release notes - There does not appear to be any text files in the archive.
I am using 800x600 version (will be used on SDTV when I have it working satisfactorily). Looking forward to the new version.

[MFan]

The new files for MediaCenter800 are at:

http://www.xlobby.com/files/MFan/MediaCenter800.zip

For touchscreen/mouse users, insert the files in:

http://www.xlobby.com/files/MFan/Mouse%20Music%20800.zip

I have changed the TV over to carm's CTPVR plugin and worked a little with re-theming this to be more consistant with the other skins in the set, but this is not a completed effort - I did this mostly to see how ctpvr would work. Although there remain some opportunites, this looks like it will be a solid plugin The set can easily be changed back to SageTV by changing the event on the main menu.

Don

[m_ski]

MFan,

I have finally got around to uploading the changes I have made to MediaCenter800 to a web server.

Most are minor mods but here are a few screenshots...

Main Menu showing nowplaying and collage...


Music screen showing bolder highlighting of current selection...


Playlist screen showing border highlighting current selection...


All changes carried out in MediaCenter800_m_ski_310105.zip - based on MediaCenter800 posted Jan 12 2005...

* Spacing of background images on search pages was wrong - corrected
* Event for refresh pictures was missing - added
* Now playing icon added to playlist and album details (but get same title twice when playing on-line radio)
* Moved albums and Artist pages catergory display down 2 pixels
* Removed 'My' from start menu options - I personally don't like the use of 'My' everywhere
* Added auto Cd player overlay when you insert CD - gives box asking whether to play Cd or rip CD. (Although I can't reliably get this to work on my system)
* Modified CD player screen to show current track time
* Made current selection in Album details and playlist screen more obvious by putting border around track name as well as small icon to left of track name - Nor a perfect graphic as I only have rubbish image editing software but shows the principle.
* Changed default selection on search screen to be the text input box
* In 'enter music' event, reset moved to first position otherwise you can see the screen updating
* Added collage of pictures/music/movies to main menu which appears when relevant selection is highlighted
* Added 'exit' to main menu
* Added 'shutdown PC' to main menu
* Increased width of movies 'rating' field
* 'Main Menu' button was not Nav Item on movie details screen, meaning could not be navigated properly with the keyboard - fixed
* Change movie details 'title' field to 'display' so it works with a manual movie database - I assume 'title' comes from DVDprofiler?
* Title on movies page changed to category>movies>display
* Date added to main menu
* On movie search screen - Event for select rating button modified so tick on 'title' button disappears.
* Modified Navigation on search screens so that left and right on keyboard (or remote) take you between text input field and category view.
* Font changed for Album/Artists view
* Font changed to Arial Rounded MT Bold on title of music page
* Now playing icon and text added to Main Menu
* In pictures changed top title to category>pictures>display so that the picture name is shown as well as the date
* Changed font style for videos
* deleted a whole load of unused images and files that were not used in my setup to improve loading times slightly - all PPC stuff has been deleted so you'll have to add it back in if you want it to work.
* Added web browser screen - very basic at the moment just as a test and not really finished.


The modified skin can be downloaded from http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/mski/MediaCenter800_m_ski_310105.zip

[MFan]

m_ski,

I have been in the process of moving for the last month. I hope to get my HT computer in a week or so. At that time, I will down load your skin and have a look-see. Looks like you made useful changes.

Don

[MFan]

m_ski,

I finally got my internet connection and my computer set-up in my new apartment. I downloaded your skin and looked through it. I like some of the changes (others are personal preference items that can go either way).

Did you look at the skin I have currently posted? I changed the highlighting targets and they are somewhat similar to yours except a different color green.

If you do not mind, I will incorporate some of your changes in my skin.

BTW, what screen resolution do you use?

Don

[Chazotta]

m_ski,

The link to your download does not work. Can you refresh it as I would'nt mind taking a look at the modified skin.

thanks

[m_ski]

Chazotta,

I just deleted it from the server the other day as I thought I needed to free up some space. I'll try and put it back but I have been having some troubles with uploading large files recently so it may not work.

[Chazotta]

Ok, just let me know if you put it up again.

[str1der]

Is there anywhere to download the latest version of this skin?