Skin sizing?

[sdumas]

Hi Everyone,

I am trying to understand how to "size" a menu.

It would seem that if I create a skin (or modify one for that matter) on a specific resolution (let's say 1280x720) then all the menus seems to get "re-adusted" to that size.

I wanted to have multiple size menus so that each client can call it's own version of the skin.

For example a 1280x720, a 1024x768, a 800x600 plus of course PPC screens.

I tried to do that but came up instead with a bunch of screwed up menus/screens.

For instance; I took the Heavymetal skin and cloned the main menu. I renamed it to LRmenu. I modified LRmenu to fit 1024x768 on a machine where the resolution was 1024x768. Well, it just happened that the main menu was now "redesigned" into 1024x768 as well, even if I did not modify it. It didn't have the new buttons or events I created for LRmenu, but the sizing was now all wrong on the main menu.

I can see that the PPC menus were not affected but most other menus were. I don't get it.

Is there a place where you can set up a specific resolution for a particular menu? Is this something that is hard coded only for PPC screens?

I am confused. I restored my original skin and everything went back to normal, but the Heavymetal 16x9 looks pretty bad in 800x600...

How can I create multiple sizes of the same menus using different names for each one and keep the proper resolution - I don't mind redesigning I just want to make sure I can do it.

ex. MainMenu1280x720, MainMenu1024x768, MainMenu800x600 and the old standby PPCMenu

Thanks!

[Colby]

It is my understanding that you screens within a skin are one resolution only, except the ppc screens which are a special case. You cant exactly have a skin 1024x768 on mainmenu then 800X600 on the next page. Resolution is skin specific.

However, you could make screens positioned so that it would appear that way. You would have to uncheck aspect ratio checkbox on all the buttons, so they dont scale or move location. Then create your skin pages toward top left (0,0). Leave the bottom & right 20% blank for clipping at different resolutions. Your buttons should be centered.

[sdumas]

Okay. That's a lot of work but not an impossible task.

Colby, do you know if by doing that the speed at which the client refreshes would be faster?

I mean when a menu has been built for 1280x720 it needs to be redrawn on a thin client at 800x600 for example. This actually adds some delays when you press on buttons, a second or more in some cases. It makes a very noticeable lag between what you press and what actually happens.

I was hoping that by have menus tailored for each resolutions it would not have to "resize" on each clients.

If the aspect ratio checkmark is enabled, the client will not try to resize the screens right? If so, the performance should be improved, am I right in my assumption?

[Colby]

If the aspect ratio checkmark is enabled, the client will not try to resize the screens right? If so, the performance should be improved, am I right in my assumption?

Right I assume. If you uncheck the aspect ratio in every button ( I would do a search and replace in the xml for that) It should not "stretch". You may need different resources for fonts and shapes however because I dont think that is affected by aspect ratio checkbox.