Changes I'd Like to See in Community-SD OSD Skin

[LewE]

Your screenshots just look wrong to me. Everything appears oddly out of place, and covers nearly the entire screen.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand why the change is desirable for those who use the various zoom functions of their TV's.

You should consider that the screen caps I provided with the original post were of a letterboxed program shown in a 4:3 format. If the show is not letterboxed then there is more program image at the top and bottom and the OSD covers less of the total image.

[johnsonx42]

You should consider that the screen caps I provided with the original post were of a letterboxed program shown in a 4:3 format. If the show is not letterboxed then there is more program image at the top and bottom and the OSD covers less of the total image.

Yes, but it covers most of the MIDDLE of the image.

No point in trying to convince me anyway, I already volunteered to implement the change as an option.

[LewE]

Yes, but it covers most of the MIDDLE of the image.

No point in trying to convince me anyway, I already volunteered to implement the change as an option.

I got to thinking and I have another suggestion. I'll keep trying until I get it right.

In some skin files (e.g. TV Listing) there are comments about what the parameters control. Others, like OSD skin, do not have them.

Many of the comands in a skin file are things that users would not change unless they want to try completely different looks for the plug-ins. I am not concerned about these items. Someone who plays with these parameters falls into a completely different group of users than I am trying to address. Those are the people who might want to tweak small things like font size or color, etc.

My "solution" is to add commments in skin files to the parameters that this second group of users might be most likely to modify. Before each such command in the skin file, add a comment like
<!-- COMMONLY CHANGED ITEM-->
with a description of what the parameter controls in terms that descriptive to the new user.

For example, in the OSD skin there are four timeline related parameters:

TimeLineNotAvailable
TimeLineAvailable
TimeLineAvailableAD
TimeLineNotYetAvailable

I suspected I wanted to change one of them but had to go trial and error with each to find which one I wanted.

I think that, at the least, adding the "commonly changed item" comment would help a lot of us users who like to make small changes to the skins. It would help us find those parameters that we might be interested in.

I still think some changes, such as coloring the timeline to indicate whether autoskip is in effect should be added to the basic skin. Others that might be less desired by all the users, such as repositioning the VideoShowInfo, should at least have the "commonly changed item" comment and a description about exactly what VideoShowInfo is.

If there is agreement about this kind of commenting, I think it should be a "standard" for all skin files; not just the one we are discussing now.

[Fatman_do]

Yes, but it covers most of the MIDDLE of the image.

No point in trying to convince me anyway, I already volunteered to implement the change as an option.

Are you making this change? I am looking on an update coming out the weekend of Nov 21.

[Fatman_do]

I didn't include anything here in the latest installer, did not know what direction to go so I am open to suggestions here.

[johnsonx42]

ah, sorry, have been super busy with other things lately, haven't even been on the forums here but once every few days....

I will look at this today or tomorrow, I had an idea as to exactly how I was going to do that, now I just have to remember what it was.