Graphics for SageMC (Glassy Icons, etc.)

[MeInMaui]

Thanks geogecko.

I'm very glad you like the guide bars. I'll add them to the download tonight. The watched icons had a dull reddish look to them before and it just bugged me. I changed the colors back to the ones I used in the billiard ball icons, where the main color is blue with yellow and red at the top and bottom. I guess it isn't that much of a difference, but I'm happier with them.

The twins could come any day now. They can't come soon enough if you ask my wife. This pregnancy is much harder than when she had our first. We have the names down to just a couple of final candidates for each. Hmm....maybe I should start a poll? Thanks for asking!

Aloha,
Mike

[geogecko]

So if you have twins of the same gender, do they give them wrist bands to wear for a while, so you don't get their names mixed up?

Always wondered that...a friend of mine ended up having triplets! Two girls and a boy. Yeah, why not start a poll, and let us help you out for once?! Post a link, if you do!

[MeInMaui]

geogecko,

Luckily we're having a boy and a girl, so we don't have to worry about telling them apart. But I had thought about that too before we found out the genders.

So, next up on my graphics ToDo list is replacing the menu selection bars. I've been fighting with it for a few days, but I think I'm making a little headway.

Aloha,
Mike

[MeInMaui]

Ok, so I've been playing with making some glassy buttons. Here is what I have come up with so far. I don't have the file structure built into the zip file yet, so if anyone would like to try these you have to copy the image files into your .../SageTV/STVs/SageTV3/SageMCE/Images folder. I used a couple of tutorials to get started and went from there. I have done some additional colors as well, but I just uploaded a couple of examples (blue, green, and clear) because of the 750k file size limit. Please let me know if these are on the right track. I'd like to get a sanity check here before I go too much further. Thank you.

Aloha,
Mike

[geogecko]

Awesome. It was a tough choice between clear and green, for me, but I settled on clear for now. This gives the crisp resolution of an HDTV a very nice UI. The old bars seemed more geared towards SD resolutions.

Thanks a ton!

Screen caps for the lazy of you...

[MeInMaui]

Thanks geogecko! I think I may have to switch to the razor theme now, especially sincy my 47" 1080P LCD came on Friday.

BTW, we had the twins today!!!!!!

It's been a good week.

Aloha,
Mike

[geogecko]

LOL, you could almost say you got triplets! Congrats on the twins, so, what names did you end up going with?

47" 1080p LCD? Is that the new Westinghouse? If so, I didn't even know it was out yet...wow, that's going to look nice! I'm sure it will look nice, I'm using the 37" version.

Ah, I found the thread...man, those AVS guys are on top of stuff.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=678038

[MeInMaui]

Yup, I got the Westy. It was a race to see which delivery would come first. I was following the 42" thread at AVS for quite a while, but with all of the lockup issues, I decided to wait for the 47". As soon as the first couple of people started reporting success, I decided to order it from Crutchfield. With $99 shipping to Hawaii and the $500 price break, I couldn't pass it up. It looks incredible. I couldn't be happier with it. (Well...maybe If I could find some discrete remote codes for it. )

We don't have the twins' names completely finalized yet, but we're 90% sure their names will be Nathan and Noel. (Our 2.5 yr old is named Nikolaus) We didn't set out to have them all start with the same letter. It just kind of happened that way. We have another day or two before we have to decide.

Aloha,
Mike

[kricker]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Thanks geogecko! I think I may have to switch to the razor theme now, especially sincy my 47" 1080P LCD came on Friday.

BTW, we had the twins today!!!!!!

It's been a good week.

Aloha,
Mike

Congratulations Mike! All the best to you, your wife, and kids.

[MeInMaui]

Thanks kricker!

I think I will add the other colors I've done to the glassy buttons set and add them to the downloads section tonight unless anyone finds any issues before that. The colors I have are:

Clear
Blue
Green
Purple
Magenta
Red
Gold

Please let me know if anyone wants any other specific colors included and I'll try to add them (as time permits ). In my book, the more options we have to individually taylor the interface, the better.

Aloha,
Mike

[kricker]

The only issue I have with the selections bars is that they seem to be a bit too busy, with reflections. The main thing that keeps catching my eye is the darker line across the top sloping down at the edges. It makes the corners look "pinched".

[MeInMaui]

kricker,

That's a good point. Actually I specifically had to eliminate a number of reflections and adjust the opacity of others to make the clear buttons look good. Are the clear buttons too busy as well? If not, it's trivial to change the others to match. If they are still too busy I can do some more tweaking. I appreciate the feedback. Thanks!

Mike

EDIT: Now I see what you mean about looking pinched. I'll take a look at that tonight. Thanks again!

[kricker]

np....I look forward to seeing the new versions. I had toyed around with the idea of making new selection bars myself. Now that you are doing them, you sure are saving me a lot of time.

[bobrap]

Congratulations, Mike, on the birth of your children. I hope everyone is well and wish you all the happiness you deserve!!

[geogecko]

Mike, any possibility to make the main menu selection bar about 4/5ths the original length? And have the part that is chopped off, on the left of the bar, so that there is a bigger gap between the SageTV icon and the selection bar, as in the above pictures? It looks kind of funny being that long, unless of course, someone has a menu item that is like a sentence.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by geogecko

Mike, any possibility to make the main menu selection bar about 4/5ths the original length? And have the part that is chopped off, on the left of the bar, so that there is a bigger gap between the SageTV icon and the selection bar, as in the above pictures? It looks kind of funny being that long, unless of course, someone has a menu item that is like a sentence.

Sure, I can do that. I'll probably keep the existing size in case anyone needs/prefers it and add a version2 (like I did with the watched icons) that has a shorter bar with dead space to the left. I'll have to play with the actual length to see what looks best. I think the longest built-in menu name is the 'Weather Report Suite'. I'll just make sure that the bar is long enough to fit that. It might be a day or two.

Originally Posted by bobrap

Congratulations, Mike, on the birth of your children.

Thank you very much, bobrap!

Aloha,
Mike

[geogecko]

No rush, I'm sure you have your hands full, literally.

[MeInMaui]

I had a chance to play some more with the glassy buttons. I softened and adjusted the reflections to hopefully make them less busy. I also added an optional hp_selectionbar2.png (for the Main Menu) which has 78% of the original selectionbar length with the difference made up in dead space on the left side. Note that this version only works properly with 16x9 displays. To use it, just remove the '2' from the name. If these are acceptable, I'll post the full set with all colors and proper paths to the downloads section tomorrow night. Thanks for the feedback! It definitely makes for a much better result than I could ever do on my own.

Aloha,
Mike

[MeInMaui]

Thank you very much jds23. I don't deserve to be in the same sentence as mlbdude and flachbar, but it is greatly appreciated.

Aloha,
Mike

[geogecko]

Mike. Those are even better bars, and the selection bar (2), is the prefect size. Thanks a lot!