Importing XBMC Skins

[dbone1026]

I just installed SageTV V7 and decided to play around with the new XBMC skin feature. I tested out two different XBMC skins (Confluence and Rapier) and in both cased they did not load properly in SageTV. To load the skin I go to Detailed Setup Menu ->Advanced. I then go to "SageTV Application Package" and navigate to skin.xml which is located under the XBMC directory for each respective skin. For Confluence the fonts are all white and barely visible around any sort of light background. Also, there are definitely some fonts/textures that are not pulled in. The commands don't work properly (such as navigating back and forth between menus, etc...) and it was very difficult to get back to the detailed setup screen to revert to the original SageTV V7 xml.

With Rapier the screen was mostly black. Just by luck of hitting every button I got the detailed setup menu to appear. Even simple items like "Yes" and "No" show up as jargon.

So unfortunately I am 0 for 2 with importing XBMC skins. The hope is that the folks who have tested this feature can do the following:

1) Document exactly what needs to be done to import an XBMC skin
2) Possibly start a list of what skins do/do not work currently
3) Anything else that may be of good info to know, any further customizations that may need to be done once a skin is imported.

I realize that V7 was just released and I am not trying to be critical as I imagine all the folks involved have the hands full working on projects. Maybe I am just running into bad luck, but assuming it is not me I figure others will probably have the same issues. It would be helpful to understand exactly how this feature is meant to work, or maybe this feature is meant for developers to build on and create a plugin and not for the user to try and import themselves?

[Peter_h]

This is from the announcement thread.

Support for automatic translation of XBMC skin.xml files into SageTV STVs
XBMC skin files can now be loaded into SageTV just like any SageTV STV .xml file. There are requirements for this to work properly; and those will be outlined elsewhere. There are also various limitations to this as well; while nearly all graphical capabilities should be functional, there are a few things that do not translate properly due to differences in design between SageTV and XBMC. Some of them can be corrected by STV developers with minor tweaks; but others require more effort. The main difference is that XBMC skins are just 'skins' and don't really define the functionality of the UI in all cases. SageTV STV files, on the other hand, do completely define the UI functionality in them. The translator will insert some of this default functionality, but not all of it. XBMC also has very limited PVR functionality, of which only a few XBMC skins support; so this area will also be lacking. This feature is more for demonstration purposes to show off what the V7 animation system can do and as a tool for creating a starting point for developers that want to convert an XBMC skin into a SageTV STV. It's not intended as a way to run an XBMC skin inside of SageTV and have the full functionality of SageTV available instantly (although with some XBMC skins, nearly the entire UI is usable, just some functionality is limited).

Of importance is the last 2 lines.

This feature is more for demonstration purposes to show off what the V7 animation system can do and as a tool for creating a starting point for developers that want to convert an XBMC skin into a SageTV STV. It's not intended as a way to run an XBMC skin inside of SageTV and have the full functionality of SageTV available instantly

This sounds to me that the XBMC skin functionality is meant to provide a template, meaning the skins won't work fully but you don't have to reinvent the wheel either. It gets you a good starting base and then you can tweak the rest to work properly.

-Peter

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

This is from the announcement thread.



Of importance is the last 2 lines.



This sounds to me that the XBMC skin functionality is meant to provide a template, meaning the skins won't work fully but you don't have to reinvent the wheel either. It gets you a good starting base and then you can tweak the rest to work properly.

-Peter

perfectly stated peter it is great but more for devs as work ha to be done.

That being said I am converting one and had a poll of which xbmc skin people wanted most in the private beta will repost that poll.

This will be a ways off before I get one done to many other things on the burner

it would be a great starting point for a new dev (Peter)

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

....
it would be a great starting point for a new dev (Peter)

I walked into that one. I guess I should get to work now.

[dbone1026]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

This is from the announcement thread.



Of importance is the last 2 lines.



This sounds to me that the XBMC skin functionality is meant to provide a template, meaning the skins won't work fully but you don't have to reinvent the wheel either. It gets you a good starting base and then you can tweak the rest to work properly.

-Peter

Thx Peter

[tonysathre]

I've always wanted something that looked like this: http://xbmc.org/wordpress/wp-content...eenshot004.jpg

Where can I find the documentation on converting such a skin?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by tonysathre

Where can I find the documentation on converting such a skin?

Image to large.....

Read the release notes. If you don't have studio experience it won't be the easiest.

[phareous]

Originally Posted by tonysathre

I've always wanted something that looked like this: http://xbmc.org/wordpress/wp-content...eenshot004.jpg

Where can I find the documentation on converting such a skin?

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48462