Washed out category colors

[paatus]

I've tried to edit the theme.settings-file but can't figure it out. It seems the alpha-blend changes the selected colors for my categories (Movies=Red becomes purple, News=Yellow becomes green etc.) I also tried adjusting colors like using less blue in yellow, but it never gets quite right. Using latest SageTV. Is there a way around this? Is it possible to have the EPG guide show the solid colors selected in "Interface Guide"? It worked well in previous versions.

TIA

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by paatus

Is it possible to have the EPG guide show the solid colors selected in "Interface Guide"? It worked well in previous versions.

If they were solid, you wouldn't be able to see the highlight button behind them. And, the category color viewing dialog should fairly closely match how the colors are displayed in the guide. The external java color editing dialog is where they get shown at full opacity.

But, you should be able to change the opacity level in SageTV via these lines in theme.properties:

Alpha/GuideAiringBGCurrent=80
Alpha/GuideAiringBGPast=60

(If you aren't doing so already, you should make a custom theme for this, or else your changes to the original files will get overwritten during the next update installation.)

- Andy

[paatus]

I tried your suggestion on changing the Opacity levels for the two entries you mentioned. Doesn't seem to make any difference. I exit SageTV, edit the theme-file->Save->restart SagetV.

Tried:
Alpha/GuideAiringBGCurrent=80
Alpha/GuideAiringBGPast=60

Alpha/GuideAiringBGCurrent=20
Alpha/GuideAiringBGPast=10

Alpha/GuideAiringBGCurrent=190
Alpha/GuideAiringBGPast=160

Can't see any changes at all. This is all done in the Default SDTV theme (made backup first

[EDIT] Another question: Previously, in the Upcoming recordings area at the bottom of the main menu, the color code for the catogry to be recorded was filling the entire area. Now, the color only appear at the beginning, before the title of the recording. Any tweaks for this one as well? I kinda liked the old method better.

[GKusnick]

You don't need to exit Sage to edit a theme. Just reload the theme from Detailed Setup after saving the edited properties file.

Also, as Andy says, it's best to make a custom theme for your mods instead of changing the default theme. This is really easy to do: just make a new folder under Themes called My Theme (or whatever), create a Theme.properties file in that folder, and put in that file the specific properties you want to override. Any properties you don't put in that file will be inherited from the default theme.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by paatus

I tried your suggestion on changing the Opacity levels for the two entries you mentioned. Doesn't seem to make any difference. I exit SageTV, edit the theme-file->Save->restart SagetV.

Tried:
Alpha/GuideAiringBGCurrent=80
Alpha/GuideAiringBGPast=60
...
Can't see any changes at all. This is all done in the Default SDTV theme (made backup first

In addition to what Greg said about not having to restart SageTV to modify a theme, I just tried changing those properties in a custom theme & it worked, so I don't know why it wouldn't work for you, unless you aren't using an STV that uses those theme properties.

- Andy

[paatus]

Well, I use the custom menus by nielm. I'll try some more. And yes, I've also made a "custom" theme, that meaning copying the default 720 HDTV theme and rename it. I was editing and using the SDTV theme for testing purposes. I'll try adding those settings in the custom theme and see what happens.

Thanks

[paatus]

I made my own custom theme from the SDTV theme. Copied some settings from the 720 theme. Edited the mentioned settings for opacity. No matter what the values are, nothing seems to change. Colors are still wrong. See attached picture. "Micky Blue Eyes" is supposed to be red. "Kveldsnytt" is supposed to be yellow. Does this have anything to do with me using the dynamic custumizable menu import?

[Opus4]

Were those properties already in the exiting default SD theme.properties file? If not, you are using an older vesion of SageTV.

Is there a BG fill behind the guide's vertical scroll bar? If not, you are using an older STV which probably doesn't use those theme properties. Make sure you are trying this with the STV that came with the v6.2 release installer (not a beta).

- Andy

[paatus]

Properties already in there. Using latest 6.2 version. Tried with the default STV. When I upgraded from 6.1, I just installed 6.2 over the old version, downloaded updated dynamic menu import, and tweaked from there.

Here's what I have in the theme properties file in that section:
#
#
# Define colors and alpha values for various color-filled areas (shape widgets)
#
# Guide grid default BG color for airings w/o a category color to use instead
Color/GuideAiringBGDefault=0x2156A6
Alpha/GuideAiringBGCurrent=80 (Tried anything from 0 to 190)
Alpha/GuideAiringBGPast=60 (Tried anything from 0 to 190)
#
# Guide grid cell borders
Color/GuideCellBorder=0x003366
Alpha/GuideCellBorder=190
#
# Guide row/column header colors
Color/ShadedCellBG=0x287AC5
Alpha/ShadedCellBG=75
Color/ShadedCellBorder=0x000000
Alpha/ShadedCellBorder=60
#
# Upper Info area & similar panel fills.
Color/InfoAreaBG=0x003366
Alpha/InfoAreaBG=100
#
# General purpose Menu/Panel area fills & borders.
Color/MenuFillBG=0x061c47
Alpha/MenuFillBG/Low=108
Alpha/MenuFillBG/Med=126
Alpha/MenuFillBG/High=145
Color/MenuBorder=0x7991B1
Alpha/MenuBorder=225
#
#
#

[EDIT] Downloaded latest STV from the downloads area. Imported that in SageTV. Imported all customizations I use. Success. I can now see what I'm adjusting in theme.properties Guess going from 6.1 to 6.2 didn't update the default STV. Are there any other known issues when installing new versions on top of older versions?

Thanks for helping me out.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by paatus

[EDIT] Downloaded latest STV from the downloads area. Imported that in SageTV. Imported all customizations I use. Success. I can now see what I'm adjusting in theme.properties Guess going from 6.1 to 6.2 didn't update the default STV. Are there any other known issues when installing new versions on top of older versions?

The default STV (SageTV3.xml) does get updated when v6.2 is installed... unless there was a problem during installation (file locked somehow?), unless it gets copied over after the installation (copied custom files after installing & that one got included by accident?), or some other issue that I can't think of at the moment. Customizations based on the default STV won't get automatically updated at all, however.

- Andy

[paatus]

All working great now, thanks alot guys.

2 more question:

Is there somewhere I can find out what the colors are from these: 0xE6C400? I don't even know what these color codes are called, so I don't know what to search for. I want to edit the MenuBarLong and MenuBarShort to match my orange background. It would probably be easier to do this in some photoeditor, but that's way out of my range.

Second question is quoted from above:

Originally Posted by paatus

[EDIT] Another question: Previously, in the Upcoming recordings area at the bottom of the main menu, the color coded category for the show to be recorded was filling the entire area. Now, the color only appear at the beginning, before the title of the recording. Any tweaks for this one as well? I kinda liked the old method better.

TIA

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by paatus

Is there somewhere I can find out what the colors are from these: 0xE6C400? I don't even know what these color codes are called, so I don't know what to search for. I want to edit the MenuBarLong and MenuBarShort to match my orange background. It would probably be easier to do this in some photoeditor, but that's way out of my range.

Without an image editor of some sort, you're not going to be able to do much with themes other than tweak text colors and a few solid-color background shapes. Nearly all of the themable components (include the MenuBarLong and MenuBarShort highlights) are image files, so to change them you need an image editor.

The six-digit color codes that appear in Theme.properties are the same as HTML color codes (but starting with 0x instead of #). The format is two hexadecimal digits each of red, green, and blue (RRGGBB). Most image editors can have HTML color code displays on their color-chooser palette.