Plugin: Diamond Theme

[bialio]

I Installed this theme... then I tried to load the deafult theme and it was a mess (menu items and fonts all over the place) ... so I restarted the Client and it reverted back to the Diamond them.

The only way I could load the standard them was to completely uninstall this theme.

Disabling the Diamond UI mod, and then changing to a non-Diamond theme, is the best way to do this currently.

It's easy to forget that Diamond is much more than a theme.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by bialio

It's easy to forget that Diamond is much more than a theme.

That is why we moved it to the UI section

[nyplayer]

I finally got it working I installed the phioenix fanart plugin first then configured it. then updated to the Diamond ui.

[mayamaniac]

Hey Jorton/Plucky, great job on the theme. I'm loving it.

I just have one suggestion and wondering if it is something you guys will consider revising, or even better, make it an option. Currently, the OSD takes up half of the screen estate as seen on the top image. I did a mock-up of something more subtle so it doesn't cover up as much of the screen estate as seen in the bottom image. I replaced the starting time (00:00:00) with the current playback time because I don't we need to know the starting time because it is always 00:00:00.

I'm also fine with an option to turn on and off the OSD so that it doesn't always pop up when you press any of the Play/Pause/RW/FF buttons. Let me know what you guys think.

[Spectrum]

I'll pipe up and agree with Mayamaniac. The OSD eating so much of the screen is one of the primary reasons I'm not using Diamond. I've tried installing it twice, but the OSD being so big and lack of contrast between elements in the guide are the two things that just kill the experience for me. With the new themes, the contrast issue should go away; or I could make one that I like now that I am free until mid January but the OSD is not something I can change.

[PLUCKYHD]

Wow guys it's a OSd not something on the screen all the time. But then again you don't have to use this plugin if don't like it. Can't please them all.

[Spectrum]

I wasn't knocking Diamond, just trying to give constructive feedback. I appreciate all you do here Plucky and was not trying to offend; my apologies if it came across that way.

[jorton]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

I'll pipe up and agree with Mayamaniac. The OSD eating so much of the screen is one of the primary reasons I'm not using Diamond. I've tried installing it twice, but the OSD being so big and lack of contrast between elements in the guide are the two things that just kill the experience for me. With the new themes, the contrast issue should go away; or I could make one that I like now that I am free until mid January but the OSD is not something I can change.

Hey Spectrum,

If you have a contrast issue with the EPG, please provide examples so I can look into it. Is it too white or too black or other etc....??? The elements of the EPG are very themeable and can be adjusted very easily in a sub theme. Please provide details about the EPG (send me a PM) and I can investigate. I've offered a few times to create themes for Diamond but no one has ever got back to me, maybe we create a "high contrast" theme??? I did create 17 theme/sub themes to try and hit as many options as I could all without a lot of feedback from the first release so can't say I didn't offer

As for the OSD I'm of the same opinion as Plucky that it's only on the screen for brief periods of time (I actually laughed the first time I read this as I pictured you watching tv and every time the OSD came up you got a upset look on your face, then you saying "I've had enough" and unstalling it ) and while not perfect or ideal for 100% of the users it does fit the Diamond look and is easy to read (maybe too easy ), if we go shrinking things then we get the "hey now it's too small" complaints.

Also wanted to add that there is a lot more to the upper OSD than what you see watching TV recordings, as you have all the coding for the Video, DVD, Music playback that we don't want to mess with for chapters etc...

Cheers,

Jeremy

[Skirge01]

Just to have an unrelated (to the theme) person chime in, I have to agree with Jorton and Plucky. In fact, I was writing a response before them and got distracted with other issues. Anyway, it is hard to understand how something which is only up when you actually WANT to look at it can be "too big"... especially when the thing it's covering is most likely paused and not relevant at the moment. Just to illustrate my own logic here, to me, it's like saying that the right-click menu on your desktop is blocking your view of the desktop. In that instance, why does it matter? I'm not referencing anything on the desktop while looking at the right-click menu.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by jorton

I did create 17 theme/sub themes to try and hit as many options as I could all without a lot of feedback from the first release so can't say I didn't offer

Yup, that was why I referenced the new themes in my op. I haven't tried Diamond again since you released those. I'll try again this weekend and will PM you with a follow up.

Originally Posted by jorton

As for the OSD I'm of the same opinion as Plucky that it's only on the screen for brief periods of time (I actually laughed the first time I read this as I pictured you watching tv and every time the OSD came up you got a upset look on your face, then you saying "I've had enough" and unstalling it ) and while not perfect or ideal for 100% of the users it does fit the Diamond look and is easy to read (maybe too easy ), if we go shrinking things then we get the "hey now it's too small" complaints.

Understood that it's not something that everyone can agree on; actually most people will tend to disagree And I never had the mad face and shouted "I've had enough," although that is funny, both time's it's been more of a subtle thing and I was sorry to see the whole package go.

Originally Posted by jorton

Also wanted to add that there is a lot more to the upper OSD than what you see watching TV recordings, as you have all the coding for the Video, DVD, Music playback that we don't want to mess with for chapters etc...

Understood, but Diamond's upper OSD is much larger than the default and if the data displayed is one line, there is just a lot of wasted space that is covering what is playing in the background. Having not seen the source code, I am unqualified top judge how hard an adjustment would be, sounds like it may be quite a bit

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Just to have an unrelated (to the theme) person chime in, I have to agree with Jorton and Plucky. In fact, I was writing a response before them and got distracted with other issues. Anyway, it is hard to understand how something which is only up when you actually WANT to look at it can be "too big"... especially when the thing it's covering is most likely paused and not relevant at the moment. Just to illustrate my own logic here, to me, it's like saying that the right-click menu on your desktop is blocking your view of the desktop. In that instance, why does it matter? I'm not referencing anything on the desktop while looking at the right-click menu.

The OSD doesn't just come up when I call it, ie the bottom bar pops up every time comskip jumps over commercials. Sometimes I call up the OSD just to see the time, or how much time is left in current show. There is no need to pause playback for that, but if something happens on the top third or bottom quarter of the screen in those few seconds the OSD is up I have to rewind to see it. Also the OSD is more transparent in the default theme, so I can still see what is behind it to some degree.

As for the right click menu, apples and oranges. My desktop runs at 1920x1200, if the right click menu took up 50% of that, it would be a HUGE waste of space. You are right, that when I call up the right click menu I'm directly referencing it and don't care what it covers. For video playback that is currently in progress, the OSD impedes my ability to see what is there. As I stated before, I don't pause playback just to call up the OSD so I do care about what is going on behind it.

All in all it's a small nit for most and I just can't get used to it. If Maya and I are the outliers of the curve, that's fine we can cope or not use the addon, Plucky and Jorton can (and should) spend their time elsewhere. I would never ask them to modify their codebase for just 2 people, but if no one ever gave them any feedback, how would they know what their user base thinks?

Like I said before, my intent was not to offend but to provide (actually to agree with previously given) feedback. I think Plucky and JOrton are doing spectacular work and commend them for everything they have done

[bialio]

I see the OSD very frequently while viewing tv shows and movies, and almost never pause it while the OSD is up and almost always care what is on behind it. So for me the size IS important. But not everyone on has this viewing habit.

However, this is a theme. You (or someone) can go in and replace the stock Diamond OSD images with whatever you want - make them transparent or any number of other things. If you ask nice Jorton might even do it for you!

btl.

[mayamaniac]

Sorry guys, criticism is hard to take most of the time. I tried to word my post very carefully so not to offend anyone. As said before, I'm only merely asking if you guys would consider making the change, or make it an option for slimmer OSD, or make a OSD ON/OFF switch. If not, then thats cool.

Like bialo, I see the OSD a lot when I watch a sports recording. I fast forward a lot of dead ball moments, timeouts, commercials, and inbetween plays. What makes it worse is most sports airings have their own onscreen graphics, such as the score, time remaining, and other important information to the game. And when the SageTV OSD comes up, it covers these onscreen graphics. So I disagree with the statement that you hardly ever see the OSD, it isn't true for everyone.

Anyway, maybe it is better to ask if it is possible to make a separate plugin that toggles the OSD ON/OFF. I have the OSD Clock and Play Time plugin that displays the time positioning so I don't really need to see the default OSD pop up everytime I press FF/RW.

[ghost5]

I'd just like to say thank you for this excellent plugin

[Polypro]

I like to think of them as "Visual Performance Increases"...not criticisms! LOL

I can't tell you how awesome I think this UI Mod/Theme is, and I always worry about ticking off the devs...but improvement is my only goal.

Give me single show banners and I'll be silenced for ever

(Well, I have found one more...the blue background in "Wall" and "Flow" views )

YOU GUYS ROCK!

P

[Brent94Z]

Hey Jorton and Plucky! I know you guys are taking some time off and you already know about the tuners being in the "wall" view but this gave me an idea. So, this isn't really an "issue" but more a feature request to consider once you get the programming bug back.

I noticed all the tuners and some odd shows showing up on the wall. It looks like it is pulling some shows from the guide. For example, there are a couple sports shows mixed in with the tuners and something called "Court House Killers" (update: that is gone now so my wall is ever changing based on, I think, guide data). I tried to watch these and I get an error but what is really weird is that I was on the wall and at 13:00 the box that did have something like "One of the Guys" (something like that. LOL) actually CHANGED to "Court House Killers". This got me wondering "what the??" so did some looking and searching and "Court House Killers" isn't in my guide anywhere and I even did a search for shows. It pulls up the program description too. What else is a little weird is that when I say to "watch now" this selection, it tunes my cable box to "125x" with the "x" being whatever the last digit of the current time is!!! hahaha If it is 13:01 my cable box gets tuned to "1251". If it is 13:06 my cable box gets tuned to 1256 and so on. So, FYI, not sure where the "Court House Killers" is coming from or what would cause my cablebox to get tuned somewhat based on the time but thought I'd let you know

Anyway, when I first loaded this I could have sworn that a Showtime movie was showing up on my wall. While I think this is a bug, it gave me an idea! LOL

It seems that by accident you are pulling in guide data into the wall. While I thought it was a feature at first, it seems like it was an accident. But, what if you took it a step further??? You have under "Videos" the wall and flow. What about under "TV" having a wall as well??? While it wouldn't be very useful to show movies that started a half hour ago, I think it would be very cool to have a wall view for, say, movies coming up in the next 24 hours (or whatever time somebody selects). I'm not sure how the metadata scrapers would handle this but in my example, say you're stuck at home with nothing to do... if you clicked on your "TV wall" at say 6pm, it would show, via a wall, the movies that were going to be on that night. The wall view would show the poster/cover with the description to the right (just like the video wall but it would be based off your TV guide listings and not your video paths). When you selected one of these, instead of being able to "watch now" you could instead select to record it (a manual recording).

This would kinda serve two purposes... give you a visual view of what was coming on TV later that day plus give you the option to record it. So, if your movie say starts at 7pm and you get done eating at 7:20, you and the kids could go sit on the couch and start watching the movie that came on 20 minutes ago from the beginning. While I'm talking about mostly movies, and the scrapers would work best with this, you could apply it to all the different Sage guide categories (or whatever they are called).

This might seem kinda weird and if you have no desire to do it that'll be more than fine as what you've given us thus far is killer. The little bug though that seems to be bringing in Guide data gave me the idea of the TV wall since mine is "almost" doing it already it seems. LOL

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

This might seem kinda weird and if you have no desire to do it that'll be more than fine as what you've given us thus far is killer. The little bug though that seems to be bringing in Guide data gave me the idea of the TV wall since mine is "almost" doing it already it seems. LOL

Actually WMC has that feature and I always like it called now playing or something like that over there where you could view movie poster for stuff on tv. That is actually a good feature request if you would put it on google code so we dont forget /

[mdnttoker]

So I can get the fan art background to load for some series, but the film image in the top right has proven more difficult to get loaded for some series.

I've attached a screenshot. Is there a trick in BMT and/or Diamond to retrieve metadata for display in the top right?

Thanks!

-M

[jorton]

Originally Posted by mdnttoker

So I can get the fan art background to load for some series, but the film image in the top right has proven more difficult to get loaded for some series.

I've attached a screenshot. Is there a trick in BMT and/or Diamond to retrieve metadata for display in the top right?

Thanks!

-M

I have had an issue like this in the past (I had the same problem with "Super Why!" as well) and I fixed it by making sure the Fanart Location in BMT was pointing the correct place, for whatever reason my shows were named "Super Why" (no explanaiton mark) but the fanart location was "Super Why!" or something like that. Could have been the opposite but either way make sure they are the same. eg. for "Super Why!" make sure the fanart folder is X:\TV\Super Why! and it should work.

Jeremy

[bcjenkins]

Hi, should I be doing something to make the shading show up on the menus?

Thanks,

B

PS - Running Linux could this be a filename case sensitivity?

[jorton]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Hi, should I be doing something to make the shading show up on the menus?

Thanks,

B

PS - Running Linux could this be a filename case sensitivity?

I'm not running Linux, but looks like you are not seeing "some" of the images from the main "Diamond" theme folder, the background image from the "Diamond Winter" folder is showing fine and that is referenced in the "Diamond Winter" theme.properties file. The odd thing is that the icons in the top header are showing (sleep, window/full screen) and they are located in the same main "Diamond" theme folder as your missing images...

Have you restarted after seeing this? I have on occassion (not very often) needed to shut down my client and restart to refresh the images...

Jeremy