Soliciting interest in a steampunk UI

[webwalker]

I've got a lot of elements, and I'd like to work with some experienced skinners to get this out there. I don't have an 'all singing, all dancing' UI in mind; actually one that is very clean, but uses classic objects as UI elements, rather than the over-glossed web2.0 look.

I'm planning on using elements from Sam Wright's British Library Unabridged collection,
( http://samantha-wright.deviantart.co...d-Ed-101120790 )

integrated with Rika's XLobby skin "Vintage"
http://xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26302

Anyone interested? I'd like to have it out by the end of Febrary.

[GKusnick]

I'm not volunteering, and I'm not likely to be interested as a user either, but just for clarity, what exactly is it you're proposing to create? A theme for the stock UI? A theme for SageMC? Or a totally new, from-the-ground-up UI replacement to compete with SageMC and the stock UI?

I don't know about SageMC, but themes for the stock UI are pretty simple to put together; it's just a matter of creating some graphics and editing up a Theme.properties file in Notepad.

[mayamaniac]

sounds like he wants to make a theme for stock UI, replacing graphics with that the classic vintage look with the books icons.

[webwalker]

Well, since I'm unclear about what the capabilities are, and the difficulty that each of the options presents, let's just say I want to start small, and grow it until I run out of time, patience or resources.

M

[Brent]

Originally Posted by webwalker

Well, since I'm unclear about what the capabilities are, and the difficulty that each of the options presents, let's just say I want to start small, and grow it until I run out of time, patience or resources.

M

Do you use SageTV's default STV or the SageMC STV? And would this be for one of the two?

[GKusnick]

What's your goal? Do you want a simple cosmetic facelift, changing the UI graphics but keeping the same structure of menus and functions? Or do you want a complete overhaul, tossing out the old menu structure and regrouping functions and features into new menus?

Basically, a stock UI theme just replaces the icons, highlight bars, and color schemes, without changing menu layouts or overall UI structure. This is very easy to create, just a matter of filling in blanks in a properties file, but is usable only in the stock UI.

I'm not a SageMC expert, but I gather it has a pretty flexible theming mechanism that lets you rearrange elements on the Main Menu in additional to fiddling with graphics and color schemes. I have no first-hand knowledge of how hard it is to create such a theme, but many people have created them. Obviously this won't help you unless you use SageMC (or are willing to adopt it).

A complete replacement UI lets you do anything you want on screen, at the cost of writing a lot of code to do it. The learning curve for this is quite steep, and it's not realistic to expect to produce much beyond the prototype stage before the end of February.

[webwalker]

Greg,

Thanks for the tips. That does help put brackets on it.

I'd prefer to leverage the fantastic work that has already been done on SageMC, and while there are some layout bits I'd like to fix, generally I don't have a problem with the structure. The ability to fiddle with the 'dynamic menus' in MC makes it my preferred starting place. That's what I've been tinkering with all evening.

M

[Brent]

I think you could make a cool SageMC theme with this. Start small, by rearranging things, changing the background and icons and then move on to more difficult things where you update actual screens and such.

Look forward to seeing what you come up with!