Getting comfortable with studio

[jaminben]

For me I've always found it easier to start from scratch and use the default UI as a point of reference. You'll probably learn how to do things quicker this way and as you've created the menu you'll know exactly how it works for when it comes to bug hunting and adding additional features.

Thats just me though

[GKusnick]

First let's be clear on what you mean by starting from scratch. Presumably you're not planning to create a full replacement UI that you will use instead of the stock UI for all functions including TV, video, etc. (Or at least not at this stage of your Studio career.) All you want right now is a different way to browse music. You want to leave the rest of the stock functions intact.

So operationally you're going to be making a UI Mod plugin or STVI, not a replacement UI or STV. So you will be starting from the stock UI and making modifications to it. The question you're really asking is whether to make a new menu, or try modifying the existing Music Browser menu.

If you want your new browser to be integrated into the existing music browser as just one more view style, with the same screen layout and look-and-feel as the existing browser, then you'll need to modify the existing menu to achieve that. If you want to keep your new browser separate, with its own look-and-feel, then a new menu would be appropriate.

Keeping it separate has a couple of other advantages. It allows you to tinker with your new code with less risk of breaking the stock browser. It also means your UI mod will be less vulnerable to breakage as the stock browser continues to evolve. And from a learning perspective, as Ben says, you'll be in a better position to understand exactly what every line of code does, because you wrote them all. That level of understanding is much harder to come by when you're just inserting small blocks of new code into a large body of someone else's code.

[tmiranda]

I'd create a whole new menu but I'd copy a lot of the elements from the stock menu to preserve the "look and feel" as much as possible. (Things like the header, footer, background.)

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Keeping it separate has a couple of other advantages. It allows you to tinker with your new code with less risk of breaking the stock browser. It also means your UI mod will be less vulnerable to breakage as the stock browser continues to evolve. And from a learning perspective, as Ben says, you'll be in a better position to understand exactly what every line of code does, because you wrote them all. That level of understanding is much harder to come by when you're just inserting small blocks of new code into a large body of someone else's code.

Thanks, that is what I was thinking. I'd like to maintain basic functionality, but that is where it would end. I think I'd break the stock ui if I tried to modify it, and with being so new to this I'd like to learn as much as I can.

Originally Posted by jaminben

For me I've always found it easier to start from scratch and use the default UI as a point of reference. You'll probably learn how to do things quicker this way and as you've created the menu you'll know exactly how it works for when it comes to bug hunting and adding additional features.

Thats just me though

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I'd create a whole new menu but I'd copy a lot of the elements from the stock menu to preserve the "look and feel" as much as possible. (Things like the header, footer, background.)

That's what I'm thinking too.