Blue n Black HD

[berrywell]

Hi all,

I've been lazy and done a quick conversion of my other Red skin to Blue. It's yet another 1920x1080 skin.

I've called this one, imaginatively, Blue n Black HD

This is now available for download from the V10 Skin Releases section of the forum

The Album Page (scaled to half it's original size.)





The Charts Page





& finally The Search Results Page

[Mark Norville]

It could have been named a lot worse, it could have been called black and blue HD, good choice of name though, now you are thinking out of the box lol

What next yellow and black? lol

[berrywell]

lol. yeah I know, I'm so brilliant at thinking up snappy skin names lol 

[Mark Norville]

On a more serious note, I just noticed your search results page, up to you, but you need to centre the album covers, it looks a bit odd with the graphic to the left, and then a massive gap to the right.

However it looks as if you have done something different for search results.

[berrywell]

There are only so many combinations to do the search page, I'm pretty sure I've copied a layout from a previous skin somewhere along the line.

As for centring the album covers, it didn't seem to matter which way I did it, aligned left or aligned centre, it never seemed to look correct. I think the reason is because I wanted to fit in those long song titles (& some artist names) underneath the artwork without it disappearing off and so they are wider then the album art.

As this is an exact clone of the red skin & that being my first ever skin, it was all trial and error, there are a few things with the experience I've picked up that I would probably have done differently. I still want to make the chart's page different (make use of the extra places), I just couldn't figure out how to fit it all in and keep it within the look of the rest of the skin. I think think the next one, I may start with that and work backwards.

[Mark Norville]

Yeah placements are difficult especially when for example for history I think it is you get 9 and for all the rest it is 10. It just throws out a design completely.

The larger screen you skin for it does get easier, I was trying to skin for 4:3 that is a nightmare, but then you make things a bit smaller, and make the buttons bigger to compensate for empty spaces. I see a lot of space you can claim back at the top of your main page, if you got rid of the volume and slider control and make a selection. I personally hate that which is why I never include it with mine, I have my volume set by my home cinema so I can adjust the volume on that, yes ok you might get a phone call, but for me my volume control is next to the phone anyway, so I can just adjust as need be.

It is just personal preference really, but if that was a party for example, I have always said that you don't want a drunk guest pausing the track or turning it down. If you look at a lot of commercial jukeboxes nowadays they are literally stripped of features and back to basics.

I personally again do not like the swipe features, that is one feature that they introduced to involve the smart phone generation, but at home you would get RSI putting music on all the time, maybe for five tracks in the pub, it is not too bad, but for personal use, then a big no no.

I honestly think looking at your photoshop skills, you could really make a very good skin, if you didn't and no offence to Coffee, copy Coffee and have tea instead lol

Regards

Mark

[berrywell]

Yeah placements are difficult especially when for example for history I think it is you get 9 and for all the rest it is 10. It just throws out a design completely.

This one did throw me when I got to the history screen, all the others are 10 and this was 9, I did have to load up other skins to make sure I wasn't missing any labels.

The larger screen you skin for it does get easier, I was trying to skin for 4:3 that is a nightmare, but then you make things a bit smaller, and make the buttons bigger to compensate for empty spaces. I see a lot of space you can claim back at the top of your main page, if you got rid of the volume and slider control and make a selection. I personally hate that which is why I never include it with mine, I have my volume set by my home cinema so I can adjust the volume on that, yes ok you might get a phone call, but for me my volume control is next to the phone anyway, so I can just adjust as need be.

I decided to skin everything this time as I'm just one of those really annoying people that needs to know everything about the product and it just gives me insight on how to do things. At least I now I have an understanding of how the skin tool works.

It is just personal preference really, but if that was a party for example, I have always said that you don't want a drunk guest pausing the track or turning it down. If you look at a lot of commercial jukeboxes nowadays they are literally stripped of features and back to basics.

I believe there could be settings in the main Jukebox menu that allow you to disable the player and player bar/times. So thus, allowing you to  have a 'party mode', at least I think there is, I'm fairly sure when I first set up my Jukebox I played around with such features.

I personally again do not like the swipe features, that is one feature that they introduced to involve the smart phone generation, but at home you would get RSI putting music on all the time, maybe for five tracks in the pub, it is not too bad, but for personal use, then a big no no.

I honestly think looking at your photoshop skills, you could really make a very good skin, if you didn't and no offence to Coffee, copy Coffee and have tea instead lol

Regards

Mark

I will openly admit that Coffee's skins were my inspiration for my own personal skin, I only found E-Touch early last year and it would appear that he was the master of skins for many years. I'm sure there are many who wish he was still making skins on a regular basis.

Kind Regards

Tel.

[Mark Norville]

I will openly admit that Coffee's skins were my inspiration for my own personal skin, I only found E-Touch early last year and it would appear that he was the master of skins for many years. I'm sure there are many who wish he was still making skins on a regular basis.

Kind Regards

Tel.

Again not dissing Coffee, but if there are only one person making skins, then straight away you are the Master. It is only when there are more skinners, that you can truly call someone a Master. It is like I came second in a shot putt competition once, there was only two of us doing it, and my cousin was far older than me and bigger, so straight away he was going to win lol.

If you produce the same skin just adjusting the colours, it is like watching paint dry at the end of the day. The skin that grabbed me most was from Eist I think his name is, and that was black n blue.

It really did look the dogs balls at the time, and probably made a lot of people buy eTouch.

I think someone is working on cloning that at the moment, and that would set the bar high again for people to jump over.

Yes you also get the option to turn things off in the settings, but sometimes that can leave a massive gap where other albums could be etc.

Regards

Mark

[Mark Norville]

You and me are going to fall out soon Tel,

I am trying to create my own buttons and bloody hard. I cannot get the fonts or indeed the size right, when I try on the jukebox the buttons look crap.

Here are the first two buttons that I done for myself, but just not good enough, not compared to yours.

I hate graphics.

[berrywell]

  lol

Serious though, I'm sorry to say but the making of buttons is very much trial and error BUT it does get easier.

For my original red n black HD skin I actually ended up making 5, maybe 6 different styles of menu buttons (around 70 or so individual menu buttons) before managing to create the ones in the final release. That's not including all the other buttons that are necessary. It is extremely frustrating to think you've created some great buttons only to find they look rubbish once you place them in your skin. I had this problem on many occasions, the good news is though, it will be so fulfilling once you do have that eureka moment, believe me, I know.

Don't give up and keep practising, it will come good, I had been working on my first skin for many, many months.

Regards

Tel.

[Mark Norville]

Who would think buttons would be so hard. I have tried to follow on YouTube and so many layers just for a sodding box.

I might have to reduce the number of albums on screen as I have an idea in mind either that or make them smaller but I prefer larger covers.

A possible is just button factory for now just to get basic design then work on buttons later.

That might be the favourite for now as ordering my hard drive tomorrow so Wednesday can have the juke up and running.

At least that is the big spends done start saving for Christmas now.

Well unless they release the new nivida shield of course.

Regards

Mark