PSD template for generating Black Mamba screen views

Hey, as you probably know, the very talented DeVicious over on the Live Hub forum has created an awesome theme for the Hub that also works well on the SMP. Functionally it’s great, however visually, it was a bit too dark for my daughter who is the main user of the SMP. So she tasked me with the job of “prettying it up” for her.

So I dragged out an old copy of Photoshop CS3 and set about doing some new screens i.e gallery, preview, list, video browse and large video. In doing so, I’ve created a PSD template (chock full of layers and images) that will allow a user to build their own screen for any particular view. basically you can turn any screen element on or off independently, such as the background image, navigation bar, file/movie information bar, list box and thumb frames. Any image can be loaded into the template to be used as a background and a different background can be loaded for every view. It’s a bit hard to explain so i’ve included some sample images further down. The template includes 6 or 7 backgrounds already.

The screens are, for the most part, compatible with mamba 1.4. I did however have to edit some xmls to change the positioning of the thumbnails/text in the list view and preview screens. I also added file name text info to the large video view which is missing in mamba.

I’m making the PSD available to anyone who wants to use it. It can be grabbed here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?v9qmc55fc6onkah

It’s at small download at around 7mb

I’ve also included the edited xmls and a couple of modified graphics.

  1. file_browse_list_focus_bar.png should be placed in the /image/Listview directory (overwrite existing file)

  2. mirrordifusionVL.png should be placed in the /image directory (overwrite existing file)

A basic knowledge of photoshop should be enough to navigate around the template.  After that, get the view you want and save it as the appropriate RV-BG-xxx file.

Now some examples. Images may not show immediately so i’ve included some image examples in the download file. I have no way to grab screenshots from the SMP so the examples are the raw images only.

Thanks goes to LesterBangs for the use of the ‘theatre’ image in my Gallery and Preview screen examples. However as I was originally just doing up the template for my own use, I better get his permission first to include it as part of the template!  LesterBangs is working on his own mamba mod and has done up a new kick arse home screens.

And of course all the thanks should go to DeVicious for a great theme.

Happy to answer any questions, particularly if you find a problem with the xmls. I’ve been tinkering for a couple of weeks and may have forgotten an edit or two.  I guess you could call this a beta.  At some stage soon I’ll look to do up simliar template for other views such as music and home screen graphics.  I probably can’t help too much with  photoshop - I’m still learning by trial and error.

List View. Turn off the list box and thumbnail frame, change the background and it can be used for any other view

 

Add in the larger frame for Viedo Browse view (2 rows x 8)

Preview view.  Movie image can be easily changed.  Thumbnail frame can be turned off.  Thanks to LesterBangs for theatre image.  I think if you use the original xml, DeVicious’ TV image will be used instead of the theatre

Last one.  Gallery view but again any other element can be added for other views.  Movie image can be easily changed.  Thanks to Lesterbangs.  Any movie theatre image would work as a substitute.

More examples in the download. A couple of the background images I used are from   http://www.htbackdrops.com so credit to original creators.

Dave

1 Like

Thats what i was looking for.Thankyou bro.

No problems.  I should point out that when deVicious updates mamba from 1.4 (which is due to happen in May apparently) anyone who uses their own screens will need to over-write a couple of the newer xmls.  Of course if there’s a major change there’s no guarantee they’ll work.

For me, unless there’s a firmware update in the near future to allow differently functionality, I’m sticking with with 1.4 and just change the ‘look’ whenever I - or should I say my daughter - gets bored with it.