Simple - A new theme for the WDTV Streaming (Work in Progress)

I’ve been working on this theme for sometime now when time has allowed. It’s taken longer than I would have hoped to post this update due to life, changes in firmware, wanting to tweak/try new things, etc. using that as a starting point, I started to develop this theme.

The theme shown does not use movie sheets and most of the basic views/layouts have been updated.  There are still some submenus that need to be modified/updated but most of what I think people would use everyday has been modified.  That is why this has been labeled as a work in progress. Feel free to provide feedback on issues that you might have.

There will be another version of this theme ultimatetly that will use the “linksheets” method found by KAD79.  It’s taking sometime though to write everything up that needs to be done in order to have a hassle free theme.

I also need to thank all of the themers that have provided themes/information/contributed to these forums especially JoeySmyth & Tinwarble who have provided these forums with a ton of information. Without their contributions, there is no way I would have been able to figure out how to do half of this stuff.

Here are some screen shots of the Simple theme:

Home Menu

WDTVLive_2013.01.31_23.08.28.jpg

 

Video Browse

WDTVLive_2013.01.31_23.08.54.jpg

Preview Browse

WDTVLive_2013.01.31_23.09.37.jpg

Video Playback (screenshots do not capture the video you are playing)

WDTVLive_2013.01.31_23.15.58.jpg


Music Browse

WDTVLive_2013.01.31_23.10.58.jpg

Album Playback

WDTVLive_2013.01.31_23.11.19.jpg

Photo Browse

WDTVLive_2013.01.31_23.12.05.jpg


Again, this theme is a work in progress and will probably be updated from time to time.  Feel free to modify, tweak, whatever you like regarding the theme.  A link to download the theme is provided below:

Simple Update

Older versions can still be found below:

Simple

Simple with Live TV

Enjoy!

8 Likes

Looks cool - thanks for sharing

Gerd

Impressive. Gonna check it out on composite to see whether the contrast is too high with all the white background and get back to you.

EDIT: Just tried it and it’s too high a contrast for a CRT TV, you get a light humming sound that can be annyoing to some. Had to go to 90% to compensate for my TV’s overscan.

On a flat TV over HDMI and 95% it looks great, however I cannot set the background image. It is there and selectable but when I click on “set as background” nothing happens. I’ve uploaded the theme via the Live’s webinterface so I’m astonished the background image wasn’t swapped automatically?!

Thanks for the feedback regarding the brightness/contrast.  The theme was developed using a plasma tv as a reference which tends to run a little dimmer than a CRT.  The background image used for almost all the views is the image video_browse_gallery_overlay.png.  This image could be made darker without adjusting too much else to get rid of the contrast problem.

Regarding the background image, the image on the home screen really only shows up on the home screen and no where else in this theme.

Thanks again for the feedback. 

1 Like

Hi desertwedge

Thanks for sharing the Theme, can see a lot off work as gone into it.

Now that many – who are knowledgeable enough to create themes seem to have left the forum, it is very nice to see.

I like the simplicity of this and up until now have been using the Alaska Resurgence  Theme by JoeySmyth. Which does not seem to be being developed any more – shame

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Hub-Themes/ALASKA-RESURFACE-7-3-12/m-p/327445/highlight/true#M5550

The one thing that is particularly unique about that them is that in Gallery view, it displays 15 or 18 movies/ videos and you do not use moviesheest, just the .xml data downloaded by the WD player itself. With many films collected, this gives a quicker visual overview off the films and makes it quicker to scan though them page at a time – so to speak.

I gave up with moviesheets, although many themer’s  persevered with them, I found the delay off a few sec before each one appeared, became to irritating.

The only negative point from my point of view was the info from the film could off had a bigger font and more space for it to be displayed in full.( I did use the mod that someone did which mad the left had larger icon landscape instead of portrait in size)

So may be 2 row of 6 icons displayed and the info along the bottom.

So why am I saying all of this, Like the theme you done a lot, going to download it now and have a play. There does not appear to be many people doing Themes anymore and clearly you have the skills – which I do not. Just putting forward ideas and thoughts, for this or any other theme and may be an alternative look for the Gallery view.

Maybe other members might like to give views on the Gallery view

Tony

1 Like

@tony0204

Thanks for the feedback and kind words, its always good to know what people’s likes/dislikes are.  Regarding the gallery view, I’ve done a couple of themes in the past that did include the movie information and just found that it would load slow or cover up too much of the background image.  That’s why with this theme I decided to just highlight the background image with a row of movies down below.  It doesn’t make the background image load any faster (unfortunately) but I thought visually it made for a cleaner look.  It wouldn’t be too difficult to modify the gallery view to get the view I believe you are looking for.  I’m still trying to clean up misc. items within this theme but after that I can take a shot at it.

For viewing video info, I tried to replicate what I’ve seen in some other themes where you kind have a pop up window of the video info vs. moving to a entirely different full screen to show the info. Hopefully the picture below is more clear than the wording above:

  

Video/Movie Info:

WDTVLive_2012.10.24_23.31.48.jpg


To me it seemed intuitive to have it set up this.

desertwedge

desertwedge wrote:

Regarding the background image, the image on the home screen really only shows up on the home screen and no where else in this theme.

Right, and when you say home screen you mean the one that’s shown when the player has finished booting up? The one with all the “buttons” like Videos, Music, Services, Live-TV, right? Well, I don’t get to see your background image but only the Mochi theme’s background image, overlayed by your white button bar which looks ugly.

mochi.vs.simple.jpg

Updated the download link in the first post.  I had forgotten I originally set this image from a photo library & not  used the default image within the skin.  The correct background image has been added to the updated theme.  If you could please re-download the theme from the first post it should now be included.  Sorry for the confusion.

this is a great ‘simple’ theme BUT can you post another link for using movie sheets??

Checked out the new version and the background image is there, thanks. However, apparently your theme missing the button LIVE-TV?

@ Techflaws

Didn’t include it as it is not something I usebut can add it back in though.  Will try to put something together later today and provide a link.

@Blackbeard1970

 

Not sure what type of “movie sheets” you want to use.  A movie sheet that replaces the default backgrounds in gallery view or movie sheets in the other views (small grid, large grid, list view, etc.).  If it’s the first (gallery view),  you should be able to use certain movie sheets but you’ll have to find the movie sheets you would want to use.  If it’s the second (small grid, large grid, etc.), then the theme is not designed to incorporate movie sheets & probably  won’t be modified to do so.  I can try to lend some assistance if you want to modify the theme to incorporate movie sheets.

First post updated with link to theme including live tv in main menu.

I use GALLERY and have movie sheets. I tried it with the gallery mode but dont see my moveisheets.

I would love to use your theme, because I like the home screen with the THIN menu not the thick BOX menu that other themers use.

Any help?

@Blackbeard1970:

I guess to start, whose movie sheets template are you using?  I haven’t worked or used movie sheets before but as I understand it you are replacing the thumb/movie poster (moviexyz.metathumb) with a large sheet (movie sheet) that has the movie poster and a background of the movie as a single image file.  To correctly have the movie sheet show up you need to know how the movie sheet is laid out, i.e…, where is the thumb located on the sheet and where is the image located.  Once that is know, I can help you adjust the xml code so that your movie sheets will show up.

I am using .xml file for the information about the movies. That is what I want to use. I dont use the background graphics of the movie, takes too long to load at times.

Example.

goonies.mkv

goonies.xml

goonies.jpg  (cover art)

@desertwedge or anyone knowledgeable and would like to help - thanks

A bit Off Topic, but wonder if you or anyone can help

Gradually learning a bit about making Themes and .xml files

With some themes downloaded from this site I have managed to edit some of the .xml files with XML Notepad 2007.

The files open up ok in this program and give to me a workable and understandable structure.

They also open in Notepad ( Windows ) in a readable / understandable structure as well.

The problem I have, trying to edit some files is the XML Notepad 2007 will not open the file, gives an error about “Whitespaces” Also in Notepad they do not open up in ( to me ) a readable way.

I have in the past searched the web for a solution, but having limited knowledge, did not find a solution, that I understood, so gave up.

I guess may be missing something fundamental, so for example in your theme the “rv_gallery_browse_page.xml” gives me this error.

Guess what I am asking, how do you edit / create the file ?

I suppose from skill and experience, you may be editing it just as it appears in Notepad, but suspect may be using a program like XML Notepad 2007, but one that works.

Any help or guidance would be appreciative

What is happenign is the .xml files are not showing. Its ONLY a white background. It it because the font are in white. I cahnged the background to straight black and still no info fromt he xml files.

Any idea?

Here is an example of my .xml.

Shows up in any theme but yours.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
1408

A man who specializes in debunking paranormal occurrences checks into the fabled room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel. Soon after settling in, he confronts genuine terror.
RATED: R

2007-06-22

104

Horror

John Cusack, Samuel L.Jackson,Mary McCormack

Mikael Håfström

blank.jpg

@tony0204

I used xml marker 1.1 to edit the xml files used in this theme.  You can get it from here.  I’ve not tried the xml notepad program so I’m not sure if it is or is not compatible with the xml files I’m using.  I’ve read other people on the forum say they use notepad++ to edit xml files for theming.  You can find that program here.  I’ll look into the “whitespaces” reference you bring up but I’m not sure what is it.  It doesn’t appear to effect the uploading and/or running of the theme so it 

Hope the above helps.  If not, let me know & I’ll see what else I can figure out on this end.

@Blackbeard1970:

The reason the movie xml information you are looking for is not showing up is that I excluded that information for the theme.  I was trying to make things look as clean as possible in the gallery view with the just the movie are and movie thumb.  I felt that the movie xml information just cluttered the look up.  The movie information can easily be restored though to this view.  To do so, you’ll need to do the following:

  1. Open the file rv_gallery_browse_page.xml from within the theme zip file.

  2.  Find the following code in the theme:

  1. Remove the “!–” at the beginning of the  code and “–” at the end of the code so that the code now looks like this:
  1. You’ll need  to adjust the position and the color of the text to suit your needs.  

The code for movie xml information  was based on a previous theme I had done and doesn’t really translate well to the color, size, or position  of this theme.  Hope this helps, if not feel free to ask for more info.