XMBC 2.14 Beta

[injtsvetkov]

Firstly, Thank you for implementing those things (ordering the list and adding button to directly open the button setting) they are great, I was thinking to suggest them myself

About the grey - could be little darker.

About the gui:

2.14 beta 12.jpg

The option below 'Tilt wheel right' is not visible when 10 layers a on and I think all the layers should be on one line.

And just a little thingie: When I open the drop-down list and hover over it, the selection rectangle stays even when I move away from the list and when I scroll up and down with the cursor away it shows up and disappears but it looks quite similar to the lines and it's a bit annoying. Would be great if the rectangle disappears when the cursor is away from the list, if possible of course

Greetings!
Iliya

[phil]

Yeh - as I said about an hour ago....

I just found a major issue in the GUI size (when updating the user manual) if you have more than 5 layers, the layer tab does not fit and gets truncated - so that's something else to fix for the next beta - but I don't think I will do that today lol.

If you have 10 layers there isn't room to fit on one line and the default behavior of the tab control is to go multi-line if there is no space.

And just a little thingie: When I open the drop-down list and hover over it, the selection rectangle stays even when I move away from the list and when I scroll up and down with the cursor away it shows up and disappears but it looks quite similar to the lines and it's a bit annoying. Would be great if the rectangle disappears when the cursor is away from the list, if possible of course

Urm, it is there to indicate the selected item - maybe I should use different colour for the group lines.

We have already discussed the grey, see screenshots above!

[Kukurykus]

About the grey - could be little darker.

I believe you say about grey in current 12 version. If so I agree with you. Now it should be a little darker. As Phil said we discussed it, and it seems first proposition to next XMBC version was too dark, so how about that grey between that is now and you found in some previous image of Phil?

And just a little thingie: When I open the drop-down list and hover over it, the selection rectangle stays even when I move away from the list and when I scroll up and down with the cursor away it shows up and disappears but it looks quite similar to the lines and it's a bit annoying. Would be great if the rectangle disappears when the cursor is away from the list, if possible of course

I noticed that too, but didn't know what to think about so I gave up. In a fact it little annoyed me too, not because of same colour of separating lines as they are much more thiner, more because of top choosen button, and that it doesn't dissapear when you don't hover menu. As to blue lines, I think this colour fits to rest of XMBC appearance.

[BriHecato]

beta12
1. Installation exe is again smaller
2. gear button is great
3. grouping actions in dropdown menu is handy
4. no problem with layer buttons (icons) - but I'm still working on Windows7
4.b. no problems with colors

5. Looking at polish translation i found little issue. Firstly polish translation (probably in other languages also) is different in number of characters on each label. It can lead to some displacement of interface elements.
I've noticed it in setting form - something wrong is with "TabControl"

This is how it looks when i first open settings with polish language (i've switched to PL to check how Liquid improve translation)
http://i63.tinypic.com/28bvdbs.png
Tabs are divided into two rows due to long labels - and second row vanished

When i switch to any other setting tab everything is back to normal
http://i64.tinypic.com/34xhr8p.png
But everything that is in this container is pushed down (i understand how it works) - unfortunatelly lowest label is pushed half_out of TabControl area

In English everything looks alright.
http://i63.tinypic.com/vg22iw.png

Solutions - fix one line of tabs in TabControl (and arrow buttons "left/right"); anchor this single label to bottom of TabControl area; maybe allow to resize setting form (none of forms are resizable?); improve or simplify translations.

6. Struggling with one particular software in my work - It's CAM software TruTOPS from Laser Cutting Machines manufacturer Trumpf. Software is build in a multiprocess design. I'm starting ProgrammingSuite.exe app and got this process then inside i'm run (or autorun) modules - subprocesses tnest.exe, t100.exe, tcad.exe (i can run any module as many times as I want, up to some RAM memory capacity).
XMBC allow me to make profiles for each subprocess separate - and it's awesome (LGS also, but few other applications i try doesn't recognize subprocesses).
What is about You can ask - each day when I start PC and apps this TruTOPS changes class and handlers - so everyday i need to edit profile and find proper windows (I use "find specific window").

7. This is something i've noticed recently
Look at Firefox - whole browser window is one object/class/handle in XMBC - page area, menu area, title bar area.
Now i'm looking at Total Commander - icon bar, left file list, right file list, bottom buttons - there are many different objects/handlers - what it depends on?

[phil]

5. Oh grrr. the setting tab has the same problem as the layer tabes - when the tabs go multiline it reduces the screen area and messes everything up! I'll see what I can do.

6. If your program changes classes every day, (some do, some don't) then you need to talk the developers of that. I have done all I can, including regular expressions to allow you to search for key items in there - if it changes that much (completely random) then XMNc cant help and you will have to go back to the software developer and persuade them to change it.

7. Its up to the software developer how they do things. Everyone does things differently. Not much more to say.

Thanks,
Phil

[injtsvetkov]

If you have 10 layers there isn't room to fit on one line and the default behavior of the tab control is to go multi-line if there is no space.

May I suggest to put 'Layer:' in front of the layer line and remove the word 'Layer' from the tabs and leave just the numbers like this:

Layer: [ 1(Default) ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] ...

That way they will always be on one line even with those languages which have a long word for 'Layer' (even can increase the number of layers )

Urm, it is there to indicate the selected item - maybe I should use different colour for the group lines.

Yea but now when you open the list at first the selected item is highlighted and when you hover over another item w/o selecting it, the new item is highlighted and the selected one isn't (i.e. there is only one rectangle). One would expect the selected item to stay highlighted at all cases and another rectangle to indicate the item under the cursor which would disappear if you move away from the list. I know that this is quite minor detail and maybe somewhat irrelevant but I've seen that in other software and decided to mention it while there is a discussion about the list. Of course if it's gonna be to much effort - than it is not worth it. Or maybe leaving the rectangle only for the selected item and not highlight the item under the cursor could still be better IMO, but maybe others won't like it.

I even had suggested some other simplification for Button chording and Sim Keys descriptions here which IMO would be convenient but that's only my opinion .

Thank you!
Iliya

[BriHecato]

May I suggest to put 'Layer:' in front of the layer line and remove the word 'Layer' from the tabs and leave just the numbers like this:

Layer: [ 1(Default) ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] ...

AFAIK it's not posibble with any of the TabControls in any programing builders (like visualstudio). It would require two separate tabs-line-objects connected to one tabed-switched-area. It could require to write new component I think.
Of course word "Layer" could be removed and some baloon popup can have additional info. But I would go to single line TabControl with arrows. It would work with currently dynamically added layers fine 'cos it's hardcoded in TabControl.
Phil could add little button with triangle pointed down to the left or right that run little dropdown-menu that show all layers (all tab elements) and allow you to go directly to clicked tab. Like this
http://www.essentialobjects.com/Product ... l_menu.gif

Other way is maybe change TabControl to display tabs vertical on the one side. Googled this solution - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms404305.aspx - but personally cannot get to work it in VSExpress (c#).

Personally now with chording I "left layers for dead".
Previously used only 1 layer only - now redefined to chording and can use "two layers-chording": first started with 4th button and second with 5th button. For me this way is simplier - I just avoid using keyboard when i can use mouse.

Phil - may I ask in which Builder you work and in what language you are writing XMBC ?

[phil]

XMBC is written in C++ (Visual Studio 2015 since 2.13, 2008 before that).
The user interface uses MFC and the hook DLL is pure win32 to keep resources as low as possible.

I'm avoiding .NET because, whilst that would make life SOOOO much easier on the GUI side of things, the resources required (memory etc) would balloon, and you would need the .NET framework on top of that (I know most people have that these days so it would be less of an issue now).

As for the tabs, there is the built in option to use a single line and it puts a little < | > type scroller on the top right to scroll the tabs... That would probably work (I mean, most people don't use that many tabs anyway - esp. now chording exists as you say). Id prefer that to having a "dropdown" menu to select a tab to be honest.

I could also just put the layer number on all but layer one....
so it would be ... "Layer 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Scrolling & Navigation" but still that could exceed one line in some languages so the scroller is perhaps the best option (not sure if there is a reason I didn't do that in the first place though!)

Thanks,
Phil

[injtsvetkov]

I think XMBC is perfect as it is now
Above all it has to be reliable, fast and sharp (at least that would be my primary objective if I were you). Sure the GUI work is exhausting and time consuming but I've been thought that all good things are hard to achieve (and they always pay back). And the best thing is that once you've made something perfect - it stays that way, no need to change it every time they release new version of .NET or whatever your app might rely on. I personally am getting so tired lately of all those shiny, moving and heavy and NOT RELIABLE crap (maybe it's easy to build but it's a nightmare to use it) that sometimes I stand up and go afk to get some other job done while waiting for the laptop to catch its breath. Even now it takes almost a second to display the setup window, I don't want to imagine if it was heavier ... I miss the old XP days where everything happened at the moment you click the button ... but that's another story

Now back to the point. The ideal case would be to show the word 'Layer' only on the currently selected layer and all other layers to show just the number, but probably that would be too complicated so your variant looks perfect enough to me . It's just that 'Scrolling & Navigation' tab that's bugging me, but I can't think of anything else appropriate except changing its name to a single word, something like 'Advanced...' or so.

Greetings!
Iliya

[Kukurykus]

Though from updating to version 12 I have no problem with icons (so like in vers 9 and 10) on my home computer, today I updated vers 9 and 10 to 12 on different computers (with Windows 10) in my job and and I experiened the same problems with icons I described when I had version 11 on my home computer. It's really weired. Why there wasn't problem in vers 9 and 10 both in job and home, but there was problem with vers 11 at home, but not 12 which made problem on computers I use in my job (where I didn't tested vers 11).


As to drop-down list for layers tabs - I like more like it is now, so when all layers are visible. The best solution most of us like is when there will be only numbers of layers in tabs, while "layer" word will be placed in the beggining, before the first tab, or like Phil proposed inside first one. I like also new idea of injtsvetkov that "Layer" word could be displayed only on present layer tab, while rest stayed with numbers.

[phil]

Well lets see how you like beta 13 then.....

[phil]

OK here is 2.14 Beta 13

If you have check for beta versions enabled, there was a problem in earlier 2.14 betas which means you will have to update manually if you are on 2.14 beta 2 or 3. Otherwise you should get notified of a new version and prompted to update in the next day or so. This is the most efficient method (bandwidth wise) as the updates are only a fraction of the size of the full install. Otherwise, you can get the full installation beta HERE. Note that this link will always get you the latest beta version!

Changes since v2.14 Beta 12:

• #415 - Modified the background group colour in the action list
• #404 - Improved settings to fit on smaller screens - Dynamic layer tabs
• #390 - Added default chord button action in drop-down text.
• ...... - Updated user manual to reflect the GUI changes

There were no translation changes in this beta - no need for changes.

Any problems, PM me a copy of the log file (or post a snippet in a code block here).

Thanks,
Phil

[Kukurykus]

1) I noticed that when I got information about new version (what can I accept or reject there wasn't "...... - Updated user manual to reflect the GUI changes" point, the last one I see on forums. Maybe you wrote that later only at forums, but if not then I raport it

2) that's good injtsvetkov linked us to some of his older post you read and used to new change. Now we can read from a button set to 'chording' what's defined for - I like this change!

3) now background darker grey colour makes that groups look more separated from each other than before - it's more readable

4) unfortunately one thing is to fix in my opinion, it looks ugly when layers tabs don't fill whole space from left to right. It'll look better if buttons width fit to width of that part of XMBC panel, hoverver I'm not sure how it will look with only "Layer 1" and "Scrolling & Navigation" buttons. I have new idea what you could do! Simply use previous version full names in case there are no more than up to 4 - 5 layers choosen. If someone choose 5 - 6 up to 10 then their names could change to numbers only. I know it must be little complicated to achive for you. If so long buttons could be okey too.

It is now:


It is how it could look like (sole text wouldn't be deformated of course):


5) regarding undisplayed icons on computer in my job, I just recalled there was another problem with that I have no here on my home computer. It happened also with blue lines: some of them didn't show untill you hovered them, or single ones showed but not in their place, but in other sections dividing them for two parts. As I say on this computer with this version when icons works well, lines don't vanish and don't change position too.

[phil]

1. Yes I didn't include the user manual change in the change log that got published, only the forum (after an edit).

2 - 3 Good .

4. I cant set the tabs to be as wide as the window. I can set a minimum tab size and that's it - so I cant easily space them out... I could make the minimum a bit wider, but the numbers are left aligned and not centered so it looks worse (IMHO).

Also, setting the "layer x" if less than 5 is all well and good, but even 5 in some languages can take more space than is available.. I want that to be consistent, not changing depending on the number of tabs.

Will see what other think before changing anything.

5. I fixed the missing lines - that was a bug.

[Kukurykus]

4) So there is no other option for now I see with shortened name of "Scrolling & Navigation" there is enough space for english original "Layer" names for each layer tab, but only in english and some other languages possibly. Maybe leave previous version for languages they got length of their layer name enough short to fit 10 layers tabs plus just first letters of Scrolling & Navigation so "S&N", and when you open it, it may change to full name while layer tabs name to numbers(?) Or like injtsvetkov said change it to "Settings", though then probably it would be too long name with 10 preceeding layer tabs.

An current appearance is worse than in previous version, though if the number tabs where longer it would look better. Too bad it must be like it's now as if you go back to nicer look then there will be problem with other languages :/

Anyway I noticed another "bug", when I have for ex. at least one "Layer 1" tab and "Scrolling & Navigation" tab, and I switch from "Layer 1" tab to "Scrolling & Navigation" tab then "Layer 1" name change to "1", so like in case of more layers when "Layer" prefix go to activated layer tab. In this case I'm not sure but if there are 1 or more layers and I switch to "Scrolling & Navigation" then name of "Layer 1" should stay in their full form (even if before switching other layer tab was selected) shouldn't it?