Hi Peter! :-)
Thanks again! :-) Some comment..
1 Native Languages and buttons.
Currently there are multilangual mouse-over popups, and the action is multilangual described in the Movie Title area. (Great!)
And while designing, you can even choose the displayed multilangual text. You can refer to the descriptions under "action", or under "menu", or even under the other categories in the language files.
(I have the honour, talking to the creator of the Dutch Language files, right?
)
But it is not enough. The user must recognise the buttons, before putting the mouse on one. So buttons must be recognisable. So I want good icons, but possibly also text in the buttons like "Menu", or "Color". You can't do that multilangual. Buttons are BMP-files, and text in it is part of the picture.
The best option for language is currently English. (that's what I ment. I do not want to skip native languages.)
So unless we Dutch decide to 'take over the world', starting with BSP, I suggest we choose English. ( I cant even take over my own household..)
2. How many buttons to show in the main control?
I guess it totally depends on the graphical design and the layout.
I'l show in Kiss 3.0, you can have quite a few buttons on little space, without being disturbed.
3. Kiss 3.0 :-) Don't expect too much. Graphically it is rather amateuristic, however quite cute.. :-) But the layout is clever and functional, I think. It may inspire a graphical designer to do better.
4. Tizio's skinmaker and expanded area's.
Skinmaker doesn't support it. An update would be great. But you can use Skinmaker for the main control, just to get started and get a feeling of it all. You can design a lot with Skinmaker, and after that do the rest manually.
I really loved your remark, that you didn't use Skinmaker, but just used Notepad, a simple Picture Editor, and probably a Lang-file for info. Once you understand the codes in Skin.ini, you can do that, yes!
But I wouldn't like to start without Skinmaker... :-)
5. Expanded area's.
You can do great things with those!! Haven't seen much designs with it yet. Prophecy has a clickbutton and a mousover area, giving expansion. I was immediately jealous. :-) Luckily the organisation of the buttons wasn't too good. (grinn.. we all hate each other of course, especially when someone is good.. thats when the gossip comes in.. :-)
But expansion has great potential. You can built a complete Start-menu with it, anyway you like. Mjammie! :-)
Unfortunately there is no manual for that. Today I spent the whole day to discover some basics and limits of expansion. A lot of questions and issues.. I learned most from editing Prophecy's Skin.ini, and looking at the effects of changes.
6. DVD
I do have BSP Pro, and even promote buying BSP Pro in a popup in Kiss 3.0, with a list of Pro-features.
But I had isues with Dvd-buttons. Tizio added ML and 4 Dvd-actions in Skinmaker, but half of the buttons didn't work on the 2 Dvd's I had. And some functions worked via the BSP-menu, but not via the buttons.
Then I downloaded some ISO-files of movies, and played those in Daemon Tools. But still some things didn't work via the buttons.
So I decided to leave the whole Dvd-thing for now. Perhaps I add a Dvd-button with an Expansion-menu later. (once I find out how that works. :-)
But I felt uncomfortable, I didn't get the Dvd-stuff right. Handling Dvd's via the BSP Menu can be confusing, and certainly needs improvement. Everything about Dvd should be grouped somewhere. And I guess the skin would be the place. If BSP asks money for such a feature, the GUI must handle that well.
PS: I haven't got time for all this, do you? :-) But somehow you get hooked on this, once you start. It's great fun.. a puzzle, inviting to do more. Tot Ziens.
PS2: in this Forum the last post is above on top. I think that is very annoying. Every time I start to read, I have to find out again I have to read from under up. That method may be good for long treads and dedicated forum visitors, but not here. What do you think?