Quickcast: Creating a Titanium button

[tschak909]

I have created a quick screencast showing how I created the aesthetic for titanium, drawing a single button:

http://www.localeconcept.com/Skin-Screencasts/Titanium-button-howto.ogv

Should you want to use the Titanium gradient, I can provide preset files for the gradients and the lighting effects.

Hopefully, this shows, that with proper colour selection during the aesthetic design process, and by sticking to a few simple rules, you can quickly make something very eye catching.

-Thom

[niz23]

I have created a quick screencast showing how I created the aesthetic for titanium, drawing a single button:

http://www.localeconcept.com/Skin-Screencasts/Titanium-button-howto.ogv

Should you want to use the Titanium gradient, I can provide preset files for the gradients and the lighting effects.

Hopefully, this shows, that with proper colour selection during the aesthetic design process, and by sticking to a few simple rules, you can quickly make something very eye catching.

-Thom

Thanks TSCHAK.

Nice video tutorial as always.

/niz23

[skeptic]

Nice - I haven't played around with Gimp all that much, but the way you did it made it look really easy, thanks!

I have an idea for a UI2 skin I want to try.  I'm going to do it in a virtual box VM though.  Are these the correct instructions to installed the latest 0810:  http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/LinuxMCE-0810_alpha2 ?

[tschak909]

yes.

-Thom

[merkur2k]

yes, those are current instructions.
I dont think it will be possible to get ui2 working in vmware since it doesnt have any opengl support in its video driver as far as i know.

[skeptic]

yes, those are current instructions.
I dont think it will be possible to get ui2 working in vmware since it doesnt have any opengl support in its video driver as far as i know.

Not usable, or not even pull up the screen?  My assumption is if I do any work with new skins, it needs to be on 810 for it to have a chance at being part of the next release.  I don't have a test box to install, so vbox or similar is my only option.

Am I SOL?

FWIW, the skin I wanted to try is just a basic gray.  No gradients, no borders, no gaps with nearby menu items.  Using only nearly white and nearly black text colors to identify selections.  I think it has the potential to look nice and clean and be perfect for UI2+blended (which I know I wouldn't see in vmware), and still look good in UI2+overlay.

[krys]

skeptic,
If you watched the screencasts and follow Thoms advice you set up your design as a new skin. This way you are not messing with UI2 that you use on your production system and it should be safe at least for the basic things that you are talking about doing. This also allows you to select your skin in the web admin for only a certain orbiter so you can test it out while leaving the fully functional skin up in a room that you might need to use. If you only have one room when you are done designing for the day you can just flip that room back to UI2.
-Krys

[merkur2k]

yep, I believe ui2 requires opengl support regardless of features chosen. vmware and virtualbox both have 3d support, but its through some video driver that i dont think is compatible with lmce. you could certainly try though.

[niz23]

yep, I believe ui2 requires opengl support regardless of features chosen. vmware and virtualbox both have 3d support, but its through some video driver that i dont think is compatible with lmce. you could certainly try though.

There is only experimental Direct3D support in VMware player and Vmware workstation and it only work for Windows.
Vmware is working on 3D support for VMs but it´s not available yet and will not be for at least another 4-6 month.
It will be a totally new solution with lot better performance than with todays solutions.


As for virtualbox I have no idea.

/niz23

[skeptic]

I tried using a vbox md with ui2+overlay.  Failure, only ui1 will load.

The main reason I don't want to do it on my current setup is because it's 710, and my impression is if it is to go into 810 as part of the release, it needs to be setup/tested on an 810 install.  I don't have an 810 install, nor do I have a spare machine to install it on.  I don't want to reinstall my current "production" server with 810 until the final release, so unless someone corrects me and I can setup new skins in 710 that can be part of the 810 release I'm SOL.

The only other option I can think of is to make my dual-boot desktop a triple-boot and add a lmce 810 partition, but I don't have the disk space for that.

[skeptic]

Hmm...  There may be hope afterall.  I  just checked the virtualbox site and found:

OpenGL on Linux requires kernel 2.6.27 and higher as well as X.org server version 1.5 and higher. Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10 have been tested and confirmed as working.

It's possible that lmce 0710 will not work with vbox/opengl, but lmce 0810 will.  I'll give it a shot.  Since this is getting way off the original topic, if it works I'll start a new thread regarding vbox/opengl.

[Zaerc]

Just in case you guys haven't noticed, this thread has absolutely nothing to do with running UI2 under virtual machines.

[skeptic]

Since this is getting way off the original topic, if it works I'll start a new thread regarding vbox/opengl.

Just in case you guys haven't noticed, this thread has absolutely nothing to do with running UI2 under virtual machines.

Yes, I noticed, that's why I said I'd start a new topic if I had any useful info on vbox+ui2.  It is somewhat related, although distantly, in that creating new skins for 810 ui2 may require a virtual machine for some of us.

[Zaerc]

Since this is getting way off the original topic, if it works I'll start a new thread regarding vbox/opengl.

Just in case you guys haven't noticed, this thread has absolutely nothing to do with running UI2 under virtual machines.

Yes, I noticed, that's why I said I'd start a new topic if I had any useful info on vbox+ui2.  It is somewhat related, although distantly, in that creating new skins for 810 ui2 may require a virtual machine for some of us.

Creating new skins has absolutely nothing to do with running under a virtual machine, those are two entirely different topics, regardless of what you'd might like to use such a holly-hobbie setup for.