screenshots and cover size

[SVR]

Hi,


Based on the following code from the skin "pvd_classic_movie_tabs", i'm trying to modify the size of screenshots, frontcover and cdcover. Do wou get any idea what I should modify/add ??

Thanks in advance

 <tab>
   <caption>&amp;Images</caption>
   <color>$D7FDDD</color>   
   <row>
    <column>
    <fieldlabel field="screenshots" halign="center"/>
   </column>
   </row>
   <row>
    <column>   
    <screenshots>
     <border shape="none" />
    </screenshots>
   </column>
   </row>    
   
   <row>
   <column>
    <fieldlabel field="froncover" halign="center">
            
    </fieldlabel>
   </column>
   <column>
    <fieldlabel field="cdcover" halign="center">
            
    </fieldlabel>
   </column>
   </row>   
   
   <row>
   <column>
    <froncover height="160"/>      
   </column>
    <column>
    <cdcover height="160"/>      
   </column>
   </row>
  </tab>

[Hyomil]

Change

Code: [Select]

<screenshots>
to something like

Code: [Select]

<screenshots cheight="480" cwidth="1019">
which creates thumbnails of a fixed size and requires the left pane to be resized so that the thumbnails will fit in the right pane or else they'll disappear (unless you're in Full Screen mode).  I use 1019 for width since my monitor resolution is at 1280x960.  Adjust to fit whatever you're using.  I've read every post I could find about this and tried many combinations, but it seems like this is the best that can be done until something like

Code: [Select]

<poster autosize="true"/>
that works for posters is implemented for screenshots.  Its a tradeoff.  With the 480 height I specified, DVD NTSC (not PAL, which is 576) resolution screenshots will be both displayed at full size and stacked neatly vertically with no vertical gaps between them.  VCD (240/288 height) resolution screenshots will be full size but separated by large gaps vertically.  HD resolution screenshots' thumbnails will not be as large as they could be.  Arbitrarily cropped photos found on the web will have one problem or the other.

As for the Front Cover and Disc Cover, I don't know.

[SVR]

Thanks  it work for the screenshot ... for the covers it still a mystery

[buah]

for the covers it still a mystery

And here's another one for whom this is still mystery. Any chance to auto-size and stretch images placed in Front Cover and CD Cover image placeholders?

[Hyomil]

Another thing I've noticed about this is that posters have sort of the opposite limitation as screenshots.  You can autosize the poster to the width of the column the poster is in, but according to the skin manual, you can't specify a maxheight like you can with labels.  So tall posters may be cut off by the bottom of the screen unless you set the width of the poster's column to a low percentage that will reduce normal-aspect-ratio posters to a smaller size than would otherwise be necessary.



[attachment deleted by admin]

[buah]

Would that require some kind of "stretch width but keep aspect ratio according to maxheight" function?

[rick.ca]

So tall posters may be cut off...

Tall posters? Normal posters range in aspect from 0.67 to 0.75. It's not a difficult design decision to choose a column width such that the resulting height of such posters fits on screen. For unusually tall posters, it's a matter of preference, but I'd rather the width be fixed and the height scroll anyway. Your example is an obvious play off the "A Chinese Tall Story" tagline. With an aspect of about 0.45, it's clearly not a "normal" poster, nor is it intended to be. As such, I think the effect is better when it has to be scrolled. It can still be opened in the viewer to see it in its entirety.

I have no objection to a maxheight attribute being introduced, only to the implication the lack of it is a significant limitation. It might be of use in some less typical situations—like where a tab is devoted for displaying posters—and the column width is not the limiting dimension. But in these situations, there is the option to limit the height of the section the images are displayed in.

[Hyomil]

Tall posters? Normal posters range in aspect from 0.67 to 0.75. It's not a difficult design decision to choose a column width such that the resulting height of such posters fits on screen. For unusually tall posters, it's a matter of preference, but I'd rather the width be fixed and the height scroll anyway. Your example is an obvious play off the "A Chinese Tall Story" tagline.

There are other examples, though not many.  The ones in the bottom row here are the only ones I could think of off-hand:

http://www.movieposterdb.com/movie/1442571/Gam-yee-wai.html

but maybe these are fan-made posters, done by maverick designers, or were intended for a special media/format other than a poster (real-life bookmarks, perhaps).  They have a 0.38 aspect vs. the 0.45 of the others, so it doesn't seem to be some new standard.  Since the normal aspect range is as you say, it should seldom be an issue.

As such, I think the effect is better when it has to be scrolled. It can still be opened in the viewer to see it in its entirety.

Well, it can always be interesting seeing different crops of images, but I was interested in maximizing the poster size while still being able to know at a glance that I'm seeing the poster in its entirety without having to scroll to check if there's more of it.  Seeing blank space beneath the poster achieves that, as long as the blank space isn't the same color as the bottom area of the poster, so I ended up putting a border around the image control column under the poster to create a makeshift double border that only borders the bottom of the poster.

a maxheight attribute ... might be of use in some less typical situations—like where a tab is devoted for displaying posters—and the column width is not the limiting dimension. But in these situations, there is the option to limit the height of the section the images are displayed in.

I haven't been able to limit the section height using the bare-bones skin code below.  Do you know of any examples where this has been done?

Code: [Select]

<section height="500">
      <row>
        <column>
          <section height="500">
            <row>
              <column valign="top">
                <poster autosize="true" />
              </column>
            </row>
          </section>
        </column>
      </row>
</section>


[rick.ca]

but maybe these are fan-made posters, done by maverick designers, or were intended for a special media/format other than a poster

Fan art in the form of banners is common (horizontal more so than vertical)—no doubt because some popular media players use them. I've never figured out how to use them in a PVD skin that's already displaying posters.

I haven't been able to limit the section height using the bare-bones skin code below.  Do you know of any examples where this has been done?

Sorry, no. It doesn't seem to work specified as an attribute or a separate element.