Xion Community

I discovered something while creating a new skin -- not sure if it's a bug, a feature or an unsupported area. I'd like to get some views on whether what I'm trying to do should work or whether there is a better way. [Please note that I'm using PaintShopPro.]

I created a Pause/Play button [a button that shows the Pause symbol while playing and the Play symbol when paused or stopped -- just the usual] -- a few Xion skins do that.

The simple layers (with the button shapes stacked directly above each other) are:
pause indi_play
play indi_pause {you can also use pause_normal and play normal}
Adding highlights for cursor over button, you have something like:
pause_over
pause indi_play
play_over
play indi_pause
This works fine up to this point.
So that Play will show when the player is stopped, it's probably a good idea to append a basic Play button at the bottom of the visual stack:
pause_over
pause indi_play
play_over
play indi_pause
play

Now I'm rather fond of making the buttons disappear when Xion is not the active window -- the indi_active object does this. So I tried the following:
pause_over indi_active
pause indi_play indi_active
play_over indi_active
play indi_pause indi_active
play indi_active
The Pause/Play button no longer displays properly -- a number of wierd sequential conditions occur -- looks like the ganging of indicator objects doesn't work or is not allowed -- thoughts? -- comments?

Some examples of what happens:-
assume the player is stopped and window active, Play button shows but play_over doesn't seem to work. Then press Play, track starts playing, Pause button shows and pause_over works. Then press Pause, track pauses, but Pause button continues to show -- but if you press the Pause button again then the track resumes. If you've pressed Pause to pause the track (Pause button still showing rather than Play as intended) and you click away from Xion (Xion window no longer active) then all the buttons disappear (as intended) -- when you click back on Xion again the Pause/Play button has reverted to Play (as intended) and play_over now works.
Sorry, if the example is tricky to follow -- basically it looks like the indicators have got stuck in in some kind of nested state machine. Seems that switching from active to inactive and back resets or corrects the indi_play/indi_pause state.

I will try to do some more experiments to see what I come up with and post some results later.

Thanks for looking.

this would make a bit more sense if you provided some screenshots or the skins themselves.

At any rate, i've seen a skin that does something similar, when it comes to not displaying the buttons properly on second click, that is. And that particular skin didn't do hiding.

I have created a test PSD that shows the problem and that I'm using for debug. It would require too many screenshots to illustrate the problem.
I can send it directly to anyone who would would like it -- please PM me if you want this.

Is it possible to attach a file to these forum posts -- so anyone can try it? I don't want to post a test/debug skin in the main skins library using the skin management method.

MW_Xion Wrote:I have created a test PSD that shows the problem and that I'm using for debug. It would require too many screenshots to illustrate the problem.
I can send it directly to anyone who would would like it -- please PM me if you want this.

Is it possible to attach a file to these forum posts -- so anyone can try it? I don't want to post a test/debug skin in the main skins library using the skin management method.

Since its a potential bug with Xion's functionality, can you send the skin to me? You can use the Contact page to attach the skin to send to me. Zip it if possible so that its not too large.

Thanks,
Cliff

Cliff Cawley Wrote:Since its a potential bug with Xion's functionality, can you send the skin to me? You can use the Contact page to attach the skin to send to me. Zip it if possible so that its not too large.

Thanks,
Cliff

Cliff, has been sent as XSF as requested.
Many thanks.

Ok this was just something of an oversight on my part.
I'd never really expected anyone to combine multiple indicators for the one layer, however thinking about it now, its logical that you'll want to combine indi_active or indi_inactive with any of the others, so for the next build, build 105, this 'bug' will be fixed and you'll be able to do exactly what you were trying to do in the test skin you sent me.

Hope that helps. The next Beta build will work, however if you release your skin it will mean that it won't work for a lot of people, until that build is released as a public build. It might also be a while before the next public release as I try to stabilise a few things after the Skinnable playlist

Cliff

Cliff, many thanks for the quick response.
This is not holding me back -- no complaints -- I was trying an experiment and wanted to report a problem/feature found to help make Xion even better. I will retain the test skin to check out the Beta releases and won't release any such skin until the fix has been established in full releases.

Once again, many thanks for your support and for Xion.

As a side question, would modify(x,y,z) work?