This is a "plugin" for the Video Disk Recorder (VDR).

Written by:                  Louis Braun <louis DOT braun AT gmx DOT de>

Project's homepage:          http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/plg-skindesigner

Latest version: http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/plg-skindesigner/files
GIT repository: git clone git://projects.vdr-developer.org/vdr-plugin-skindesigner.git 

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
See the file COPYING for more information.

Description
-----------

Skindesigner is a VDR skin engine that displays XML based Skins. 

Currently two XML Skins (MetrixHD and nOpacity freestyle) are included in 
<pluginsourcedir>/skins/

Requirements
------------

- VDR version >= 2.0.0

- Installed ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick for displaying png/jpg Icons, Channel Logos 
  and EPG Images (configurable during make via IMAGELIB = imagemagick|graphicsmagick
  parameter)

- libxml2

- for scaling the video picture to fit into the VDR menu window please use 
  softhddevice plugin revision 87c1c7be (2013-01-01) or newer.

- epgsearch Git since commit ba7c6277 (2013-01-03) to correctly replace the schedules
  menu with epgsearch

Installation 
------------

After "normal" Plugin installation you have to care about the paths for the
XML skins and epg images. The following paths can be set at startup:

-s <SKINPATH>, --skinpath=<SKINPATH>
    Path to the XML skins (Default: <ResourceDirectory>/plugins/skindesigner/skins/)

-e path, --epgimages=path
    Path to the epgimages (Default: <CacheDirectory>/epgimages/)

ResourceDirectory and CacheDirectory are taken from your VDR configuration (make.config
or vdr.pc). 

During a "make install" the included skins are automatically copied from 
<SkinSourceDirectory>/skins/ to the configured path.

For S2-6400 Users: Disable High Level OSD, otherwise the plugin will not be
loaded because lack of true color support

For Xine-Plugin Users: Set "Blend scaled Auto" as OSD display mode to achieve
an suitable true color OSD.

For Xineliboutput Users: Start vdr-sxfe with the --hud option enabled

Since the default skin MetrixHD uses VDROpenSans as font which is not installed per
default, you may want to install this font (included in <SkinSourceDirectory>/fonts/)
first. Otherwise the inside VDRs OSD menu configured vdrOsd Font is used as default.

Channel Logos
-------------

Since each XML skin is responsible for it's used channel logos, skindesigner searches
for channel logos only in the skin dependend directory

<ResourceDirectory>/plugins/skindesigner/skins/<skinname>/logos

Each copy your used logos directly to this directory or set a symbolic link to a common
channellogo directory.

I recommend to use channel logos from https://github.com/3PO/Senderlogos
To download them just change in the directory you want to place the logos
and do a:
git clone https://github.com/3PO/Senderlogos.git logos
An update of the logos can then be done with a "git pull" just inside this
directory.

In this logo pack all files are named only with lower case letters. 
Skindesigner uses the channel name CONVERTED TO LOWER CASE LETTERS to search for an 
appropriate channel logo. With this, approximately 90% of the channel logos should work 
immediately after placing the channel logos in the correct place. So if you have to change
the name of a channel logo (may be by inserting a space or a hyphen) so that it fits to
the channel name, only use lower case letters, and not the name of the channel with upper 
and lower letters as displayed inside VDR.
If no logo is found for the channel name, additionally a search for a logo named as the
ChannelID is performed. Analog to the channel name the ChannelID is also converted to lower 
case letters. This allows channel logos for channels with changing names (for instance
Sky Feed Channels).
Additional hint: some channels have slashes in their name (in germany nick/comedy for instance).
In this example, as a dirty hack just create a folder in your channel logo directory named 
"nick" and place an image named "comedy.png" inside this folder.