[mythtv-users] modifying themes for lesser opacity; more transparency

[Joey Morris]

A Desai <ashu.desai at gmail.com> wrote on Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 03:15:30PM -0500:
> On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 9:20 AM, Joey Morris <rjmorris at nc.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> > A Desai <ashu.desai at gmail.com> wrote on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 09:52:48AM
> > -0500:
> > > Hello all,
> > > I am currently running 0.26 version. While I love a few themes including
> > > Graphite, Arclight, I end up using MythUbuntu & Willi only for the fact
> > > that when I am under shows/videos, the ones I like tend to be too opaque
> > -
> > > meaning the description or the Title of the movie tends to not show
> > enough
> > > fanart that is in the background.
> > >
> > > Is there some way to modify "something" (I am being vague since I don't
> > > know where/what to change) that will allow me to customize the theme
> > > settings in a way that I can increase the transparency?
> >
> > Your themes are stored in ~/.mythtv/themes. You should see directories
> > for Arclight, Graphite, etc. I'd recommend making a copy of the theme
> > directory you want to modify and name it something like
> > Arclight-local. Edit the themeinfo.xml file and change the <name>
> > attribute. This is so the Theme Chooser will recognize your modified
> > theme as distinct from the original.
> >
> > To change the transparency, you'll need to edit the <alpha> attributes
> > in the various xml files. The files and widgets are described in the
> > wiki at http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythUI_Theme_Development.
> 
> I will try that - although it seems overwhelming! There seems to be alpha
> in almost all the xml files and so now I am trying to figure out which one
> is the one that displays the "Synopsis" overlay - which is what I want to
> increase the transparency so that it shows the background fanart more.

Yes, it can be overwhelming at first, but it will get easier the more
you play with it. Studying that wiki page and good old trial-and-error
are good places to start. A couple of things that may not be obvious:
If you change a file like recordings-ui.xml or video-ui.xml, you can
simply exit that screen and re-enter for your change to take effect.
If you change base.xml, you need to reload the theme. You can assign a
key combo for reloading the theme in the JumpPoints section of the key
settings.