BlueVisionTable of Contents

1 Overview2 Group Menu

2.1 Menu Tiles2.2 Menu Editor

2.2.1 Modifications on Groups2.2.2 Modifications on Menu Tiles2.2.3 Menu Tiles Images:

3 Help Texts4 Power Button5 Menu Button6 Crumb Bar

6.1 Special Groups6.1.1 Home6.1.2 Currently Playing

6.2 Settings7 More Info

OverviewBlueVision is the new default skin of Media Portal 2 since Spring'16 Release. A lot of skins are full of information disturbing the visual appearance and overloading the user in the end. The objective of BlueVision is to offer a clean and lean surface with the important information in focus, without missing anything.

Following are the main elements of BlueVision:

Group MenuThe is located in the top center of the main screen and consists of different symbols representing the selectable groups.Group Menu

Following are the default groups, that are visible:

A focused group is highlighted by a slightly larger symbol size. The focus can be changed by moving the mouse over the symbols or navigating with the arrows on oyur keyboard / remote controls over it.

A selected group is highlighted by white color. A group can be selected by click with mouse, pressing ENTER on keyboard or pressing OK on remote control.

By switching a group the shown will change. But instead of switching the groups by , there is also a possibility to scroll through all Menu Tiles Group Menu directly. The selected group is also in this case highlighted automatically.Menu Tiles

Menu Tiles

The are positioned in the center of the main screen. The visible depend on the selected group, which is highlighted in the Menu Tiles Menu Tiles Group .Menu

The selected is highlighted with a white focus frame and is slightly larger in size. It can be selected by click with mouse, pressing ENTER on Menu Tilekeyboard or pressing OK on remote control.

As described in the chapter, there is an alternative way to scroll through the groups without using the .Group Menu Group Menu

When for example navigating "left" with focus on a very left , the group is automatically changes and the focus is set to a right tile in the left Menu Tileneighbour group.

By this you can seemless navigate "right" or "left" through all of all groups without going to the .Menu Tiles Group Menu

Most have predefined postion and allocation into groups. Here an overview where to find the correspondig :Menu Tiles Menu Tiles

# Group Menu Tile ID

1 Home d805f21b-0a1f-4323-beb5-b108778f89aa

2 Images e1748a80-347c-4e1a-8a26-dabec246a540

Image Library 55556593-9FE9-436c-A3B6-A971E10C9D44

Photo Slideshow (optional plugin) E00B8442-8230-4D7B-B871-6AC77755A0D5

3 Audio 1190a648-90f3-413d-88ac-da89684e9766

Music Library 30715D73-4205-417f-80AA-E82F0834171F

Partyplayer E00B8442-8230-4D7B-B871-6AC77755A0D5

WebRadio ( optional plugin) 2DED75C0-5EAE-4E69-9913-6B50A9AB2956

4 Video d887c930-3cfb-4fc5-a559-fff6c8e30b25

Movies Library 80D2E2CC-BAAA-4750-807B-F37714153751

Series Library 30F57CBA-459C-4202-A587-09FFF5098251

Videos Library A4DF2DF6-8D66-479a-9930-D7106525EB07

Online Videos C33E39CC-910E-41C8-BFFD-9ECCD340B569

Browse Media 93442DF7-186D-42e5-A0F5-CF1493E68F49

5 Television e32bbacf-56c6-406e-9576-ea68271f053c

Watch TV B4A9199F-6DD4-4bda-A077-DE9C081F7703

EPG A298DFBE-9DA8-4C16-A3EA-A9B354F3910C

Schedules 87355E05-A15B-452A-85B8-98D4FC80034E

Recordings 7F52D0A1-B7F8-46A1-A56B-1110BBFB7D51

Search   D91738E9-3F85-443B-ABBD-EF01731734AD

6 News d675d9ba-a27b-44b9-bc6b-8cf2dc7d220f

News BB49A591-7705-408F-8177-45D633FDFAD0

Weather E34FDB62-1F3E-4aa9-8A61-D143E0AF77B5

Cinema (optional plugin) BD93C5B3-402C-40A2-B323-DA891ED5F50E

7 Settings 9ad4076c-8f1f-4353-af60-4f6c4238dcb7

Settings F6255762-C52A-4231-9E67-14C28735216E

8 Others all other items will be placed here automatically

Emulators (optional plugin) A24958E2-538A-455E-A1DB-A7BB241AF7EC

Latest Media 7D68C459-EE9B-4EAA-AE2C-C2C365139AEE

Utilities 02992BEC-1E6D-4C29-8D79-F95F59E3F625

AppLauncher (optional plugin) 873EB147-C998-4632-8F86-D5E24062BE2E

Playlists 09EAE702-D9EC-4325-82D9-4843502C966B

Local Media 17D2390E-5B05-4fbd-89F6-24D60CEB427F

Menu Editor

 A Menu Editor integrated into the GUI of Media Portal 2 is in development, but not yet available. However for experienced user there is a way of manual modification of and .Group Menus Menu TilesPlease go to " \ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MP2-Client\Config\" (hidden folder!) and open "MediaPortal.UiComponents.BlueVision.Settings....MenuSettings.xml" with a text editor as "notepad". In case you want to reset the settings or applied wrong modifications, just delete this file. It will be automatically created after next start of Media Portal 2 with default settings.

Modifications on Groups

You can rename, delete and add groups. Please find the following part of the xml file. As example the Audio Group is shown.

=<Property Name "MainMenuGroupNames">  = =<ArrayOfGroupItemSetting xmlns:xsd " "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema xmlns:xsi " "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance >    <GroupItemSetting>      [Menu.Audio]<Name> </Name>      1190a648-90f3-413d-88ac-da89684e9766<Id> </Id>   </GroupItemSetting>  </ArrayOfGroupItemSetting></Property>

To rename a group change e.g. to your preferred name. Please remove also the brackets, if you change the text."[Menu.Audio]" To delete a group please remove the complete part <GroupItemSetting> ... </GroupItemSetting> of related sectionTo add a group please add the following. A new Guid-ID can not be defined randomly , but needs to be created with a :Guid Creator Software

    <GroupItemSetting>      ... <Name> </Name>      ... <Id> </Id>   </GroupItemSetting>

Modifications on Menu Tiles

Menu Tiles can be placed into groups according to their Key. Furthermore the position and size within a Group can be defined.Each consists of a Grid of and .Group 16 Columns 6 Rows

You can position and size the Menu Tiles by spanning a grid for each one starting from the upper left Row/Column and setting the RowSpan/ColumnSpan.Following would be the code for the beflow sketched Menu Tiles:

Menu Tile 1: <Row>0</Row> <RowSpan>6</RowSpan> <Column>0</Column> <ColumnSpan>9</ColumnSpan>Menu Tile 2: <Row>0</Row> <RowSpan>3</RowSpan> <Column>9</Column> <ColumnSpan>3</ColumnSpan>Menu Tile 3: <Row>3</Row> <RowSpan>3</RowSpan> <Column>9</Column> <ColumnSpan>3</ColumnSpan>

Rules for placing MenuTiles:

The for a single MenuTile is maximum ColumnSpan 10You can not place MenuTiles with different ColumnSpan below another MenuTile. They need to have the same ColumnSpan.To allocate the Menu Tiles into the right Group <Key> .... </Key> must be filled the the correct Group Name

Here the code for as example:Menu Tile 1

=<Property Name "MenuItems">  <SerializableDictionaryOfStringSerializableDictionaryOfGuidGridPosition>    = =<ArrayOfPairOfStringSerializableDictionaryOfGuidGridPosition xmlns:xsd " "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema xmlns:xsi "http://www.w3.org

>/2001/XMLSchema-instance       <PairOfStringSerializableDictionaryOfGuidGridPosition>          NameOfMenuTile<Key> </Key>          <Value>             <ArrayOfPairOfGuidGridPosition>                <PairOfGuidGridPosition>                    30715d73-4205-417f-80aa-e82f0834171f<Key> </Key>                   <Value>                      0<Row> </Row>                      6<RowSpan> </RowSpan>                      0<Column> </Column>                      9<ColumnSpan> </ColumnSpan>                   </Value>                </PairOfGuidGridPosition>             </ArrayOfPairOfGuidGridPosition>          </Value>       </PairOfStringSerializableDictionaryOfGuidGridPosition>

    </ArrayOfPairOfStringSerializableDictionaryOfGuidGridPosition>  </SerializableDictionaryOfStringSerializableDictionaryOfGuidGridPosition></Property>

Menu Tiles Images:

The Menu Tile images can be changed easily by placing a corresponding image into the image folder of the skin. In case of Blue Viseion you can find the images in "...\Program Files (x86)\Team MediaPortal\MP2-Client\Plugins\BlueVision\Skin\BlueVision\images".The filename of the Menu Tile image is in the format:

"Key.png" (E.g.: 30715d73-4205-417f-80aa-e82f0834171f.png)

The image doesn't need to have the exact size of the Menu Tile, it will be scaled and cropped automatically.Please be aware, that Menu Tile images can not be recovered, when overwritten. Please make a back-up of the original images or you need to reinstall MP2 to restore them.

The same procedure also applies to other BlueVision themes. There is only one exception for . Here the structure is as follows:Titanium Extended theme

Menu Tile Image: "Key_tile.png" (E.g.: 30715d73-4205-417f-80aa-e82f0834171f_tile.png)Screen Background Image: "Key.png" (E.g.: 30715d73-4205-417f-80aa-e82f0834171f.png)

You can find a list of existing Guid-ID's for Groups and MenuTiles under "Menu Tiles" within this manual.

Help TextsHelp Texts are available for all that are included in Media Portal 2 and most available Plugins.  offer a short description for the Menu Tiles Help Textsselectable menu item.

Power ButtonThe opens a power menu with several options.Power Button

It is visible in all screens, so Media Portal can be closed any time. On focus the button is ligher with a surrounding white blur.

Menu ButtonThe opens a menu with several options depending on the current screen. On focus the button is ligher with a surrounding white blur. Menu Button

Though it is always visible, it can be only selected, if the actual screen offers any menu options.

Crumb BarThe is only visible with mouse usage and when the mouse is moved. It is showing the navigation workflowCrump Bar

It helps to keep an good overview and shows where you will reach by pressing ESC on keyboard or BACK on remote controlWith mouse you can click into any position within the workflow and so qickly reach your desired screen that you have seen beforehand

Special Groups

There are 2 screens, that are handled in the group menu as a group, but do not have .Menu Tiles

Home

The screen is optional and can be switched off in the settings. Home

In home the 5 sorted by are shown by category. The latest 3 are directly visible. To see the last 2 media please scroll down. In latest media added datethe footer further information of the media item are shown, if available. It is possible to directly play the media items. Additionally a and a news ticker weat

is visible on the right side. If you can not see weather infromation, you need to configure the weather plugin at first under settings. her summary

In future it will be possible to configure the home screen, currently the categories and position are fixed.

Currently Playing

The symbol is only visible in , if a media item (audio, video, TV, game, ...) is playing.Currently Playing Group Menu

The screen is existing due to following:

Showing additional information about the media item. The layout and information depend on the type of media.Actors, director, plot, genre, album ...Audio languages and format, video format, subtitle languages

Player Controls Player Controls are only visible in this screen to avoid overlapping of other information

Settings

In this chapter the BlueVision specific, but not general skin independent settings are explained.

At first please navigate to and open the dialogue window. settings › apperance › skin › BlueVision configuration

There are 4 different settings, that can be de-/activated.

Option Effect

Disable "Home" tab

The "home" symbol from the Group Menu will disappear

Disable automatic tab menu selection

This is deactivated by default. When enabling the Group Menu items do not need to be selected manually, but switch automatically on focus. This provided faster navigation, but can also switch the group incidentially by for example pressing "up" button by accident.

Use BlueVision splash screen

Will show a BlueVision image instead of the standard image during start-up of Media Portal 2

Reset menu layout to default

A Menu Editor is in preparation. Currently there is only a possibility to edit the menus manually by modifying xml files. If you would like to reset the menu layout to default, then activate this function.

More Info For more information about the skin, see:BlueVision

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