August 2015 S100-Skinpack available!! SkinManager 5.00!! Skin6!! and much more...

As i have anticipated in my previous posts this time there are many changes in the skinpacks but also on the sharing method i use to distribute them.
You have may noticed that my dropbox got suspended a few times in the last weeks because of the high bandwith usage, so I decided to leave dropbox for now and start using GoogleDrive instead and share the access of my folder only to the e-mail address of the buyers.

So everybody who already bought the skinpack, please send me an access request by email specifying which skinpacks has been bought, a Gmail account to send the Gdrive invitation and your unit model number "Cxxx".
To know your model number simply go in the System Information screen on your unit as described in this post:
how-to-tell-roadnav-satnav-model-number
Once you tell me your model number i'll send you back an activation file that you will need to put in the SkinManager folder.


This was the annoying part of the news, let's see now what you'll get in this new skinpack:

- A complete rework of Skinmanager (tnx EAC!)
- A new Skin 6 based on MyDean firmware
- New graphic for most sections of Skin3
- New graphics for DSP, GPS, Clendar, Calc etc.. on Skin5
- New Nitrogen Skin "Carplay-Spotify"
- New "Switch firmware" function in Skinmanager
- Unified skinpack for all firmwares from 1.7.9 to 1.1.10
- Arabic and other languages support in fw 1.1.10
- More models adaption
- Hundreds of bugs fixed

The list of changes is so big that i recommend everybody to take a look at the release notes of this skinpack, here: http://pastebin.com/EAL4tvc1
or directly on the unit pressing the "i" at bottom left of  Skinmanger main screen.

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SKINPACK COMPOSITIONS AND PRICES

To satisfy more user requests and to have a more uniform portfolio I decided to change also the Skinpacks compostition, so now the people can buy also a "mini" skinpack made of a just a couple of skins (Skin2 and another skin choosable betwen Skin3, Skin4 and Skin6) or a mix of skins of his choice according to the folliwing prices:

Skin2 will be always included in every skinpack and will be considered as a free gift.

Skin3, Skin4 and Skin6 costs 10 euro each.

Skin5 (Carplay) cost 20 euro.
2 Skins in a choice of  Skin3,4,6 cost 20 euro

2 Skins (choice of  3,4,6) + Skin5 cost 30 euro (like the old fullpack)

The Full 6 Skinpack cost 40 euro.

In this way I cover all the possible combination, giving a wide variety of prices and discounts on bigger packages.

To buy a skinpack select the version you like in the list below and hit the BuyNow button.
After payment I will send you an invitation to the  GoogleDrive folder that contain the skinpack you have choosen and i will request you your unit model number as described before.
Once I'll have the model number you'll receive the activator file to be pasted in the skinmanager folder.
So this time the  procedure is not automatic,  you will not be redirected to my dropbox links, you will have to wait for my replies. Please don't hammer me if I'll be late sometimes, I'm human, i sleep at night and i have a real job. I hope you understand  that.

So enjoy the new born Skinmanager 5.00 and all the goodies it takes with it.

Regards, KoTiX.

Skin3 images Album

Skin4 Images Albums

Skin5 Images Album

Skin6 Images Album 

To buy a single skin, Please select the one you like:

Skin3 €10,00 EUR Skin4 €10,00 EUR Skin5 €20,00 EUR Skin6 €10,00 EUR

 

To buy 2 skins, Please select the ones to include in the Skinpack

Skin3+Skin4 €20,00 EUR Skin3+Skin6 €20,00 EUR Skin4+Skin6 €20,00 EUR

 

To buy 3 skins, Please select the ones to include in the Skinpack

Skin3+Skin4+Skin5 €30,00 EUR Skin3+Skin6+Skin5 €30,00 EUR Skin4+Skin6+Skin5 €30,00 EUR

 

To buy all the available Skins

All Skins €40,00 EUR

 

In the next Skinpack update....some more suprises...

Here is  a list of the new feauters and most important changes there will be in the upcoming new skinpack:

1. New protection system with a "one skinpack per model" check.
2. A "unified" skinpack for all the firmware versions
3. Firmware switch function
4. Completely rewritten Skinmanager
5. New Nitrogen "Carplay-spotify" skin
6. Possibility to buy a mini skinpack with a single Skin (3,4 or 6) for 10 euros and other formulas

...and here some explanations:


1. There will be a new anticopy protection system that will let install the skins only on the specific model of the buyer.
The buyer perhaps will have to provide me his model number Cxxx and I'll send him an unlocking file with a special code. Without this code it will be not possible to install any skin.
In the same time I'll stop using dropbox to share my files and the next skinpack will be released only on my Google Drive folders and the access will be granted only to the buyer email.

2. There will not be anymore different versions of skinpacks  for each firmware, the skinpack now is just one and you'll be prompted to select the firmware version between the availables 1.7.9, 1.10.9 and 1.1.10. according to your choice the skins, patches etc.. will be adapted automatically to the choosen firmware.

3. In skintool there is the new nice feature for the firmware switch. Yeah you read it right! It's possible to switch between firmware versions directly from skinmanager and everything will be automatically adapted to the choosen firmware.

4. My good friend EAC has rewritten almost completely the Skinmanager scripts, taking it to an unprecedent level, more interactive, verbose, comfortable and smart.
Here is a video demostration of Skinmnager updating from an old version, you'll love it :

5. I ported my Carplay/Spotify skin to Nitrogen player:

6. With the newcoming MyDean/Skin6 I decided to start selling an even cheaper Skinpack for the price of 10 euros. This "mini" pack will include all the skinpack features but only one skin, selectable between Skin3, Skin4 and Skin6.
The old "Full" skinpack will remain a "5 Skins Package" for 30 euros
There will be a new 6 skins "Full Skinpack" for 40 euros
Carplay skinpack will remain as it is. 20 euros
In this way i'm covering all ranges of prices.

What's going on now??

Two months without writing here... You may think I'm lazy but I'm not!  (Well maybe not at all)
Anyway all you people are may asking why I'm so late posting news and updates and what is going on to my skins and skinpacks.

Me and my good friend EAC have worked all the time on the Skins, Skinmanager and the tools included in it.
Skinmanager has been almost totally reworked to give you a more comfortable and better looking interface, in a certain way customizable and for sure more understandable and reliable.
Except for the first time that you start Skinmanager from the gps path,  it will always run from the internal flash disk so that you can have the skinpack copied on GPS or DVD SDCARD slot or even USB.
I will explain SM other features when the update will be ready.


What about the skins?


I fixed the radio Next\Prev buttons in all skins so that holding them they "search" for next frequency.



A new Skin6 is ready!  It's a porting of the MyDean firmware to the standard S100 platform.
So it has the look of the mydean skin but the functionality of the standard firmware including the radio buttons patches etc..
( this is a new skin so it will not be free, it's not to be considered a free update)

I worked  bit on Skin3 improving the home screens, audio player, BT etc...

Skin5 have  new DSP, Calculator, Calendar, GPS monitor screens

Skin5 also support Arabic languages on those firmware that support it.

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For last but not less important, some of you have probably noticed that my dropbox account sometimes don't work or  it has been suspended because of high bandwith usage, I please you to be patience some more until I setup a new sharing method using my GoogleDrive account.

The next update will be release only on Google drive and the access will be granted only to the emails used to buy the skinpacks. There will be also some more protection added to my software, this is just a starting point..

I'll keep you more updated soon.

Regards.

KoTiX

May 2015 - S100 Skinpack update available

It's already passed one month since my last post on this blog but it's not because I'm lazy (well maybe just a little), it's because there are some good news and new features about my skinpacks that tooked some time to be developed.
The first good news is that I have a new collaborator that I would like to thank for his great help on the Scripting side, so Thank You EAC!
With his help we improved a lot the Skinmanager functions and now it can be run from all the external storages available ( USB, DVD  and GPS slots), it will automatically check for Skinmanager and for Skins updates availabilty.
If a skin update is available the Skinmanager will show the "NEW" flag on top of the skin icon:

Clicking on the skin icon you'll be prompted to update or not.
Skinmanager will also check the presence of a skin folder on the storage, if not available will show the "Interdiction" symbol.

EAC has also improved the entire Messaging system of skinmanager so that now it's more understandable and clear.

Another BIG thank's go to my russian friend Alex that has realized all the great Patches to the software allowing us to have the 12 radio buttons, the unencripted strings and now the possibility to be more free to skin the audio player adding repositioning and resizing of the album art and the progress slider. Regarding album art, he was also able to add support for covers in the format "anyname.jpg", so the audio player now will show the cover  embedded in the mp3 tag as usual or the jpg image included in the album folder.

So making a list of what you'll get in this update:

1. Album art in JPG format support
2. Ported the skin i made for mydean player to Carplay original player
3. A little rework in skin4 audio player
4. New ipod skin for carplay (it's like previous audio player)
5. Skinned video section in Skin3,4 and 5
6. Added 12 radio buttons to skin1 and skin2
7. Redesigned all keyboards in skin 4 and 5 (BT, Video search, Audio search) in all languages
8. Skinmanager and Skins version update check
9. Fullbackup of the entire firmware trought skintool
10. Skinmanager can run from USB and DVD slot too
11. Better icons and Messaging system in Skinmanager
12. Changelog viewable from skinmanager
13. And so on... too many to rember them all.. read the changelog for the rest :)


ATTENTION: If you were using the software patch, you will need to re-apply the patch again to have everything working ok.

Some pictures now:





(I'll upload more pics later on)

 Right now is available the skinpacks for the newest firmwares from 1.8.9 to 1.10.9 and i don't know if i'll make a version for 1.7.9 because the audio Patches are not available for that firmware.

Coming up next:

- port the mydean interface to standard s100

- more optimizations and features to skinmanager





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After payment you'll be redirected to the download link (clicking on "return to reseller site") and you'll receive an email with a memo of the link.
N.B. Please consider the world time difference and my busy life before asking for the confirmation email or for a paypal refund, Thank you.

April Fools' Day Skinpacks available!! (ehm... it's not a joke!)

Yeah! It's not a joke!

I just released a new update of my skinpacks, the biggest changes are:

the 12 radio stations buttons

(you have 6 more stations pressing RDS buttons)

the MyDean player carplay skin

This is the changelog:

01.04.2105
- Added a Nitrogen Carplay skin with clock
- Skin5: centered buttons labels in radio screens
30.03.2105
- Fixed Clocks 2 points position in radio screens
- Fixed O-S2 bug in radioeditor
- Added copy of station names when installing a skin
- After installing, applying or uninstalling a skin, the skinmanager restart to refresh the icons
- Deleted redundant skintool options
27.03.2015
- Added 6 more station buttons in RDS screen
- Fixed BT Phone/Unit switch button in dialing screen
- Skinned Ipod screen
26.03.2015
- Install/Update skins now check for radio editor patches and update skinmanager apply icons
- Fixed Font Changer bugs
- Fixed RadioEditor string_ch bug and added backcup of current string
- Changed Extras Install/Update now is selectable by choice
- Added Mydean Skin5 version
- Added Skin4 glass effect to radio clocks (tnx Catalin)

Some notes about this update:

- Enabling the Mydean player sometimes (it happened to me 2 times over 20) the unit hangs and need to reflash the firmware, so be sure you have the fw for your unit available.

- In the previous release there was a bug in my radioeditor script that create a wrong skin folder in the unit, resulting that you have installed  a skin even if you didn't. To remove this problem you'll have to use the skintool function "Restore original skin and delete others" or reflash the firmware.

- When using radio editor, be sure you have the correct date and time set on your system because I use it to store your favorite stations in your Language file and copy  it over all skins.


UPDATE: I just uploaded a 02.04.2015 small fix for radio editor and 12 buttons mod, if you have downloaded 01.04 version, just apply the patch to the skinmanager folder on your sdcard overwriting the files.

...coming up next:

- Porting of the full MyDean skin to S100
- Album.jpg support in audio player (Tnx to Alex)
- Port the mydean player skin5 version to standard player (Again Tnx to Alex)

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To buy the skinpack please go to this post:

August 2015 skinpack

Some usefull informations and guides about Skinmanager and Skintool.

Has come the time to start explaining some important and usefull informations about:

- Skinmanager
- Skintool
- Radio Editor and the way I implemented it in skinmanager
- Nitrogen
- Personal Languages
- My skinpacks folders


THE S100 SKINMANAGER
The S100 Skinmanager is a software developed by me from scratch that initially allowed the S100 owners to install alternative skins/themes only but now (it's already 2 years old) it's a lot of more powerfull and will let you change the default audio player, install language files, change fonts, fake the unit ID to another model, change the function of hardware buttons, etc..

My skinpacks come compressed in a RAR archive that you will have to extract in the root of the sd card: essentially you double click on the rar file, you hit "extract" and select the letter of the sdcard.
In this way you will have a "Skinmanager" folder in the root of the sd.
To run skinmanager you simply insert the SD card in the gps slot of your unit, set the path of the navigation software to point to "\Skinmanager\Skinmanager.exe" and press the Navi button.
Here is a small video showing the installation process:

Below is the skinmanager home screen, the "Installed" label show up on the next run after you install a skin and the highlighted skin is the one currently in use.

Clicking on a skin you will be prompted to Install it if it's not present in the unit or to switch to it if it's already installed.
When you install a skin for the first time, skinmanager will create for safety reason a backup of the S100PROGRAM folder, the most important in the system. You have also an option in "skintool" to make a new backup everytime you need.

During the installation various messages and prompts will help you understand and choose the best combination for your system.
On the bottom left there is the "Exit" button to go back to the unit main software called "Platform"
The small camera at the bottom right is the screenshot tool button, clicking on it will appear a square on top right and double clicking on it will take the shot. The screenshots are saved on your sdcard.

On bottom right of the screen there is my other creation: the skintool.


At top right there is the button to access to the "Customizations" section:
Here you can replace the audio player with two alternative players: NitrogenIt support playlists files (M3U, PLS) and have a quick and comfortable music browser by folder and the MyDean version of the original player :the version showed here is in the carplay flavour but the original one have a big list view like this and a better layout than the original one.

In Customizations section you have also the newest big feature for S100:

Radio Editor
Radio Editor is a tool used to edit the Saved stations names, and to assign the button number to each station from 1 to 12. To use Radio Editor you need first to patch your system with a slightly modified version of the software, so at first run of radio editor, a script will check if your system is already patched and if not it will ask you to do it.The patch will allow the system to use unencripted and modified Language strings, to add buttons in radio section and other mods used to modify the userinterface.
After the system is patched, RadioEditor start and you can edit the station names and assign the button numbers simply selecting the station and hitting the pencil icon:

- a keyboard will show up covering the editor popup window
- you can move down the keyboard holding and sliding down your finger on the top blue line so you can see the button number tab
- set a number between 1-12, edit the station name if you wish and save
- repeat for all 12 numbers or less

When all stations are saved you can click on the main "Save" button, The software will store the stations names and numbers in the Language string file that is currently in use and it will update it in all skins. (it's important that you have set the correct time and date in the unit for this to work properly)

If you do all this correctly, you will end up having 6 station buttons at the bottom of the radio main screen and other 6 stations button in the RDS screen.

Nitrogen audio player

The Nitrogen audio player is an alternative player to the default one, it support playlists in format m3u and pls, it can be controlled by the Steering Wheel Controls and has a very quick and comfortable file browser by folder and support the album.jpg cover format.
It can be used as a standalone application or it can replace completely the standard default player.
To replace the standard player you need to go in "Customization" menu in skinmanager and choose the option to "Set as default player"; you can reverse to standard one at anytime selecting again the same option.
Nitrogen comes with some preloaded skins/themes that can be found in the Options menu.


Personal Languages
In customizations section there is tool to install a personal Language file replacing the english file with it. I added this feature because some languages are not supported by the s100 software (Swedish for example), when starting the tool you'll be taken to a file browser where you can select the string file of your Language which will replace the english one. By default the file browser will open in the path \StorageCard\Skinmanager\Extras\Patches\Strings so I suggest  you to copy your string file in that folder.
I also created a tool to replace the characters fonts because some languages use special characters that are available only in arial font.

.....more to come....

Standard skinpack for firmware 1.7.9 is buggy

This is an important advice for those people who are using the Standard Skinpack for firmware 1.7.9 or have the full pack and are using it as skinmanager base:
I  copied the wrong files for the radio stations mod and it's probably not working for you.

I already uploaded the corrected skinpack and also a patch for those who don't want to download again the entire package but just correct it them self.

This bug is NOT present in the Carplay version or either in the 1.8.9->1.10.9 versions, these versions are fine and the radio mod work correctly.

I'm really sorry about this but at least i found it :)