Those of you using the new Firestorm release of Media Browser may be asking, “What happened to the Vanilla theme?”…and rightfully so. Well, Throgmorton, creator of the theme, has decided to modularize it into a plugin for Media Browser and it has been removed from the default installation. Don’t worry, you can still very easily get it and I’m going to show you how (in case you’ve missed the instructions elsewhere).
The first thing you’re going to want to do is to close out Media Center on your VMC/7MC system. I’m expecting you already have the new Firestorm release installed, so we’ll get past that and move on to the Windows programs menu where you’re going to want to find the Media Browser entry and then click on the Configurator link to open that. Once open, find the plug-ins tab at the top and click on it.
Next, click the Add button below the plug-ins list box.
This will bring up the Add Plugin window, where you will click on the File menu at the top and then choose Sources…
TheAddPluginSourceWindow will now come up and you will type in http://www.throgsoft.com/plugins/plugin_info.xml
Click on OK to download the XML file that will add the plugins available to the list. You will then select the theme you want from the list and click the Install button to download and install Vanilla.
That’s it! You can now close the Configurator, fire up Media Center, go to Media Browser and Vanilla will be in the themes that are available from the Configuration screen.
Support issues should now be directed to Throg’s new website, which includes a support forum. If you like Vanilla and would like to see its improvements continued, a small donation is always appreciated.
All instructional images from Throg’s site.
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Thanks for the great writ up on this. But, I really wish throgmorton had not called this Vanilla 2.0 :)
IMHO, it’s no where close to the original Vanilla theme. It navigates and looks completely different. All the views seem to have changed, especially the EHS. I understand the reason he changed some of the things he did, but overall it’s a new theme, not an upgrade. However, it was free and I paid nothing for it, so cheers to throgmorton for even creating it. I just wish it had resembled the old theme a bit more :)
p.s. If those reading are not aware… it appears throgmorton is going to add Vanilla 1.0 back as a new (slightly modified) plugin to his list of themes.
Cheers,
-Sinjen
Good to hear the old Vanilla is coming back. I have absolutely no talent when it comes to what he does, but I’m with you…Vanilla 2.0 was lost on me. It was completely different, yes, but I also just did not like it…how it looked or how it was to interact with. I used it sparingly, but I did think 1.0 was a very nice theme.
Right now, I’m just hoping Jas doesn’t do the same to Diamond.
I’ve actually had to revert back to the default theme (even with its broken background functionality). I’ve never really taken to Diamond and the Default is the closest I’ve been able to come to Vanilla 1.0.
-Sinjen
Yeh…I only recently started using Diamond over the default theme. It never did much for me, but I sort of forced myself to use and it did actually grow on me. I like the poster layout and it fills the screen better than the others. It’s detail list view is nice too, so I decided to stay with it. Depending on how Diamond changes with v0.3, I may be going back to default also. So far, it’s not looking much different though.
Throg has posted an alpha version of the Vanilla 1.0 plugin. But, I couldn’t get it to install last night. It appears he may have a delivery problem in his website. I’m sure he’ll resolve that quickly though.
-Sinjen