[Application] Basic Home Editor V0.1a (1 Viewer)

[TheMightySpu]

Hi all,

I've been working on this for the past couple of days and am now in a position to supply a very very very very very very early version for testing

I've noticed around the forum a lot that people always seems to ask about editing the Basic Home screen and it always comes down to 'edit the xml file directly'.

Say I says to myself, self, I says.....there has to be an easier way, especially for those who don't really understand XML and don't really want to.

So I had this idea, a simple universal Basic Home Editor. I have tested on a few skins and all seems to work fine.

This is the first test release so please don't expect anything incredibly special, plus it's my first 'personal' foray into VB.net coding outside of University work, so be gentle LOL.

So, for the moment, just looking for feedback and ideas for more features.

IMPORTANT : Before using, please backup BasicHome.xml for any skin that you're planning to test this with, as there is not currently an undo function built in.

Current Limitations

• Only works on 'static' Basic Home screen skins (for example, will not work on Aeon or anything with that level of animation)

• Control Animation settings currently not supported (however shouldn't be too much of a problem if all that needs changing is layout)

• XML code view not formatted correctly, so difficult to read

Current Features V0.1a

• Displays Currently Installed Skins

• Allows selected of skin to edit

• Displays Filepath of selected Skin

• Displays number of control Elements

• Displays control elements in table form for easy editing

• Displays complete XML (however not formatted as of yet)

• Allows user to edit values and save XML file

Planned Features

• Allow User to change file path (Currently assumes default MP UserFiles Path)

• Colour picker / Image browsing capabilites (currently all manual text input editing)

• Possible 'drag and drop' layout interface

• Visual feedback on control placement/images/colours

• Full screen visual preview of Basic Home screen based on user settings

• Choice between XML Code view and Visual Feedback view (via tabs)

• Support for Animations

• Skin aspect detection (4:3, 16:9 etc)

• *Ability to select edited skin as MP Skin

• *Ability to edit Sub-Menus

• *Ability to save 'presets' that can be applied to other skins

* = Community Wish List items


Community Wishlist

• Ability to select edited skin as MP Skin

• Ability to launch 'bespoke' skin editors from within basic editor

• Ability to edit Sub-Menus

• Ability to save 'presets' that can be applied to other skins

• Ability to 'transfer' presets to other editors

Hope you enjoy and find this useful.
Thanks
TheMightySpud

 

[SpudR]

Wow - this is a fabulous idea!
Have a chat with Paranoid Delusion though - he's been asking for an editor for ever!

Keep going and good luck...

 

[TheMightySpu]

Thanks fellow potato,

Could someone take a minute and let me know if it works for them?

Like I said, this is the first time I've done something in vb.net outside of Uni, and for that I was never required to create an exe for distribution, so I have no idea if i've done it right. :-/

Thanks
TheMightySpud

 

[rekenaar]

Great idea. Also see here for a suggestion or two.
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/skins-50/request-generic-menu-editor-70081/

 

[TheMightySpu]

If I understand that thread correctly, the way that I've implemented the reading of the xml in this would work for any xml file that you select (currently you can only select the basichome.xml of a given skin)

Off the top of my head, it should be quite easy to implement a file browser (which would only show xml files that are not part of the rootMP and plugins software)

For example, it would ignore things like myvideo.xml and tvseries.xml but allow you to choose things like 'submenu1.xml'.

It would just be a matter of populating a second dropdown list with those files unique to the skin you select in the first dropdown.

Definately something for me to think about once I have the basichome editing done

TheMightySpud

 

[TheMightySpu]

So,

anyone successfully tried it yet?

looking for feedback to decide whether to carry on working on it or not.

If I don't get any I'll just assume nobody is interested.

 

[emphatic]

Hi,

The skins I use the most have their own editors (plugin based), like XFactor for example. It would be cool if this plugin had support for these other plugins, so when you select for example XFactor, that skin is automatically:

a) selected in MediaPortal as the current skin (I believe that this skin's plugin demands this to work properly)
b) launch the editor for XFactor
c) when you're done return to your plugin

Another nice feature would be when you're done with a pretty complex setup (a Black Glass skin Basic Home with 12 assigned buttons) to be able to copy a list of all of the selected items from that .xml, so that when you go to the next skin, you don't have to think about what options you want on say, a Monochrome Basic Home. You just look at the list and see:

TV | Music | Movies | Plugins | Online Media | Pictures | Settings | Games | Etc.

Drag & dropping of these from the "saved list" into your currently selected skin's Basic Home should then generate the proper links (and alert if the skin does not support the current plugin).

This plugin idea is a really good one.
Emph

 

[rekenaar]

Agree with Emph, but additional, as mentioned in my other link, we need a step between Emph's a and b. Lets call it a.2:
a.2. Transfer my personal menu items to the relevant skin editor. (Same as explained in 2nd part by Emph) This may be the most challenging task, but I am quite convince that usability will increase drastically with that.

My main concern, while currently using various skins (75% of the time xfactor ), is that I struggle to keep all on same menu items (WAF).

 

[TheMightySpu]

The skins I use the most have their own editors (plugin based), like XFactor for example. It would be cool if this plugin had support for these other plugins, so when you select for example XFactor, that skin is automatically:

a) selected in MediaPortal as the current skin (I believe that this skin's plugin demands this to work properly)
b) launch the editor for XFactor
c) when you're done return to your plugin

All very cool ideas.

a) This was something I was hoping to implement anyway, I've had a very quickly look but can't seem to find a 'settings' file anywhere which holds all the config information, like I said it was only a quick look so I'll have a more thorough poke around when I'm ready to start working on that part

b) I was actually thinking of adding some controls into the app which would enable the user to launch any of the released editors (ie the aeon editor), using an xml config file to hold their location details etc. which would get setup on first run....maybe even automatically if the editors have a standardised install path.

However, as this isn't actually a plugin, but a standalone application, launching any editors that are plugins could prove problematic. I suppose it would be possible to launch the plugin dlls from within my editor with a lot of futzing about with other mp dlls.....dunno, that's something that's way beyond me at the moment.

Another nice feature would be when you're done with a pretty complex setup (a Black Glass skin Basic Home with 12 assigned buttons) to be able to copy a list of all of the selected items from that .xml, so that when you go to the next skin, you don't have to think about what options you want on say, a Monochrome Basic Home. You just look at the list and see:

TV | Music | Movies | Plugins | Online Media | Pictures | Settings | Games | Etc.

Drag & dropping of these from the "saved list" into your currently selected skin's Basic Home should then generate the proper links (and alert if the skin does not support the current plugin).

One of the things that occurred to me earlier was the possibility of something similar to this, instead of dragging/dropping it would be a 'preset' list. you create one, you save it to your list, load up another skin, click on the preset and then click apply.

The only problem I can see with this kind of functionality is the images. It would rely too much on skin authors keeping their image names exactly the same, which is a little unreasonable, so I think the best way to achieve this would be to have only id, titles (labels etc), position, size and hyperlink target information held within the presets. this way, it would just be a matter of selecting your images again. (not sure if that last little bit makes sense :-/)

Thanks for the feedback
TheMightySpud

oh, before I forget, I did notice a small bug ealier.

The Datagrid view on the left hand side, doesn't update properly when changing skin.
This does not affect the editing of the Correct XML Code though.

TheMightySpud

 

[rekenaar]

a) This was something I was hoping to implement anyway, I've had a very quickly look but can't seem to find a 'settings' file anywhere which holds all the config information, like I said it was only a quick look so I'll have a more thorough poke around when I'm ready to start working on that part

MediaPortal.xml

  <section name="skin">
    <entry name="name">Blue3wide</entry>
    <entry name="language">English</entry>
  </section>