database information saving and recovery (1 Viewer)

[MYCO]

hello teammediaportal. i am a new member and user of mediaportal, been using it only for less than a month. my rig recently experienced a crash (not because of mediaportal) and had to replace my HDD and well my movie and tv shows collection i spent so much time fixing up was gone just like that. i just need to know if theres a way to physically back up the movie info and the coverart for each movie just incase anything like this happens again, i know its automated but sometimes still has movies that need to be worked on manually and if you have hundreds of movies its a bit stressful just thinking about the work. is there a folder somewhere where they are stored that i can copy? or is there a way to back them up from inside mediaportal or using other mediaportal apps? if so, which one? ...would be a nice feature inside mediaportal if there isnt one, like a big button that sez backup info to a flash/external drive or something like that . anyway thank you in advance for any help on the matter.

*- extra question: is it possible for us to edit a theme wherein we can change all of its buttons and backgrounds and not just some images. i would really love to try and make an MP skin. I just thought i'd ask. i love your product regardless. thanks again and more power to you guys.

 

[JimCatMP]

Hello MYCO.

Sorry to hear about your loss of set up - it's a real pain when it happens

Keeping it pure Windows/user driven & ignoring tools to do backup, all the information you need is in X:/programdata/Team MediaProtal/MediaPortal [X: - normally C: but just in case] and note, c:/programdata is hidden by default in Windows, you need to make it readable.
Now, your database files are in the database directory, and in thumbs [in setting up your TV & Movie collections, you will have amassed a lot of images] directory, you'll find all the images downloaded as part of process. NB - JUST using Windows you can't backup all the DB files WHILE MePo is running - but copy of your DB files is seconds [and not many] work.

Using Themes you can change just about anything, but to change FUNCTIONS and not just the images, you'll need to edit the XML files. I updated Titan theme by using ImageMagik to move for 'gold' to ;cool monochrome' 'finish' as example, and in code, I have rotary volume control vs defaiult linear display [created as test case] - but beware, can easily steal an entire week before you notice you've started


TTFN - JCMP.

 

[MYCO]

sorry for the late reply. thank you very much for your response. it was very helpful, everything i needed was in that folder, even the skin images. im not at all familiar with codes but i will definitely check out this imagemagik that you mentioned. i am currently creating a skin (..and u were right about it stealing an entire week. lol) and my database is backed up in 5 places. I really appreciate all the assistance. take care and have a good one guys.

 

[JimCatMP]

Hi Myco.

Very pleased to hear info helped you out, it's what the forum's are for.

ImageMagik is a very handy tool for scripted changes eg [for i in *.png ; do convert $i.png -modulate 80,37,37 new/$i.png # applies a Green tint to Blue controls] and multiple image creation ie set of arrows with different rotations,

TTFN - JCMP.

 

[MYCO]

hello again. i was wondering how fonts are replaced in mediaportal. i know of the font folders and font files but simply replacing the ttf's and editing the xml did not really work for me (i was experimenting ). i also saw the dds files and managed to edit one of them but that took a while replacing each letter manually using an image editor, i thought i'd ask and see if there was a simpler way. thank you.

on the other hand. i saw an imagemagik application (icon looks like a wand) inside my adobe photoshop folder, would that happen to be the same as the one you mentioned? you've got me curious on imagemagik now. i think i will read up on it, see how it works and what else it can do. Thanks much teamMP

*- apologies for this post being out of topic. please let me know if i need to post this on another thread. thanks

 

[JimCatMP]

This is 'talk forum' so it fits

Oddly enough [or just plain spooky] I was playing with fonts myself last few days - with limited success, which leads me to one simple conclusion, I'm missing something really obvious.

In my case, wanted to add LCD type display for certain numerics, added font to fonts directory [in this case DefaultWideHD - new default to replace Titan in 1.13 onwards], added font and correct sizing to match sizes in font itself in fonts.xml, updated relevant XML [simple label display created as test case in Home Screen] and cleared cache [which includes fonts]. That worked, but using another font didn't, can't work out why Not a major issue for me happily

Re-imagemagic - nope, in Photoshop that's the Magic Wand tool - selection tool for similar levels of colour [might useful]. ImageMagik is totally separate software package.

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php - and lots if examples - http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/

Example:

convert -size 1024x1024 xc:none -fill white \
-draw "roundRectangle 150,350 500,650 30,30" \
-draw "polygon 300,512 600,800 600,200" \
-draw "ellipse 600,512 200,200 -80,80" \
sh1.png

Just run this a command line [I use Cygwin Unix style shell - Unix mutt of old].



[to make it visible, actual code I used xc:blue - in the example code the background is transparent {which means it must be saved as png]

Final image I actually use is



So more complex scripting is applied to create and mask the mesh, add border, create highlights and then composite it all into one.

Cheers - JCMP

 

[MYCO]

your reply explained a whole lot for me. i think i get how the skin files work now. i just now saw that you guys have a skin developer section in here. i will prolly give that a read later on if i get some free time..
thank you once again
* - i figured a way to change the font. The replacement just has to have the same font style (light, medium, small, regular) as the one its replacing

 

[JimCatMP]

Like all the forum contributors, glad to help it's why we do it.

On the skin side, yep, hop over th skins forum & read over some of the forum posts, recommend following Catavolt & Wizard123 posts for in depth info

TTFN - JCMP.