External Configuration GUI? (1 Viewer)

[ScoopD]

Hi all & especially Hi and Big Thanks to Inker for working tirelessly for no bucks and not enough thanks.

I have a media computer running Media Portal in the lounge room connected to a nice big TV and I have my other computers in another room. Any time I want to muck around with upgrading Media Portal I generally have to unplug the computer and cart it into the lab. I can deal with that.

What I seem to do much more frequently is play around with the wonderful MP-TV Series plugin and I was wondering how much would be involved in creating an externally launched GUI from one of my other computers. I think the current and future GUI's are great and do the trick, but I have to launch them from the Media Portal Config plug-ins rather than just running an executable. How hard could it be to create something that can hook into the already existing dll? (He says in the style of a Top Gear host)

 

[THDBASED]

I would like this as well, there isn't actually a need to have an external GUI config program on the HTPC system. Most of the time a HTPC is a PC without mouse and/or keyboard so having a config program on this system isn't really a good idea. I too have to close MP then connect a mouse and start configuring.

The best thing would be (maybe a good idea for the new version and/or MP-II) to have the external GUI config program to be remote as it is used in WHS for example.

 

[EMKO]

from what i hear MP-II will have all the settings be editable while in MP-I and for those that don't like that there will be also a external configuration just like in MP-I which is great. i will defenatly like the in MP settings so that i don't have to get my keyboard and mouse out to just change a few settings.

 

[Inker]

It's no problem at all making an exe that launches only the plugin configuration as long as the exe resides inside the target MP directory.

But I fail to see the point, if it is because you want to start it over the lan and keep MP running at all times, it'll only get you into trouble because a) you now have to connections to the db which sqlite is not made for and b) the plugin aggresivly caches some stuff from the db inside mp for perf. reason so you wouldnt see the changes until you restart mp anyways, or worse you might undo your changes or even worse get into an inconsistant state.

If you close MP down to avoid this then you can as well start the mp config.exe ??

 

[ScoopD]

It's no problem at all making an exe that launches only the plugin configuration as long as the exe resides inside the target MP directory.

Exactly what I don't want, unless I can just explore to it over the LAN and execute it remotely. As the other posters said, it's the lack of keyboard etc (& resolution level sitting several meters away) that makes it annoying to configure in the lounge.

EDIT: Actually that could still be useful - If I am stopping MP and launching the MP Config just to bring up the TV Series config, it takes some time as MP Config can take a while to launch while it does all it's checks etc.

But I fail to see the point, if it is because you want to start it over the lan and keep MP running at all times, it'll only get you into trouble because a) you now have to connections to the db which sqlite is not made for and b) the plugin aggresivly caches some stuff from the db inside mp for perf. reason so you wouldnt see the changes until you restart mp anyways, or worse you might undo your changes or even worse get into an inconsistant state.

If you close MP down to avoid this then you can as well start the mp config.exe ??

I see what you are saying - multi connections to a single user database causes issues. Hmmmmm
If I wanted to make some significant work for you I might suggest the external configurator works in a read only mode and then outputs a "pending changes" file in the Database directory, then at launch of MP, when the plugin is loaded it reads the Pending changes file and incorporates them into the database before loading it.

That's all too much falking about, so forget I asked, but thanks for the consideration.

 

[THDBASED]

Well restarting MP isn't a problem because you can restart it using the remote. The only problem I have is that I have to close MP, then attach mouse and or keyboard to configure.

But maybe this is something to think about when coding the MP-II version. Imagine how nice it would be if the config program would be like the WHS web interface. So you can install it on every PC you want and connect to the HTPC to configure things. I think it would be a great improvement. Also this way people who don't like the remote config thing can just install it on the HTPC and do it the old way...

 

[Inker]

How about using VNC? You don't need a keyboard mouse.

 

[G.B. Wolf]

If you only want to configure via another PC you could even use the built-in stuff of Windows (remote control) and log in from your normal PC to the HTPC.

 

[ftothe3]

If you only want to configure via another PC you could even use the built-in stuff of Windows (remote control) and log in from your normal PC to the HTPC.

thats what i do. works well.