External Control Plugin Version II - ideas please! (2 Viewers)

[Anonymous]

Just had a quick look and found the .NET compact framework doesn't support remoting, so I might try and start making a CE client using webservice's and wait untill you plugin is exposed throught them. It will probably take me a while to make the graphics part of the client anyway as i don't have too much experiance with CE programing, or exactly what user interface design would work best on a pocket pc.

Thanks, and great work on your plugin, it sounds very flexiable in what it can do.

 

[STSC]

Hi.

that would be great if you can take a look at it!

I didn't say that it's not possible to use events, because I wanted to use them and everybody I asked in .NET forums recommended me not to use events.
This article could be interesting:
http://www.thinktecture.com/Resources/RemotingFAQ/RemotingUseCases.html

 

[MrSensitive]

Dan, You've got a private Message 8)

 

[samuel337]

Bugger, I just assumed that you could use .NET remoting on the compact framework... Oh well, at least it has web services support...

STSC:
Thanks for the article...hmm...if it really is that unworkable, I might investigate sending UDP later.

Sam

 

[MrSensitive]

I've Been talking to Dan about this, and I'm beginning to think that uPNP might do the trick.
according to Dan there are implementations for remote control of AV devices.

I downloaded the specs and sample code so i have some more studiying to do..

regards

(maybe the uPNP server project and external control project should converge in to one?, just thinking out loud..)

 

[sporktastic]

Adding MPEG4IP or something like that with the ability to control your tuner would allow for media extenders like xbmc which do not have tuners of their own to get streaming content from one tuner while setting others to record. This way you can just have a media server with multiple tuners while you have a small front end device to view live or playback recorded / movies.

 

[Anonymous]

Matter of fact, I just did some brief research on events in .NET remoting, and it doesn't seem that hard after all... I can't guarantee that I can do it, but I'll definitely try. Here's an article I found on it: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Code/2003/Nov/RemotingEvents.asp

But you can of course, keep polling the plugin if you like.

Polling every 10 seconds could mean that you have to wait 10 seconds after a key press before the menu/play state change/... shows up on LCD...

Polling every second could mean noteworthy processor load.

I vote for events ;-)

 

[Anonymous]

Control Frame Work :idea:
I have a idea to propose for an external control plugin. As there seems to be quite a range of devices and method people want to control MediaPortal with, a general control frame work may be better.

The framework would have a library for all plugins to give data, settings to in a standard way, like the guilib we have now.

There would then be device plugins that would allow each device at access the data, settings it can and display then.

eg. a Web interface would show everything whereas a lcd screen would only display some of the text data, possibly images if it is colour, and only have some of the settings.

I don't have much idea on how this could be integrated as i don't know the internals of MediaPotal at all. But some sort of event system could be used as already discussed here.

Upnp :arrow:
To use this properly some of the ways MediaPortal is designed would have to be changed, so it is a media server to itself , then sends music to itself to play based on what’s in its media server :shock:

Some more food for thought :wink:
Dan

(might describe what upnp is at some point for everyone since some people seem sort of confused with what exactly it is...)

 

[lugiber]

I would really like to see the ability to pull menu information out of the plugin.
I am currently using the external control plugin with AllenConquests lcdsmartie plugin and menu info is the only feature i am missing at the moment.

/Peter

 

[AllenConquest]

I would really like to see the ability to pull menu information out of the plugin.
I am currently using the external control plugin with AllenConquests lcdsmartie plugin and menu info is the only feature i am missing at the moment.

This will require a change to the core MediaPortal code, but I think should be possible. I've only browsed the code, but it looks like adding a new tag that holds this data to GUIPropertyManager and then populating it when a menu item changes should be doable.

Maybe Frodo, or another more experienced coder could give us some input. Maybe it's on the todo list already.