Get rid of watched/unwatched category (1 Viewer)

[eetaylog]

Is there a way to get rid of the option to show whether a film has been watched/unwatched? In MovingPictures my skin (Titan) makes the titles of the films that have been watched slightly darker than the unwatched movies which I find really irritating.

Is there any way round this? I don't see anything in config.

 

[skorz]

+1. i did say the same some time before, if we can do this "feature" optional.. on my htpc we watch with 3 persons and it is confusing, when someone watch a film and it looks for me watched..

 

[RoChess]

Four solutions off the top of my head:

1. Do not have watched movies show up in the view you are in by applying a filter of "unwatched only" (use F9 and/or hidden menu)

2. Toggle a movie back as unwatched after you watched it via F9 (it still keeps track of the watched-count in dbase and you can still filter on this)

3. Edit skin files to make the "watched" color be the same as the "unwatched" color. Unfortunatly I do not have Titan skin available right now, but structure is more then likely still the same, so what you want to do is locate "reference.xml" file and open that with notepad or your favorite editor and look for "<description>default listcontrol</description>" and then inside of that control look for selectedColor (+ 2/3) and edit accordingly.

4. Use the user-rating system and complex filters to make a somewhat-functional multi-user system. For example I have a custom category for my wife that any movie added in the last 90 days, that has a watched count of > 1 and a rating set shows up in there. That way after I watch a good movie by myself that I think she might be interested in as well, all I have to do is 'rate' it. If you combine this with the Trakt plugin you can even create wishlists and keep track of history very easy.

 

[eetaylog]

Thanks for the pointers, I did think of most of them but the first one wont work because it's the watched films that are very dark in the list, so they'd all end up like that. The other 3 options are do-able but I was hoping there was a more straight forward solution.

I don't really see the need for the watched/unwatched system anyway, but maybe that's just me.

 

[eetaylog]

OK I'm editing the reference.xml file. Which hex code do I use to make watched/unwatched both white? Selectedcolour is currently ffffffff.[DOUBLEPOST=1366227462][/DOUBLEPOST]And don't you actually mean that I have to change <playedcolour>?

 

[RoChess]

Guess I didn't scroll down far enough into my own XML file, was doing other stuff.

 

[eetaylog]

Guess I didn't scroll down far enough into my own XML file, was doing other stuff.

Ah right, so do you know which line needs changing, and what the colour code is for white?

Thanks.

 

[RoChess]

The colors are hex based for RGB with a transparancy/alpha-layer prefix.

So FF123456:

FF = 100% visible
12 = hex for 'Red'
24 = hex for 'Green'
56 = hex for 'Blue'

White = 100% intensity for R+G+B, so you get: FFFFFFFF (or 80FFFFFF for half see-through white)

You can use any HTML colorwheel picker to make it easy on you, such as: http://www.allprofitallfree.com/color-wheel2.html

And if memory serves me:

<textcolor> = standard color for text
<selectedColor> = color when item is highlighted/selected
<playedColor> = watched item
<remoteColor> = offline media
<downloadColor> = (forgot)

You also want to play with:

<dimColor> + <unfocusedAlpha> as they value has a general impact on all the colors as well.

Then you also have multiple options per color, which is what the <color>, <color2> and <color3> stuff is all about. My advice, change a color to an extreme, such as FFFF0000 for pure 'Red', or FF000000 for 'Black' and pick something that would instantly stand out. Then you know what color you just changed and then settle on a color you like.

You can add:

<!-- commentary notes -->

at any place inside the XML file (except inside <..> tags) to help you for future self-reference.

 

[eetaylog]

Great post, thanks for sharing.

I had a quick blast before i left for work this morning and i changed <playedcolour> to FFFFFFFF but it didnt seem to make any difference? I guess it must have something to do with <dimcolour>?

 

[RoChess]

Keep in mind that sometimes MediaPortal or a related plugin only loads certain skin files once, in worst case you have to close MediaPortal and restart it before it will take your changes (changing certain artwork even requires erasing cache folder). In most cases however changing to a different view (which loads a different XML file) works as well. I usually ended up loading a different plugin such as MP-TVSeries or Moving-Pictures and then go back to test for the changes I had made. With concurrent RDP I was then able to make those changes while having MediaPortal on the TV. Creating a share with read/write access on the 'skin' folder works as well and then you can just edit the files, and CTRL+S them inside notepad/etc and watch your changes take effect.

Of course this all assumes you do have a 2nd computer that you can use at the same time that you view the MediaPortal output.

This would be a lot easier if I had 1.3 installed myself and was using Titan skin as well. But I put a lot of time into modifying DefaultWide skin for 1.2 and I'm not yet ready to do the same for Titan (getting close though).