MP2 Plugin - Getting Started (Directory Tree and Player) (1 Viewer)

da3dsoul

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    Okay, so I've spent the past day and a half on the wiki and forums. I've forked MediaPortal/MediaPortal-2, downloaded a ton of garbage that has no justification for even existing in 2020, and I stopped half-way, as really, I shouldn't need 40GB of deps on my laptop to build a plugin.
    So, here I am, hoping for a simplified answer, because the wiki honestly sucks. No offense, it's not just you guys.

    The summary of the current situation is: I am seeing about making a new Shoko Plugin for MP2 (My Anime 3, but a full rewrite with different design ideas).
    TL;DR
    Where should I start? What do I need? The wiki sends you in circles and I don't know what's relevant.

    The only thing that I absolutely won't install is Visual Studio. I have Rider, the VS Build Tools, net core SDK, .Net 4.0-5.0 SDKs, C++ SDKs, enabled .Net 3.5, and that's where I stopped, half of that shouldn't be needed.

    I've heard you guys are pretty nice. Sorry if my tone is less than ideal. Frustration from reading in circles can do that.

    PS. I don't know if many of you have heard of me. I'm a fairly experienced dev. I rather like MediaPortal from the little bit I've used it so far. I'll probably be a rather large contributor to the plugin scene if I can get things off the ground. After this, one of my first orders of business will be getting my skin for kodi ported over.
     

    CyberSimian

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  • June 10, 2013
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    the wiki honestly sucks
    Two points:

    (1) Some time ago the Wiki software had to be upgraded, because the version then in use was no longer supported. The conversion was done automatically, but the result was that various links became garbled (pages link to themselves, or link to non-existent pages or images). :(

    (2) The fun part of coding is creating a new toy to play with. The boring part is writing the documentation to describe the externals and the internals. In a volunteer project, the person who should write the documentation is the person who wrote the code, because he knows most about it, and there is no one else who will do it. Of course, almost no coders in volunteer projects ever write any documentation. :(

    Aside: the ability to write good English is not important, as there are others who can correct grammatical and spelling errors, and rewrite text to improve clarity, but the information must be present to start with in order for that to be possible.

    You may have realised that there are two projects under the MediaPortal banner -- MP1 and MP2:
    • MP1 is the more mature product; MP2 is still trying to catch up.
    • MP2 started from a different set of requirements, which allow it to support things that MP1 cannot (e.g. picture in picture).
    If you decide that MP2 is not for you, you might like to take a look at MP1 to see if it is more to your liking. However, the development system is likely to be as chaotic as that for MP2. Good luck.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    da3dsoul

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    Absolutely. I could tell that the broken links were likely no one's fault, specifically. "It's not just you guys" because I am fully aware how the documentation struggle goes. I'm merely noting that it's a problem for new devs. I don't expect a magic trail of bread to show me all of the wonders of the codebase, but knowing where to start and what to look for is necessary, even more so on a project this old and...uniquely organized.

    EDIT: I thought I was clear, but I'll add the extra bit of clarity. Yes, I know that there are both MP1 and MP2, and that they are different and both supported. I am aiming for MP2 here.
     
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    da3dsoul

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    Oh I just hate it. That's the only real reason. When Rider hit open beta, I immediately dropped VS. The main reason I won't install it is that it's big and near impossible to remove without reinstalling Windows. Rider can do basically everything that VS can now, save for VS specific extensions. I dare say the XAML preview seems to work more often than VS, too.
     

    ge2301

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    Oh I just hate it. That's the only real reason. When Rider hit open beta, I immediately dropped VS. The main reason I won't install it is that it's big and near impossible to remove without reinstalling Windows. Rider can do basically everything that VS can now, save for VS specific extensions. I dare say the XAML preview seems to work more often than VS, too.
    Ah ok, I've never used Rider, so I can not judge what is better. I guess you always like more what you are grown with. In my case it's VS.
     

    da3dsoul

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    I'll admit that VS has gotten much better since Rider came out. If nothing else, people should love Rider just for the sake of competition being good for consumers. The Git overhauls that VS got since Rider are impressive, but my biggest issue with VS has always been the unintuitive UI. I've used it, so I know where everything is, but it still doesn't make much sense.
     

    morpheus_xx

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    Hi everyone,
    I am back from vacation and didn't catch up all new posts, but I am starting to do so. I'm ready to assist with plugin creation :)
     

    morpheus_xx

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    The only thing that I absolutely won't install is Visual Studio. I have Rider, the VS Build Tools, net core SDK, .Net 4.0-5.0 SDKs, C++ SDKs, enabled .Net 3.5, and that's where I stopped, half of that shouldn't be needed.
    As MP2 builds from command line with MSBuild, this should work without problems. I think @aspik does also use Rider as well and I also gave it a short try.

    I have seen the github issue about creating MP2 support. As far as I understand it, you have a standalone server part that manages media items (Anime?) and you like to create a client GUI to browse and start playback?
     

    da3dsoul

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    That is correct. We build dynamic directory trees (I saw a broken link to that in the wiki), populate them with various info like series or episode data, and provide playback, scrobbling, and watched state management.
     

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