MPTouch - Mediaportal TouchScreen Plugin (1 Viewer)

[sa_ddam213]

Hey Everyone,

Sorry for abandoning the thread lately, Been a shaky month
Due to the loss of my Dev I lost a lot of code for MPTouch and my personal MP version which lent me to the decision to remake MPTouch. The new design will completely different but IMO is 100x better. But here is where I need YOUR input.

So far I have completed an new skin engine, I've tried to keep it as similar to MP's skin engine to make Community skinners more likely to provide MPTouch skins with their skin releases. Each window has its own skin Xml you can add/remove controls (200 control limit) and you can even add your own Windows .
For the new design I decided to stick with winforms as the plugin base, as DirectX was just going to be to complex and WPF is frustratingly not compatible with MP 1.1.

Unfortunately running MPTouch as a plugin has severe limitations on performance, If MPTouch was a separate process (.exe) Lagging, Flickering would be completely eliminated , This is all due to the fact that if the plugin opens a Form MP automaticly becomes the parent control for the MPTouch form, So MP waits for MPTouch and MPTouch waits for MP hence the performance issue this plugin has had since day one.
So this leaves us with an important question "Do we stick with a plugin based MPTouch?"

If we stick with a plugin based solution this plugin will be finished within a few months, Performance will be a lot better than in the past, But will not be as fast and responsive as a separate process based plugin.
But there is no API for MP so basicly I would have to write my own API. This would take a lot longer but would give the plugin amazing flexibility, E.G if I was to use a web interface type API like the one Cheesy made for iPiMP (yes I tried it but has a few thing required ,But 90% is not needed) MPTouch could be run on a separate PC, Tablet of Windows/Android based Mobile if I went in this direction.

So at the moment I am writing MPTouch in such a way that the GUI is completely separate from the plugin, so we can go ether way with development.

Please post any thoughts you have about the direction of MPTouch
And also if anyone is keen to get involved in the development.

Big thanks to all uses for getting this plugin where it is today

Cheers Adam

 

[mtjoernelund]

Hi sa_ddam213, its good to hear that you, all things considered, are ok.

Your thoughts on the new development seems very interesting. I think the way with an indeoendent program pulling info from MP will be the way to go. I understand that it will take longer time, but I also think the potential for a good result is better that way. I just saw this new plugin: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...-centers-remote-optimized-touch-screen-87872/ which actually looks quite cool. However that plugin, as many others I have seen except yours, seems more to be a remote, and not a fully independent control screen.

Thinking about this I have reached the conclusion that the greatest challenge in this development is to make the plugin functional for two simultaneous purposes - both to be a screen that enables you to controll MP and at the same time also be a status screen you can use when controlling MP with a remote.

This was just my two cents. As to involvement I would like to help you, but my abilities in programing in any of these languages is very limited (Im a web, html, php kind of guy). But if there are a specific part I could help you with let me know and I will be happy to give it a try.

 

[neelex]

Hi sa_ddam213,

great to read you're well and back again. It's a crap a big amount of your development is lost - but...

...interesting post from you

I agree with mtjoernelund, the challenge is to have a plugin - or let's say extension for MP - , that combines a status screen when using a seperate remote and a touch control screen. Just for my interest as I'm not really familiar with coding: What's the big challenge for you, sa_ddam213? Is it the above mentioned combination of 2 purposes or mainly the issues with the performance due to the limitations of the plugin variant?

Generally, I would prefer to have a better performance, I think that means to use MP touch as a seperated process and not as plugin. Are there any negative impacts when not using it as a plugin inside MP? Wouldn't the focus be an issue when using an own process (asking in my dumb 'non-developer' thinking). Doesn't the touch screen need focus to work anyway, alike MP's main windows need to be focused if you want to use a remote? Sorry, if it's a silly question!

I'm looking forward to the progress of the plugin in the next month! Good to have you back here!!!

Cheers,
Neelex

 

[mtjoernelund]

In relation to focus I would suggest to talk to the developer of Yatse as there are an option in the settings of this to give focus to MP. So this should be doable.

I cannot see any issues with keeping it as a seperate program except the fact that development of an independent api will be timeconsuming if it cannot be "stolen" somewhere.

How about the MPwebservice? Can you not use a lot of that as the api?

 

[niblet]

I use MPTouch and even though the screen on the front of my HTPC is a touch screen, I never use it in that way - the thing about MPTouch that I love is all the info displayed on a secondary screen. To be honest I haven't really noticed any performance issues. A skinable, customizable interface would be great, I could then have the info I want displayed to take up as much screen as I wanted so I could see it clearly from the other side of my room...

 

[sa_ddam213]

Hi sa_ddam213,

great to read you're well and back again. It's a crap a big amount of your development is lost - but...

...interesting post from you

I agree with mtjoernelund, the challenge is to have a plugin - or let's say extension for MP - , that combines a status screen when using a seperate remote and a touch control screen. Just for my interest as I'm not really familiar with coding: What's the big challenge for you, sa_ddam213? Is it the above mentioned combination of 2 purposes or mainly the issues with the performance due to the limitations of the plugin variant?

Generally, I would prefer to have a better performance, I think that means to use MP touch as a seperated process and not as plugin. Are there any negative impacts when not using it as a plugin inside MP? Wouldn't the focus be an issue when using an own process (asking in my dumb 'non-developer' thinking). Doesn't the touch screen need focus to work anyway, alike MP's main windows need to be focused if you want to use a remote? Sorry, if it's a silly question!

I'm looking forward to the progress of the plugin in the next month! Good to have you back here!!!

Cheers,
Neelex

Hey Neelex,

The main challenge is that the more function/features I add to MPTouch the more it degrades the overall performance of MP.
This is because they run on the same thread. Its like 2 cars on a road if 1 car stops to do something the other car has to stop behind it or they will crash.If I build a new road for the MPTouch car the cars can no longer see or talk to each other. So I need to build an API which is like a car phone in each car allowing them to send info back and forward without a traffic jamb.

sa

Hi sa_ddam213, its good to hear that you, all things considered, are ok.

Your thoughts on the new development seems very interesting. I think the way with an indeoendent program pulling info from MP will be the way to go. I understand that it will take longer time, but I also think the potential for a good result is better that way. I just saw this new plugin: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...-centers-remote-optimized-touch-screen-87872/ which actually looks quite cool. However that plugin, as many others I have seen except yours, seems more to be a remote, and not a fully independent control screen.

Thinking about this I have reached the conclusion that the greatest challenge in this development is to make the plugin functional for two simultaneous purposes - both to be a screen that enables you to controll MP and at the same time also be a status screen you can use when controlling MP with a remote.

This was just my two cents. As to involvement I would like to help you, but my abilities in programing in any of these languages is very limited (Im a web, html, php kind of guy). But if there are a specific part I could help you with let me know and I will be happy to give it a try.

I was also really excited about Yatse2, But like you said its pretty much a remote and not much more. GUI is awesome tho!!

I think my best bet is to continue development as a plugin, But designing it around the fact that at some point I will be writing an API for MP.
I made a super simple API this weekend just using a Xml file, So a separate plugin gets all info from MP and wites it to an Xml
then an external MPTouch can read any of this info.And the read/write is surprisingly fast.This also could work over a network .

On the other hand as our HTPC get more powerful (in a year quad core will be standard) running MPTouch as an internal plugin wont be a problem.

Aslo if any MP DEV's stumble upon this thread they may know a sweet way to thread MPTouch inside MP

Sa

 

[Tolriq]

Since i saw that people talks about Yatse here i permit to enter the dialog

What do you think is missing in Yatse ?

 

[Johnnie]

Hi sa_ddam213 and Tolriq,

First of all glad that you, sa_ddam213 are up and running and having great idea's and also sharing them with us! Welcome back man, love to see you online again!!

Second, that Tolriq is open in the discussion of seeking strengths, I mean thats why a forum is there isn't it .

Till yesterday I didn't even knew that Yatse was there. And looking around it looks very professional and worth while of trying. Allthough I'm an experienced user, I'm no expert in programming at all.
But what I've seen from sa_ddam213 and Tolriq, they are the guys who good make this to a success.

So please guys make it happen, over here there is a supporter which would really love to see the best of two worlds.

BTW, I can help with translating files into dutch

Cheers,
Johnnie

 

[Tolriq]

Yatse and MPTouch are quite different

I certainly don't want to take MPTouch users are we have both quite different target, Yatse is not a MP plugin, it use a modified (well now official) ipimp plugin to communicate with MP and add support for it. Yatse is aimed to target multiple Media Centers and remote control them with feedback on currently playing. With some goodies like weather or screen-savers.

It will never be able to do all the things that MPTouch can or will do with MP. (I am personally not an MP user and add support on some users requests).

The question was more related to users saying there's things missing in Yatse, and if those things are more or less universal I'll be glad to add support for them.

If you like Yatse you can update the Dutch translations they are missing some strings. Just check the files in Langs subdir and add missing strings

I'm still sorry about thread ninja so please for Yatse idea that are not related to MPtouch answer in Yatse thread I'll stop talking about Yatse here.

sa_ddam213 : Cheezey is very opened at modifying MPCC plugin to add missing things, he accepted 22 patchs from me to add support for Yatse

 

[mtjoernelund]

Tolriq,

As I tried to describe above I think the main challenge lies in enabling one and the same plugin/program to be used both as a full control interface when main screen is turned of and as a status display when mainscreen is one. To try to examplify: In the morning I get up and want to hear radio without the need to turn on my tv and pulling out my remote, so I use the touchscreen to navigate to the radio channel I would like to hear. In the afternoon when I get home I throw myself in front of the tv, which I control with an ordinary remote, and now I want the touchscreen to act as a status display telling me the movie or tv-show I am whatching.

Weakness of yatse (caveat, I have not yet tried it, but read almost all your documentation) and what I think MPTouch has done so good this far is to combine the two functions. A long way I think you have a good thing going, but especially I miss the oportunity to navigate various menues while my main screen is of. Hope my morning ramblings here are making sense...