*NEW* InfoService v1.62 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [07-01-2011] (1 Viewer)

[edsche]

Description

InfoService is a plugin for that provides weather/feed and twitter informations on the home screen. It has also a feed reader and a little twitter client built in. The plugin is for MediaPortal users and skinners who want to have some information on their MediaPortal homescreen.

Features

• Download all your feeds (RDF, RSS, RSS2, ATOM) and see them in MediaPortal
• See a ticker of your feeds on the home sreen of MediaPortal
• Read the complete story of a feed item in a browser within MediaPortal! (Needs WebBrowser plugin)
• Download all your twitter timelines and see them in MediaPortal
• Post status updates in Twitter with MediaPortal
• Let your twitter mates know what your are watching with your HTPC
• Browse to the linked websites in a twitter message (Needs WebBrowser plugin)
• Show the weather (+ Five day forecast) on the home screen of MediaPortal
• Show the recently added Series (with MP-TVSeries 2.5) and recently added Movies (currently not supported by other plugins) on home screen (The skin you are using, have to support this feature).

Screenshots



Project page

• InfoService - Project page of InfoService, hosted by Codeplex

Documentation

Overall Documentation - If you have some questions about InfoService, then you'll find here the answer

• Plugin installation - Read how to install InfoService
• Skins that use InfoService - A list of skins for MediaPortal which use InfoService
• How to use (Users) - Read how to use InfoService as a normal MediaPortal user
• How to make a translation - Learn how to make a translation file for InfoService
  
• Plugin developer guide - Learn how to use the Recently Added feature from InfoService in your plugin
• Skin developer guide - Learn how to skin for InforService and use properties on MediaPortal homescreen
• Skin changelog v1.6 to v1.62 - This is for skinner, who want to make their skins v1.62 compatible

Download

Download latest stable version (1.6.2.187) as MPE1 package
Download latest stable version (1.6.2.187) as RAR package (Codeplex)
Download latest stable version (1.6.2.187) as RAR package (MediaPortal Repository)



Report a issue / Send a feature suggestion

If you've found a issue or have a suggestion you can post it here or create a item in the issue tracker of Codeplex. Please be sure that you've enabled the debug mode of InfoService. For more information please read that.


Changelog
[COLLAPSE]
Version v1.62:
[-] Fixed weather crash bug

Version v1.61:
[+] New Properties: #infoservice.feed.itemtype and #infoservice.twitter.itemtype to replace hard coded labels in the skin (Feed items and Twitter items)
[+] Added new placeholders for ticker (%itemindex%, %itemsource%)
[+] Added setting of properties #infoservice.feed.INDEX.titles and #infoservice.feed.INDEX.img where INDEX is feed index (0 = all feeds, 1 = first one, 2 = ...)
[+] Added new language: Portuguese (Brazilian)
[+] Options can now be used with keyboard shortcuts (ALT + underlined letter).
[+] Added feed item filtering
[+] Added separate tickers masks and separators for normal feeds and all feeds
[+] "Browse The Web" webbrowser is now supported
[*] Improved loading of localization files
[*] Better logging of parsing errors
[*] Improved image parsing from feed
[*] RecentlyAdded items now have age, will be removed after 7 days
[*] Current thread is now logged, too
[-] Fixed threading problems when updating GUI components
[-] Fixed some problems with recently added
[-] Fixed some typos in recently added
[-] Fixed feed & twitter selection on GUI screens
[-] Fixed update problem when users changes weather location via weather screen
[-] Fixed crash, if feed title is very long
[!] Many languages files are not updated yet for v1.61 (only German and English). If you have some with untranslated labels please have a look in your language file

Version v1.6:
[+] Added Danish, French, English (US) and English (GB) language
[+] Added support for local feed files
[+] Added check if the added feed file / feed url is a valid feed before adding feed
[+] Added own configuration file
[+] Added Blue3 skin files
[+] Added property #infoservice.feed.selected.sourcefeed
[+] Added selection for second line of the "All Feeds" view. The user can now select to show feed publish time, the source feed name or both.
[+] The used Webbrowser plugin (WebBrowser, GeckoBrowser or other) can now be selected in the advanced configuration
[+] Last selected feed/twitter item will be selected on open Twitter or Feeds page
[+] Improved tweeting of TV series/shows a lot!
[*] Changed Blue3Wide and Blue3 to show the feed image instead of feed item image
[*] Reworked SkinSettings. SkinSettings will now overwrite user settings, but the will not saved permanently
[*] Cache folder of twitter and feed is now configurable in the advanced configuration
[*] Overridden settings by skin are marked in the configuration dialog now
[*] Duo MediaPortal code change in property system, changed some weather and Recently Added properties (See Skin changelog v1.5 to v1.6)
[*] Removed MaxTemp and MinTemp from weather today properties, because they are not right for some cities
[*] Log file is now not locked while MediaPortal is running
[-] Fixed some logging issues
[-] Fixed recently added system
[-] Fixed some weather inconstancies.
[-] Fixed some rare crashes duo threading issues.
[-] Fixed false download of other files (only image files are now downloaded) by the Feed Service
[-] Fixed language misspellings for English and Italian
[i] Compiled against MediaPortal 1.1.0 RC4
[!] Duo the use of a own configuration file, you have to setup InfoService again, sorry

Version v1.5:
[+] Added recently added feature, which shows you the recently added movies and series
[+] Improved twitter client
[+] A brand new twitter screen with all twitter messages and timelines
[+] Post twitter status updates
[+] Open web links in a twitter message in a WebBrowser window
[+] Download all twitter timelines, not only one
[+] Post automatically twitter status update, if you watching a video
[+] Twitter uses now OAuth to connect
[+] Faster overall download times of feed and twitter
[+] Improved logging (for better error detection)
[+] Added multilanguage support (English, German, Italian, Dutch and Spanish for now)
[+] Weather is now updated as soon as you change your weather in the MediaPortal weather GUI
[+] Many new properties (See Skin changelog v1.32 to v1.5)
[+] Added skin settings (See Skin developer guide)
[-] A tons of bugs fixed, so many to count them all
[i] Completely rewritten!
[i] InfoService is now open source!

Version v1.32:
[-] Fixed empty entry in the normal home menu

Version v1.31:
[-] Fixed forgotten humidity property for each day (night and day)
[-] Fixed some forgotten translations

Version v1.3:
[+] Added a "last updated" property for feed, weather and twitter
[+] Added a button to download the default feed name on the Add Feed dialog
[+] Added much more weather properties. See thread/readme for details
[+] Added possibility to change the ticker layout
[*] Default settings are now loaded if the plugin is used for the first time (Feed ticker with MediaPortal RSS on, Weather on)
[-] Fixed no image download for atom feeds
[-] Fixed that the plugin is not showing on the normal home screen
[!] Removed Monochrome skin files

Version v1.2:
[+] Added option to disable/enable the feed item publish time
[-] Fixed the rare crash when downloading twitter timeline, hopefully

Version v1.1:
[+] New propertys #infoservice.feed.separator/ #infoservice.twitter.separator which holds the separator string of feed/twitter line
[-] False feed image is showed when "Show all feeds on home" is activated and after entering InfoService screen
[-] Fixed download location of feed images
[i] Duo the false download location of the feed images you can delete the folder "C:\Temp\InfoService\"
[!] The webbrowser part of InfoSerivce moved into a separate WebBrowser plugin. So if you want to read your feeds completely, you need the WebBrowser plugin which can be found here ...

Version v1.0:
[+] There are to much changes to list them Mainly bugfixes and a better browser handling. Try and test yourself.

Version v0.99.3:
[*] Changed zoom keys on remote and keyboard to Play previous/next key
[-] Fixed false sizing of browser window, if MediaPortal is not in fullscreen mode
[-] Fixed no weather download (Sorry for that)

Version v0.99.2:
[+] Added default zoom option for each feed
[+] Added option to change zoom steps
[*] Improved browser zooming feature
[-] Fixed false size of feed browser

Version v0.99.1:
[-] Fixed false resolving of #infoservice.weather.today/dayX.img.small/big.filenamewithoutext and changed name of #infoservice.weather.today/dayX.img.small/big.filename to #infoservice.weather.today/dayX.img.small/big.filenamewithext
[-] Fixed feed downloading problem with some feeds

Version v0.99:
[+] Added and changed propertys #infoservice.weather.today/dayX.img.big/small.fullpath, #infoservice.weather.today/dayX.img.big/small.filename, #infoservice.weather.today/dayX.img.big/small.filenamewithoutext
[+] Added possibility to read the whole feed in a browser window (incl. zoom)
[-] Fixed not showing of own feed image

Version v0.94:
[+] Readded the #infoservice.feed.alltitles property
[-] Removed forgotten debug code

Version v0.93:
[+] Added sorting for feed items, because some feeds are not sorted by date
[-] Fixed publish time was shown even if the feed item has no publish time

Version v0.92:
[+] Added feed item publish time to each feed item
[+] Added wait notification on manual update
[-] Fixed no update of weather and twitter data when pressing "Refresh" button
[-] Fixed no weather data for some timezones

Version v0.9:
[+] Added new button on InfoService window to show itmes of all feeds on basichome
[+] Added possibilty to change weather in MediaPortal (just change weather in the weather screen and wait for the next update)
[*] #infoservice.feed.itemimg will be empty if there is no feed item image found
[*] Old feed data is used if there was a download error
[*] Reverted back to use the MediaPortal weather configuration
[*] Removed property #infoservice.feed.alltitles
[-] Fixed bugs here and there
[-] Fixed filling of #infoservice.feed.selectedindex
[-] Fixed weather data is off by one day

Version v0.85:
[+] Added new feed configuration dialog
[+] Added sort feature for your feeds in the feed configuration dialog
[*] #infoservice.feed.itemimg filled with default image if no feed item imaged is found
[-] Fixed last selected feed is not active on basichome after update
[-] Fixed no refresh of feed items in the infoscreen window after feed update
[-] Fixed that #infoservice.today.weekday and #infoservice.day2.weekday shows the same weekday

Version v0.81:
[-] #infoservice.feed.selectedfeed will now be filled
[-] Fixed crash if infoservice thumb dir not exists

Version v0.8:
[+] Added automatic download of feed logo (if feed logo is found)
[+] Added check if entered feed is an url
[+] Added feed download error dialog on infoservice window
[+] Added new option to change the max items per feed if you use the #infoservice.feed.alltitles
[+] Added new propetry items #infoservice.feed.selectedindex, #infoservice.feed.selectedtitle, #infoservice.feed.itemcount, #infoservice.feed.alltitles, #infoservice.feed.type and #infoservice.feed.selectedfeed
[+] Added plugin configuration to log output (Not the twitter user and password!)
[+] Feed item images are now shown in the listcontrol
[*] Better error handling for weather service
[*] Changed all property names for clearer indentification
[*] Increased the maximum of items to 100 for feeds and twitter (don't know why i've locked this)
[-] Fixed crash when weather.com returns a error
[-] Fixed some html encoding erros

Version v0.71:
[*] Removed word wrap between the conditions
[-] Fixed forgotten localization of forecast conditions

Version v0.7:
[+] Added new property #feeditemimg that holds a image of a feed item
[+] Added own configuration for weather
[+] Added possibility to read feeds and download pictures for feed item (only rss 2.0)

Version v0.6:
[+] Added support for RDF (RSS 1.0) and Atom feeds
[*] Again better error and log handling
[*] Changed property name from #rssfeed -> #feedtitles, #rssimg -> #feedimg as the plugin now supports more than rss feeds
[*] Removed the last separator on the feed and twitter line.

Version v0.5:
[+] Added possibility to add more than one rss feed
[+] Added possibility to change the rss feed on basichome with a dirty trick (hope it work as expected) :/
[*] Changed error and log handling
[i] Rewrite of ca. 75% code for a easier way to add more services

Version v0.22:
[*] Day labels are now translated by MediaPortal

Version v0.21:
[-] Fixed #day4label resolving
[-] Fixed #todaylabel resolves the wrong day

Version v0.2:
[+] Added a twitter ticker
[+] Added day labes for each day

Version v0.12:
[-] Fixed crash if there is no internet connection

Version v0.11:
[-] Fixed crash if no location is found
[-] Fixed crash if timeformat in rss feed wrong

Version v0.1:
[+] First release
[/COLLAPSE]

 

[Dadeo]

Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-2010]

Hi Chris - Congrats on making it into the Popular Plugins Section - well deserved! So nice to have a new clean thread!

I am just skinning aMPed for 1.6 and I have a couple questions. To be fair these issues exist for me in 1.5 as well I just never got around to reporting them I suspect I may just be misunderstanding some instructions.

1. When I disable "Update on MediaPortal Startup" for Feeds, Weather or Twitter, in GUI I get a message "Waiting until other Services have Finished" and the data never displays. I know SilentExcept reported this in the original thread but I could not figure out how it had been resolved and if I need to add something to the skin files (could not find anything in your Skinners Guide)
   
2. When "Update on MediaPortal Startup" is enabled, as soon as the feed displays and starts to scroll, the text for #highlightedbutton (MP GUI Property) disappears until you select the button again. This did not happen (using the same xml controls) in ver 1.32 - it only started in 1.5 and 1.6.
   
3. I was wishing to implement the Recently Added feature. But is there a way for users to turn this on/off in Config? I could not find much about it and nothing in your Blue3 skin files. On a 4x3 screen there is not much room, so I was thinking to let users choose to display either Twitter or recently added Ticker.

If these are actually Issues I can add them to your tracker and give you log files.

EDIT: I can confirm both the first two issues using your Blue3/wide Skin Files.

 

[edsche]

AW: Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-2010]

Ya, the old thread was going to be huge, so now it's much better

When I disable "Update on MediaPortal Startup" for Feeds, Weather or Twitter, in GUI I get a message "Waiting until other Services have Finished" and the data never displays. I know SilentExcept reported this in the original thread but I could not figure out how it had been resolved and if I need to add something to the skin files (could not find anything in your Skinners Guide)

sounds like a bug, i will have a look on this.

When "Update on MediaPortal Startup" is enabled, as soon as the feed displays and starts to scroll, the text for #highlightedbutton (MP GUI Property) disappears until you select the button again. This did not happen (using the same xml controls) in ver 1.32 - it only started in 1.5 and 1.6.

That is weird again, because InfoService does only fill the #rss property and does nothing more. Display and scrolling of the feed is done by MePo. I think is related to the fadelabel control. For me i have several weird problems with it. But i can't say that for sure :/ For now i can't help you on this. Perhaps SilentException has some ideas.

I was wishing to implement the Recently Added feature. But is there a way for users to turn this on/off in Config? I could not find much about it and nothing in your Blue3 skin files. On a 4x3 screen there is not much room, so I was thinking to let users choose to display either Twitter or recently added Ticker.

There is no option to disable this feature, but till now i thought this is not necessary, because this can be enabled/disabled by the skinner (implement the recently added properties or not). But now i don't know what you exactly need. A new GUI screen to disable/enable recently added or just a config screen to enable/disable recently added?

 

[SilentException]

Re: AW: Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-20

When I disable "Update on MediaPortal Startup" for Feeds, Weather or Twitter, in GUI I get a message "Waiting until other Services have Finished" and the data never displays. I know SilentExcept reported this in the original thread but I could not figure out how it had been resolved and if I need to add something to the skin files (could not find anything in your Skinners Guide)

sounds like a bug, i will have a look on this.

Sounds like a bug yeah.. will try to reproduce and confirm soon...

When "Update on MediaPortal Startup" is enabled, as soon as the feed displays and starts to scroll, the text for #highlightedbutton (MP GUI Property) disappears until you select the button again. This did not happen (using the same xml controls) in ver 1.32 - it only started in 1.5 and 1.6.

That is weird again, because InfoService does only fill the #rss property and does nothing more. Display and scrolling of the feed is done by MePo. I think is related to the fadelabel control. For me i have several weird problems with it. But i can't say that for sure :/ For now i can't help you on this. Perhaps SilentException has some ideas.

Indeed, all the plugin does is fill the properties using GUIPropertyManager.SetProperty method (standard). First try to use <wrapString></wrapString> on the fadelabel, i have seen some problems with that one. If you don't use it, it's hard to tell ATM..

I was wishing to implement the Recently Added feature. But is there a way for users to turn this on/off in Config? I could not find much about it and nothing in your Blue3 skin files. On a 4x3 screen there is not much room, so I was thinking to let users choose to display either Twitter or recently added Ticker.

There is no option to disable this feature, but till now i thought this is not necessary, because this can be enabled/disabled by the skinner (implement the recently added properties or not). But now i don't know what you exactly need. A new GUI screen to disable/enable recently added or just a config screen to enable/disable recently added?

I still don't think it needs to be configurable. It can be configured at skin level with no problems. For example you could use label visibility conditions and import XML with the label ID set by your skin configuration (depending if the users want to show twitter or recently added). Also, there is #infoservice.twitter.enabled (true/false) property to check if Twitter is enabled/disabled.

 

[Dadeo]

Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-2010]

Thanks for the reply guys.

Good idea about the wrap string SilentExcept, but alas it didn't work for me. I also tried changing the feeds control to a label type and the problem with the #highlightedbutton text still occurs.

Once you navigate to another screen and back the #highlightedbutton text displays perfectly. The problem only occurs the first time you open MP, when the feeds say downloading. Once they display the #highlightedbutton text disappears.

About the recently added feature, it was more a question in case I missed something. There are lots of options how I could display it in the skin. No worries.

 

[edsche]

AW: Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-2010]

Thanks for the reply guys.

Good idea about the wrap string SilentExcept, but alas it didn't work for me. I also tried changing the feeds control to a label type and the problem with the #highlightedbutton text still occurs.

Once you navigate to another screen and back the #highlightedbutton text displays perfectly. The problem only occurs the first time you open MP, when the feeds say downloading. Once they display the #highlightedbutton text disappears.

About the recently added feature, it was more a question in case I missed something. There are lots of options how I could display it in the skin. No worries.

Would be interesting if you can reproduce this on a different PC.

 

[SilentException]

Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-2010]

Yup, i do get "waiting until other services are finished" if update on startup is disabled...

And about #highlightedbutton, I got the disappearing text no matter if "update on startup" is disabled or enabled. The text also sometimes didn't disappear, it was kind of random...

This property is probably flawed, you should use separate labels for each button and visible condition control.isfocused(buttonid)..

Read below for fix...

 

[SilentException]

Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-2010]

Dadeo, I'm happy to report that I've tracked down and fixed the disappearing #highlightedbutton. I must say that few days ago I have also noticed problems with disappearing #selectedthumb and #selecteditem lately (reported on IRC but no one replied). So after you reported this, I figured, it must be related!

Thanks for helping me track the issue to InfoService, it's fixed in SVN, let me know if you need beta DLL to test

 

[Dadeo]

Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-2010]

Hey Silent Except - Great News! Thanks for pursuing the issue. Sorry I missed your post on IRC.

A beta dll would be good for users using your Blue3/wide skin files, plus I can test/confirm it if you like. But I can also wait and see if you can fix the "waiting until other services are finished" too



EDIT: Sorry did you mean an Infoservice.dll or a some MP dll. I assumed Infoservice?

 

[SilentException]

Re: *NEW* InfoService v1.6 - Feed reader/Twitter reader and weather [06-06-2010]

That text is initialization text for tickers.. It'll be replaced if feeds or twitter services are disabled and also updated once the update is executed.. I don't feel right by just replacing this with blank string.. It should be something that informs the user what's going on.. Like "Wait for feed/twitter service update...". Do you have better one?