Ongoing Development Thread for 1.0.0 [now closed] (1 Viewer)

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Inker

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  • December 6, 2004
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    Whats new:
    - custom Logos based on any condition for series/season/episode
    - Ability to mark series as Favourites
    - Ability to mark all episodes of a series or season as watched/unwatched.
    - Lastly, the first implementation of "views" which I have mentioned before.
    - integration of the Mediainfo library (GPL license) to enable technical information about your (local) files
    - new special field: <Series.UnwatchedItems> and <Season.UnwatchedItems>
    - Translation of the main GUI (French/German/English provided)

    Some short descriptions:
    Logos:

    You can now define rules to display logos (image files). All logos whose rule applies to he currently selected item (series/season/episode) will be displayed (inside MP and in Configuration). You can define such “Logo rules” under “MediaPortal Display Control”. It is recommended that you check on the result of your rules directly in configuration (just select any series/season/episode). Also open the log window to see why a check may fail or suceceed when its not supposed to.

    Click “Add Logo Rule” – Browse and select the image you would like to display.

    Example 1: Display a logo marking episodes over a certain resolution with an “HD logo”:
    The rule would look as follows:
    <Episode.videoHeight> >= 720
    AND <Episode.videoWidth> >= 1280
    Click Save. As this rule depends on values of a specific episode, the rule is only relevant for episodes. So you will never see this logo when selecting a season/series.

    Example 2: Display a surround sound logo if an episode has more than 6 audio channels:
    The rule would look as follows: <Episode.AudioChannels> >= 5

    Example 3: Display the network’s (channel’s) logo of a show.
    Because it would be stupid (although it would work) to define a rule for every possible network that you might have a show of, you can you something called “dynamic filenames”. Fancy word, it just means that the logo image it will try to load depends on a Value.
    You would define that channel logo rule as follows:
    Click Add Logo rule, but this time don’t click on browse but click on “dynamic Filename”. Select the folder where your channel logos (will) reside in. You will notice that the formerly read-only textbox can now be typed to and that the path you just selected has been filled in there.
    Go to the end and enter: <Series.Network>.jpg, the end result should look something like:
    c:\logos\ <Series.Network>.jpg

    You don’t even have to define a rule (leave all other entries empty). From now on you can simply put files called nbc.jpg or abc.jpg or pro7.jpg for you german friends into the folder you specified and the plugin will automatically display them.

    But wait! You can also define rules and combine things. Lets say you want to display a special channel logo for HD stuff, so that it reads nicely “ABC HD” or something. Well….instead of <Series.Network>.jpg enter something like <Series.Network>_HD.jpg and name your special logos accordingly. Then enter the rule from example one and your done. (Please note that if you define both you will see both the normal channel and the channel hd logo, so you would want to reverse the rule regarding video resolution for the normal logo).

    Note that logos are applied from top to bottom as input in the configuration, multiple logos may be displayed at the same time. If your viewing episodes inside MP the first logo it finds for it will also be displayed in the list view directly.

    So if you used all the rules from above in the same order (except the special HD logos one), and lets say you were browsing Lost, which airs on ABC, heres what you would see (provided you have copied a file named ABC.jpg in the folder you selected and all your files are in HD and surround sound):

    In Series and season mode you would only see the networks logo (abc.jpg)
    When browsing actual episodes (regardless of view) you would see your hd.jpg your surround.jpg and your abc.jpg. Hope its clear.

    Views:

    The idea behind “Views” is basically to filter and sort your data any way you like. Note that in this build “any way you like” really means a couple of ways that Inker thought were a good start. Meaning they are not configurable at this time. You can quickly switch between views by pressing left/right inside MediaPortal. At the bottom (very ugly) you can see the previous, current and next views, so you always know which way to scroll.

    I have defined 5 different views in this version which are all enabled by default (and cannot be disabled). The views are:
    - All (the same as now, shows your entire collection (Series – Seasons – Episodes)
    - Favourites – lists only those series that you have marked as your favourite (you can toggle this at any time by bringing up the menu) – actually that is another new feature in this version
    - Unwatched – lists only those series that have at least one unwatched episode
    - Last Aired – an example of what I like to call a “flat view”. This one jumps straight to the episode view and displays the 50 last episodes (according to their airdate, not when you added them). So you will see episodes of multiple series at the same time.
    - Genres – an example of a “grouped view”. It adds another level of hierarchy to your collection, so that you can now browse Genres – Series – Season – Episodes.
    - Channels - shows all shows grouped by their channels (networks)
    The last view you were in is remembered the next time you enter the plugin.

    MediaInfo fields:
    Currently only a few fields are read out by default, those are (and always of the first stream, so multiple audio streams are not handled correctly). You can inspect the results of what it gathered in configuration, each one can be displayed like any other field, or used to define rules (for logos and later on for views). If you start with a collection its probably a good idea to force it to rescan the mediainfo (it’s under online data sync). Each file takes about 30 – 50 ms for me. Also if you upscale or use some other filter during playback, they will no longer influence the results. You get what the file actually provides!
    - VideoCodec
    - VideoBitrate
    - VideoWidth
    - VideoHeight
    - AspectRatio
    - Playtime
    - Framerate
    - AudioCodec
    - AudioBitrate
    - No of audio channels

    UnwatchedItems:
    It’s sometimes usefull to know how many items of a certain series or season are unwatched. For this you can use the new virtual fields <Series.UnwatchedItems> and <Season.UnwatchedItems>. For instance, go to Mediaportal display control, and under Series Main InfoPane Format, fill in:
    <Series.UnwatchedItems> new Episodes\n<Series.Summary>
    Which will look something like:
    -------------------------------------
    6 unwatched episodes
    Series Summary here
    -------------------------------------
    \n btw means “newline” for the non-programming types out there 

    Guess that’s all. Sorry for the long post. But please test this and provide feedback. It’s the only way this thing can become what you want it to! ;-) Looking forward to your reports.
    Grab the file
    Inker

    Edited to reflect changes in new release.

    Edit 2: 0.9.5a is out, please redownload (I'm sorry)
    0.9.5a
    - inker: small fix in view logic (under certain conditions series/seasons where shown regardless of setting "local_files_only" which resulted in no episodes being displayed when selected
    - inker: bit of perf work for view sql logic
    - inker: selections are now remember when coming back (eg. select genre "Drama" and go back to the genre list, "Drama" will be automatically selected again - only when not switching views in between obviously)
    - inker: cleaned up logging a bit

    -->download<--
     

    Havrest

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    June 26, 2005
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    So,

    I have only tested the watched/unwatched thing and the views.

    About watched/unwatched :
    - When I select "Mark all as watched" for a season I doesn't seam to work the first time but only the second time. Not sure that this bug appeared everytime time.

    - "Mark all as watched" mark all including episodes wich don't have a local file. I would have preferred it marks only acquired episodes. Maybe check if the option "Show only episodes with a matching local file" is enabled*?

    About views :
    - <Series.UnwatchedItems> count unacquired and unaired episodes.

    - "Unwatched" view shows series with all acquired episodes watched but with unaired or unacquired unwatched episodes.

    - "Last aired" view shows unacquired and unaired episodes. Error or Feature ? That could be a good feature but maybe it could be enabled/disabled from plugin configuration.

    - "Genre" view. I have several "Drama Action/Adventure" wich are not regrouped. And why not ignore "," and "/" ? I have some "Drama, Action/Adventure", "Drama Action Adventure" and "Drama Action/Adventure" wich are obviously the same genre but not regrouped.



    That's all I have to say for the moment. Thank you very much for all you do, that's a great work. ;)
     

    Bobb25

    Portal Pro
    November 26, 2006
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    Thanks man! Wife is working today, so i should get some time to play with everything... i will feedback as soon as i have done so! We really appreciate your hard work, thanks a lot! Awesome set of new features... just waiting for the option of showing eps backed up to dvd and i am sorted!

    Don't work on this too hard! Take some time to relax as well :)
    Cheers
    Enjoy your weekemd
     

    Inker

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    So,
    About watched/unwatched :
    - When I select "Mark all as watched" for a season I doesn't seam to work the first time but only the second time. Not sure that this bug appeared everytime time.

    - "Mark all as watched" mark all including episodes wich don't have a local file. I would have preferred it marks only acquired episodes. Maybe check if the option "Show only episodes with a matching local file" is enabled*?

    About views :
    - <Series.UnwatchedItems> count unacquired and unaired episodes.

    - "Unwatched" view shows series with all acquired episodes watched but with unaired or unacquired unwatched episodes.

    - "Last aired" view shows unacquired and unaired episodes. Error or Feature ? That could be a good feature but maybe it could be enabled/disabled from plugin configuration.

    With unaquired and unaired I assume you mean files without a local reference. You are correct that it doesnt check this right now, its essentially a misconfiguration of my hard-coded views right now. Easy to fix.

    Marking all as watched/unwatched is the same code really, so if one fails half of the time the other should too. Weird, that was really the easiest to code of all ;-) But yes, I guess it should only mark those as watched that have a local file.


    - "Genre" view. I have several "Drama Action/Adventure" wich are not regrouped. And why not ignore "," and "/" ? I have some "Drama, Action/Adventure", "Drama Action Adventure" and "Drama Action/Adventure" wich are obviously the same genre but not regrouped.

    True, and I wanted to do that last night, but then I thought I'd rather get a build out there or else it'll never happen. But it will surely be possible in the future.

    Do you have a large collection? Any thoughts about performance? It doesnt seem to have much inpact for me, but maybe with a super large collection it might be much worse.

    Inker
     

    Havrest

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    June 26, 2005
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    Yes I meant without local reference.

    I have about 400 episodes in my collection and indeed that doesn't have much impact. When I change of view, it's not instantly but it changes in a reasonable time. (It's possible that's because I have most of my series on a network drive)

    About logos : <Episode.VideoAspectRatio> can't be used with >= or <=
    We can't use more than 2 logos for one episode ?
     

    Ryoga79

    Portal Pro
    January 14, 2007
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    Can anyone put together a screen file for "Project Mayhem"? It'd be nice to use this with my normal skin...
     

    Sh4nn0w

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    Skin for SimpleMP Beta 3

    Here's a skin file for SimpleMP Beta 3.

    Haven't tried the custom Logo bit yet, so I guess it might need some re-work as the layout for this differs slightly to BlueTwo. I'll post again if necessary once I've given it a go.
     

    runarius

    Portal Pro
    February 1, 2007
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    Hi, I tried making a logo rule...

    Like, if <filename> contains E:\(which is my dvd-drive), display the dvd-logo.

    The problem is, I don't know what I should write instead of <filename>. I tried almost everything... <Episode.LocalFilename> and every compination I could think of.
     

    Inker

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    <Episode.EpisodeFilename> should work
     

    runarius

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    February 1, 2007
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    hmm... ok, but is it possible to have the logo appear in the 'Series'-view? at the present time, i perfectly understand why it doesn't. But I would like to have it like this: If one or more of the episodes in a given serie is located in E: than set the logo on the series-banner, and also on the season which has episodes on e:\.

    Would it be possible to get the filename of every episode in a serie into the logo-rule? for example, could I retrieve data like this: <Series.EpisodeIndex1.EpisodeFilename> or something like that?
     
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