Plugin request: Fanart loader (1 Viewer)

[joz]

Hey all,

I really like my fanart especially in skins like streamedMP and x-factor. However as some of you might know having too many images in the fanart folders (/skins/animations, or whatever other absolute path you use) will have MP run out of memory, as discussed here.

I for one would really like a fix for this, as I think a lot of other users will be interested in that. So I have a request to make;

Is it possible to create a process plugin that will load the images? Like movingpictures is loading on demand fanart? If it is then it would be a possible fix for the fanart issue! Cause that process plugin can then discard images in memory that are currently not displayed.
Besides that, handling it this way would make imageloading less laggy within MP (if done correctly). You can for example load an image into memory and only display it when it's fully loaded. Currently, in streamedMP, it will load the image when required (the multiimage delay has passed, or you selected a different menu-item with a different multiimage path) which makes MP a bit laggy for me when that happens.

Another way to go would be writing a patch to have the already implemented multiimage behave a little better in these scenario's.

I hope any of you with some C# skills finds this interesting enough to help me, and the community, with this little problem. Would make streamedMP soooo much more when I for example can display all MP TV series fanart!

in advance for anyone willing to pick this up!

 

[ysmp]

hi joz ! i'm with you ,on this reqwest .....
spacly if can mack it also to my music section too... in evry skin i use, i mod the mymusicnowplaying xml
to suport fanart (look mach better on big screen tv) but this mod can view only 1 fanart
i wish thir was a plugin to roted a few fanart ...that will be someting...
i hoop some one can do it ..

 

[mattsk88]

+1 to this idea, would be much appreciated

 

[tourettes]

Another way to go would be writing a patch to have the already implemented multiimage behave a little better in these scenario's.

I think improving the multiimage class would be a better approach. It should be extended in such way that skin would have an extra parameter for the miltiimage tag that would notice the multiimage usage being fan art. Then the multiimage could optimize it's own working in such way that it would cache one next image and discard the already used images (and this would be done using the thread pool in MP).

Any volunteers to provide such patch? There isn't a big risk in adding such as the new behavior would be taken into use only when skin requests it.

 

[joz]

Thansk guys for putting some momentum on this idea/suggestion.
Would be the last bit of the puzzle for me!

Now all we need is someone willing to write the patch. If you are, please let us all know so we don't have 10 people working on this (oh, if only )

 

[jamiro]

Yes please for this plugin, I hope someone takes up the cause.

 

[kiwijunglist]

I think the plugin for mediastream myhome.xml already does this?

 

[joz]

kiwijunglist:

really? Can it be used in other skins as well? Or is it completely tied into Pilehave's mediastream?

--------EDIT------

Just took a quick peek at mediastream but it seems that it;
a) still uses a multiimage so the problem should also be there with mediastream and myhome
b) it's a specific solution for that skin so not generic.

 

[kiwijunglist]

i'm not 100% sure if it does, but i remember reading somewhere that it uses a different method to display multi-images for the home screen. And yes, you can rename your skin to mediastream and just use the myhome.xml from mediastream and the mediastream plugins for the menu.

 

[joz]

Thanks for trying to helpout kiwijunglist but that's not really the solution i was looking/hoping for.

Maybe someone else has some use for it.