Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings...) (4 Viewers)

[ajp8164]

I added some skin properties to expose genre names and colors to the user interface. Please see the TV guide wiki, section titled "Skin properties for genre names and colors". See new build, 4/18 rev A.

 

[larsbln]

Thank you ver much Andy.



I started to test the new skin propertys in a new but ugly text bar

<control>
    <description>Music</description>
    <type>label</type>
    <id>888</id>
    <posX>931</posX>
    <posY>10</posY>
    <width>200</width>
    <height>32</height>
    <label>#TV.Guide.Genre.3.Name |</label>
<textcolor>FF800000</textcolor>
    <font>AvalonLight14</font>
</control>

Well I found out, that <label>#TV.Guide.Genre.3.Name |</label> is working fine while <textcolor>#TV.Guide.Genre.3.Color</textcolor> isn't working and causes the label to disapear complety.
Additionally #TV.Guide.Genre.1.Color resolved by the label field gives FFFFFFFFF0000FFF or something. Seems like "on now" and "on later" values are exposed as one string.

You must think I'm stupid, but I managed to create a text bar:


Are my eyes broken (well it's 10 minutes to 3.am in the morning) or do the font of Movie and Sports look different?
I also tried to delete the cache, but it didn't changed anything. MP was starting quickly and there was no text saying "caching graphics".
Well the cache is there .. anyway I will try to move the Movie and Sports label anywere else tomorrow and see if the text will look different.

 

[ajp8164]

Thank you ver much Andy.



I started to test the new skin propertys in a new but ugly text bar

<control>
    <description>Music</description>
    <type>label</type>
    <id>888</id>
    <posX>931</posX>
    <posY>10</posY>
    <width>200</width>
    <height>32</height>
    <label>#TV.Guide.Genre.3.Name |</label>
<textcolor>FF800000</textcolor>
    <font>AvalonLight14</font>
</control>

Well I found out, that <label>#TV.Guide.Genre.3.Name |</label> is working fine while <textcolor>#TV.Guide.Genre.3.Color</textcolor> isn't working and causes the label to disapear complety.
Additionally #TV.Guide.Genre.1.Color resolved by the label field gives FFFFFFFFF0000FFF or something. Seems like "on now" and "on later" values are exposed as one string.

You must think I'm stupid, but I managed to create a text bar:

View attachment 102693
Are my eyes broken (well it's 10 minutes to 3.am in the morning) or do the font of Movie and Sports look different?
I also tried to delete the cache, but it didn't changed anything. MP was starting quickly and there was no text saying "caching graphics".
Well the cache is there .. anyway I will try to move the Movie and Sports label anywere else tomorrow and see if the text will look different.

Looks like there is a problem with accepting properties into the color attribute of skin controls. Not sure how to solve that at the moment. Need to think on an alternate implementation. The build is simply converting the property name string to a '0' value which represents fully transparent-black (nothing will show up on the window).

 

[ajp8164]

Hi all,

I posted a new build (4/21) as well as updated the sample Avalon3779 skin. See the change log for changes (adds a genre color key for TV guide).

UPDATE: the wiki is not working at the moment (can't login). When it's back I'll post the changed instructions.

 

[elliottmc]

Hi Andy,

I am afraid that I am having trouble with the EPG colouring. I installed and added the Avalon skin from post 3 (4/21, 3779).

I copied this:

            <section name="genremap">
              <entry name="Documentary">Docudrama</entry>
              <entry name="Kids">Children,Children-music,Children-special</entry>
              <entry name="Movie"></entry>
              <entry name="Music">Music special</entry>
              <entry name="News">Bus./financial,Newsmagazine</entry>
              <entry name="Other">Action,Drama,Horror,Musical,Musical comedy,Mystery,Romance-comedy,Western,Adults only,Adventure,Agriculture,Animals,Animated,Anime,Anthology,Art,Arts/crafts,Auction,Auto,Aviation,Biography,Card games,Collectibles,Comedy,Comedy-drama,Community,Computers,Consumer,Cooking,Crime,Crime drama,Dance,Debate,Educational,Entertainment,Environment,Fantasy,Fashion,Fundraiser,Game show,Gaming,Gay/lesbian,Health,Historical drama,History,Holiday,Home improvement,House/garden,How-to,Hunting,Interview,Law,Medical,Military,Mixed martial arts,Motorcycle,Nature,Outdoors,Paranormal,Parenting,Politics,Public affairs,Reality,Religious,Rodeo,Romance,Science,Science fiction,Self improvement,Shopping,Sitcom,Soap,Soap talk,Spanish,Sports talk,Standup,Suspense,Technology,Travel,Variety,War,Weather</entry>
              <entry name="Special">Miniseries,Music talk,Talk</entry>
              <entry name="Sports">Action sports,Aerobics,Archery,Auto racing,Baseball,Basketball,Boxing,Equestrian,Exercise,Fishing,Football,Golf,Gymnastics,Hockey,Martial arts,Motorcycle racing,Motorsports,Pro wrestling,Shooting,Skateboarding,Skiing,Snowboarding,Soccer,Sports event,Sports non-event,Surfing,Tennis,Wrestling</entry>
              <entry name="Watercraft">Boat</entry>
              <entry name="Boats"></entry>
            </section>
            <section name="genreoptions">
              <entry name="specifympaaratedasmovie">yes</entry>
            </section>

into MediaPortal.xml

Okay, I'll be honest, I don't think of 'Boats' and 'Watercraft' as program genres. It also looks as though the 'Movie' mapping is not done here.

Either way, I don't get any EPG colouring.

That is basically because the genres you have specified don't tie in with the genres I have in my EPG.

If I use

  <section name="genremap">
    <entry name="genrenames">Documentary,Kids,Movie,Music,News,Other,Special,Sports</entry>
    <entry name="Documentary">Docudrama</entry>
    <entry name="Kids">childrens's/youth program (general)</entry>
    <entry name="Movie">movie/drama (general)</entry>
    <entry name="Music">Music special</entry>
    <entry name="News">news/current affairs (general)</entry>
    <entry name="Other">show/game show (general)</entry>
    <entry name="Special">Miniseries,Music talk,Talk</entry>
    <entry name="Sports">sports (general)</entry>
  </section>

Then it works fine.

When I then enter 'MediaPortal Configuration.exe', I see the attached screenshot, and there seems to be no way to edit the colours. Everything is black, and clicking on the colours, or on the 'on now color' or 'on later color' buttons does not do anything.

After exiting, I see the following section in MediaPortal.exe

  <section name="tvguidecolors">
    <entry name="guidecolorchannelbutton">FF0E517B</entry>
    <entry name="guidecolorchannelbuttonselected">FF008000</entry>
    <entry name="guidecolorgroupbutton">FF0E517B</entry>
    <entry name="guidecolorgroupbuttonselected">FF008000</entry>
    <entry name="guidecolorprogramselected">FF008000</entry>
    <entry name="guidecolorprogramended">FF808080</entry>
    <entry name="guidecolorborderhighlight">99FFFFFF</entry>
    <entry name="defaultgenre">FF1D355B,FF0E517B</entry>
    <entry name="genrenames">00000000,00000000</entry>
    <entry name="Documentary">00000000,00000000</entry>
    <entry name="Kids">00000000,00000000</entry>
    <entry name="Movie">00000000,00000000</entry>
    <entry name="Music">00000000,00000000</entry>
    <entry name="News">00000000,00000000</entry>
    <entry name="Other">00000000,00000000</entry>
    <entry name="Special">00000000,00000000</entry>
    <entry name="Sports">00000000,00000000</entry>
  </section>

so all colours are black (zero). However, EPG colouring still works okay, so presumably it is still taking the colours from the skin.


Please don't take this as overly critical, but this (superb) feature is going to confuse the hell out of people.

If I add a genre in MediaPortal config, I don't seem to get the chance to assign ant text to it.

Suggestions to make life easier for version 1 of this so we can have it in 1.3.0alpha.

1. Make it easy to change the text associated with a particular genre, so that a user can map this easily to their own EPG. I don't think you need 'mapped/unmapped genres unless you are able to pull them from the TV server, which I don't think config can do. You just need to have an editable text box that the user can type or paste into.

2.The EPG colours either need to be set by the user or by the skin. It can't be a combination of the two. I would say that they should ONLY be in MediaPortal.xml, because the skin does not know what genres the user wants to have.

I have an alternative suggestion.

1. Limit the number of genres and have the option to localise the strings. That way you can have the genre names hard-coded in the skin, because localisation will take care of it. In this case, don't bother adding the ability to edit the genre colours, since the skin designer will probably do a better job and we can then document how to edit this for the very keen user (and implement it within config later if needed).


Again, even though these comments are critical of the way this feature has been implemented, please don't think that I am being negative. This is an important but complex addition to MP. Right now, it doesn't seem to work too well, but it can be made to work with very few changes.

Best wishes,

Mark

PS. No issues noticed with the other skin changes. Everything seems to be working perfectly!

 

[JacobJust]

@ elliottmc: Thats odd. When i go into mediaportal configuration i just Add new genre name and map a genre to that genre, give it a color now and later and it works great.
It even reads all genre possibilities from my TVdatabase. My XMLTV source has about 7 genres but some channels get EPG from grapping it from provider. I get about 30 other genres than my XMLTV source and i just map them to the genre names i want them to associate to. NO PROBLEM HERE. And they show up colored in guide.

 

[elliottmc]

@ elliottmc: Thats odd. When i go into mediaportal configuration i just Add new genre name and map a genre to that genre, give it a color now and later and it works great.
It even reads all genre possibilities from my TVdatabase. My XMLTV source has about 7 genres but some channels get EPG from grapping it from provider. I get about 30 other genres than my XMLTV source and i just map them to the genre names i want them to associate to. NO PROBLEM HERE. And they show up colored in guide.
View attachment 103022

Could it be because I am testing on a network client, not actually on the server?

 

[JacobJust]

Just tried to test some more. Actually new added genres do not show up colored. But mapping of genres from TVdatabse get colored when associated to existing genres correctly... will test some more...
Genre mapping also working on network client...

 

[elliottmc]

Just tried to test some more. Actually new added genres do not show up colored. But mapping of genres from TVdatabse get colored when associated to existing genres correctly... will test some more...

If they don't show up coloured, how do you assign a colour to them?

And since my EPG is coloured (using Avalon) which file contains the colour data?

Mark

 

[larsbln]

The skinsettings.xml inside the avalon folder. I have the same kind of "issue" with the configuration showing no color on all genres.

1. Make it easy to change the text associated with a particular genre, so that a user can map this easily to their own EPG. I don't think you need 'mapped/unmapped genres unless you are able to pull them from the TV server, which I don't think config can do. You just need to have an editable text box that the user can type or paste into.

I don't understand what you mean. I tested the mapping tool and I have used clickfinder data which has 167 different genres.
Two days after I mapped them I got a new set of data (two more days) and I had to assign 6 genres. I think it's as best as it could get.
I can choose if reports are either News or Other, if a Musiccal Film belongs to Music or to Movies and if Poker is a Sport or Other.

I've also tested with the newest build and skin. I mapped all series to Special and would like to know: Could I rename genres?