Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings...) (1 Viewer)

[elliottmc]

I don't see anything in the logs for configuration.exe. That is to say, nothing from when I enter the TV section to when I exit the TV section, so it won't be easy for me to work out what could be wrong.

Right now, I am clearly not seeing the expected behaviour.

Should configuration.exe be able to query the TV server and obtain the information about possible genres, even on a multiseat client?

Where in the skin file are the genre colours stored? What could I be missing?

 

[JacobJust]

OK. Just did some more testing. Renaming genres actually work (sort off) it keeps the old genre so its more a copy function than rename. Add new genre works and mapping genres from TVdb works. However the color function is a bit tricky. I did a new color, without luck. Did a copy of the color from another genre and edited that and it worked. Also found out that any color values in skinsettings.xml are overwriting mediaportal.xml colors, that would be OK if skinners want to keep a saying in looks of colors in guide. I now have 9 genres showing different colors and showing 9 genres key in GUIDE. It is to much but just for testing purpose. IT works for me, but not without a little editing of mediaportal.xml when creating a new genre. Screenshot with 2 new genres attached ... Serie and test genre are new. I removed the color values from skin settings.xml to be able to handle them directly from configuration.exe

 

[elliottmc]

Okay, if I copy this

  <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,FF1D355B</entry>
    <entry name="Documentary">FFD2691E,FFD2691E</entry>
    <entry name="Kids">FF00FFFF,FF00FFFF</entry>
    <entry name="Movie">FF800080,FF800080</entry>
    <entry name="Music">FF800000,FF800000</entry>
    <entry name="News">FF90EE90,FF90EE90</entry>
    <entry name="Special">FFFFD700,FFFFD700</entry>
    <entry name="Sports">FF006400,FF006400</entry>
  </section>

into the relevant section in MediaPortal.xml, now I see the colours in configuration.exe, and I can edit them as expected.

So, that solves my first problem, and everything is nice and intuitive. Not sure why it wasn't working when I didn't have any colours in the MediaPortal.xml, and why it wasn't finding them in skinsettings.xml.

However, if I exit the xml to change to

    <entry name="Movie">
    </entry>

then I can't map anything else to this genre. There is nothing at all in 'unmapped genres'.

Presumably config.exe should find the genres from my TV server. Now I know that the server is running fine, and MP on the client is able to connect. I don't get any firewall warnings.

Should anything be logged anywhere when a connection is attempted?

Mark

 

[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.
View attachment 103022

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

I Just tried on one network client machine with same result. Didn't see this before since i just copied my settings from main machine to network clients not to do the same work there. It seems that all the genres read from TVdatabse are non existing on clients only. They show correctly when already in xml files, but they can not be mapped from clients. My main HTPC is client and server.

 

[elliottmc]

It seems that all the genres read from TVdatabse are non existing on clients. They show correctly when already in xml files, but they can not be mapped from clients. My main HTPC is client and server.

Ah, earlier you said this was working fine. So, I guess the fundamental problem is that the client cannot access the TV server database for genres.

For a program such as MP which is fundamentally server/client, this is a big issue!

 

[JacobJust]

It seems that all the genres read from TVdatabse are non existing on clients. They show correctly when already in xml files, but they can not be mapped from clients. My main HTPC is client and server.

Ah, earlier you said this was working fine. So, I guess the fundamental problem is that the client cannot access the TV server database for genres.

For a program such as MP which is fundamentally server/client, this is a big issue!

The issue wasn't so big for me since i do all settings on main HTPC and then copy that to all clients. When already mapped in xml files it works nicely on clients as well. But if the mapping for color guide is wanted done on clients without access to TVdb i can see the problem.
But i guess its no more an issue than it is today... all TVserver settings and EPG handling are done on the TVserver today. If something has to be mapped differently or a new EPG source are to be used or updated this can only be done on Tvserver ... Right ?

 

[elliottmc]

It seems that all the genres read from TVdatabse are non existing on clients. They show correctly when already in xml files, but they can not be mapped from clients. My main HTPC is client and server.

Ah, earlier you said this was working fine. So, I guess the fundamental problem is that the client cannot access the TV server database for genres.

For a program such as MP which is fundamentally server/client, this is a big issue!

The issue wasn't so big for me since i do all settings on main HTPC and then copy that to all clients. When already mapped in xml files it works nicely on clients as well. But if the mapping for color guide is wanted done on clients without access to TVdb i can see the problem.
But i guess its no more an issue than it is today... all TVserver settings and EPG handling are done on the TVserver today. If something has to be mapped differently or a new EPG source are to be used or updated this can only be done on Tvserver ... Right ?

Well, it seems to me that there is a code issue.

The colours are in skinsettings.xml on the client, and for some reason they are not correctly copied to MediaPortal.xml and cannot be edited.

I have tested again, removing the 'tvguidecolors' section from MediaPortal.xml

If I select a genre name, and click on the button to edit the colour, I do actually get the colour wheel to appear, but whatever I select is not saved. However, if I have colours already in MediaPortal.xml, I can edit them fine.

The bottom line is that Andy should ignore my initial criticism. This is a great feature and is basically implemented well. I will install on my server in a little while.

But there are bugs in there. My gut feeling is that the code is assuming it can get info from the TV server, and when it doesn't then things start to go wrong.

 

[JacobJust]

Ah, earlier you said this was working fine. So, I guess the fundamental problem is that the client cannot access the TV server database for genres.

For a program such as MP which is fundamentally server/client, this is a big issue!

The issue wasn't so big for me since i do all settings on main HTPC and then copy that to all clients. When already mapped in xml files it works nicely on clients as well. But if the mapping for color guide is wanted done on clients without access to TVdb i can see the problem.
But i guess its no more an issue than it is today... all TVserver settings and EPG handling are done on the TVserver today. If something has to be mapped differently or a new EPG source are to be used or updated this can only be done on Tvserver ... Right ?

Well, it seems to me that there is a code issue.

The colours are in skinsettings.xml on the client, and for some reason they are not correctly copied to MediaPortal.xml and cannot be edited.

I have tested again, removing the 'tvguidecolors' section from MediaPortal.xml

If I select a genre name, and click on the button to edit the colour, I do actually get the colour wheel to appear, but whatever I select is not saved. However, if I have colours already in MediaPortal.xml, I can edit them fine.

The bottom line is that Andy should ignore my initial criticism. This is a great feature and is basically implemented well. I will install on my server in a little while.

But there are bugs in there. My gut feeling is that the code is assuming it can get info from the TV server, and when it doesn't then things start to go wrong.

Im also seeing some behavior with creating the correct xml files that i haven't figured out yet. But when xml files have correct values i see no bugs in Mediaportal.

 

[larsbln]

Okay If I switch the skin or theme my colors are going to change to fit in.
Actually I think that these genre colors are like a stop sign or the colors of traffic lights. They will be useless if they change all the way. How should
anybody remember what color stands for .. even if theres a color key.
Maybe the genre colors need to be in the database to have them on all clients.

 

[elliottmc]

Well, it's catch 22. If we have standard genres/genre colours, then the user will know what they are but they might look terrible in a skin.

If we let the skin designer decide what is good for their skin, the user will be left guessing.

I've got to be honest, I don't see myself using this feature. I personally like a clean and tidy EPG where I can see what I am going to record. I might like to add one genre for movies so that I can spot them easily.

However, if we are going to add this feature (and I think we should) then we just need to take a little time to refine it.

Perhaps we can handle the multiseat issue with an import/export button in config?