Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings...) (2 Viewers)

[robyf]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

TV server should collect all the genres all the time in addition to the DVB spec's defaults. It is not ok just to dump the current state as it would be changing all the time and user would have to grab EPG multiple times to get majority of the genres. Initial setup wont ever be nice... it will be good only for the DVB sourced EPG that has static list.

Genre colouring in a heterogenous EPG environment with dynamicly changing content is really hard feature to create properly / user friendly. Maybe the 1st instance should be just DVB EPG that is static and then extended later on to cover the dynamic genre sources like webepg. I cannot imagine user to spend one month timespan to catch all the possible genre types from a EPG stream... and even month wouldn't be enough in some cases.

Unfortunately here in Italy sky uses a lot of generes, at least hundred, and really seems not to be so fixed. I think it will be difficult to collect all of them. I think the approach of using the genres in DB is good, for instance if you get 7 days of guide you will be probably get most of the genres and they should remain in the list even if with the next EPG collection they're not there anymore. Then there should be an option to clear all and begin from scratch.

So there should be a list that can be populated from EPG using for instance an import button. You can import many times and new genres are added, but existing genres in the list are not deleted unless you hit the clear all button. Then there should be an option to add genres manually in the list.

 

[elliottmc]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

Unfortunately here in Italy sky uses a lot of generes, at least hundred, and really seems not to be so fixed.

But how many words are common (and unique) to all the 'children's' program genres? Maybe by looking at the possibilities and ensure that we cover the bases with a sub-string searching and a localised file per region/language?

Mark

 

[IchBinsShort]

AW: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

A little question is only a genre coloring possible ? Or did your own color scheme can be defined ? So maybe you can color a new Episode of a Serie or Movie that is not in your Databse. For such a plugin could change the color of an entry in the EPG, for certain conditions

 

[elliottmc]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

Hi,

Is there any progress with this?

Mark

 

[ajp8164]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

Hi,

Is there any progress with this?

Mark

Hi Mark,

Are you referring to collections of genre's or the testing in general..? Have you been able to evaluate the Configuration tool for customization of the genre coloring etc? Remember, this will only work on "supported skins" and at this point only the Avalon test skin that I posted in this thread is available. I can modify Default/Wide skins if needed.

 

[elliottmc]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

Hi,

Is there any progress with this?

Mark

Hi Mark,

Are you referring to collections of genre's or the testing in general..? Have you been able to evaluate the Configuration tool for customization of the genre coloring etc? Remember, this will only work on "supported skins" and at this point only the Avalon test skin that I posted in this thread is available. I can modify Default/Wide skins if needed.

I didn't see that there was a new version with configuration. The one I tried had no config options. Do we have a new installer build with this included? It would certainly make life easier.

We absolutely need the hard-code (TsWriter) genres included. Apart from that, this is going to take some work to get it easier to configure.

Edit:

I see the config options with the latest version, but for 'On Now Color' and 'On Later Color' I just have a black space with no indication of how to select the colour.

I might be missing something.

Mark

 

[ajp8164]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

I didn't see that there was a new version with configuration. The one I tried had no config options. Do we have a new installer build with this included? It would certainly make life easier.

We absolutely need the hard-code (TsWriter) genres included. Apart from that, this is going to take some work to get it easier to configure.

Edit:

I see the config options with the latest version, but for 'On Now Color' and 'On Later Color' I just have a black space with no indication of how to select the colour.

I might be missing something.

Mark

Mark,

Highlight the genre name in the list and click on the "On Now Color" button to set its on now color. Do the same for the on later color. This allows the genre color to be (for instance) muted colors for programs that are not on now (reflects the legacy implementation).

I'll think on a design for accepting the TsWriter genre names (generally, a list of "other" genre names). Once that implementation is put together I can "stock it" with the TsWriter genre names so that the out of the box setup comes with those names pre-mapped. I think the list of MP genre names that I have in there are fine to start with.

If anyone has design ideas to make this easier to configure please let me know (based on the current configuration tool options pages).



p.s. - the installer download for the latest build is always in the 3rd post of this thread ;-)

 

[elliottmc]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

I didn't see that there was a new version with configuration. The one I tried had no config options. Do we have a new installer build with this included? It would certainly make life easier.

We absolutely need the hard-code (TsWriter) genres included. Apart from that, this is going to take some work to get it easier to configure.

Edit:

I see the config options with the latest version, but for 'On Now Color' and 'On Later Color' I just have a black space with no indication of how to select the colour.

I might be missing something.

Mark

Mark,

Highlight the genre name in the list and click on the "On Now Color" button to set its on now color. Do the same for the on later color. This allows the genre color to be (for instance) muted colors for programs that are not on now (reflects the legacy implementation).

I'll think on a design for accepting the TsWriter genre names (generally, a list of "other" genre names). Once that implementation is put together I can "stock it" with the TsWriter genre names so that the out of the box setup comes with those names pre-mapped. I think the list of MP genre names that I have in there are fine to start with.

If anyone has design ideas to make this easier to configure please let me know (based on the current configuration tool options pages).



p.s. - the installer download for the latest build is always in the 3rd post of this thread ;-)

Hi,

I guess there are two aspects - configurability and looking nice with the chosen skin.

My preferred implementation would be less configurability to make life easier.

Let me explain what I mean.

Let's say we have 10 genres defined. It doesn't really matter what they are called. We basically have 10 colours (+ variations for on now/later) defined in the skin.

Then all we need to do is define which of the genres (from the EPG) are used for each of the colours.

Assuming MP config can be modified to retrieve the colour choices from the skin, then all we need is a drop-down menu in config to select which genre you want to edit. When you select one, it will shown the colours used for that genre in the skin (with no option to change it - IMO there is no need - let the skin designer make this decision, and advanced users can change it there. At this point you will also get a text box in which you can type the genre strings you would like to associate with this colour.

If we populate this with the TsWriter genres, many users will not need to do any configuration.

IMO this would be simple enough and powerful enough for a first implementation. Then we can refine things as we get feedback.

Mark

 

[larsbln]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

I would like to forward a feedback of my better half
She said that she would prefer a cell border coloring (maybe 3-5pt) or a small triangle only instead of full coloring in EPG.

I just hand-off this opinion, but I would estimate that female positions are outnumbered in technical discussions.
When it comes to colors and design I often rely on a different view or perspective

 

[robyf]

Re: Skin engine enhancements (themes, guide colors, skin functions, weather settings.

Unfortunately here in Italy sky uses a lot of generes, at least hundred, and really seems not to be so fixed.

But how many words are common (and unique) to all the 'children's' program genres? Maybe by looking at the possibilities and ensure that we cover the bases with a sub-string searching and a localised file per region/language?

Mark

For documentary channels (for instance) we have

Mondo e Tendenze - Storia
Mondo e Tendenze - Viaggi
Mondo e Tendenze - Scienza
Mondo e Tendenze - Arte e costume
Mondo e Tendenze - Magazine Musica
Mondo e Tendenze - Società
Mondo e Tendenze - Documentari
Mondo e Tendenze - Natura
Mondo e Tendenze - Lifestyle

And similar for other genres, for children for instance:

Ragazzi e Musica - Cartoni Animati
Ragazzi e Musica - Telefilm
......

Will now install last version and test... previous one was on my production system for a week and no showstoppers for me.