Stuck on a page, have to close MP2 (2 Viewers)

[-- GD --]

Was really looking forward to getting MP2 up and running, so bought a small i5 quad-core PC, loaded Windows 7, upgraded to Windows 10, loaded MP2 and..... DISAPPOINTED!

When you go to https://www.team-mediaportal.com/ you get pictures of a fantastic looking piece of software exactly as I was hoping (expecting) mine to look like, but the out-of-box experience upon first loading MP2 looks nothing like that. No big fancy graphical icons on the home screen leading to all the sections, just a blue screen with a few basic icons along the top and the words "weather", "no data" and "news" down the right-hand side along with a news feed changing so fast it's gone before I'm half-way through reading (and most of the news being shown is irrelevant rubbish).

UPDATE: Found the "MP2 Titanium" skin which addressed the above so have deleted a large chunk of the thread. Would recommend it as the default skin from installation, or at least an option during installation offering different skins with previews for the user to select. And I finally found the exit button too. Wish I could (find where to) change how many tiles are visible, move them around, hide tiles that point to non-existent features and edit the tile pictures...

I have apparently found some bugs during my first two uses of the software. Under "videohub" then "OnlineVideos" I used Filmon.tv yesterday and watched a couple of UK channels without problem but today when I try to open it I get an error "Error - getting dynamic categories. Object reference not set to an instance of an object". Not sure if it's anything to do with opening "Sky Go UK" which locked up on me so I had to Ctrl-Alt-Del to crash MP2 and restart it (without a machine reboot first).

So after using MP2 for two days I'm not overly impressed. It looks awful out of the box but at least I got it looking nice now, it doesn't automatically find local data, and the online videos sections I've tried are flaky (how do you search YouTube? How do you enter username/password for SkyGo?). Really wish there was a HELP section with offline documentation, tutorials and setup guide.

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.

No big fancy graphical icons on the home screen leading to all the sections, just a blue screen with a few basic icons along the top and the words "weather", "no data" and "news" down the right-hand side along with a news feed

This is the "Home" Screen of Blue Vision. This will be filled with content as soon as you have set up some media sources. Here the most recently added media of all kinds will be shown. And as you don't have entered a weather location or set up your RSS feeds there are no data to display.
The screenshots on the news page are done with "filled" media library. This has to be done first and depends completely on your owned media. So you will not get tons of movies for free if you install MP2 (or any other media software)...

The Online Videos Plugin is only a small part of the whole package and as I did not have a highspeed internet I don't use it often. So I can't help here that much.

Really wish there was a HELP section with offline documentation, tutorials and setup guide.

Our WIki is a work in progress atm. Some parts are transferred to the Forum as an interim solution so you can see some guides there:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/mediaportal-2-installation-and-setup-guides.134034/
But it's far from being complete now. When searching the forum you will find a lot of different tips and guides for beginners to start with...

 

[ge2301]

No big fancy graphical icons on the home screen leading to all the sections, just a blue screen with a few basic icons along the top and the words "weather", "no data" and "news" down the right-hand side along with a news feed changing so fast it's gone before I'm half-way through reading (and most of the news being shown is irrelevant rubbish).

I think you didn't understand the meaning of the home screen. As Lehmden explained it's intended to show only the latest media items and, if you don't configure a weather location, of course "no data" is shown (it depends on you and I believe MP1 also doesn't detect your location). The home screen should not link to other sections!
There is a manual about the BlueVision skin and I highly recommend you to read it to understand the structure. You find it in the BV thread, the download area of BV and also in the release notes of the Spring '16 Release. https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/manual.134080/

 

[ge2301]

And I finally found the exit button too. Wish I could (find where to) change how many tiles are visible, move them around, hide tiles that point to non-existent features and edit the tile pictures...

The exit button is more than clear in the right top corner on every screen.
A Menu Tile editor is in development. You can already change the tile images. Go to \Team MediaPortal\MP2-Client\Plugins\BlueVision\Skin\BlueVision\images
You can find the tile images there. The manual also explains which file name stands for which tile.

 

[Lehmden]

Wish I could (find where to) change how many tiles are visible, move them around, hide tiles that point to non-existent features and edit the tile pictures...

Non Existing features did not show up in GUI automatically so you don't need to fiddle around for this. Tile pictures can be exchanged easily as explained before. And you can modify the number and position of the menu tiles and even alter the main menu items on top. This will be possible by a comfortable menu editor later but if you are familiar with XML files you can achieve this even today by editing a XML file directly. But this is not meant for absolute beginners and you better learn what meaning the parts of MP2 have, before you alter the menu... Once you are familiar with the MP2 basics I'm glad to help you modifying your menu to your personal needs, if the menu editor is still not finished then.

 

[-- GD --]

Thanks both for your input.

Lehmden, I had already set up media sources for pictures, mp3 (music) and mp4 (music videos), and tried to set my location for weather but that just outright failed. The BV Home page showed just 3 photos which were really low quality thumbnails with the wrong aspect ratio - they were tall but thin so looked awful. Nothing else appeared on the Home page.This may be due to me testing with a 1280x1024 monitor, who knows. Since I changed to the Titanium skin the picture thumbnails are much better quality when I find them via "Browse Media", "Images" or "Latest Media" (the latter of which shows only Movies and Series of which I have none yet, Images and Audio - why not my Videos?). And why only 5 of each, why no scroll button to see more? Would definitely like to see some tweaks (improvements?) to the music player and slideshow - viewing static pictures is perfect but hit the play/slideshow button and it cuts off much of the picture so sometimes I only see the bottom, middle or top of the photo.

The home screen should not link to other sections!

ge2301. You seem to have missed the bit about me having found and switched to the MP2 Titanium Skin in which the exit button is no longer in the top right corner of this theme, and with my monitor being quite poor I didn't notice right away it was below the tiles. And I disagree, the home screen is the starting point from where I want to jump to TV, or videos, or movies, or music, or anything else so linking to other sections as the Titanium skin appears to do is exactly how I want it to work.

 

[Lehmden]

Titanium Skin

Forget about Titanium. It's outdated, no longer developed and it's missing so much features MP2 has in general. Aside this it will be removed from MP2 with the next build. You can not sort, add or remove any menu items there (technically not possible) as example. You can try out "Titanium Extended" that is available for download and will replace Titanium in the next releases.

the home screen is the starting point

It definitely is not. And I'm not happy with naming it "Home" at all as it did not have anything in common with e.g. a MP1 or Kodi "Home Screen". It is more of an "Info" screen for news, new media and weather. It's the only screen you can disable in settings with one click because it is not important at all. The "Starting Point" if you need to name something this way is the top menu where you can navigate from any part to every other part of MP2 quickly without the need to go back to a home screen. So if you e.g. have watched TV and now want to listen to music you can navigate directly from TV to music without going all the way back to an obsolete home screen...

Since I changed to the Titanium skin the picture thumbnails are much better quality

This sounds a bit "impossible" as they are identical. There only is one thumbnail for each media existing at all.

And why only 5 of each, why no scroll button to see more?

Because it only shows the 5 most recent additions. As told before, the "home" is not meant as starting point at all and it never will be.

viewing static pictures is perfect but hit the play/slideshow button and it cuts off much of the picture so sometimes I only see the bottom, middle or top of the photo.

This is the so called "Ken Burns Effects" showing a full screen animation (moving image) instead of a static picture and maybe is an issue of your unsupported screen resolution. It is working perfect if you have "normal" screen size. But you easily can disable the Ken Burns effects in Settings if you want. FYI, I also have disabled them...

 

[ge2301]

I think you better deactivate the home screen in settings and then everything else is the "Home Screen" that you are looking for.
The top menu shows the groups and you see the menu tiles in the bottom. But you can also freely scroll through the menu tiles without using the group menu. just try pressing only right or left.
Why is this? Because you have no overview in Titanium skin. BV is oriented on the Ribbon style in windows, means grouping of items. It's new and maybe for the first moments seem uncomfortable, but makes much sense and navigation easier once you got used to it. Best is to check he manual to understand the capabilities and features of BV.