The Future of MyFilms? (1 Viewer)

[Dadeo]

Re: AW: Re: The Future of MyFilms?

Will do, although I cannot really test, because I don't have 4x3 screen...

NP the last one was not bad, just make the same changes to it that you did to B3wide and I can test it for you.

I just tested and used #myfilms.mastertitle with ID2025 and #myfilms.secondarytitle with ID2026 and it works as expected - if I change the configuration the display in details changes too - we're talking about the detailsscreen, right? If you still can't get it to run, please send me your myfilms.xml and I will check.

AHH Eureka - yes I got it working now. The problem was that your skin files were all totally backwards for me. You still had original title and secondary title displaying as the main titles and you had the translated title displaying in the format of the master title (lower, greyer color aso) so whenever I looked in GUI I thot it was not working when it was. You trying to drive me nuts?

I attached the B3wide skin file that works for me so you can test it still works correctly for you as well. I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of adding a few skin changes (image border, shadow text on titles, blue tint background for titles, larger logos) You can use if you like or not.

 

[Dadeo]

Man Guzzi, you are a full time job! Takes me longer to test than for you to change code!

4.9.2.6 solves the crash and displays everything perfectly. Yes I do get a few error messages but no big deal as that would not normally occur in any case.

I managed to get the exception in Config again. I guess I was going too fast. It says MyFilms.xml was already in use Just waited a sec and tried again and it worked fine.

It would be nice if a couple more users tested and reported. If I see Helios in IRC I will yell at him But I think you have a working version! If so, and you want me to 'update' the Blue3 xmls just holler.

Thanks so much for all your work continuing this awesome plugin!

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: AW: Re: The Future of MyFilms?

AHH Eureka - yes I got it working now. The problem was that your skin files were all totally backwards for me. You still had original title and secondary title displaying as the main titles and you had the translated title displaying in the format of the master title (lower, greyer color aso) so whenever I looked in GUI I thot it was not working when it was. You trying to drive me nuts?

I attached the B3wide skin file that works for me so you can test it still works correctly for you as well. I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of adding a few skin changes (image border, shadow text on titles, blue tint background for titles, larger logos) You can use if you like or not.

Good to hear - I took your skinfiles (thanks!) - but added the original IDs for the control (2025, 2026) to it - because the blue3/blue3wide usually are references for other skinners, they should be inluded - it's up to the skinner to remove them in their own skin, if they don't want the visibilitycontrol...

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: The Future of MyFilms?

Man Guzzi, you are a full time job! Takes me longer to test than for you to change code!

... don't think so ;-) - don't forget - I am not really a developer and the code is mostly not written by myself, so I have to read it, understand what's behind and what was intended - this also takes me sometimes quite some time ;-)

But anyway, you're right - testing takes much time and I am VERY THANKFUL you do that - as specially, because the myfilms plugin is so flexible, it's difficult to test all scenarios - I didn't discover the problems you discovered - so thanks again, I appreciate it!

4.9.2.6 solves the crash and displays everything perfectly.

So hopefully getting closer to release ;-)

Some more thoughts:

LogoConfig:
Do you think, there should be a default MyFilmsLogos.xml be included in the package? I think, since today, most of the skins have logo directory in media folder, with standardnames that helps.
Anybody has a good MyFilmsLogos.xml for blue3/Blue3Wide I could add to the package?

Imagefiles:
In last package from Zebons, there were some Images included (incl. e.g. hover_file) - I am currently recollecting them to add them to the package again.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Dadeo,

so I have updated Blue3 plus minor changes on Blue3Wide and collected the files, that were missing - would be nice if you could do some testing and give me feedback, if this is something that could be "released" - see discussion about adding MyFilmsLogos.xml above (hopefully someone can supply a good one...).
it's included in attached zip file - if no more "complains", I would create an installerpackage...

btw., I added my first wiki page -> Skinning Infos - MediaPortal Wiki

To be honest, all that skinning is not so clear to me (how controls and properties are to be used etc.) - but catavolt was asking for such a doc some time ago and I created it from sources as good as I can - if catavolt is reading here, he might also give me feedback on that and if it's useful like that ...

 

[Dadeo]

Hi Guzzi - I tested the latest package and it all seems to be working fine here.

Can you explain again how to get the second fanart to work on the Main (MesFilms.xml) screen? That has never worked for me. So I am not sure what the control is doing in the skin file.

I checked the Wiki page and it is a good start I think. One thing important to skinners is to indicate which control IDs are required in the skin xmls and which are optional. Some explanation of how to use Control ID 34 (to hide skin controls) would be helpful because you do not use it in the B3 xmls so there is no example.

About a MyFilmsLogos.xml - first I could not find it in the package. Yes I think it is a big help because it is a pita to configure them in MyFilms Config. I do provide one for aMPed which users can choose to use to auto configure the logos or not.

However, it is not that simple. You have to link it to the related skin media files. I am not sure which logos come with B3 by default and if they would look good in every skin. If a skin provides their own logos, then they have to provide a MyFilmsLogos.xml and overwrite it or the user would still get the logos from B3. This has to be done when you change skins. Also, at present, you need two diff xmls - one for Vista/Win7 and another for XP users since the location of the skin media files is different in each OS. To make it worse, skins often name the logo images differently in each skin, partly because each plugin uses a different naming convention to access the media info logos. So at present a skin has to provide several versions of the same logo named differently to support each plugin, which is really incredibly stupid imo.

However, I enclosed both versions I use for aMPed if that will help at all. If you come up with some for B3, I can test for you and see how it works when you switch skins.

EDIT: BTW I tested and the plugin DOES create Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs\MyFilms_Others in the Program Files folder instead of in Program Data (where it should)

 

[Guzzi]

AW: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Dadeo,

so here is the testversion we were taking about in IRC - it has rewritten quite some parts of the GUI interaction, so please let me know what works and what doestn't.
I am especially intereted about those things that didn't work in the past - like conditional visibilities etc. - I also readded the itemx (uderconfigurable properties) and exposed them as properties.

I have quickly dropped the current propertylist at the bottom of the wiki page - so you can use that as reference to find the properties you need.

DB-fields are:
#myfilms.db.<db-column>
#myfilms.db.<db-column>.label (this is the localized label for the db-field

#myfilms.db.calc.<property> are properties not directly taken from db, but calculated - beside "format" there is aspectratio in 5.1 that will use same format

#myfilms.user.<property> are properties that can be configured by the user in the pluginconfiguration, e.g. mastertitle, item1, etc.

configurable items expose as follows:
#myfilms.user.itemx.field -> the db-field configured by the user
#myfilms.user.itemx.label -> the label configured by the user
#myfilms.user.itemx -> value

I have also adapted Blue3Wide (included, Blue3 not yet)
controlIDs are removed, as they were removed from the plugincode.

Further I have localized the label for "Selection" and updated languagefiles for en and de.

@all:
This is only testversion, do not use it on current installation, it will require skinchanges

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Guzzi - I tested the latest package and it all seems to be working fine here.

Can you explain again how to get the second fanart to work on the Main (MesFilms.xml) screen? That has never worked for me. So I am not sure what the control is doing in the skin file.

the second control is for the imageswapper of conerstoneMP - it is recommended to define those two so that they are used for fading between fanarts when changing movietitle.

I checked the Wiki page and it is a good start I think. One thing important to skinners is to indicate which control IDs are required in the skin xmls and which are optional. Some explanation of how to use Control ID 34 (to hide skin controls) would be helpful because you do not use it in the B3 xmls so there is no example.

Will have to rewrite it anyway after redesign of the GUI-interaction - and will then also add some words for ID34 - if I keep this one; I think due to the changes to exposed properties it is no more necessary to control that from within the plugin, but the skinner can control it himself the way he wants it...

About a MyFilmsLogos.xml - first I could not find it in the package. Yes I think it is a big help because it is a pita to configure them in MyFilms Config. I do provide one for aMPed which users can choose to use to auto configure the logos or not.

However, it is not that simple. You have to link it to the related skin media files. I am not sure which logos come with B3 by default and if they would look good in every skin. If a skin provides their own logos, then they have to provide a MyFilmsLogos.xml and overwrite it or the user would still get the logos from B3. This has to be done when you change skins. Also, at present, you need two diff xmls - one for Vista/Win7 and another for XP users since the location of the skin media files is different in each OS. To make it worse, skins often name the logo images differently in each skin, partly because each plugin uses a different naming convention to access the media info logos. So at present a skin has to provide several versions of the same logo named differently to support each plugin, which is really incredibly stupid imo.

argh - yes, that's a problem - I just thought it would help to provide standardfiles to get a quick and nice setup.
So the only clean solution would modifying the logo code to use mediaportaldefines pathes - those should always be correct on either platform.
What remains is the problem of different skinpathes - but this could also partly be solved by changes in the code (as many skins put the logos in \media\logos - but not all unfortunately - plus some have subdirectories etc.) .... will make that with low prio on the todo list... at least the os-path thing, so a default config that points to Blue3-logos cn be included...

However, I enclosed both versions I use for aMPed if that will help at all. If you come up with some for B3, I can test for you and see how it works when you switch skins.

Thanks, will do that, but currently busy with the propertystuff ;-)

EDIT: BTW I tested and the plugin DOES create Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs\MyFilms_Others in the Program Files folder instead of in Program Data (where it should)

I tried to reproduce, but couldn't. I also checked the code - Myfilms is creating the directory in the thumbspath that is given by mediaportal - so unless mediaportal itself goes into wrong directory, it should be ok - so I would need more details to be able to reproduce ...

 

[vrm42]

Hey Guzzi!

Frankly, I don't understand what is going on lately, but I installed latest version and
I was skinning a little, so I have noticed two things.

1, There are some hardcoded labels so I can't localize their strings. One of them is the "MIN" label after the lenght, the other one is the "FORMAT" in the #myfilms.db.calc.format property. #myfilms.nbobjects also has a hardcoded string.

2, When there is no value for a property then property labels are missing too. I can fill the empty fields in AMC with "N/A"s, but it would take a lot of time.
The missing label on the second screenshot is "Source".
Can you fix this problem?

Other than this one above, plugin works great.



vrm

 

[Dadeo]

Hi Guzzi - I have not finsihed all tests yet, but I can confirm vm42's issues.

First - nbobjects should disappear imo - MP provides itemcount which allows localized labels and a lot more coming in 1.2.0!
Second - yes please remove all hardcoded text!
Third - I also get no label when a property has no value. I suspect this may be related to why I cannot use visibility controls, which you asked me to test. I did not report yet, because some seem to work, but I don't think any of the new properties do. So I was trying to figure it out in more detail.

For example, I want to display an icon for subtitles when subtitles field has a value. So I tried the normal method: String.equals(#myfilms.db.subtitles) - but it displays the icon for every film! Then I tried <visible>Control.hastext(ID#) where ID# is the number I assigned to the myfilms.db.subititles control, but then the icon displayed incorrectly, yet still for every film. So it seems like the plugin is still 'controlling' things and not allowing skin visibility conditions, at least not in all cases.

The basics all work great though

About fanart2 on Main page. Yes I know HOW it is SUPPOSED to work, but it doesn't work for me Ever! Even using your B3wide skin files. Does it display two fanarts for you? The way it works in Moving Pictures and TV Series plugins (fading back and forth between two fanart images)? If so, what am I doing wrong?