TV Server Plugin: EmailScheduler (1 Viewer)

[huha]

EmailScheduler V1.0.6.0 released on 17.Apr.2010


Important: I have stopped the development of this plugin, as I am no more using it since i discovered teamviewer. With teamviewer you can control remotely your computer without the need of opening a port on the router. It is free for personal use and allows to control your pc from a web browser. There also exists an android and iphone app.It is very easy to set up and together with the Fritz Box you can wake up your remote computer out of standby. Just google for teamviewer.




- Never again miss your favourite TV show when you are off road. Send an email to TV server and schedule your recordings by a simple text email
- EmailScheduler is checking your email account periodically and scanning your emails for add schedule and delete schedule requests
- An autocompletion algorithm allows you to just send the program name and TV server will add the recording and search the EPG data for the channel, start and end time.
- Optional parameters do allow a more advanced scheduling technique
- Email support for creating a Tv Wish list

Requirements:
MediaPortal 1.0.0 or 1.0.1 or 1.0.2 or 1.1RC1 or 1.1RC2 or 1.1RC3
Tested with XP (SP3 32 bit), Vista (SP2 32 bit) and Windows 7 (64 bit)


Installation:
- Start the MediaPortal Extension Installer (MPEI) which can be found in your MediaPortal program directory and install EmailScheduler
- In the EmailScheduler Installer window click "Install" (make sure you read the manual)
- Push the buttons “Readme”, “Install” and “Exit”. Enable the plugin in the TV server configuration.
For Users with a TV Server only Installation: The MPEI installer will unzip all files in the
%PROGRAMDATA%\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Installer\EmailScheduler folder. If
you have a computer with a TV server only installation you can copy this folder to the TV
server and install it there.


Quick Usage:
- Create a separate email account for your TV server. This account should be used only for recording schedules to achieve best performance.
- Enter your provider settings, your user name and your password. The server will be checked for new mails according to the “Check Email Hours”.
- Define your subject. This will be used as a filter and only emails with the same subject will be evaluated.
- You can define security features like password, tan, trusted senders or recording hour limits
- Now you are set up and can send emails from anywhere in the world to your Tv server. The most simple syntax is just one email line ADDPROGRAM = <program name>. The program name must match the program title in the EPG data. The complete syntax is explained in the Detailed Usage Guide.

Known Issues:



Version History:
Version 1.0.6.0 released on 16.Apr.2010
* support added for MP1.1RC2

version 1.0.5.0 released on 4.Apr.2010
* if the system goes into standby/hibernation the email server connection will be terminated. This could cause a Tvserver exception in the old version
* added advanced recording / search options for tvWishList version 0.0.0.5 (do not use with 0.0.0.4 or older!)
* using improved conflict management from TvWishList
* supporting new MPEI2 installer
* priority will be used for scheduling

version 1.0.4.3 released on 30.jan.2010
* Improved error checking for the provider data
* added commands for supporting TvWishList via EmailScheduler like AddTV, DeleteTV, EditTV, ListTV
* added user defined counters for Max Email Processing count, Max EPG output number and Script Wait Minutes
* corrected manual on help=EPG data options

Version 1.0.4.2 released on 16.Jan.2010
* Email address of the SMTP server can be separately specified if it is not identical to the user name
* When TV server is started , receiving emails will be started first time after the checking interval
* Some providers did send the mail as a plain text mail and a html mail. Schedules got recorded twice before this fix.

V 1.0.4.1 released on 06.Jan.2010
* fixed email reading problem with Windows XP by downgrading email server read method to 1.0.3.0
* fixed installer bug for uninstalling plugin
* added autoinstaller support for Windows 7 and 64 bit versions
* added support for different smtp/pop3 server authorization with username and password
* changed TV_PROGRAM_FOLDER\EmailScheduler to TV_USER_FOLDER\EmailScheduler
* fixed bug for Processing ongoing “wait for completion” in case of error state

V 1.0.4.0 released on 04.Oct.2009
* using MPI installer for EmailScheduler
* date time conversion set to cultural invariant for all conversions
* improved autodetection of non English/German xp versions for MP1.1beta

V 1.0.3.1
* new keyword UseSchedulename=true for renaming recorded file, xmlfile and updating recording entry to the
schedule name
* minutes for next email check can be reduced down to 1 minute (recommended is a minimum time of 15 minutes!)
* server mail processing accelerated by less wait states (more effective reading of emails)
* 10 minute timeout for initial BUSY state waiting
* improved warning and error messages
* added keyword AddSchedule again

V 1.0.3.0 released on 22.Jun.2009
* added support for MediaPortal 1.1alpha. The installer will automatically detect the rigth pluginversion
* installer improvements have been copied over from BackupSettings

V 0.0.0.3 released on 07.Jun.2009
* minutes added for next email check, minimum checking interval is 5 minutes
* changed keyword ADDSCHEDULE to ADDPROGRAM
* partial names for matching program names when using PARTIALPROGRAM=<partial name>
* schedule allpartial matching program names using ALLPARTIALPROGRAMS=<partial name>
* help=epg return email with filtered epg data max number is 1000
* reply .response files for run command
* prevent standby during receiving emails
* new keyword Channelgroup=<groupname> for filtering channels
* list available drive space for help=schedules
* remove seconds in all date time formats: format is now yyyy-mm-dd_hh:mm
* max number of emails to be processed: 100
* max wait time for run scripts 5 minutes

V 0.0.0.2 released on 21.May2009
• faster server communication
• delete mail from server after processing
• run user scripts
• help schedules command
• help channels command
• bug fixes
• improved encoding (=3D issue of urev)
• support for html mails

V0.0.0.1 beta released on 09.May.2009

Acknowledgement:
Special thanks to _Agree_ for his MyMail plugin. I have reused his pop3 email class and without his plugin I could never have done EmailScheduler. The source code from _Agree_ has been modified for EmailScheduler.

 

[urev]

Very cool plugin, Thanks!
But I have a problem, the emails are not correct. The answer-email of your plugin was:

=======

Error: Channel Display name NOTFOUND could not be assigned
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Add Schedule Error: Channel not specified or could not be identified
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(the copy of the original email-header is left out)

ADDSCHEDULE=3DARD-RATGEBER
.

========

I am writing emails in plain-text, but the "=" becomes a "=3D". What is causing the problem? Are html-emails also possible? In some companies you can only send html-emails.

bye, urev

 

[huha]

urev,
I do not know what is causing the 3D. The plugin autocompletion is searching now in the EPG data for a show named "3DARD-RATGEBER" and cannot assign a valid channel name because it does not find a program.
html emails are not supported yet. If this becomes an issue i will look into it, but it will take some time.
Did you use a freemail provider for sending and receiving? If you can give me more info on the provider i can try further debugging.
So far i can only advice you to try a different email provider for sending the mail and compare the result.

urev, I just tried sending an html email and it did work out of the box. My email parser is ignoring the html body and the keywords are parsed correctly. I have to do more testing, but it looks like html is supported already.

Can you check that there is no space and no extra character between the "=" sign and the title in the original mail. If you did enter a special character maybe the encoding of that did cause the "3D".

Updated 23:00:
html emails are not fully supported yet. I will add this into the next version.

 

[urev]

Dear Huha,

thanks for your fast replay. I checked an other provider and it worked. You asked if there was a space between the equal sign - no, there was no space. i have no idea why there was a "3d".

If I send a email "record '007' for me" then MP records the first show that is called "007...". But how can I record the second or third show called 007? Perhaps your plugin could answer my mail with a list of all shows containing "007"?

I think it would be helpful if "you could talk with mediaportal" via email. What does it mean? I think of a mail with "send me the epg of this day" and mediaportal sends the epg data of this day. Or "send me all schedules of this week", so in the next step it is possible to delete a schedule. Of a "help" and your mediaportal plugin sends all possible commands. In this "dialog" case the emails should be checked faster, perhaps every 2 minutes?

Your plugin is really cool, i think it is better than all webserver plugins, which need a database connection, a hole in the firewall, a running HTPC and so on. And it is convenient for scheduling a show from work or via mobile phone. This is really hot!

bye, urev

 

[huha]

urev,
I am able now to reproduce the "3D" issue and suspect it is the encoding. Until this is fixed users need to send the mails from a different provider.

You have advanced recording options for series schedules like daily, weekly or all shows on any channel. Check the Media Portal Advanced Recording in the manual.

Help on channel names and schedules are already implemented in 0.0.0.2, but I was throwing out the EPG data I had more than 20000 data and it was killing performance. maybe I will output with filters and ensure just the first 500 epg data. The 2 minutes checking will become a problem for many freemail providers as they restrict the access to 15 minutes. If you want to have interactive access, then a webinterface should be used. I am testing 0.0.0.2 and will update soon. I am glad you like the plugin.

 

[huha]

I have released version 0.0.0.2 which contains the following changes

• faster server communication
• delete mail from server after processing
• run user scripts
• help schedules command
• help channels command
• bug fixes
• improved encoding (=3D issue of urev) (urev, please try again your original provider with the "=3D" issue
• support for html mails

Check the manual for detailed explanations of the new features
greetings, huha

 

[urev]

yes, 3D-Issue is solved, thank you.
Is it correct that we have to know the exact tilte of the show? Are wildcards allowed?
Is it possible to use a mail poll intervall of less than one hour? You can type in "0 hours", does it make sense?
I would appreciate a EPG-function, perhaps an epg of only one channel for one or two days. This shouldn't be too large for an email.

bye, urev

 

[huha]

urev,
thanks for the fast feedback.
yes, you have to know the exact title. Wildcards are not allowed.
I will be working on support for partial title match and other items in the next version.

 

[spiek81]

dear huha

he huha,

I was wondering if its possible to let the server dowload the mail more times than 1 hour.

By the way i love your plugin works Great!!!


greets ,

Bas Spiek
Holland

 

[huha]

spiek81,
thanks for the feedback. I will include in the next version minutes for email checking. I am planning to set the minimum checking interval to 5 minutes.