XLobbyMC & SageMC...what a cute couple...

[Naylia]

Hey guys,

I just released a skin for XLobby which integrates pretty flawlessly with SageTV and the SageMC skin (currently only supports Blue Two...the other themes are coming).

Check it out over here and let me know what you think. I'm really trying to make this an option to provide all the funtionality in Xlobby and leave the PVR job to Sage. It even goes stragiht to the My Tv view so you don't have redundant main menus.

[aperry]

Looks nice. I'll have to check it out...

[Naylia]

Just a warning it's still a v0.1 so it's got basic functionality for movies, music, weather, and interacts very well with passing off to Sage but there are a known list of deficiencies I plan on working and hopefully I'll be able to put out updates once or twice a week.

Some things on the table...
-fix basic bugs first
-expand the basic 4:3 version to include a 16:9 version before going any farther
-PocketPc screens....imaginge controlling Sage from a PocketPC using wifi anywhere in your house.
-expand functionality to support Games, News, NetRadio, Webcams, etc...

[lovingHDTV]

Naylia,
Very impressive. I'm heard of XLobby for a long time now and tried it a couple years ago. But it looks like I should try again. With this skin and sageMC (I'm already using) I can finally get to where I want (PDA support with Sage).

guess I'll have to download Xlobby and give it a shot.

[Naylia]

Try the prerelease here. It seems to be stable and I think Steven is working towards a final release soon as he has the new defualt skin and so cool new functionality added.

Anyone who wants to try Xlobby, just drop me a pm if you need help setting it up the first time. It's very flexible and customizable, but if you download the prerelease and my XlobbyMC most things should be configured and you'll just need to import you music and movies and set you weather info. Maybe I'll do a writeup to get people going.

[heffe2001]

I'll have to give this a go this weekend .

[Naylia]

v0.11 has been released with some minor bugfixes....I'll be doinig a 16x9 version this weekend hopefully.

[Naylia]

v0.12 released....

cleaned up some of the transition to sagetv and added some events that can be used to go to my tv and recorded tv

also posted a girder .gml file to enable transitioning back to xlobby

[Naylia]

v0.13 released...

-Added a SageTV screen for touchscreen control of the system.
-Included template 'trigger's' for remote control users.

[lovingHDTV]

Naylia,
Are you planning on creating PPC screens? If so will this include some SageTV screens that can be used to control Sage via Girder? I kind of thought that this is your direction. Or maybe I'm just hoping

thanks,

[Naylia]

Don't worry it's coming....

for now....16x9 theme released in a 1280x720 resolution

PPC screens are up next and will include a SageTV controller screen. You actually don't need girder at all. XLobby natively supports sendmessage so all commands go directly from XLobby to SageTV. Theoretically a minimalist version could be constructed that only provides ppc screens to control SageTV. Might be an interesting side endeavor once I get XLobbyMC really solid. I could make XLobbyMC-Lite for PPC and touchscreen control of Sage only and just leave everything else out. (That's actually a really good idea when I think about it, would probably appeal to a very broad SageTV population to be able to just add touchscreen and PPC control to their HTPC without really having to learn a single thing about xlobby.)

[lovingHDTV]

That is great!

I've been looking at netremote to do something similar, but never had the courage to take it on. I'm impressed with Xlobby and what can be done with xml files

[Naylia]

I started ppc screens during my lunch break. Hopefully they'll be up and running in a few days.

[Naylia]

Hey guys, what do you think? Layout, size, buttons available?

[mayamaniac]

what is XLobby? Is it a frontend interface like myHTPC/Meedio Essentials? If yes, so XLobbyMC allows SageTV with SageMC STV to be loaded into XLobby? Is this correct?

[lovingHDTV]

Yes it is like myHTPC, very flexible and you can create screen very easily. Naylia, has provided support between Xlobby and Sage, all built into Xlobby. It is quite a nice little package. Oh yea, Xlobby is free

I'm very new to Xlobby, but have been looking at it since Naylia started showing the XLobbyMC skin in the last few weeks.

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

what is XLobby? Is it a frontend interface like myHTPC/Meedio Essentials? If yes, so XLobbyMC allows SageTV with SageMC STV to be loaded into XLobby? Is this correct?

Yes, XLobby is a frontend. It is like myHTPC/Meedio except for I think it is even more customizable and does not include any built in media players, instead it interfaces to the software of your choice using a variety of methods. It provides the ability to use sendmessage and os events similar to girder built right it. I've built an xlobby skin that uses sendmessage events to control SageTV. Since you can now control Sage from Xlobby you can setup XLobby to take ir commands from a usb-uirt and then tell sage what to do. Ok so that was old...but now we can also use pocketpcs, touchscreens, and any webclient to control sagetv. That's a little more impressive. On top of that you get the flexibility of XLobby to use media players of your choice. I've included commands and touchscreens for both zoomplayer and theatertek. You can also use winamp or foobar as the audio player hidden in the background. This gives you access to visualizations and bit perfect playback/ASIO/kernal streaming for the audiophiles. And I'm using Sage as my pvr, all flawlessly integrated. What I have XLobby doing is essentially passing focus from XLobby to Sage when you click my tv. Then when you use touchscreen/remote/ppc and push home it sends the focus back to Xlobby. I'm really working hard to make the transition as seamless as possible.

And I'm always happy to help anyone get XLobby up and running with their other apps. The high degree of flexibility means you might need to make some modifications to point it to the video player of your choice and such. Oh and it also supports multi-zone audio, another plus people love. My skin doesn't yet, but maybe one day.

[mlbdude]

Hey Naylia this all looks great! Simple question though for us not using XLobby today. What will this give me that I can't do in Sage already? It sounds like I will be able to playback more audio formats which is nice. The PPC stuff looks cool too!

[lovingHDTV]

That is the question I asked myself when looking at this and here is what I came up with.

1. PPC control
2. better music support
3. better support for your player of choice (zoom, TT), as Xlobby will control these programs, you don't have to set them up yourself in Girder etc.
4. Multi-zone audio support

That's my list

[Naylia]

Correct me if you can do any of this in Sage...

PocketPC Control
Touchscreen Control
WebClient Control
...of your htpc...not just of recordings.

Multi-zone audio
Equalizer controls
X10 interfacing
NetRadio
Games...beyond just MAME...interface and catalog whatever game system you want
PhotoAlbum/Slideshow with music playing...Sage might have that
Interact with and control any program that accepts commandline or sendmessage commands
Webcams/Weathercams
Recipes/MealMaster
Rip CDs

Some may be doable in Sage and I know you can do even more in Xlobby, that's just whats on the top of my head now