Feature Request

[Razillian]

I just submitted this to support as a feature request, after all the posts I read on people wanting to be able to make advanced changes to the property files from within sage and all the times I wished for that feature myself, but also the need to keep Joe Sixpack out of those advanced settings.

Feature request: Add an additional setup screen to "Detailed Setup" that is hidden and unlockable with a code (like the super secret extras are from System Info screen). This setup screen would be for making advance level changes to the sage.properties file settings such as changing capture device encoder merit, turning debug on/off, turning on and off program stream encoding per capture device, etc.

Basically all the settings that the advanced users have to normally shutdown Sage and edit the properties file for. The unlock code keeps the average user from going to that settings screen accidentally, but allows advanced users to make changes without having to exit sage; and by putting in the unlock code the user is acknowledging that they take responsibility for what they are about to mess up (again, similar to how the super secret extras are not officially supported).

[pjpjpjpj]

Seconded.

I just had a need for this last night, when my Extenders stopped working, but I could not shut down and turn on debug logging because the server (which was still functioning fine) was recording two shows for the next 1.5 hours...

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Razillian

...allows advanced users to make changes without having to exit sage...

Just putting them on a hidden UI screen doesn't mean you won't have to exit Sage. Many of those properties (such as encoder merit) are checked only once at startup time, so you'd have to restart Sage anyway to get your changes to take effect.

[briands]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Just putting them on a hidden UI screen doesn't mean you won't have to exit Sage. Many of those properties (such as encoder merit) are checked only once at startup time, so you'd have to restart Sage anyway to get your changes to take effect.

But a "refresh NOW" button could force load those that could "safely" be changed on the fly.

[Razillian]

Changing a setting programatically and changing a setting in an information file are two different things. The information file (sage.properties) gets read at load up only once and written to when sage is closed. But all the settings inside that properties file get turned into program variables as they are loaded, and it is those variables that we want to change. Wouldn't even need a "refresh now" button.

The encoder merit variable gets checked everytime the EPG data is updated to see which tuner a show should be scheduled to record on, and everytime you remove and recreate a tuner (did that far too many times in the past 24 hours), and everytime you tune to a channel on live TV. The properties file is just the place that variable gets stored to once sage is closed down and no longer in memory, but right now that is the only place we can make some of these changes.

I lost 3 minutes of recording Gandhi because I had to restart sage to make the QAM change to get my HDHRs working today, would have been nice to have been able to do that programatically.