STV Import: Fan Art for Default STV by TiKi (v2.2 Feb 22, 2009)

[Tiki]

**Updated January 5, 2010**

Get the latest from the Download Section:
<<Current Version is 2.4>>

This import is for the default STV (SageTV3.xml) and is designed to allow the display of fan art for tv shows and movies. I have tested it with the current released version of SageTV 6.6.2 and the previous release: 6.5.9.


Note: Version 2.4 of this import still uses the original Fan Art folder and file naming convention. It has not been updated to support the Phoenix Fan Art system yet.


Two types of fan art are supported: Banner and Background.

Banners are displayed at the top of the SageRecordings, Recording Schedule, and Program Guide Screens as well as the various Malore Menus when hidden extras are enabled. The banners will change depending on the currently selected airing. If no banner is found for the selected show, the display will look about the same as if this import wasn't there. I have found that banners with dimensions of 758 x 140 pixels work well.

Program Guide:


SageTV Recordings (with Malore Multi-Pane Style):

Backgrounds are displayed in the Recording Detail screen. The detail screen has been re-arranged to make it easier to see the fan art and still read the recording details. Backgrounds will be scaled to fill as much of the screen as possible without distorting the image (so if you use a wide-screen image for a background you will see black bars around the image if you display it on a narrow-screen TV). I have found that backgrounds with dimensions of 1280 x 720 pixels work well.

This import supports three layouts for the detailed information screens: "Default", "Left + Bottom", and "Top + Bottom":

Default:


Left + Bottom:


Top + Bottom:



I have added several new properties that can be set from the Detailed Setup | Customize screen. These parameters specify the paths to the Banner art and the Background art, and enable or disable fan art for the various menues. All Banners must be in a single centralized folder and all backgrounds must be in another single folder. However, starting with Version 2.0, you may have sub-directories inside these two folders labeled "TV" and "Movies." If the import can't find a matching image in the main folder, it will check in these two sub-folders. It will use the "Movies" Folder if the show is a DVD or imported Video. It will use the "TV" Folder if it is a Sage Recording or unrecorded show. There is one exception to this rule. If it is a Sage Recording or unrecorded airing and the Category is "Movie", then it will look in the Movies sub-folder. Having these subfolders allows you to have a Movie and TV show with the same name but different images.

Detailed Setup Screen:



Fan Art Setups:


The files should be named the same as the show title for TV shows recorded with Sage and have a "jpg" extension. For example, "24.jpg" or "South Park.jpg" If there are special characters in the title of the show that are not valid for filenames (such as ", :,?, \, /, <, >) just remove them:
So for a Show called "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" the fan art would be "Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles.jpg".

For imported movies, this import uses the episode name (Sage stores the filename and path as the Show Title, but if you use .My files or .property files to set a title for an imported movie or tv show, it is actually the episode title that you are setting). I recommend using the RW Metadata import by JREkiwi or the webserver to set the titles and other meta data for imported shows.

As of Version 2.3, I have added support for Music Fan Art. Currently, the Music Fan Art only supports the default layout. Music Fan Art will appear as the background in the Song Detail Screen. The image file should be placed in: <Central Background Folder>\Music\. It should be labeled with the Artist's name (i.e. "U2.jpg" or "The Beatles.jpg").

Song Detail Screen with Fan Art Background:


As of Version 2.3, I have added support for Genre Banners and Genre Backgrounds. If a banner or background cannot be found for a Sage Recording or Imported Video, it will now check in <Central Background Folder>\Genres\ for a background or <Central Banner Folder>\Genres\ for a banner. It will look for a jpeg labeled with the name of the Category or Subcategory for the recording. Some examples of categories would include "news", "weather", or "sports". If you create a genre banner its name should match the category (ie.: news.jpg, weather.jpg, sports.jpg). In the case of the banners, if a matching genre banner is found, the show title will be printed over the top of the banner.

Example of a Genre Banner:


**Note: As of Version 2.0 of the Fan Art Import, if you will also be using the RW Metadata import, you must install that import first, or things will not work properly. In the Manage STVis screen, make sure the FanArt Import is listed after the RW Metadata import.

**Note 2: Starting with version 2.2.6 of the RW MetaData Import, you should install the Fan Art Import first.


I also added a new choice to the Malore Menu Options, under "Action After Selecting Airing" You can now choose "Display Details" Then when you are in the malore menus, clicking on an item will take you straight to the recording details screen. As of Version 2.2 there is an additional setup called "Jump Straight to Detailed Info" that does the same thing for the Program Guide and Video Browser Screens.



I have posted some banners to the download server here: Banners. But you can also find banners at http://theTVdb.com. This is also a great resource for background images.

In addition, the SageMC STV already supports fan art backgrounds, and there are many posts in that forum with fanart packs and links to other websites with fan art. You may want to check out this tutorial on finding images: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37452

This import works best if you enable the hidden extras and use the Malore Multi-pane screens.

Enjoy!

-----
Revision History:

v1.0 - January 28, 2009 - First Released Version.

v2.0 - February 15, 2009 - Revamped code to make it more flexible.
- Added more setup options:
--Now you can choose whether to use the custom detailed info screen for Sage Recordings, Unrecorded Airings, and Imported Videos individually.
--Now you can choose whether to display banners.
--Now you can choose whether to display backgrounds.
--Now you can choose between 3 layouts for the detailed info screen (Default, Left+Bottom, or Top+Bottom).
-Now if an image can't be found in the main banner or background location, will check in the "TV" or "Movies" sub-directory.
-Added a "Watch" Button to the "Left + Bottom" and "Top + Bottom" Layouts.

v2.1 - February 16, 2009 - Fixed bug displaying backgrounds for imported videos.
- Added a "Watch" Button to the "Default" Layout.
- Combined the airing time and the duration on one line in the description area in the "Top + Bottom" Layout.

v2.2 - February 22, 2009 - Fixed bug where banners stored in the \TV subdirectory wouldn't get displayed properly.
-Changed the properties that store the paths for banner art and background art to server properties (if upgrading from a previous version you will need to re-set the paths). By making them server properties, they only need to be set once and will affect all clients. The other properties are still client properties so you can set them differently for each client.
-Added a setup "Jump Straight to Detailed Info." If "Yes" then when you click on an item in the Program Guide screen or video browser, you will jump to the detailed info screen instead of seeing a pop-up options menu. You can still get to the options menu by clicking the options button from inside the detailed info screen. This setting does not affect the Malore Multi-pane screens (there is a separate setting for those screens that has the same effect).
-Now display the Version Number for this import at the bottom of the Fan Art Options pop-up in the Setup Menu.

v2.3 - March 15, 2009 - Fixed another bug with finding backgrounds stored in the "\TV\" Subdirectory.
-Added Support for Displaying Music Fan Art. Fan Art must be labeled with the artist's name (i.e. "U2.jpg") and will appear as the background in the Song Detail Screen.
-Added Support for displaying "Genre" Banners and Backgrounds. If banner or background cannot be found for a specific Sage Recording or Imported Video, will now look for a banner or background that matches the Category (Genre) or Sub-category for that recording. Genre banners must be stored in a subfolder of the banners directory labeled "\Genres\". Genre Backgrounds must be stored in a subfolder of the main backgrounds directory labeled "\Genres\". Examples of valid filenames include: sports.jpg, movie.jpg, shopping.jpg, news.jpg, etc.

v2.4 - January 5, 2010 -
1-Internal cleanup (removed dependency on RW MetaData STVi)
2-Removed all "\\" file separators and replaced with java_io_File_separator (this should allow this import to work properly on Mac and Linux systems).
3-Changed the "Delete" listener in the Detailed Info screens to use the default behavior depending on which Detailed Info screen (Video, Recording, etc.).
4-Added Filters to strip out illegal filename characters (eg. "/" and ":") from the Genre names. This will allow the use of Genre Backgrounds and Banners for categories such as Home/Garden (in this case, the image file should be called "Homegarden.jpg").
5-Added a check for Alternate Movie Category Name (Sage defaults to "Film"). Now will look in the Movies folders for banners and backgrounds for recorded TV shows whose genre/category matches either "Movie" or the alternate move category).

[Brent]

Nice work Tiki!

Can't let SageMC have all the fun

[jaminben]

Banners sound very cool Just what I've been looking for.

Do you mind if I try and copy the code for banners and have a go at fitting it into SageMC?

Regards

Ben

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by jaminben

Banners sound very cool Just what I've been looking for.

Do you mind if I try and copy the code for banners and have a go at fitting it into SageMC?

Regards

Ben

Not at all, go for it!

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Not at all, go for it!

Sweet, I'm looking to use it on my next project so it won't be around for awhile yet, but its good to know your ok with it.

Many Thanks

Ben

[gplasky]

Great. But I have one request. The Fanart for SageNC uses the Fanart centralized folder concept but seperates it out in a TV, Movie and Music subfolder. Is there any way you can support this? Or have it look in subfolders for backgrounds? It would be easier to switch between the default and SageMC and brings about some standardization. WHen I set it to Fanart it didn't work but when I set it to Fanart\TV then it picked up the TV backgrounds but of course no DVD (Movie) backgrounds. Then Banners can go right in there and everyone is happy. Just wondering.

And nice job on the layout. I'm really liking this with the default STV.

Gerry

[stuckless]

Great addition. I haven't tried it yet... but looking forward to trying it tonight.

I do have 1 question..... Why is the fanart named from the "title" and not from the actual filename? It would have been nice to have kept the filenaming consistent with the existing .properties and thumbnail jpg.

EDIT:
Never mind.... I can see that the banners and backdrops are being used from the guide.... so there would be no filename in those cases....

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Great. But I have one request. The Fanart for SageNC uses the Fanart centralized folder concept but seperates it out in a TV, Movie and Music subfolder. Is there any way you can support this? Or have it look in subfolders for backgrounds? It would be easier to switch between the default and SageMC and brings about some standardization. WHen I set it to Fanart it didn't work but when I set it to Fanart\TV then it picked up the TV backgrounds but of course no DVD (Movie) backgrounds. Then Banners can go right in there and everyone is happy. Just wondering.

I was trying to keep it simple, and this worked for me. The SageMC code looks in several places and the code gets fairly complex with Studio. If I took the time to learn Java, it would probably be easier, since I could write a lookup function once and reuse it multiple places more easily.

Even with SageMC, the preferred method is now to put everything in a single folder and only use the TV or Movies sub-folders to distinguish between a TV and Movie with the same name and allwo a separate image for each.

I may try to add more options in a future revision, but wanted to get it working with at least basic functionality for now.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I was trying to keep it simple, and this worked for me. The SageMC code looks in several places and the code gets fairly complex with Studio. If I took the time to learn Java, it would probably be easier, since I could write a lookup function once and reuse it multiple places more easily.

Even with SageMC, the preferred method is now to put everything in a single folder and only use the TV or Movies sub-folders to distinguish between a TV and Movie with the same name and allwo a separate image for each.

I may try to add more options in a future revision, but wanted to get it working with at least basic functionality for now.

OK. That's fine. I'll move mine into one and see how that works out. Thanks.

Gerry

[pjpjpjpj]

Looks awesome - can't wait to try it out!

Couple of questions - which I am sure I would figure out when I install it, but I'm at work right now:

1) Are there options to turn on and off each type (banners or backgrounds), or is it "both or neither"? For that matter, once installed, is there a "on/off" setup option where it could be turned off (other than going back to previous STV)?

2) Do the backgrounds work for music? Or just TV at this point?

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

1) Are there options to turn on and off each type (banners or backgrounds), or is it "both or neither"? For that matter, once installed, is there a "on/off" setup option where it could be turned off (other than going back to previous STV)?

No, but if it can't find any fan art at the path specified, it won't display anything.

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

2) Do the backgrounds work for music? Or just TV at this point?

I did not play with the music library, so I don't expect anything to have changed there. I'm not sure where I would show a background or banner for the music library, since it already shows cover art. Might be worth looking into for the future though.

For the video library (imported videos) I show backgrounds, but not banners. Again, I'm not sure where it would be appropriate to show banners here. Also, I couldn't find any websites that had banners for movies.

[dblaine2]

Alas this plugin doesn't work with 6.3.10.

Will have to plan an upgrade through the WAF change control committee

[pjpjpjpj]

I found a conflict - between this stvi and jbuszkie's "Jump Directly to Detailed Info" stvi. (http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16050)

I had that other one installed, and then installed the Fan Art stvi. The banners work just fine, but when you look at the recording info screen where you should see the Fan Art background, it forces in the "detailed info" screen instead (does not show the Fan Art) and also inserts some text halfway down the left side of the screen, overlapping the text of the detailed info. See attachment (with my beautiful MS Paint highlight). Note that the text highlighted on top does not affect the function of the Detailed Info screen - you can scroll through the choices on that left menu below the overlapping text.

The "detailed info" stvi has a setup option where you can turn it off, but this glitch seems to override it... I turned mine off and it still acts as described above.

I suppose that, since I want the Fan Art, I will just drop that other stvi (sorry, jbuszkie!).... but I just wanted to post this in case others were going to try Fan Art and have that other stvi installed already.

On another note... how/when does Sage read/scan the folder of banners? If you add more, do you need to restart Sage? Does this fall under "refresh media"? I added a few more banners after installing the stvi and the new ones are not showing up.

[gplasky]

Great job on this. In the first post you added this option:

I also added a new choice to the Malore Menu Options, under "Action After Selecting Airing" You can now choose "Display Details" Then when you are in the malore menus, clicking on an item will take you straight to the recording details screen.

Is there any way you can do the same thing to the Video library so that when you pick a DVD it goes straight to the video details? Just wondering.

Gerry

[Sean977]

I love this addon for the default stv; however, I keep getting this date showing up in the epg... (see attchment)

Anyone else seeing this or is it just on my system? From my observations the date doesn't have anything to do with the show the banner is for so it shouldn't be there.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-sean

[tmiranda]

I'm trying to use this on a Client (6.5.8) and it is only partially working. I can see the banners when I am browsing the guide but I do not see banners or backgrounds when browsing the recordings. I am using the Malore options with the right side set to double rows (as I think you are looking at the examples in the first post.)

I've double checked that the banner and background images exist for the shows and that the setting point to the right directories.

Any suggestions on what to try? I'd really like to get this working.

Thanks,

Tom

Edit: I realized that the FanArt must be located on the Sage server even though I am using a Client. Doh!

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by Sean977

I love this addon for the default stv; however, I keep getting this date showing up in the epg... (see attchment)

Anyone else seeing this or is it just on my system? From my observations the date doesn't have anything to do with the show the banner is for so it shouldn't be there.

Oops. Looks like I've got some homework to do for the next version. That was supposed to be the time that the selected show is airing. I moved it to the side to leave more room for the show description underneath the banner. Somewhere along the way I must have done something to break it...

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Is there any way you can do the same thing to the Video library so that when you pick a DVD it goes straight to the video details? Just wondering.

I will look into it for the next revision.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Is there any way you can do the same thing to the Video library so that when you pick a DVD it goes straight to the video details? Just wondering.

Yes, this would be really good. I have another suggestion. Many of the shows my wife likes to record do not have FanArt. How about a way to setup some defaults so that ALL shows have FanArt, even if they are just some static banners and backgrounds?

It would be even better if the banner and background displayed could be determined by something other than the exact show title based on some "rules". For example:

- Shows recorded from HGTV channel would use one particular banner and background.

- Shows that had "NHL" in the title would use another banner and background.

- Shows categorized as "Children" would use another banner and background.

That way all shows will have artwork that will be somewhat relevant.

Just a thought....

Thanks for the nice import.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Yes, this would be really good. I have another suggestion. Many of the shows my wife likes to record do not have FanArt. How about a way to setup some defaults so that ALL shows have FanArt, even if they are just some static banners and backgrounds?

It would be even better if the banner and background displayed could be determined by something other than the exact show title based on some "rules". For example:

- Shows recorded from HGTV channel would use one particular banner and background.

- Shows that had "NHL" in the title would use another banner and background.

- Shows categorized as "Children" would use another banner and background.

That way all shows will have artwork that will be somewhat relevant.

Just a thought....

Thanks for the nice import.

Since categories exist for TV shows in Sage this may be a way to use your"generic" fanart background. Just name the background the same as the category and have the plugin look for the showname.jpg. If that doesn't exist grab the first categoryname.jpg (Shows can be in more than 1 category I think) That may work and not be too difficult. Excellent idea tmiranda.

Gerry