SageMC Theming Questions

[Skacey]

I've recently started digging into Sage Studio to better understand the Theme files and how they are applied in SageMC. I've got a few questions about items that I don't quite get.

1. For the custom EPG bars it appears that the STV is selecting the filename of the graphic with the following code:

ImageFile = sagemc_Themes_getImageFile("tvguide_button_light_" + category + "_middle.png", "")

That would suggest that I could make new graphics for any catagory. I tried to do this with a catagory not included in the default set, but no joy. Since it's Sunday, I selected "Religious" and created two new graphics:

tvguide_button_Religious_middle.png
tvguide_button_light_Religious_middle.png

I found several programs that show the catagory as "Religious" but none appear in the EPG with the new graphic.

2. In the theme.properties file there are several lines that allow you to set custom highlights for Catagories. I set the following:

Color/category_bg_colors/Cooking=0xFFFF00

When I go into the EPG, I don't see any highlighting on shows that when opened show a catagory of "Cooking" - Is this over written by having custom graphic files?

3. I found a reference to background_overlay.png so I created this graphic at the same size as the background.jpg file with transparency. In Sage it does indeed draw the background_overlay on top of the background file, but it is not aligned with the background (it's shifted up and to the left about 10%)

What is the intended use of the background_overlay file?

4. Finally, more of a Studio question - If I make changes and write out an STVi file, is it suitable to provide this as part of a Theme? So, as an example, I think I figured out my difficulty with the Scaling Insets properties but I can only fix it in Studio. Second to this is I believe I found the graphics for the OSD progress indicator but it seems that this too requires modifications in Studio. The obvious drawback is that these modifications would change the STV for all themes, and thus may be incompatible with other users work.


-Skacey
Check out the Vickie Theme for SageMC at www.skacey.com

[MeInMaui]

For the guide colors, you have to go to the EPG screen specific options and select the type of coloring method to use. I prefer setting the colors in theme.properties, but the images give you more flexibility to move beyond just colors. Note that the category name has to exactly match the SageTV category when used in image file names. Spaces are replaced with underscores in theme.properties for the that method.

The background overlay is supposed to work the way you thought. I'm not sure why it is off-center. I'll take a look at it tonight.

Let me know what your issues are with scaling insets. Maybe this can be folded into the base STV. For the progress indicator, I added hooks so that you can create your own and link it in. Check out bialio's miniguides for an example of how to do this.

Aloha,
Mike

[Skacey]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I was not able to get the EPG graphic to work for the one I tested. I confirmed the spelling and it didn't have any other spaces so I'm not sure about that one. I'll try some other catagories and see if I can find a solution.

I was able to figure out the background_overlay - it turned out to be the graphic that I used - once I fixed the graphic it overlayed as expected.

For the Scaling_Insets there were two that I could not get to work without modifications in Studio. One was the highlights like icon_empty_focus and list_sub_focus. These are set in my theme.properties as follows

ScalingInsets/list_sub_focus.png=24,24,24,24
ScalingInsets/icon_empty_focus.png=48,48,48,48

But neither one seem to scale as expected. I'll try to get some screenshots of what I'm seeing.

The second is the EPG bars again. I see that they do not have scaling insets by default so if you use a graphic it's generally compressed for 30 minute shows and stretched for shows over 1 hour. It makes borders nearly impossible without modification in Studio.

I'll check out the OSD stuff.

By the way, two days of digging through Studio and looking at SageMC really gave me a tremendous amount of appreciation for the work that was put into this product. Many, many thanks.

-Skacey