Will Dynamic Customisable Main Menu import be updated for v7?

[FidgetyRat]

Heck, at this point, I'd just like to see something simple to launch batch scripts. Something that could launch an external batch script to spawn a program like hulu desktop, minimize sage, etc. For now the mouse/keyboard will have to keep making an appearance on the coffee table.

[RetroBox]

One method I've used to "fill in the gaps" for not having Dynamic Menus is using LM Gestion's Remote KeyMap (RKM). I find it to be a great tool to launch programs or scripts linked to a remote control key or even via user-created OSD menus - I use this feature to toggle between "features" in my build including "Play Blu-Ray" to launch TMT in full screen for blu-ray discs or "Play Games" to launch my emulator frontend. Of course, its main purpose is for mapping remote control commands, virtually supporting anything from FireFly, MCE remotes to whatever you want via USB-UIRT. Something really neat about it is that a web remote version is now available to control Sage (or whatever) via web browser, smart phone and iPhone. This feature is available in the "donator" edition, which I think is well worth it. The user interface is clean and intuitive, so the learning curve is not very steep. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to remove the keyboard /mouse from the coffee table - having those certainly does not instill much confidence with the wife.

No, I am not affiliated with this software and get no direct benefit by endorsing it. I just find it to a really cool piece of software that is easy to use for non-programmers and the support is top notch.

[dballer1]

+1 I want menus that have the content (like certain directories) with passwords on them.

[ChePazzo]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Yeah, but what features do you need? The dynamic main menu did quite a bit more than most people used. Is it the ability to move menu items around? Is it the calling of external apps? Is it the StaticContexts allowing menu's to jump to folder-filtered views (which, BTW, was in SageMC only)?

Honestly, if there were a way to turn off the remembering of the last imported folder so that every time you selected Videos->folders, it would start at the beginning, that would suffice for me. Not as nice as being able to edit the main menu, but it would solve my immediate issue.
Perhaps this is a feature that exists and I have missed?

Personally, the part that I miss is giving my kids quick access to their imported movies/TV.

That is, when you have 2 groups of people who watch different shows stored in different imported folders, going back and forth between them is kind of a pain.

As it is now, if I watch something at night, Sage remembers the folder, then when my kids come down in the morning to watch something, they start with videos->folders and then have to go backwards, etc to find the stuff they want to watch.

in v6, I had Dynamic main menu and put "Kid Movies" and "Kid TV" right there so they could quickly jump.

[Fuzzy]

The 'newer' way to do this would most likely be with the User Categories, but I'm not sure how they integrate with the Videos (only really use them for recordings here)

[ChePazzo]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The 'newer' way to do this would most likely be with the User Categories, but I'm not sure how they integrate with the Videos (only really use them for recordings here)

I tried doing this with the user categories, but the nice thing about folders is that you can have sub-folders.

makes things easier to navigate and find what you need with a remote control.

[ChuckSchick]

Yepper. I'll be stuck on 6.X until I can have a "Kid's Movies" menu item.

I'd hate to think of the backlash.

[Eckwell]

Originally Posted by ChuckSchick

Yepper. I'll be stuck on 6.X until I can have a "Kid's Movies" menu item.

I'd hate to think of the backlash.

Ditto...

Actually I upgraded to the v7 core, but am using the 6.x STV until i can customize the menus

[toricred]

Version 7 went to Release Candidate tonight. There's still no mention of anything like Dynamic Customized menus. If I recall correctly Sage doesn't add features after going to RC. This stinks since I really want them back, but I'm not willing to use the V 6 UI.

[Fuzzy]

They were never a 'part of sage', and I can imagine they would turn into a support nightmare. I never expected sage to create them. In all honesty, they set up the menus in the v7 UI very well so that it doesn't take much studio knowledge at all to move/adjust the menu's around. It wouldn't take much more to add some of the 'custom' features people here are requesting (like launching external programs, etc). Making a system that parses an XML file, however, would be a lot more work than that.

If you want to modify your menus, and decide to work in studio a bit to do so, you could create your own 'custom menu' plugin, and add it to a SageTVPluginsDev.xml. This will let you treat your mods like any other plugin, and it will be enabled/disabled from the plugin screen, just like an online one.

[ChePazzo]

Noticed in the release notes for .17:

15. Hidden: Changed Detailed Setup -> Customize option for Custom Menus to 'Add links to malore's custom menus on the Main Menu'; controls whether any malore menu items are added to the Main Menu, not just the Custom Menus submenu.

I'm not sure exactly what this means (since I never figured out how to use the "Custom" menus), but will have to play around with this tonight.

I'm assuming that the "Hidden" items refer to the 5309 options.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

They were never a 'part of sage', and I can imagine they would turn into a support nightmare. I never expected sage to create them. In all honesty, they set up the menus in the v7 UI very well so that it doesn't take much studio knowledge at all to move/adjust the menu's around. It wouldn't take much more to add some of the 'custom' features people here are requesting (like launching external programs, etc). Making a system that parses an XML file, however, would be a lot more work than that.

If you want to modify your menus, and decide to work in studio a bit to do so, you could create your own 'custom menu' plugin, and add it to a SageTVPluginsDev.xml. This will let you treat your mods like any other plugin, and it will be enabled/disabled from the plugin screen, just like an online one.

Actually that is the issue if more than one addin modifies the same part of the menu good luck getting then both to work at the same time.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Actually that is the issue if more than one addin modifies the same part of the menu good luck getting then both to work at the same time.

True, if you are modifying existing entries by more than one plugin, but adding items to a menu shouldn't cause any issues. Either way, even with the old dynamic menu system, the users had to add the menu item to the menu themselves.

[pjpjpjpj]

Fuzzy, I appreciate you encouraging everyone to try it themselves, but I think the whole part of wanting a customizing plugin (rather than modifying it yourself) is that every time Sage releases an update, you'd have to manually do it again. As someone who made a couple of small manual tweaks in v6, I can say that having to do this is a royal pain. It made me procrastinate updating every time. And even those small tweaks were difficult.

Since the announcement of the latest beta states that no more changes or additions will be made, and at this point it's all just bug fixes, I think it's official... there will be no Dynamic Customizable Menus built in to Sage v7.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Fuzzy, I appreciate you encouraging everyone to try it themselves, but I think the whole part of wanting a customizing plugin (rather than modifying it yourself) is that every time Sage releases an update, you'd have to manually do it again. As someone who made a couple of small manual tweaks in v6, I can say that having to do this is a royal pain. It made me procrastinate updating every time. And even those small tweaks were difficult.

Since the announcement of the latest beta states that no more changes or additions will be made, and at this point it's all just bug fixes, I think it's official... there will be no Dynamic Customizable Menus built in to Sage v7.

That's why I suggested making it a private plugin (SageTVPluginsDev.xml). That way, it will reimport after any STV updates. Obviously, not ideal, but without nielm still roaming around, and most the good devs working on whole new UI's, I don't see this happening soon. Besides, if peopple are encouraged to give studio a try, you might end up with a few more devs in the community.

[Polypro]

There should be a new forum category called:

"What Exactly Do I Do In Studio If I Want To..."

added...you can't expect every user to now become studio experts (or even beginners). I've used Studio to re-order some menu's in the past...but I'm not looking forward to this. I wonder what ever happened to neilm???

P

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Polypro

There should be a new forum category called:

"What Exactly Do I Do In Studio If I Want To..."

There is the studio manual which covers all the basic stuff and the studio forum. Most basic edits are covered in the manual so really no reason for people to answer every how to as most would say RTFM

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

True, if you are modifying existing entries by more than one plugin, but adding items to a menu shouldn't cause any issues. Either way, even with the old dynamic menu system, the users had to add the menu item to the menu themselves.

Even adding menu's can be dangerous when developers don't stick with the themes that the main menu uses and another modifies the layout (ie why I quit working on my vertical menu mod).

I still say this sounds like a great job for fuzzy

[jaminben]

Its actually quite hard to make the Sage menu dynamic due to the fact that not every option/menu is fully linkable.....its not impossible tho.

What we want is something like this....


Cheers

Ben

[ChePazzo]

For now, I've loaded the sageMC (which never worked for me before -- dunno why) and assigned "groups" which doesn't exist in the SageV7

Of course, I don't know if when I assigned a folder to a group if it assigned the folder or if it assigned each of the videos. I'll find out of course, when I add a new video to the folder if it gets added to the group.

Perhaps one day, I'll load up the Studio and play around.