Is there a way to programmatically install plugins?

[SageWizdom]

Greetings,
I've been reading some good comments in some of the plugin posts (commercial skipping, etc), and I would love to try and auto install a base set of plugins as part of an automatic install... or at least ask a user and if they say yes auto install. Does anyone know how to install plugins automatically?

I would note that I think the sagex api will let you do it (or possibly through the web interface which I assume is using sagex). That said, whichever plugin is providing this support has to be installed first so its a bit chicken and egg I think?

A totally acceptable solution to me is something that bootstraps in the basic api (sagex) and then uses sagex to install everything else. Side note, is there a list of recommended/favorite plugins? (commercial skip, web servers, sagex, UI mod, ??)

Thanks in advance!

[Skirge01]

While I can appreciate your enthusiasm and applaud your effort, your final question highlights the issue with such a project. Plugins are such a personal choice that asking for recommendations or favorites is problematic. If you ask 20 people what plugins they have installed or what their favorites are, I'm pretty confident you'll get 20 different answers. What people probably need is a way to discover what plugins are out there. This is currently done by asking if there's a way to accomplish a certain thing, after they've played with the stock Sage for a bit. Then, the friendly people on this forum reply with, "Oh, check out the X plugin." There might be a more effective way, but I'm not sure bundling plugins with a stock install is it. Additionally, particularly for new users, making the default installation even more complicated could wind up being a deterrent.

Now, if this is for experienced users to be able to have an installer which will add in all the plugins from an existing installation to be carried over to a new installation, I might be singing a different tune.

[Fuzzy]

If there was a clean way to have a plugin auto-install, I doubt Andy would have put the prompts to install the Google Weather plug-in the way he did.

[stuckless]

I've given this some thought, since sagetv has gone open source. Ultimately, I'd like to build "packages" of SageTV that would be auto-configured with some plugins, out of the box.

Personally I think that sagetv might require some changes to make this happen smoothly.

On thought that I had was that we could have a "manifest" in an "core-plugins" directory and when sagetv starts it would check if these plugins are installed, and if not, then install them using the plugin manager apis.

I think the plugin system does need a "refresh" to have it work a little better, and this might be a good excuse to do that...

For example, I'd like to specify plugin dependencies (especially jar dependecies) are just references to Maven Central archives. I'd also like to modify the plugin xml to include an architecture field like 32 or 64... so that we can create some native plugins (ie, the tuner plugins should be installed as plugins, but we'd only want to install the 32bit ones on a 32bit system, etc).

And lastly, I think that since we are re-entering the "age of javascript", I think the plugin system should be tweaked to allow JavaScript as a first class programming language to extend SageTV. This would push the min java requirement to Java 8 (Java 7 could also we min, but Java 8 has much better JavaScript support with a better JS engine).

[EnterNoEscape]

It would be nice to add the ability to install and configure tuning plugins. One of the things that is still somewhat difficult for new users is when they need to use one of the tuning plugins that doesn't come with SageTV. It would be nice if the configuration was accessible through the UI instead of requiring the importing of a registry key or editing a configuration file.

Also adding to your idea about a "manifest." I don't know if you can already do this or not, but it would be nice to be able to export what plugins are currently installed so you can easily get all of the plugins you had before installed again after a complete reinstall or transfer the configuration over to a SageTV Client install.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

It would be nice to add the ability to install and configure tuning plugins. One of the things that is still somewhat difficult for new users is when they need to use one of the tuning plugins that doesn't come with SageTV. It would be nice if the configuration was accessible through the UI instead of requiring the importing of a registry key or editing a configuration file.

This can be done via the current plugin system. They just need to include not just the plugin files itself, but also an STVi that handles the configuration.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

This can be done via the current plugin system. They just need to include not just the plugin files itself, but also an STVi that handles the configuration.

Yes, but where's the convenience in that? That's going back to the way things used to be done. The whole process should be available via the plugin system so you don't need to copy some files to the right place, then import an STVi.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Yes, but where's the convenience in that? That's going back to the way things used to be done. The whole process should be available via the plugin system so you don't need to copy some files to the right place, then import an STVi.

The UI MOD section of the plugin system ARE .stvi files.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The UI MOD section of the plugin system ARE .stvi files.

I know that. This would still be a two part installation. If I'm not mistaken, I don't believe there any tuning plugins that actually show up in the plugins section of the UI. Are you saying that today it's possible to install a tuning plugin from the UI?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I know that. This would still be a two part installation. If I'm not mistaken, I don't believe there any tuning plugins that actually show up in the plugins section of the UI. Are you saying that today it's possible to install a tuning plugin from the UI?

yes, you should be able to install just about anything. It wouldn't be two part, but it would require two plugins. Likely installing the plugin file itself via a standard plugin, and the configuration as a UI Mod. If the UI Mod is set up with the general as a dependency, than all you have to do is install the ui mod in a single step.

[SageWizdom]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Now, if this is for experienced users to be able to have an installer which will add in all the plugins from an existing installation to be carried over to a new installation, I might be singing a different tune.

This is my goal, auto installing all the plugins I care about across new installs (or installs for friends/family).

That said, what I can imagine for a new user is a web based wizard (wizard like?) selection guide. It could ask a user things they care about (skipping commercials?) type of hardware, etc. It could then provide a guided install file to help automatically install / upgrade the default SageTV to be better for them. Almost like slipstreaming a windows install or getting a curated linux distribution. If sage is to really be accessible to people, it must "just work" out of the box. Then when folks get comfortable with it, they can come ask questions.

My personal opinion is that in today's world, Sage should always install with a WebUI (both mobile optimized and desktop - looking forward to the respin I think folks are talking about). I also believe that a programmatic API and commercial skipping should come pre-installed. These provide a pretty competitive system out of the box.

[SageWizdom]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

If there was a clean way to have a plugin auto-install, I doubt Andy would have put the prompts to install the Google Weather plug-in the way he did.

That is what I was afraid of. I was hoping there was a sneaky way to install SageX and then use that to install everything else (I'm assuming this is how the web interface does it). Perhaps auto download sagex to a specific directory and put some specific configuration lines into the Sage.Properties file (at least that is what I have considered trying). I just don't know enough about the internals to know if I'm about to horribly corrupt something ... again

It used to be possible to hook running windows applications through rpc calls... any of you really smart Java guys know if its possible to do this with Java? Can an external process execute a procedure in a running Sage Java instance? Specifically (or obviously), whatever call it is that the UI calls when I click install on the UI.

(Edit: I probably said this wrong, can I have my own java application that loads the sage jar and executes the same "install" function that would correctly download, install and update the config file?)

[nyplayer]

The most Important plugin to "unlicensed" users is the Schedules Direct Plugin ... this should be included out of the box as SageTV needs this plugin all other plugins are optional. If you do not enter a license it should Install this plugin.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by SageWizdom

That is what I was afraid of. I was hoping there was a sneaky way to install SageX and then use that to install everything else (I'm assuming this is how the web interface does it). Perhaps auto download sagex to a specific directory and put some specific configuration lines into the Sage.Properties file (at least that is what I have considered trying). I just don't know enough about the internals to know if I'm about to horribly corrupt something ... again

It used to be possible to hook running windows applications through rpc calls... any of you really smart Java guys know if its possible to do this with Java? Can an external process execute a procedure in a running Sage Java instance? Specifically (or obviously), whatever call it is that the UI calls when I click install on the UI.

(Edit: I probably said this wrong, can I have my own java application that loads the sage jar and executes the same "install" function that would correctly download, install and update the config file?)

Honestly, the best way to deal with this would be to add an offline temp file similar to the one used for modifying and deleting files in use (for background, if the plugin system is unable to replace or delete a file while sage is running, it will write a temporary .txt file with the incomplete steps in it, and trigger a restart. The launcher will then take the appropriate actions on next start-up, prior to actually loading the JVM, and delete the .txt files).

We can modify the plugin system to, on startup once the plugin manager is up and running, look for a loadplugins.txt file that is a simple list of plugins by id, pull those plugins in, and then delete the text file. The installer would simply have to dynamically create this file as it needs.

Put up an issue on github, and it can be looked at - I don't actually foresee this being incredibly hard to implement.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

The most Important plugin to "unlicensed" users is the Schedules Direct Plugin ... this should be included out of the box as SageTV needs this plugin all other plugins are optional. If you do not enter a license is should Install this plugin.

Agreed. This is critical.

[Narflex]

I should say that plugins can definitely be installed programmatically; the way the STV does it right now is through API calls...so those API calls can be executed by anything (STVI, sagex, startup runnables). You just need some kind of initial hook in that will do this.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I should say that plugins can definitely be installed programmatically; the way the STV does it right now is through API calls...so those API calls can be executed by anything (STVI, sagex, startup runnables). You just need some kind of initial hook in that will do this.

Yeah, of course the API can do it, but his issue was he was wanting to do it externally via something like sagex - which of course, needs to be installed first.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Agreed. This is critical.

May be critical for you, but not for anyone outside the US

John

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

May be critical for you, but not for anyone outside the US

John

I thought that Schedules Direct was expanding/has expanded their EPG support to other countries. It's not really that important to me personally since I have a SageTV license, however I believe that all EPG support beyond what the licensed users get is very important to the future of the SageTV platform (not just for US).

Do you have an EPG service in mind that you would like to see available in SageTV?

[stanger89]

I do agree that ideally EPG plugin selection would be part of the installer so that a new user could just select which EPG source they wanted to use, and configure it easily.

An alternative option would be to have that be part of the setup wizard (in the STV) that's run the first time you run Sage.