STV: SageMC 16x9 11/26/2005 Sage 4.x Version 5_10

[flashbacck]

Originally Posted by kayoti

But if you mean redirecting what images show up where in the stv, then you cannot change these things without Studio.

the lack of availability of studio is... irritating.

[JUC]

Well, i got it working, er, i actually had it working. Nice to see that it works for .bat files too! However, for some reason, when I click on the Other Programs button, it brings up the files I placed in the //temp folder. All is fine. But, if I right arrow on the button, it brings up the the smaller window but it is blank. I can't scroll up or down to see the other programs. Any thoughts?
Thanks
JUC

[gplasky]

I think I avoided that issue by using a .jpg for each program. I just did a .jpg of a TheaterTek icon and a Zoomplayer icon. That's all I see. I don't see the files (shortcuts) at all.



Gerry

[kayoti]

Ok, I am working on a new skin for MC, here are a couple test shots. I am going for a minimalistic feel, but if you guys have any suggestions/desires, let me know

-kayoti

[Bohica]

Hey those look cool! Good job! What proram do you use to design your graphics?

[ukmgranger]

just to have them in colour would be nice!

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by kayoti

Ok, I am working on a new skin for MC, here are a couple test shots. I am going for a minimalistic feel, but if you guys have any suggestions/desires, let me know

-kayoti

Very nice!

[mlbdude]

On the topic of themes, I want to take them one step further. My desire would be to have an XML file in each theme folder that would contain information for font, font size, font color, background colors, and any other item that we can configure. To do this I need a Java class. I don't know Java enough to do this quickly and what I need is realy simple so if someone can create one for me I would apprecieate it.

Here is a sample XML file:

<theme>
   <global>
      <popup_background_color>#f0f0f0</popup_background_color>
   </global>
   <start_menu>
      <menu_font_name>Arial</menu_font_name>
      <menu_font_color>#fffff</menu_font_color>
   </start_menu>
</theme>

I just really need one static method:
string GetValue([path], [group], [element])

Ex. GetValue("c:\\theme.xml", "global", "popup_background_color")

[edbmdave]

Originally Posted by kayoti

Ok, I am working on a new skin for MC, here are a couple test shots. I am going for a minimalistic feel, but if you guys have any suggestions/desires, let me know

-kayoti

Humm, Someone has talent. Very nice. Perhaps introduce a little color for the icons. Kind of like the muted colors in an old photo or perhaps think of the coloring in the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, or stick with the greyscale. It is very nice...

[heffe2001]

Hmm, a Sky Captain-esque colored theme would be interesting..

Those icons are very nice, but like the others, a splash of color would definitely help bring them out (and very much improve the WAF of the theme, as it stands right now, she'd say it's to manly ).

[kayoti]

Originally Posted by Bohica

Hey those look cool! Good job! What proram do you use to design your graphics?

I used Maya to model the icons - nothing better than true 3d. Photoshop was used for everything else.

[kayoti]

Thank you all for the feedback. I am agreeing with you all about the Sky Captain idea and am very excited to try it out. Unfortunately I am a busy student so this weekend is devoted to projects... I promise to have a sample for you all first thing next week. Glad you enjoy my work

-kayoti

[kayoti]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

On the topic of themes, I want to take them one step further. My desire would be to have an XML file in each theme folder that would contain information for font, font size, font color, background colors, and any other item that we can configure. To do this I need a Java class. I don't know Java enough to do this quickly and what I need is realy simple so if someone can create one for me I would apprecieate it.

Here is a sample XML file:

...Would be fantastic. I would be willing to learn some basic Java.

[Watter]

welchkinsage.jar

Here's a jar file for you, mlbdude. Just drop it in the "jars" directory of SageTV and it will be accessible to the STV. Rather than being tied to this specific function, this class is a more generic XMLUtil that can be used for any XML related work you need. Right now it only has a few basic methods, but I can add whatever capability you would like.

It doesn't use static methods as written because the getValue() method you proposed needs a reference to the document that you want to get the value from. In java parlance, this class would be used like so:

XMLUtil xmlUtil = new XMLUtil();
xmlUtil.parse("/location/of/document/to/parse/document.xml");
String value = xmlUtil.getValue("global", "popup_background_color");

You can also pass the document location to the class constructor if you'd like:

XMLUtil xmlUtil = new XMLUtil("/location/of/document/to/parse/document.xml");
String value = xmlUtil.getValue("global", "popup_background_color");

You would want to store the created "xmlUtil" for future reference so that you don't have to reparse the xml file every time you want a value.

If you would prefer, I can modify the class to use only static methods. The user code would then be something like:

Document doc = XMLUtil.parse("/location/of/document/to/parse/document.xml");
String value = XMLUtil.getValue(doc, "global", "popup_background_color");

If we went in this direction, you would want to store the "doc" for future reference so that you don't have to continually reparse the doc every time you want a value. There are other ways to work this with static methods that might be a bit more elegant, so if that's what is needed, just let me know.

Finally, will you be retrieveing the values frequently? I would assume so unless you are retrieveing them once and then storing the values for future use. If you do intend to retrieve them frequently, then I would recommend that we wrap XMLUtil in a class that will cache the returned values. Doing lookups on an XML file, even one stored in memory, isn't terribly slow, but it's certainly not fast. One or two lookups won't cause much of a stir, but dozens or hundreds might cause a noticible hitch in UI rendering. Let me know if you're like this wrapper created. It's a simple process.

[mlbdude]

I believe the lookups would be occurring on every page load. Similar to how the properties are read from the sage.properties file. I am not sure if those values are cached or not. I would suspect they are in memory though since the settings seem to be re-written when Sage is closed.

I can see how using a static method could be slow. I can load the XML class on startup and assign it to a global. At that point I would defer to you as to what would work the most efficient. Thanks!

[Watter]

Properties files are cached naturally.

I'll get back to you in a bit with a new jar. I'll wrap the XMLUtil with something that will cache the values in a map so that lookups don't have a chance to become a problem.

[edbmdave]

MLBDude,

On the Recorded TV screen, you currently have a filter for "View All", "View Movie" etc...

How about added one for "View New" that would show programs that have not been watched, or call it "View Unwatched"..

thanks for all the great work.

[Watter]

welchkinsage.jar

A new jar file is in place. This one contains a new class called "SageMCTheme". It's in the package "mlbdude" so it should be referenced as "mlbdude.SageMCTheme".

Somewhere in the code you need to load the Theme xml document. This only needs to be done once. If you need to load a new document for a different theme, just call this method again:

mlbdude.SageMCTheme.loadThemeDoc("/location/of/theme/xml/document/theme.xml");

Then, sprinkled throughout your code wherever needed, you can call:

mlbdude.SageMCTheme.getValue("global", "popup_background_color");

The values will be cached after their first lookup so there's no need to worry about calling this as many times as you'd like.

Let me know if this isn't your prefered usage or naming. I can change it to be whatever is convenient.

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by Watter

welchkinsage.jar

A new jar file is in place. This one contains a new class called "SageMCTheme". It's in the package "mlbdude" so it should be referenced as "mlbdude.SageMCTheme".

Somewhere in the code you need to load the Theme xml document. This only needs to be done once. If you need to load a new document for a different theme, just call this method again:

mlbdude.SageMCTheme.loadThemeDoc("/location/of/theme/xml/document/theme.xml");

Then, sprinkled throughout your code wherever needed, you can call:

mlbdude.SageMCTheme.getValue("global", "popup_background_color");

The values will be cached after their first lookup so there's no need to worry about calling this as many times as you'd like.

Let me know if this isn't your prefered usage or naming. I can change it to be whatever is convenient.

All looks great! Thanks for jumping on this for me. I will play with it this weekend.

[skyw33]

Sorry to jump in here with something that appears to be a little off topic but... I would like to see a feature that would allow you to run an external program when the sage screen saver comes on. From what I understand this would be really easy to implement in an STV. The reason I want this is so that I can turn off my monitor whenever the sage screen saver comes on. I can't set this up in the windows power settings because it's not sensitive to when sage is working/sleeping.
skyw33