STV Import: Dynamic Customisable Main Menu (v6.4 20/Dec/2007 for SageTV 5.0/6.0)

[nielm]

This module allows the Sage main menu to be fully customisable, and allowing execution of other programs from Sage.

This module is usually required for launching any of the other importable modules, such as the RSS newsfeeds, the IMDB search, or the Weather Report Suite.

It also allows creating menu item shortcuts to specific views in the media browsers and EPG guides.

For full information, download link and installation instructions, see the Dynamic Main Menu page on the sage community Wiki.

Screenshots:



History

v6.4 20 Dec 2007 for SageTV 6.3 and above (Download)

• Added animations
• restored use of Online Services Menu
• Added ability to copy a menuitemlet to the current view in the Photo/Music/Video browser, the Malore custom menus, or the Sage recordings menu
• Added ability to theme the icons used -- place an icon with the same name in a dynamic_menu_icons folder of a theme, and it will be used in preference to the default.
• updated default menu for Sage 6.3
• Added ability to create new menu item linking to the WebPageViewer

v6.3 24 Sep 2007 (Download)

• Fix problem where themes are not loaded when using placeshufter over Internet
• remove reference to sage community from xml

v6.2 (21 Sep 2007) for SageTV 6.2 (Download)

• Use 6.2 themes
• Add 6.2 default menu file
• Fix Online Vids PIN prompt
• Add ability to browse for a menu item icon

v6.1 for SageTV 6.1 20/Feb/2007 (download

• use scrollbars and a more 6.1-like theme
• add default menu for v6.1
• Fix online-videos parental controls for google/youtube

v5.6 (12 Dec 2006) (download)

• Hopefully fixed backward compatibility with V5 (untested!)

v5.5 8 Dec 2006 (download) (SageTV v6.0 ONLY)

• Fixed to work with SageTV 6.0.16 SageTV 6.0.16 (and breaks v5 support)
• Disk space bar performance + calculation improvements (no longer blocks UI)
• Disk space bar add specification of estimated bitrate in HRS
• Added HDTV markers to recsched widget
• added Play to recsched widget to start playback of highlighted currently recording file

v5.4 23 Oct 2006 (SageTV v5.x and 6.0)

• add a cache for menu item pin codes (so you do not have to enter them every damn time!)
• fix problem if pincode is set on a shortcut menu (eg Setup Menu)
• Fix DTD to add pincodes to Internal Sceen Menu Items
• add nielm_sageutls.jar to zip

v5.3 17 Oct 2006

• Added parental controls to Google Video in v6 (see detailed setup/customise): old Google Video link no longer works, add new menu item "Google Video SHORTCUT", or paste following MenuItemLet
  

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <!DOCTYPE sageMenu PUBLIC "-//NIELM//DTD SAGEMENU XML 1.3//EN" "http://www.sage-community.org/~nielm/nielm_modules/dynamic_menu/sagemenu_1_3.dtd">
  <sageMenu version="1.3">
      <internalScreenMenuItem screen="Google Video SHORTCUT" title="Google Video"/>
  </sageMenu>

• fixed shortcut keys problem (Guide, Recordings etc not working)
• fixed problem with BobPhoenix's fave channel lists
• updated default_menu_V6_0.xml to include new Google Video Shortcut

v5.2 07/Oct/2006

• Fixes to allow it to import on SageTV v5
• Fixed Photo browser on v6 default menu

v 5.1 6/Oct/2006 for sageTV 5.0/6.0
Bug fixes:

• fix file browser when adding external program
• bypass Online Services and Help internal screens
• use 5.0/6.0 menu style -- no borders

New Features

• Better options menu screens for menu editing
• Search/Library/Setup shortcut keys now work properly
• Other shortcut keys can now be defined for menu items (but only work inside the menu system
• Copy menu items as text to windows clipboard for easier editing.
• Ability to paste menu items as text from windows clipboard
• Uses sage's fading animation between menu pages
• Confirmation prompts for menu items
• Pin codes for menu items (protect that 'setup' menu)
• block all menu edits and protect with a pin code
• NTE for text prompts (no need for a keyboard any more!)
• improved disk space bar--used record quality for favorite and tuner when calculating disk space required
• Disk space bar now aware of HDTV recordings -- use options to set estimated HDTV bitrate
• Now includes Default menu files for SageTV 4.0/5.0/6.0 (default_menu_vxx.xml), and auto-loads the correct file based on version.
• Ability to load/save as other filenames (makes it easier for extenders to have different menu files)
• better XML handling: should now handle non-Latin characters with no problem.
• Better handling of FSE mode when launching external apps (options to cancel and restore Fullscreen mode)
• Advanced: ability to execute studio code before launching a menu... This allows some cool features -- watch this space!
• When playing back music, the album art and current track should be displayed in the main menu

v 3.4 - 20/10/2005 for SageTV 3.0

• fix media file browser and Server Connection lost screens
• add 'Online Services' to disabled internal menus
• add list of Internal Screens to wiki.

v 3.3 - 18/10/2005 for SageTV 3.0

• re-worked default menu.xml to match Sage 3.0.13's menu
• Home key always goes to the top-level menu now
• added Malore's custom menus to list of disabled internal submenus
• added internal screen 'Media File Browser SHORTCUT'

v 3.2 - 20/8/2005 for SageTV 3.0

• Added properties file option to disable the internal menus - "nielm/disable_internal_submenu"
• Disk space indicator now shows either GB free or Hours Free (right-click for options)
• Ability to turn on/off diskspace bar/recsched bar per menu screen in the options/Edit Menu Page
• When adding internal screen, press a key and it jumps to the matching screen name
• Filebrowser for selecting an application to execute, and ability to specify that Sage sleeps while the app is running.
• Ability to dynamically move menu items around (up/down/copy/paste)
• Ability to dynamically rename menu items
• uses JARs directory (instead of lots of .class files)

v 2.4 - 29/10/2004 for SageTV 2.1/2.2

• Each submenu now remembers which item was selected last, and the focus will be returned to that item when you return to the menu

[srothwell]

Hey Neil,

I'm not at home at the moment, so I'll ask here..... will this new version of Dynamic Menu re-allow the use of the IMDB plug-in? With the new Detailed Info screen, IMDB doesn't work any more.

Thanks for work to update the menu system!

Stacy

[mkanet]

Ohoh... "Media Center/Browse Media Files" is broken!

It gives the error:
Error: Unknown Internal Screen
"Media File Browser SHORTCUT"

[nielm]

mkanet -- have you downloaded the updated plugin and re-imported (the shortcut created by the stvi)?

[mkanet]

Opps... I forgot to re-import the dynamic menu stvi. After doing that, I now have access to all the menus. Everything works great! Thanks nielm!

[nielm]

and just to annoy you -- I have just uploaded v 3.4 to fix a bug with the media file browser

I have also created a list of Internal Screens on the wiki to help customisation...

[mkanet]

I just downloaded "dynamic_menu_import_3_4.zip" is that all I need? I didnt see any download links for this version. I appreciate the update.

[nielm]

yep thats correct

[dagar]

Looks awesome Nielm, look forward to trying it out

[mkanet]

nielm, is there a chance I could convince you to update the "scheduled recordings panel" to be more multi-tuner friendly? I think this would certainly add value to your already amazing addon.

So, if there's room, the panel will display more than 1 recording in progress at a time.

What do you think?

[JUC]

in the wiki it mentions to downlaod the menu items if you don't already have them. Once i download them, where would they go?
thanks
JUC

[michelkenny]

In the Wiki it also mentioned to: "Unpack this zipfile into the SageTV directory."

[JUC]

Actually, no it does not! It only mentions that for the other zipfiles but NOT for the 'menu items'. Of course, it most likely gets unzipped there and that is where I was going to put it but I was just trying to double check.
JUC

[michelkenny]

Not that I'm mad or want to be mean or anything, but unless we're talking about different things, it does say where to extract the zip file

If you have never created a dynamic menu, then you will need to download the default config zip file which contains a default menu definition.
Unpack this zipfile into the SageTV directory.

If you have not already got them, optionally download the menu icons specified by the default config. These icons are from the G.A.N.T deviantArt icon set
Unpack this zipfile into the SageTV directory.

Anyways, yeah, you should extract it to the main sage tv folder and it should put them in the right places, unless the zip files have changed since I last installed them (a couple of weeks ago).

[JUC]

Oh man, was I wrong---completely sorry about that but I swear that "unpack this zipfile into the sagetv directory' was not listed before....but I guess it was!!!!! Now I feel dumb and embarrassed. sorry!!!
JUC

[michelkenny]

Np. Maybe someone added it between the time you looked at it and I mentioned it. Who knows

[src666]

I'm having a problem with this one. I installed the latest Sage release (.13 RC2), then imported this STV (as well as ComSkip, IMDB, Smooth FF/RW). I then edited the main menu to include the Weather. Worked great. However, whenever I exit/restart sage, the Weather is gone from the main screen.

Any ideas? Any more information you need to work on this? Thanks!

EDIT: Never mind. Just saw the instructions on the WIKI that say I have to save my changes. Duh.

[Lucas]

Just took the step to move my setup to SageTV 3 RC4, all went well.
With version 2.2.8 I was using cayars 2.2.8 and I customised the menu.xml file to have some menu selections in Greek (unicode). This worked well and WAF was pretty high.

I installed the 3.4 dynamic menu stvi and attempted to apply the same customisations.
Well ig everything is in English or Latin characters there is no problem.

If I include even one greek character, SageTV upon starting brings up an error message complaining about the unicode character, does not load the menu.xml and gives the option to load the default menu.xml......

Is there a setting somewhere for this?

[nielm]

<outofoffice>
nielm is currently on holiday... and will respond to your message when he returns
</outofoffice>

Lucas -- try changing the charset info in the top of the XML to a greek charset (iso-8859-somthing), or to Unicode (UTF-16)...

[Lucas]

Thanks nielm. Will try tonite. Good to know it could be as simple as this.

At the moment it's set to UTF-8.