Standalone Editor?

[sakker]

Is there any way to mess around with Studio without having to pay again?

I have a server running headless and 2 media extenders. I vnc the server to make any changes but working with studio over vnc isn't ideal. I am already overbudget on my system, way over.

I'm not a programmer, I will probably never create anything that is worthwhile to anyone but myself by editing other's files to tweak to my liking, so I can't see shelling out any more money to purchase a client license to install on this pc. Is there any way to install just studio on one pc?

An aside, when I load an xml file, say studio_tutorials.xml in studio, when I am done messing around and close it, then open sagetv, whichever file I was working with in studio is active, so I have to re-import whichever UI I was using. Is is possible to, I really don't know what I want to ask, have sagetv not load the last xml file in studio, but to load whichever file you have set to use? Or when I am finished with studio_tutorial, should I then reload whichever UI file I want then close studio?

While I'm going with the questions, is there any way to enlarge the icons in studio? There appears to be plenty of real estate available, but all of the icons are scrunched into the top 1/2 of the menu, and delete at the bottom, duplicate midway between the two.

If I can figure out posting a file I'll include a screenshot of the scrunched icons, in case it's something on my end.

[GKusnick]

Studio is an integral part of the SageTV app. There's no way to run it standalone. Even if there were, you'd lose much of the usefulness of Studio running it that way, because you'd be editing blind. You need a live Sage window to see the effects of your changes.

In principle you don't need Studio to do your editing. You can always bring up the XML in a text editor and work on it directly. I do that occasionally for very simple things like global search-and-replace. But for serious STV development it's not practical and much more error-prone that using Studio.

In my opinion, fooling around with Studio on your production server is a risky proposition. If you're serious about learning Studio, a client license is a good investment since it lets you make mistakes without breaking anything on the server. Although prior programming experience helps, you don't have to be a programming wizard to learn Studio or make useful contributions to the community.

The simplest way to get back to your regular STV at the end of a Studio session is just to reload it in Studio before closing the Studio window. In 6.1 there's a Recent Files popout menu that makes this very easy. In fact I hardly ever use the Detailed Setup screen to switch STVs anymore; it's quicker to open a Studio window, pick from the Recent Files list, and then close Studio again.

The icons in the tool palette are the same size as the icons in the tree display. There's no way to make them bigger.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by sakker

Is there any way to install just studio on one [other] pc?

Not without installing the SageTV application on that other PC. And using the same SageTV licence on 2 PCs would technically be against the Sage EULA...

Or when I am finished with studio_tutorial, should I then reload whichever UI file I want then close studio?

yes -- remember which one it was when you started using Studio, and reload it. It should be in the recent files list from then on.

While I'm going with the questions, is there any way to enlarge the icons in studio?

no, that's how it is. Personally I hardly ever use those icons, but use the right-click menu (or CTRL-P, N)