New customizations?

[pjpjpjpj]

I'm not complaining - you guys are great and my Sage would not be nearly as satisfying without all these great plug-ins...

...but, is it me, or are things slowing down on the plug-in creation front? Seems like there have been quite a few requests for things here over the last 6 months or so, but there have been very few new plug-ins posted in a long while. And even though the pandora plug-in was a big hit, it doesn't work for a good portion of Sage users (who are Extender-only) unless you use a hack.

Perhaps it's that many of the programmers have jumped to the SageMC side and are not working on Sage default STV stuff.... perhaps it's that the Sage software itself is starting to provide many things that would/could have been a plug-in (as a late joiner, I see that quite a few stock features in Sage were once plug-ins, "back in the day").

Again, not complaining... just sitting here watching the snow fall and wondering out loud if someone out there is knee-deep in an alpha version of something big that they have been working on for a long time and is almost ready for a release. You know, a holiday treat for all of us

For what it's worth, I tried reading the Sage manual to learn a little of the Studio stuff and see if it was something I could do, but I am afraid it's hopelessly over my head. I think you need *some* programming knowledge of your own before you try to tackle Studio (or maybe I am just not patient enough).

[Brent]

Are you using the default STV or SageMC?

SageMC has had quite a bit of new stuff or at least updated stuff. I would guess that a combination of new SageTV releases, new SageMC releases, new extenders, the Fall TV season and even the holidays and such has probably slowed down development some though.

Don't worry, there will be plenty of new stuff eventually. And yes, SageMC seems to be keeping a good number of the developers captive

[shadeblue.com]

Maybe just some of the effort has shifted from internal STVi plugins to external control and capabilities :-)

I think the mobile web server is a great recent addition to the SageTV system, being able to access this from my phone is extremely nice. I also just posted a how to control SageTV with the iPhone and a Flash based web UI for direct control of SageTV systems. I am soon to release a new InfoPopup plugin to get caller ID popups working again for both SageTV clients and SageTV Extenders.

Cheers,
SB

[Brent]

I know of multiple different projects going on behind the scenes for SageTV - all of which will offer new and exciting functionality, add-ons and themes for SageTV and SageMC users. How soon is the question as all of these projects are done by enthusiast developers on their own time for free.

Shadeblue's projects are one example, jamiben is working on a cool improvement for SageMC, Stuckless is working on a more automated way of importing movie covers and details into SageTV. There are many more as well.

These are exciting times as a SageTV user because we have the perfect storm of innovation happening at SageTV (Jeff is always working on something new for SageTV - the HD200 is one example) and there is innovation happening with a bunch of the user-developers for add-ons and themes as well. It might not seem like the new stuff comes out quickly, but in my opinion we are a little spoiled as SageTV users compared to the competition such as Snapstream and Vista Media Center. Don't worry, I get impatient as well... I'm always looking for the next new thing too

[stuckless]

I would think that plugins are created to fill a gap in the product, specifically by people that need that gap filled. I can't immagine that there are many plugin developers who are willing to create a plugin solely for pleasure, if it doesn't help them personally fill a gap.

Even though I'm probably capable of creating a plugin, I don't think that I'd do one, unless it fulfilled a personal need. Sage, as media centre, is pretty lacking, but it's certainly usable, and many of the core gaps have been addressed in either core STVs plugins or SageMC.

I also agree with Brent. Summer and Christmas tends to be a busy times of year. I would think that starting January - June, you'll start to see more plugins or plugin enhancements

[GKusnick]

I second what Sean said. Generally speaking, customizations get created when programmers want new features for their own use, or less frequently, when some user wants it badly enough to learn how to code it themselves. Once a customization developer gets their system more or less the way they like it, their output of new customizations naturally tends to decline.

For customizations that already exist, it's fairly easy to add bells and whistles in response to user requests, and that does happen fairly often. But it's pretty rare for a developer to take on a new customization project they have no particular interest in themselves just because somebody posted a wishlist in the forum.

So if a lot of customization wishes are going unsatisfied lately, that probably says more about the ratio of non-programmers to programmers among recent Sage adopters than it does about the motivation of longtime plugin developers.

[Slugger]

As someone who writes plugins, I'm just going to quickly nod my head in agreement with GKusnick.

Any plugin I write comes about because I'm looking to fill a gap with the core functionality. Typically before I start I will ask myself if what I'm writing would benefit the SageTV community as a whole and if I answer yes then I'll do the leg work to setup something generic enough that most others should be able to use it. And then once I release something I'll take feature enhancements/bug reports/etc. from the community and go from there.

On the other hand, I've read some wish lists from other users in the forums and said to myself, "gee that sounds neat". Then there's two questions I ask myself:

1) Am I capable of implementing it?
2) Is it something I need/want to add to my SageTV setup?

If I answer no to either one then I leave it at that. And most wish list items I read fail #2. They sound neat, but I have no use for it in my setup. The one downfall to user contributed features is that you'll be hard pressed to find someone who will take on a project that they themselves aren't interested in using within their own setup. But with that said, there's enough people in this community who are writing plugins such that there's always something neat being released by someone. And for those who don't write code, certainly keep posting wish list items because your idea might trigger a response from a plugin author to go ahead and implement your idea.

[shadeblue.com]

Originally Posted by Slugger

As someone who writes plugins, I'm just going to quickly nod my head in agreement with GKusnick.

Any plugin I write comes about because I'm looking to fill a gap with the core functionality. Typically before I start I will ask myself if what I'm writing would benefit the SageTV community as a whole and if I answer yes then I'll do the leg work to setup something generic enough that most others should be able to use it. And then once I release something I'll take feature enhancements/bug reports/etc. from the community and go from there.

On the other hand, I've read some wish lists from other users in the forums and said to myself, "gee that sounds neat". Then there's two questions I ask myself:

1) Am I capable of implementing it?
2) Is it something I need/want to add to my SageTV setup?

If I answer no to either one then I leave it at that. And most wish list items I read fail #2. They sound neat, but I have no use for it in my setup. The one downfall to user contributed features is that you'll be hard pressed to find someone who will take on a project that they themselves aren't interested in using within their own setup. But with that said, there's enough people in this community who are writing plugins such that there's always something neat being released by someone. And for those who don't write code, certainly keep posting wish list items because your idea might trigger a response from a plugin author to go ahead and implement your idea.

I fully agree. All my plugins are based on personal need or desire. I don't have the time or motivation to create plugins on request. I just hope that since I recognized some need in my environment that others can benefit from the effort. I have gained so much from the others here in the SageTV community, I feel a little obligated to give back what I can :-)

Thanks,
SB