STV Import: TVExplorer for SageMC

[toricred]

That's more like I was thinking about for the upper right portion. Whe3re would you put the preview screen?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

First of all, let me just say that this plug-in is great. You've absolutly nailed what i'm looking for in a TV browser. Combining Sage Recording with imported videos, allowing me to filter/sort by Season/Episode, and some really nice fanart usage. And don't even get me started on your STV code, its just fantastic.

However, i'm one thing i'm not wild about is the layout so i've been tweaking it a bit the last few nights. Check out what I've got so far, I think you may like it...

Nice EP Nice indeed and yes you are correct I idealize his STV coding. Wish mine was that clean but version 4 is allot cleaner because his motivated me so I have basically recoded the entire addin so I can have better layout/coding sure makes debugging easier.

[evilpenguin]

Ideally i'd like the preview screen to replace the poster and resize the description area to fit.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Ideally i'd like the preview screen to replace the poster and resize the description area to fit.

You know I always wondered if you used the default stv or sagemc I guess now I know

[PLUCKYHD]

Also after second look I don't like where the season episode filtering is located.

An idea what about doing that with ff/rr or something like that would be quicker and easier and just display the current season/such somewhere.

and have like a quick display when pressing ff/rr like the wall does for quick filtering.

[toricred]

I'd been thinking maybe shorten the groupings list and put the preview in place of the top of it sort of like it is now. I'm not sure if maybe your idea would look a little crowded, but I'm sure it would still look and make the groupings list more usable.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

First of all, let me just say that this plug-in is great. You've absolutly nailed what i'm looking for in a TV browser. Combining Sage Recording with imported videos, allowing me to filter/sort by Season/Episode, and some really nice fanart usage. And don't even get me started on your STV code, its just fantastic.

first a huge thanks for such high praise, especially the part about my code, that means A LOT coming from you

However, i'm one thing i'm not wild about is the layout so i've been tweaking it a bit the last few nights. Check out what I've got so far, I think you may like it...

first some history... when i started this it was all text based... no banner usage, the group panel cell height was the same as the episode height..... plucky kept pushing me to do banners, which i initially thought wasn't going to work.. but once i put them in, doubled the Group Panel cell height, and overlayed the info the banners i was like wow.... and then i pretty much released it without rethinking the whole visual layout now that banners were in the mix

ok with the history out of the way... all in all i really like what you've done with the layout... there are a couple things i would change... but expanding the group list to be the full height i really like, along with moving the description out of the bottom corner. the episode filter i would not put on the right like that... not sure where i would put it but not there... maybe there.. but have it be vertical...

I think youve convinced me though to go through and change the UI

Originally Posted by toricred

That's more like I was thinking about for the upper right portion. Whe3re would you put the preview screen?

i would probably make the poster smaller... move the description to above/below the poster, and squeeze the preview window about wehre the description is now... wont know until i redo it

Also put a question out there. is how important do people feel it is that I follow the SageMC theme everyone has loaded? Specifically i think i want to use custom focused/not focused icons... thoughts?

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Also after second look I don't like where the season episode filtering is located.

An idea what about doing that with ff/rr or something like that would be quicker and easier and just display the current season/such somewhere.

and have like a quick display when pressing ff/rr like the wall does for quick filtering.

seconded... fuzzy was actually the original person to suggest that and as soon he did i was like.. yup makes total and complete sense .. its just harder (for me anyway) then you would think to index through that list... im working on it

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by razrsharpe

first a huge thanks for such high praise, especially the part about my code, that means A LOT coming from you

first some history... when i started this it was all text based... no banner usage, the group panel was the cell height was the same as the episode height..... plucky kept pushing me to do banners, which i initially thought wasn't going to work.. but once i put them in, doubled the Group Panel cell height, and overlayed the info the banners i was like wow.... and then i pretty much released it without rethinking the whole visual layout now that banners were in the mix

ok with the history out of the way... all in all i really like what you've done with the layout... there are a couple things i would change... but expanding the group list to be the full height i really like, along with moving the description o episode filter i would not put on the right like that... not sure where i would put it but not there... maybe there.. but have it be vertical...

I think youve convinced me though to go through and change the UI


i would probably make the poster smaller... move the description to above/below the poster, and squeeze the preview window about wehre the description is now... wont know until i redo it

Also put a question out there. is how important do people feel it is that I follow the SageMC theme everyone has loaded? Specifically i think i want to use custom focused/not focused icons... thoughts?

Go for it. I got rid of themes because I wanted multy stv support and sagemc themes only work for sagemc

Also I pushed for drill downs as well but I am happy you stuck with a single screen now that I use it

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by razrsharpe

seconded... fuzzy was actually the original person to suggest that and as soon he did i was like.. yup makes total and complete sense .. its just harder (for me anyway) then you would think to index through that list... im working on it

Yeah, I'm not really sure where that should go, but I do like it vertical so you can navigate to it by going left/right in one click rather than having to scroll all the way to the top/bottom of the list.

Also put a question out there. is how important do people feel it is that I follow the SageMC theme everyone has loaded? Specifically i think i want to use custom focused/not focused icons... thoughts?

I think you can safely ditch the themes. Most of those buttons would look weird in this plug-in anyway. And like PluckyHD said, there are benefits to being as STV agnostic as possible.

[GollyJer]

I don't see these on the known issues list so I thought I'd post.

1. Sorting and Grouping settings aren't remembered.
2. Page Up/Down from the top box in the title grid causes empty episode list.

On a side note, I don't think this is a bug but I'm wondering what might cause TVExplorer to do nothing pressing the Enter key when an episode is highlighted. On one of my boxes it works perfectly (playing the program without issue) on the other nothing happens. The successful one is the Sage server running in service / client mode and the problem install is a full client. Is it possible that TVExplorer has a problem with UNC paths?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yeah, I'm not really sure where that should go, but I do like it vertical so you can navigate to it by going left/right in one click rather than having to scroll all the way to the top/bottom of the list.

I think your location on the right hand side is best if using it with D-pad and Enter... if using FF/RW for changing, I'd recommend going back to above the episode list. I'd recommend adding some FF and RW icons on either side of the selections, to aid in use, even going so far as to remove them from navigation. I definitely really like the group list being full height that you did EP. Some banner art is not very legible at the smaller size, so this really makes it easier to use.

Along with the FF/RW, I still like the idea of FF2/RW2, or Next/Prev being used for selection between filter sets (and another plug for category based filtering), ala Malore. My wife won't let me put this in full-time until I can filter out the kids shows (which take up well over half my DVR I think).

I second replacing the poster art with the preview window, if it is active.

Also, for cleanliness of looks, would it be possible to move the configuration options off screen to an options menu? They, especially once filter sets are in there, are infrequently used, so getting rid of that row of buttons would clean it up quite a bit.

I hacked up EP's screenshot to show what I'm envisioning... forgive the slop.. I'm at work, and all I had at my disposal was good 'ol pbrush... I think the tabbing appearance is a familiar look that will aid in ease of use as well.

[PLUCKYHD]

I kind of like fuzzy's take (believe it or not )

also fuzzy are you refering to category grouping or more custom "tag" grouping out of curiosity. I have almost got the tagging completed in SMW and I was just curious if the default stv uses that for tv as well as movies?

Also what are the filters at the top I gues you can custom make filters to your liking?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

I don't see these on the known issues list so I thought I'd post.

1. Sorting and Grouping settings aren't remembered.
2. Page Up/Down from the top box in the title grid causes empty episode list.

On a side note, I don't think this is a bug but I'm wondering what might cause TVExplorer to do nothing pressing the Enter key when an episode is highlighted. On one of my boxes it works perfectly (playing the program without issue) on the other nothing happens. The successful one is the Sage server running in service / client mode and the problem install is a full client. Is it possible that TVExplorer has a problem with UNC paths?

Are you using UNC on the folder selection within the app or not? I use unc paths without problems.

sorting and grouping settings are remember if you go into options and turn of to clear them on exit.(something to that wording)

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I kind of like fuzzy's take (believe it or not )

also fuzzy are you refering to category grouping or more custom "tag" grouping out of curiosity. I have almost got the tagging completed in SMW and I was just curious if the default stv uses that for tv as well as movies?

Also what are the filters at the top I gues you can custom make filters to your liking?

I was referring to filtering based on sage's defined 'categories'. Give it a check-out in the default stv's malore menus. I believe each program can be assigned a number (maybe just two?) of pre-defined categories. The Malore filters allow filtering by those categories. I, for instance, set up two filters. One is set to show only those shows that have the 'Children', 'Children - Music', and 'Children - Talk' categories. The second is set to show everything that does NOT have those same categories. That is what the multiple filters at the top are representing. (they would be renameable, just as in the malore screens). This is a great way to 'break up' the HUGE mess that is my family's recording habits, and this is the key feature that keeps us in the default stv more than any other.

I'm honestly not sure if sage uses those filters in the video library or not, as I really don't have much in there (yet).

I definitely suggest playing around with the malore screen in the default stv to see what features are there. It really is VERY customizable, in every way but looks.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I was referring to filtering based on sage's defined 'categories'. Give it a check-out in the default stv's malore menus. I believe each program can be assigned a number (maybe just two?) of pre-defined categories. The Malore filters allow filtering by those categories. I, for instance, set up two filters. One is set to show only those shows that have the 'Children', 'Children - Music', and 'Children - Talk' categories. The second is set to show everything that does NOT have those same categories. That is what the multiple filters at the top are representing. (they would be renameable, just as in the malore screens). This is a great way to 'break up' the HUGE mess that is my family's recording habits, and this is the key feature that keeps us in the default stv more than any other.

I'm honestly not sure if sage uses those filters in the video library or not, as I really don't have much in there (yet).

I definitely suggest playing around with the malore screen in the default stv to see what features are there. It really is VERY customizable, in every way but looks.

Okay that sounds like it will fall under the "tags" then. Shoot me your email again so we can talk a little in private as I have no knowledge of what you and others thing tags should do. I want to give you some screencaps of my tagging screen and get your thoughts.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

I don't see these on the known issues list so I thought I'd post.
Sorting and Grouping settings aren't remembered.

TVE Options -> Main -> Grouping on Menuload (or soemthing similar) to Last Grouping. Same thing for Sorting

Page Up/Down from the top box in the title grid causes empty episode list.

its on my mental bug list (ill add it to the public one). In my testing though its not repeatable. Sometimes it does it other times not so much.... its on the to do list

On a side note, I don't think this is a bug but I'm wondering what might cause TVExplorer to do nothing pressing the Enter key when an episode is highlighted. On one of my boxes it works perfectly (playing the program without issue) on the other nothing happens. The successful one is the Sage server running in service / client mode and the problem install is a full client. Is it possible that TVExplorer has a problem with UNC paths?

What is TVE Options -> Navigation -> Select function (or something similar) set to. if it is set to "Play" cycle through the choices again back to play. YOu can also try the other options to see if Play function does what its intended. But TVE has no problem with UNC paths (i use only unc paths for everything, tv, imported tv, fanart, etc)

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I was referring to filtering based on sage's defined 'categories'. Give it a check-out in the default stv's malore menus. I believe each program can be assigned a number (maybe just two?) of pre-defined categories. The Malore filters allow filtering by those categories. I, for instance, set up two filters. One is set to show only those shows that have the 'Children', 'Children - Music', and 'Children - Talk' categories. The second is set to show everything that does NOT have those same categories. That is what the multiple filters at the top are representing. (they would be renameable, just as in the malore screens). This is a great way to 'break up' the HUGE mess that is my family's recording habits, and this is the key feature that keeps us in the default stv more than any other.

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Okay that sounds like it will fall under the "tags" then. Shoot me your email again so we can talk a little in private as I have no knowledge of what you and others thing tags should do. I want to give you some screencaps of my tagging screen and get your thoughts.

I need to double check in the malore code... but i believe all of the Category filtering is auto generated using the GetShowCategory() api call or soemthing similar to return ALL the show categorys. So it would not be the user defined and generated "tags" that i believe you are talkign about plucky.

and yes i agree its on the todo list ... i just need a smart way to manage all the filter sets that doesnt require miles and miles of studio programming (probably offload it to java)... and a way to store the filter sets (probably a long line in the client.properties file).

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I think your location on the right hand side is best if using it with D-pad and Enter... if using FF/RW for changing, I'd recommend going back to above the episode list. I'd recommend adding some FF and RW icons on either side of the selections, to aid in use, even going so far as to remove them from navigation. I definitely really like the group list being full height that you did EP. Some banner art is not very legible at the smaller size, so this really makes it easier to use.

Along with the FF/RW, I still like the idea of FF2/RW2, or Next/Prev being used for selection between filter sets (and another plug for category based filtering), ala Malore. My wife won't let me put this in full-time until I can filter out the kids shows (which take up well over half my DVR I think).

I think that would make the most sense to have it be the same set of buttons... FF/RW or FF2/RR2... but have them only be active when you are in each panel... i also think once i have the FF/RR working to switch filter sets then i agree with you that the best place for the filter sets is across the top... and the ff/rr icons do help make it clearer... good touch

I second replacing the poster art with the preview window, if it is active.

makes sense

Also, for cleanliness of looks, would it be possible to move the configuration options off screen to an options menu? They, especially once filter sets are in there, are infrequently used, so getting rid of that row of buttons would clean it up quite a bit.

ya we could... but it also makes it more difficult to switch to the tobe recorded menu, or soem of the other "non" configuration options..... but ya i agree it would be nice to movie it off... or only have it show up when you want it to (like via a popup if you go Left from the grouping panel).... ill need to think about that

Alright looks like i have my work cut out for me thanks for all the great suggestions guys...keep em coming

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by razrsharpe

I need to double check in the malore code... but i believe all of the Category filtering is auto generated using the GetShowCategory() api call or soemthing similar to return ALL the show categorys. So it would not be the user defined and generated "tags" that i believe you are talkign about plucky.

and yes i agree its on the todo list ... i just need a smart way to manage all the filter sets that doesnt require miles and miles of studio programming (probably offload it to java)... and a way to store the filter sets (probably a long line in the client.properties file).

Yes, the categories are from a select pre-defined list of categories built into sage (I believe they originated from the Zap2It info), and are not pre-defined 'tags' as you are discussing Plucky. Sticking to those would probably be the best option (for TV Explorer, at least) as you're pretty much assured they're gonna be there. I'm not sure how video's fall into those pre-defined categories, but the way Sage treats them ALMOST the same as tv makes me assume that they can receive the same category flags. I don't know if BMT attempts to assign them or not. Will have to check it out when I get home.

As for the filters, it's probably best bet would be to clone the way Malore stores the filters (relatively simple lines in the client.properties file). They look easy enough to parse that it shouldn't be terrible to implement.