TV Explorer for the Default STV - Testers Needed

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I was thinking that would be hard, but I guess all you'd need is an if widget. Maybe a config option in detailed setup to configure which to use.

exactly... i was thinking the config option should be part of the TVE Options though... in my mind the less mucking up/interacting with the default stv the better.

[bcjenkins]

FTR - I would like to use it on recordings. I must be weird

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by razrsharpe

exactly... i was thinking the config option should be part of the TVE Options though... in my mind the less mucking up/interacting with the default stv the better.

Maybe, but you can't get to those options if you've got malore recording menu selected.

[razrsharpe]

by default it would add the item to the media page and then you could go in and modify it if you want... the details would have to be worked out working with malore menus, etc but im sure there is a way make everything play nicely with each other.

[stanger89]

[Fuzzy]

Personally, I'd be using TVE as a replacement for the malore menus. Once/if it has all the filtering/sorting options of Malore (sorry for flaking on that BTW), I don't see the purpose to having both. To me, it doesn't matter if a tv show came from a disc, or a tuner. It's the same show, tied to the same info (episode/season).

[wado1971]

I think the stvi should add an TVE option within the existing setup menu for that category ... Unsupported.Extras -> SageTV.Recordings.Style. The user can then switch between 3 options default/Malore/TVE.

If users wish to use multiple TV-Recordings screens, nielms default DMM stvi will allow users to add the TVE menu item wherever they wish and name it appropriately. The code already exists for this - why the dislike for DMM?
BTW - I'll be using TVE as an independent "Imported TV" screen and retain the malore menus for recorded broadcasts. I'll either use DMM or manually add the menu in studio.

On the release question - I'd definitly hold off until the new MC TVE release. defaultSMW would be awsome

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by wado1971

I think the stvi should add an TVE option within the existing setup menu for that category ... Unsupported.Extras -> SageTV.Recordings.Style. The user can then switch between 3 options default/Malore/TVE.

I do like that idea, for the TV section.

If users wish to use multiple TV-Recordings screens, nielms default DMM stvi will allow users to add the TVE menu item wherever they wish and name it appropriately.

IMO that kind of goes against the whole point of wanting the STVi for the stock STV, you shouldn't be forcing people to pull in another STVi, especially for something as simple as sticking a menu link somewhere.

The code already exists for this - why the dislike for DMM?

It's great for those who want it, but I don't need it. The stock layout doesn't bother me. The rest is probably bad experience with SageMC but I don't want to have to go digging for the right menu widget names just to get something to work.

If you're going to do that, don't bother and I'll just go edit the STV in studio, since I'd have to open up Studio to find the menu name anyway. And besides typing in menu names is a real PITA from an extender.

[tmiranda]

I use TVE as a replacement for the default Recordings menu so I can switch back and forth between the malore menus and TVE.

I can see that I'll have to add an option so users can configure where TVE shows up in the menu interface.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wado1971

I think the stvi should add an TVE option within the existing setup menu for that category ... Unsupported.Extras -> SageTV.Recordings.Style. The user can then switch between 3 options default/Malore/TVE.

If users wish to use multiple TV-Recordings screens, nielms default DMM stvi will allow users to add the TVE menu item wherever they wish and name it appropriately. The code already exists for this - why the dislike for DMM?
BTW - I'll be using TVE as an independent "Imported TV" screen and retain the malore menus for recorded broadcasts. I'll either use DMM or manually add the menu in studio.

This seems to be the best option to me as well.

I do have some questions for those who are wanting both. What feature does the Malore screen have that TVE doesn't that you are looking for? To me, TVE seems like it's place should be as an upgrade to malore. The 2-pane style is similar. The only feature I can think of is the filtering, which I believe is destined for TVE 2.0...

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I do have some questions for those who are wanting both. What feature does the Malore screen have that TVE doesn't that you are looking for? To me, TVE seems like it's place should be as an upgrade to malore. The 2-pane style is similar. The only feature I can think of is the filtering, which I believe is destined for TVE 2.0...

Fuzzy is correct... advanced filtering, saved filter/search strings, simple UI selection of saved filter sets, etc is the major feature upgrade of TVE 2.0 (besides the bug fixes and UI enhancements detailed in the MC TVE thread). So yes i am curious what other features that people are looking for from Malore that are missing in TVE.

[wado1971]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

What feature does the Malore screen have that TVE doesn't that you are looking for?

[QUOTE=razrsharpe;380963]......simple UI selection of saved filter sets....[QUOTE]

It's not necessarily the features within the TVE screen ... for me it's all about navigation from the main menu to view what I want with minimum selection. I have a specific situation which lends itself to have 2 separate “TV” selections – one for SageTVRecordings & one for GermanTV. I’ll be using TVE for the GermanTV imported from a specific folder and replace the need to navigate folders within the video menu.

Now even if TVE could accomplish this separation within its menu from filtering, I still want it separate for 2 reasons.
1) I like to make my basic viewing choice from the main menu. My menu is set up by DMM with 5 items: SageTV, GermanTV, Movies, OnlineVideo, Music, Photos. All other options I navigate to with my hidden Flyout stvi.
2) I like to have these 5 content categories which are listed on the MM to have a different style sub-menu.

Bit off topic: In my perfect UI these 5 categories would have a very specific “style” which visually coincide with the category. This is why I’m so anxious to have SMW ported to the default STV. Plucky’s creation has a great ‘cinema’ style and I know instantly that the content inside this screen is a 2 hr+ movie which was previously released in the theater.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by wado1971

Now even if TVE could accomplish this separation within its menu from filtering, I still want it separate for 2 reasons.
1) I like to make my basic viewing choice from the main menu. My menu is set up by DMM with 5 items: SageTV, GermanTV, Movies, OnlineVideo, Music, Photos. All other options I navigate to with my hidden Flyout stvi.

i assume DMM = Dynamic Menu Manager? If it is similar/same as the one in SageMC, TVE 2.0 will have the ability to pass it a filterset name to display initially on load from the menu.xml file (similar to pathfilterexprs, etc). Essentially allowing you to separate SageTV and GermanTV into two distinct filter sets/views.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by razrsharpe

Fuzzy is correct... advanced filtering, saved filter/search strings, simple UI selection of saved filter sets, etc is the major feature upgrade of TVE 2.0 (besides the bug fixes and UI enhancements detailed in the MC TVE thread). So yes i am curious what other features that people are looking for from Malore that are missing in TVE.

There's two things:

1) I don't want my complete/purchased/archive DVD-sourced TV series cluttered with random Sage recordings (and vise versa).
2) I have no interest in fanart or anything else for Sage recordings.

I'm looking at TVE strictly as a suppliment/replacement/upgrade for how I handle my TV show/episodic DVDs. What I have now works well, but I'm mainly experimenting to see if I like having each episode separate, but to make that work I need something that filters/sorts my imported media by series (none of the stock views do that well.

[stanger89]

Back to the subject at hand, I figured out why I wasn't getting anything to show up. At least I think so. Looks like some stuff from the TVE (for SageMC) package was needed as well.

How's performance for those of you running it (the new version or the SageMC one)?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Back to the subject at hand, I figured out why I wasn't getting anything to show up. At least I think so. Looks like some stuff from the TVE (for SageMC) package was needed as well.

Stuff that wasn't included when you unzipped TVE for SageMC? Or did you not unzip TVE for SageMC?

Tom

[stanger89]

I originally unzipped just SageMC. The emailed TVE stv didn't work right. I figured I'd see if the SageMC one worked, so I downloaded that and discovered it came with some extra jars, after unzipping that as well, it works fine. Looks like TVE requires a couple jars in addition to what SageMC includes alone.

Maybe it was me who wasn't reading this time....

"- Download the latest TVExplorer (for SageMC) and unzip it. The same goes for this step, there is no need to install anything but their are .JARs and graphics that are needed."

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Back to the subject at hand, I figured out why I wasn't getting anything to show up. At least I think so. Looks like some stuff from the TVE (for SageMC) package was needed as well.

How's performance for those of you running it (the new version or the SageMC one)?

Originally Posted by stanger89

I originally unzipped just SageMC. The emailed TVE stv didn't work right. I figured I'd see if the SageMC one worked, so I downloaded that and discovered it came with some extra jars, after unzipping that as well, it works fine. Looks like TVE requires a couple jars in addition to what SageMC includes alone.

Maybe it was me who wasn't reading this time....

"- Download the latest TVExplorer (for SageMC) and unzip it. The same goes for this step, there is no need to install anything but their are .JARs and graphics that are needed."

looks like you figured it out but ill confirm for super redundancy sake.. yes the TVE for sagemc zip is required because it includes the necessary jars (besides the sagemc one), and the static image files that TVE uses.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, I was going to say that's a nogo, I really don't like the dynamic menus (frankly they're a big turn off in SageMC).

Not to hijack this thread, but I'm curious why anyone would not like the dynamic menus for the default STV - they look exactly the same as the default menus with 3 exceptions (1) you can re-organize them or add custom items if you want (2) you can show a graphic off to the right for each menu item if you want, and (3) you can choose to show a list of upcoming recordings and/or a diskspace bar on the bottom of each menu if you want.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Not to hijack this thread, but I'm curious why anyone would not like the dynamic menus for the default STV - they look exactly the same as the default menus with 3 exceptions (1) you can re-organize them or add custom items if you want

I don't want...

(2) you can show a graphic off to the right for each menu item if you want,

I don't want...

and (3) you can choose to show a list of upcoming recordings and/or a diskspace bar on the bottom of each menu if you want.

I don't want...

So it's a case of I have zero interest in any of the dynamic menu functionality and thus don't want to have it imported if I'm not going to use it.

Currently the only only STVi I run is comskip, for reading comskip files.