Modifying A Screen?

[PeteCress]

My impression is that SageTV Studio allows users to customize the SageTV interface by creating a separate set of files in SageTV\STVs.

If that is correct so far, how hard would it be to clone the stock STV and modify a single screen?

Specifically the screen that lists DVDs - which, unless I am missing something - has lost significant core functionality from v6 to v7.

The functionality in question being the ability to see each DVD's title.

To wit:

v6 shows: http://tinyurl.com/2fev6jm

v7 shows: http://tinyurl.com/2a3peqt

Note that the "Lord Of The Rings" titles cannot be distinguished from each other in 7 but they can be in 6.

Is there an object for that area on the right that's taking so much of the screen that can be easily re-sized and have the font changed?

Likewise is there a "list" object for the DVD names whose properties (like font size, list width, and so-forth) can be changed?

Or am I just wishing?

[Peter_h]

You should go and do some reading in the studio forum and read the how to's. You can do anything you want, it's whether you want to give it a try.

[Brent94Z]

If that is your primary concern, there are two or three plugins which make it a non issue by displaying not only the title but cover art as well. I use Sage My Movies which "fixes" your problem but I also have a couple plugins loaded which change the look slightly of the V7 views such that I see the DVD covers on the left and the movie name on the right.

Basically, if you don't mind loading a plugin or two, this won't be an issue for you

Here is an example of what the Sage 7 DVD/BD looks like with a couple plugins...

[gplasky]

Those pictures are from an extender in standalone mode. So the SageTV extender interface isn't available. Just the standalone. Which again-can be altered in Sage Studio and loaded from a USB stick or flash memory of the HD300.

Gerry

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

If that is correct so far, how hard would it be to clone the stock STV and modify a single screen?

Not hard, but that's not the right way to do it. You don't want to clone the whole UI, which would freeze it in its current state and prevent you from keeping up with future updates. You want to make a UI mod that captures just your changes so they can be re-applied automatically to new versions of the UI.

As others have said, there's a wealth of information in the Studio forum to get you up to speed on the fundamentals.