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+--- Thread: accessing plugins (/showthread.php?tid=75781)
accessing plugins - Jeroen - 2010-06-17
I'm a bit confused about video plugins in current svn.
Upon installing the available plugins, they are accessible now through the main library node, and are not placed in a subfolder anymore.
Is this intended? I can now no longer provide a homescreen menu entry to the plugins folder using <onclick>ActivateWindow(MyVideoLibrary,plugin://video)</onclick>
And Container.PluginName doesn't seem to be working this way either.
Also, I think it looks a bit messy this way tbh
r31102
- jmarshall - 2010-06-17
I'm not convinced it's best either as yet, but that's the way it is for now at least. Scripts will also be showing up in the same place shortly.
- Jezz_X - 2010-06-17
I prefer it because Media sources is exactly what they are and they belong with the rest of them not tucked away in a seperate menu
- topfs2 - 2010-06-17
Jezz_X Wrote:I prefer it because Media sources is exactly what they are and they belong with the rest of them not tucked away in a seperate menu
I agree in the files view but in library I'd rather see it under a node tbh.
- Jeroen - 2010-06-17
They are media sources, but movies and tvshows both have seperate nodes based on the different content types of the sources. I feel it's not any different for plugins and scripts.
imo, no difference should be made anymore between scripts and plugins, because the end-user doesn't and shouldn't care what type of source it is. and once installed media based add-ons should get their own place in the library and be browsed in the same way you would do in the addonbrowser. To me that makes far more sense and is way more organized.
I really don't mean nor want to be a complainer, but I really think this would be a step backwards. Going to a plugin through the homescreen now requires more steps than it used to.
- kryptonyte - 2010-06-17
Plugins should exist in the library. They are in fact extensions of the library so it only makes sense for them to exist there. I agree with the topfs2 that there should be some clear distinction between your local/networked content though and plugin content from say Hulu or Netflix. I would hate to have to sift through every movie on Netflix and every movie/series on Hulu to find "MY" content. However I should not have to navigate through various sub-menus to get my Hulu content either.
Scripts on the other hand seem more like tools and should be tucked neatly into a browser/launcher/list somewhere around the settings menu. Unless my concept of what scripts are and their function is wrong, in which case never mind this bit.
- Jeroen - 2010-06-17
kryptonyte Wrote:Plugins should exist in the library. They are in fact extensions of the library so it only makes sense for them to exist there.I am by no means saying they shouldn't be in the library, just to be clear.
- kryptonyte - 2010-06-17
Of course. I was simply stating that for clarification purposes. Glass is nice, it is always clear...unless it's extremely dirty.
The biggest issue is how to present them in an accessible manner. Library items acting as folders for plugin content so they are accessible, yet don't flood the local library with content?
- jmarshall - 2010-06-18
At the moment we're listing plugins and scripts separately (for each plugin and script) in the root of all views.
I think it makes sense to have a new category (Online <mediatype> maybe?) in the library root's (music, video) for these, though really don't mind if they're separate on files or not. Mayaswell be consistent though.
IMO in the future we need to do away with the concept of different plugins as things you have to click on. Instead, we just have "Online tv" "Online movies" etc. and simply provide everything that the plugins provide. The user doesn't care if it comes from Hulu or Netflix of their local TV station's website. This is going to take some reorganisation though and it really needs to be well thought through.
Cheers,
Jonathan
- topfs2 - 2010-06-18
jmarshall Wrote:At the moment we're listing plugins and scripts separately (for each plugin and script) in the root of all views.
I think it makes sense to have a new category (Online <mediatype> maybe?) in the library root's (music, video) for these, though really don't mind if they're separate on files or not. Mayaswell be consistent though.
IMO in the future we need to do away with the concept of different plugins as things you have to click on. Instead, we just have "Online tv" "Online movies" etc. and simply provide everything that the plugins provide. The user doesn't care if it comes from Hulu or Netflix of their local TV station's website. This is going to take some reorganisation though and it really needs to be well thought through.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Not sure if it would be doable but some plugins actually provides something that could get added in the library.
For example Southpark studios provide episodes of southpark, would have been damn nice if it could be populated in the Series -> South Park. Same goes for uPnP, automatic population of the library here would be amazing and really make a uPnP server perfectly amazing for xbmc.
Perhaps adding a news category would be nice aswell? That way BBC and such could be in news instead of videos?
And TV or liveTV type of stuff (SVT, TV3 and so on) could get added to the PVR stuff?
- jmarshall - 2010-06-18
The problem with all those things is that the URLs aren't guaranteed stable, so at best you can store some sort of unique identifier and hope to be able to find the appropriate URL by a search or similar.
- Jeroen - 2010-06-22
I'm really happy to see there's an addons node now
Maybe it's too early to ask, but is there a content type or stringcompare for the addons that I could use to set up conditionals with?
I tried looking through some of the related trac tickets for the node to find clues but everything I tried failed.
- jmarshall - 2010-06-22
Other than what the plugins themselves provide in Container.Content, nope.
What were you after specifically?
- Jeroen - 2010-06-22
jmarshall Wrote:Other than what the plugins themselves provide in Container.Content, nope.
What were you after specifically?
A couple of things.
First, basically a fallback method when plugins do not provide a content type (at least, I assume it is not mandatory?) Does it default to anything when they don't? Right now, an addon like the AMT plugin sets the container content to movies, which works out just fine. But other plugins seem to get set to movies as well, resulting in them using the poster sized thumbnail I defined for movies which just looks really bad. So I would rather set up things specifically for content provided by addons.
So if I could use something like
stringcompare(container.folderpath, addon://video/) + Container.Content(movies) -> do this
and
stringcompare(container.folderpath, addon://video/) + some other condition -> do that
I could do something about that
Secondly, to set up a page label (don't know how to call it, basically a label at the top of the screen telling you where you are (so like movies - genres, years, etc)
And thirdly, to provide an entry to the homscreen menu to go to the addons node directly like I did before using
ActivateWindow(MyVideoLibrary,plugin://video)
- jmarshall - 2010-06-22
A plugin has to set the content manually - it's not set to anything otherwise, so the only thing you can do is go by what the plugin assigns in that respect.
Confluence now has links directly to the "Video Add-ons" node - you use addons://sources/video IIRC.
Cheers,
Jonathan