[Mudislander]

@chocol@te - You're welcome

@kevjs1982 - skin prior to v1.1.9 wont know what to do with script.randomitems it uses script.randomandlastitems, but it wont have any problems living on a system with script.randomitems installed. You must rename the skin as per PM from the other day to have multiple versions running

Actually ATM I've got a problem with musicvideos - can't get any scrappers to work - but I'm working on it

To anyone else tryng out the test version - you will have set your home panel settings again - Sorry but unavoidable

[kevjs1982]

@kevjs1982 - skin prior to v1.1.9 wont know what to do with script.randomitems it uses script.randomandlastitems, but it wont have any problems living on a system with script.randomitems installed. You must rename the skin as per PM from the other day to have multiple versions running

Damn the subtle differences in the names which I am unable to spot!

I like being able to have a bit more choice on the customisation panels.

Some of the new media views are nice, but I quite like the BBFC ratings which are missing in all of them except the old school "Fanart" one - is this intentional?

A few minor glitches though

The "Now Playing" when listening to a stream is a bit inconstant - on the home screen it looks spot on (apart from the colour), in the menus it doesn't show the stream meta data, and when in full screen the "Audio Stream" bit is absent (edit: hidden at the top left of the screen)


It also looks a bit naked with the spinning CD missing (I liked that effect, hence my playing with transparent PNGs that showed the oddness!) - although I guess that doesn't really have a place on the radio....


When using the "Recent Concerts" or "Random Concerts" to give an Addon panel to music videos they look bizarre - the DVD sized surround doesn't work with either CD or Thumb images. If you choose "Playlists" instead you get the last added items on TV rather than from the music videos playlist.


Also - I think the behaviour is technically correct but a bit confusing - but if you add "Latest Episodes" above the "TV shows" menu item it shows the latest ones, but ignores the "hide watched" flag in settings (I say technically correct as it's not really a playlist).

Does the "Browse not play - favourite playlist added to main menu" setting have any purpose - when you add a playlist you've already chosen to Play or Browse the playlist?

And Finally, where does the "Show SubTitle Country Flag" option come into play - never seen any flags myself (shouldn't "SubTitle" read "Subtitle"?)

(And I do wish my PVR wouldn't change the TV input and leave the screen blank for 30 seconds when it comes on for a timer recording - I thought changing the add-on panel above music videos crashed XBMC - I keep cursing HDMI for not having an auto input switch, and then EuroSCART for having an auto switch - argh!!! )

[Mudislander]

Bit late at night right now, so for the time being I'll just answer an easy one

Subtitle Country Flag option - in screenie below bottom right is UK flag for English. When you rip a DVD if you include any subtitles the MOD is capable of identifying the first subtitle, usefull for some bilingual familes

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Next easy question

Does the "Browse not play - favourite playlist added to main menu" setting have any purpose - when you add a playlist you've already chosen to Play or Browse the playlist?

This option changes the run command of the click action when you add a playlist from your favourites onto the main menu. The option is only used in the action of adding the playlist in the menu.

To test create a playlist of movies eg All Action Movies then right click the playlist and add to favourites. Now change the Browse/Play option to Play and then Add the playlist to the main menu by using "User Favourite" from the list of possible menu actions - call it PlayAction ? Then change the Browse/Play option back to browse and repeat the process of adding the playlist to the main menu - call it BrowseAction ?

Now you can test - The "PlayAction" will start playing the playlist and the "BrowseAction" will let you into the list to select an individual item to play.

[Mudislander]

Some of the new media views are nice, but I quite like the BBFC ratings which are missing in all of them except the old school "Fanart" one - is this intentional?

This depends on by who and when the view was coded, A while back I was into country specific ratings, but it always seemed a bit haphazard in the presenting of the certificate due to lack of proper scrapper support . I then reverted back to the default flags as they fitted into the theme better. mad-max has started introducing different types of certificate into the MOD and now with better support from the scrappers they'll eventually work their way into the other views.

Anyone wishing to hurry up the process can always submit a PR to the team

[savkin_k]

For those who don't use the git version of this mod, I've uploaded a pre-release confluence.lite.mod-v1.1.9 which can be installed via the zip option

You will need to download and install script.randomitems-3.0.9.zip first, as this script is now required by the mod.

Quite a few bugfixes and requests have been included plus a couple of new views have been ported over from Convergence.

Please bear in mind that this is a test release so may still have a few issues that have not yet come to light

As usual, thanks to all those that have helped out - have fun and let me know your thoughts.

Great step in development, Sirs!!!
I love the approach, works perfectly except for the issue I described on Github related to languages switching.

Meanwhile i was playing with different usage scenarios and have some comments.

In settings section, it is very clear all the options available for Home Media Panels for builtin features like native Movies or TVShows or Music sections. For this user can choose independently to show Recent/Random/Sugested items. But for Playlists in my opinion it is less clear. As i understood it is not possible to choose independently Recent/Random Panels for different playlists assigned to Main Menu items? Only global, all playlist widgets can be or Recent or Random, show or not show Watched Items, etc. Or i am wrong? Plus not very convinient to handle different options of Playlist Widgets with radiobuttons when there are many combinations. I hope it is clear what I mean. Is it possible to implement something similar to native libruary features?

Media panel titles. Title names of widgets linked to native items like Movies, TVShows, Music comes from XBMC core language file i believe? Or not? Because now the mask is [DESCRIPTION] [space] [NAME] eg. Latest Movies, Suggested Albums... At the same time mask is different for Playlist widgets, namely [PL NAME] [space] [DESCRIPTION] eg HDMOVIES Recently Added Items. I would suggest to change the mask for playlist widgets to the same of native sections. And at the same time change the words in language file - "Recently Added Items" change to Latest... So user can have the same concept of PL Widget names as for movies and TVShows Widgets. Like "Latest KIDS CARTOONS" instead of "KIDS CARTOONS Recently Added Items" OR "Suggested WOMENPARKINGCARYOUTUBEVIDEOSLOL". I can confirm this mask will look correct in English, Russian, Italian and even Chinese, not sure about other languages. What do you think.

Sorry for forcing you to read all these letters ))). Regards.

[Mudislander]

When using the "Recent Concerts" or "Random Concerts" to give an Addon panel to music videos they look bizarre - the DVD sized surround doesn't work with either CD or Thumb images. If you choose "Playlists" instead you get the last added items on TV rather than from the music videos playlist.


Also - I think the behaviour is technically correct but a bit confusing - but if you add "Latest Episodes" above the "TV shows" menu item it shows the latest ones, but ignores the "hide watched" flag in settings (I say technically correct as it's not really a playlist).

Yep there seems to be problems in this area, the good news is the way the Home Panel is now coded (v1.1.9) it's a lot easier to add in different panels, so we'll end up with a choice (eventually) I might try do a thumbnail view type one where the images don't get streched - have to see what it looks like.

Problem with "watched" on the home panel is where the info is coming from. XBMC core ignores the watched flag in recently added stuff (Unfortunately) so therefore if showing "Recently Added" the watched flag is ignored.

If you're showing stuff on the home panel from a playlist then script.randomandlastitems is used - which can use the watched/unwatched toggle - but this can be a performance killer. In the settings is named as "Playlist script only shows unwatched items"

The other script used is script.randomitems which can also utilize the watched/unwatched toggle when showing up any random stuff (not playlists)

[Mudislander]

A few minor glitches though

The "Now Playing" when listening to a stream is a bit inconstant - on the home screen it looks spot on (apart from the colour), in the menus it doesn't show the stream meta data, and when in full screen the "Audio Stream" bit is absent (edit: hidden at the top left of the screen)


It also looks a bit naked with the spinning CD missing (I liked that effect, hence my playing with transparent PNGs that showed the oddness!) - although I guess that doesn't really have a place on the radio....

Colours - wilson.joe's department. I think he's tried hard with something like 22 diferent themes, but he'll never make everyone happy. Suggestions never hurt though.

I agree it looks naked without a spinning CD, but there are people who prefer it that way We need an image that represents streaming - radio aerial or something, maybe a busy icon from a different skin - I'm open for suggestions. Putting in a "Streaming" label onto the full screen is no problem and the side menu can be looked at. My problem is my machine lives on "PartyMix" and I don't use "streams" much, so I'll need info on differentiating "streams" ATM I've just used a check if "http://" is in the source or not - but I've a gut feeling there's going to be problems here

[Mudislander]

@savkin_k Hi, thanks for taking the time to translate this MOD. I was raised in Soth Africa where at the last count we've something like eleven "Official" languages so do know there'll be issues in translating stuff, but am pretty sure that with some flexibity in the coding we'll get around them and I would like this MOD to look natural in all languages.

Just for background information, when I first did the home panel the commands to get the different sections to show were in hard coded "English" as the user would never see these commands it was - and probably still is - the best way. However in this last version (1.1.9) I've changed it a bit and this may be a mistake, It now uses the users set language to check if something should be visible or not. So if a user is Russian and sets the weather widget to come up and then changes his language it's not going to work and they'll have to reset their home panel choices.

To try and answer your question, firstly I have made an attempt where ever possible to use the core XBMC language file, my thought was there was a lot more translations done there and as you can see from the widget a couple of posts back the other languages are sitting at about 50% which is better than zero However as I have done for English if the core XBMC doesn't say what I want a new language string gets created, this can also be done for any language where something doesn't make sense. So yes no problem changing phrases like - "Recently Added Items - change to Latest..."

Re Playlist options, you're right for playlists the option of recent/random/unwatched is global. The script that gathers this information is run everytime you go back to the homescreen and already has to be run 10 times to cover the possibility of menu items 1 to 10 being a playlist, the option to add an individual choice would then multiple it by 10 eg some menu items want unwatched while others don't the script would have to run 20 times etc etc. Then that is not the only script running every time you return to the home screen, there is another keeping track of your favourites and another checking all menu items for random media items, so all in this MOD screams around your database everytime you go home and trying to do it without a noticeable pause or delay (Already fails every now and then). In short the playlist option of recent/random/unwatched will have to stay global.

It does look like most users are getting confused in the settings over the home panel over which option does what for what and when, so will probably have to change that soon - You know to me it makes perfect sense - but I put them there

[Mudislander]

Quick question to anybody interested - Arising from previous warbeling post and git issue#66 raised by savkin_k - how many users actually change languages while using XBMC ?

[Mudislander]

Re Translation - fixed when changing languages all home panel and submenu items will remain. Anything not manually edited will be translated. In below screenie main menu items are "English" because I added them while in English. After changing to Russian, they stayed as I added them but all auto stuff changed.

[Mudislander]

Thought about an option to use item fanart as the thumb on the home panel - Screenie below shows Recent Movies - What do you guys think ?

[savkin_k]

@savkin_k Hi, thanks for taking the time to translate this MOD.

So yes no problem changing phrases like - "Recently Added Items - change to Latest..."

Re Playlist options, you're right for playlists the option of recent/random/unwatched is global. ........ In short the playlist option of recent/random/unwatched will have to stay global.

It does look like most users are getting confused in the settings over the home panel over which option does what for what and when, so will probably have to change that soon - You know to me it makes perfect sense - but I put them there

Absolutely no complains on above.
As for Playlists. I am happy to have an option to select different Pannel types for native Movies, TVShows, and especially Music. As I stated earlier for me makes sence to have Random Albums on panel because music is the type of media I use to listen many times, moreover i keep in my collection only the music I like, so now your mod really helps me to choose SOMETHING to listen. While all the video media i very rarely watch more then once, so Recent type Panels is my choice for Playlists. I use playlists only to sort our Kids movies and shows, so I have 4 playlist assigned to main menu items, all with Recent Panels. Thus for me random option is not interesting. Unwatched option i also do not activate due to sometimes i can not finish one movie in one time.

Re Translation - fixed when changing languages all home panel and submenu items will remain. Anything not manually edited will be translated. In below screenie main menu items are "English" because I added them while in English. After changing to Russian, they stayed as I added them but all auto stuff changed.

That is great. I think every user can live with that, let's now call it, FEATURE!

Thought about an option to use item fanart as the thumb on the home panel - Screenie below shows Recent Movies - What do you guys think ?

IMHO, No. I do not like it, not indicative for me, but we say "as for the taste and colors.... all the pencils are different" (not easy to translate directly)
But from this I have a suggestion - keep titles of the movies for Poster based Panel. Related to localization issue. For users who watch mostly localized movies, not in original language, they use local scrapers. Like me. So i have my video libruary with movie titles in Russian but in most cases posters scraped are original posters, not localized. I would prefer to see on panel also Title under the poster. I know the concept was.... lite skin ))). But i belive there is also sense in my suggestion.

Same suggestion for Albums panel. Better for me to have even two lines under each Album cover. First - Album Name, Second line - artist, in smaller font and maybe less bright color. Reason is - not always easy to read names from picture, moreover - sometimes pictures are not scrapped or not available for some reasons. I have in my libruary couple of russian albums, nice music of soviet union period, forbidden that time, so without any poster.

Further suggestion is to make the dimentions of all the panels equal to each other, taking Movie panel as origin. So when switching from one menu item to another there will be no "jumping" of the sizes. This will give enough space for album titles. This will allow to move panel code to includes section together with transparrency option. Can this save resources?

All above are just wishes. I will keep it here and remind via git in case it will be missed or forgotten (I start to love github)
Good luck.

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Re Translation - fixed when changing languages all home panel and submenu items will remain. Anything not manually edited will be translated. In below screenie main menu items are "English" because I added them while in English. After changing to Russian, they stayed as I added them but all auto stuff changed.

Offtopic.
I see you have exactly same f#%king problem with weather underground when Russian is activated.
This bug i raised 3 month ago in relative thread. Thanks for the test ))))

[Mrmills]

Thought about an option to use item fanart as the thumb on the home panel - Screenie below shows Recent Movies - What do you guys think ?

looks great!! would it be a toogle switch in settings? could there be 10 items istead of 6 like a fanart wide panel
was actually looking at the panels the other day.. is there any chance that the cd covers could be more like the ones used for the movies and addon panel, thinner.. and if so would it be possible to make the panel the same size in width as the other panels instead of it being wider?

[Mudislander]

Hi guys, just a quick note, getting late again & I'm away for the weekend tomorrow.

@savkin_k - I confirm change to Russian and weather breaks down

@Mrmills I've reused episodes panel - so there's actually 9 items and it's a global setting with other home panel settings - more radio buttons

Will look into resizing panel, accept that different sizes don't look too cool when scrolling through main menu.

Will go deeper into posts and reply when I get a chance.

[wilson.joe]

I like the size of the panels just the way they are.

Hi guys, just a quick note, getting late again & I'm away for the weekend tomorrow.

@savkin_k - I confirm change to Russian and weather breaks down

@Mrmills I've reused episodes panel - so there's actually 9 items and it's a global setting with other home panel settings - more radio buttons

Will look into resizing panel, accept that different sizes don't look too cool when scrolling through main menu.

Will go deeper into posts and reply when I get a chance.

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would be nice as an option.

Thought about an option to use item fanart as the thumb on the home panel - Screenie below shows Recent Movies - What do you guys think ?