Default sources for new installation
#1
What does the team think about adding some additional default sources for new XBMC installations?

What I'm thinking is basically adding the following browser/auto-discovery sources right off the bat, so that most network file shares can theoretically be accessed without having to actually add a video source. This is something I often see in other video players on Mac OS X, iOS, and Android. (haven't used Windows in a long while):

SMB
UPnP
Zeroconf


You can already test how effective this is by just adding sources with only "smb://", "zeroconf://", and "upnp://" in them. Between those three you can automatically find most of the common servers that our users use, with very little effort.

Users can still remove them and add more specific shares if they wish, and it would only effect new installs. It would be a great user friendly tweak, and help promote XBMC's existing features like UPnP library sharing.
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#2
Here's an example of nPlayer for iOS that made me think of this:
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VLC for Mac OS X:
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Archos Video Player for Android (for use with set-top-boxes):
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How nice it looks in XBMC:
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#3
I also think it might be valid to add a couple of, OS dependent, sources also.
i.e. ubuntu ships with $home/Videos and $home/Music, windows has something similair and I'd bet OS X has too Smile
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#4
OS X does have some folders like that :)

~/Movies - iMovie stores videos here. Not sure if other apps do. Mine only has stuff from iMovie.

~/Music - which, for some reason, also contains movies and TV shows that are managed by iTunes, but those are mostly DRM'ed videos from the iTunes Store. (music from iTunes Store doesn't have DRM, though)

~/Pictures
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#5
Those ones are already added by default on OSX.
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#6
(2013-11-10, 03:32)jmarshall Wrote: Those ones are already added by default on OSX.

I thought they were too, but when I tried with a fresh install of Frodo (12.2, pre12.3, even 12.0) all three didn't show up in their respective sections. I redownoaded Eden just now and tested that, and there they all show up on a fresh install.

Looks like they got lost in Frodo.
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#7
I guess someone thought it was a bug that they were there Tongue

I don't think they have ever been there on linux though.

I guess this is a packaging thing really? Because I suspect gentoo etc don't have those folders by default, so it might make sense to not have it there?

Perhaps we should gather the suggested packaging defaults for the different os's somewere nice? wiki? here?
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#8
(2013-11-11, 10:27)topfs2 Wrote: Perhaps we should gather the suggested packaging defaults for the different os's somewere nice? wiki? here?

Default media locations (wiki)


It looks like the default Mac OSX locations are back in nightly builds, so either someone fixed it, or I was just crazy :)
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#9
Putting aside the per-OS sources, are there any objections to adding these three network locations by default?

smb://
upnp://
zeroconf://
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#10
I have no objections against it, I think its a good idea.

For discussions sake, another suggest could be to add a meta "Network" folder where we can either add those three or the content of those three aggregated?

EDIT: Nightly on Ubuntu does not have any folders set.
I don't have wiki access for some reason Smile

Ubuntu doesn't have proper Movies/TV Shows folder but
Music: ~/Music
Videos: ~/Videos
Pictures: ~/Pictures
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"Well Im gonna download the code and look at it a bit but I'm certainly not a really good C/C++ programer but I'd help as much as I can, I mostly write in C#."
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#11
ubuntu only has those folders on a desktop installation.
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#12
Wouldn't they make sense on xbmcbuntu too?

Otherwise its kindof hard I guess Tongue

I guess they are there if any of ubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-desktop etc are installed? Not sure what package actually creates those folders though?
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For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.

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"Well Im gonna download the code and look at it a bit but I'm certainly not a really good C/C++ programer but I'd help as much as I can, I mostly write in C#."
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#13
Another way of solving that would be to have autohide feature on certain sources, i.e. don't show them if the folder doesn't exist?

I'm sure such a patch would make a mess elsewhere in the code (auto scanning etc) but perhaps Montelleses pull with offline helps in that regard.

It feels a bit of a shame to not have default sources on ubuntu solely because some users may not have the folders Smile
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For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.

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"Well Im gonna download the code and look at it a bit but I'm certainly not a really good C/C++ programer but I'd help as much as I can, I mostly write in C#."
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#14
there is another issue with this on ubuntu:
we don't know which user is running xbmc, but those folders are user dependent.
I guess ~/Videos won't work in sources.xml?
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#15
Hmm
Id assume normal POSIX file operations would understand it on Linux? If not, we do know it at startup as we copy stuff to .xbmc so we should be able to do some special path at least.
If you have problems please read this before posting

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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.

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"Well Im gonna download the code and look at it a bit but I'm certainly not a really good C/C++ programer but I'd help as much as I can, I mostly write in C#."
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