What plugins can do

[McBainUK]

The background is the same for all plugins and built-in screens: ...\gbpvr\CURRENTSKIN\Menu\background.jpg

edit: just noticed you're from Southampton, howdy from the other end of the M27

[fluffykeith]

Is there a way to change the background - maybe a layer between the background and the controls?
Are controls ordered in this way? I got an impression they can be from a previous post as a group of controls, presumably with a bounding background of there own.

I also noticed you're in Portsmouth. My nearest other user is two desks away from me!!

[JavaWiz]

In the skin part I see this kind of thing:
<Placement name="TextBox" loc="5.0, 70.0" size="20.0,5.0" />

new WizUiTextBox(skinHelper, "TextBox", "An ....

The name TextBox can be anything, eg "fred"? and the composite image part is just specifying the style used which can be specified in the WizUiTextBox constructor.

Yes, TextBox can be anything, but it MUST match the placement name in the skin. Likewise, the normalImageName and the selectedImageName parameters on the constructor MUST match a composite image definition in the skin.

Code:

[FONT=Times New Roman]lblSystemDateTime = new WizUiLabel(skinHelper, "[COLOR=red]SystemDateTime[/COLOR]", new Hashtable(), "[COLOR=seagreen]SystemDateTimeImage[/COLOR]");[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]...[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]private void setSystemDateTimeLabel()[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]{[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]    lblSystemDateTime.addArg("[COLOR=deepskyblue]@date[/COLOR]", mSystemDateTime.ToLongDateString());[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]     lblSystemDateTime.addArg("[COLOR=deepskyblue]@time[/COLOR]", mSystemDateTime.ToShortTimeString());[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]}[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman]<Placements>[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] <Placement name="[COLOR=red]SystemDateTime[/COLOR]"    loc="65.0,02.0" />[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]</Placements>[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman]<CompositeImage name="[COLOR=seagreen]SystemDateTimeImage[/COLOR]" size="35.0,15.0">[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] <DrawText text="[COLOR=deepskyblue]@date[/COLOR]"    loc="0,0"   size="100.0,45.0" textStyle="DateTimeTextStyle" align="Right"/>[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] <DrawText text="[COLOR=deepskyblue]@time[/COLOR]"    loc="0,20"  size="100.0,45.0" textStyle="DateTimeTextStyle" align="Right"/>[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]</CompositeImage>[/FONT]

If I don't add controls to the control manager I will have a blank screen, right?

yes. When GetRenderList for the plugin is called, the code calls the controlManager and iterates thru it's list of controls, calling GetRenderlist for each control, building a list for all controls on the plugin. If there are no controls defined in controlManger, there will be nothing to render.

What specifies the image / color or whatever of this blank screen / background?

I don't have the code in front of me, but I believe at the screen level, sub's code determines what the background image is. The definition MAY be in the baseskin.xml (skin2 root directory).

[fluffykeith]

Thanks for the info.

As McBain says the background is a global thing, so that probably doesn't give me what I'm after as it will change all screens.

I want to create the effect of an html type image map. I guess one way would be to create a big button with the image on and the use onUiClick to determine what area I have hit.
Alternatively, create a picture control, over which some buttons could be placed, either with the image of the thing to click or transparent to see the picture below.
I don't know if that type of layering is possible.


I noticed that an active button image could have a different position to the inactive button - that could end up with some interesting effects.

[McBainUK]

Obviously I don't know what you're making but a big image map to click is going to be hard to make remote control friendly.

[fluffykeith]

a big image map to click is going to be hard to make remote control friendly.

true - I guess it will end up like some DVD menus where left, right, up, down never seem to go to the item you're trying to select :mad:

I was assuming I would use the mouse or ideally my little touchscreen. I want to create a front end to some home automation, currently I use a Pronto remote and I'd like to do something similar in pvrx2 so it has a common looking interface rather than exit pvrx2 and use another program. This is a long term project of mine that evolves faster than I write code for as it's always the lowest priority on my task list. (Fixing the cars/house always seem to get the attention!)

I've just completed one coding project (barring bug fixes) so I hope to start on my plugin todo list very soon.

[NeBlackCat]

Wow, thanks for all the replies - this is obviously an active user community!

To explain a little more..

My girlfriend houses overseas students, and wants a "media centre" to go with her new big tv, for the students to use. That means playing tv, movies, audio, etc and all the usual stuff.

It also means some other things, such as internet browsing, games, etc, etc. But most importantly, it needs some user access control. Before being able to access particular feature, the user (student) needs to identify themselves, and the system will use that to determine what the user is or isn't allowed to do/view.

So imagine it like this - when the PC boots into the media centre (eg. GB-PVR) all functions except TV are disabled until someone chooses the (currently non existent) "Logon" menu and identifies themselves. After that, they get to use whatever features are allowed for them, and can view the stored movies enabled for them (so a 16 year old couldn't view M/MA content, or do anything after 10pm, for example).

That doesn't come out of the box, but I used to be a software developer, so I'm the "volunteer" who has to tinker!

TBH I initially preferred MediaPortal as it's open source. It isn't nearly as polished as GB-PVR, but open source means I can (in principle) tweak it to do most anything.

But GB-PVR blew me away when I tried it, compared to all the alternatives. It just worked, looked good, and had all the appropriate core functionality. Ok, it isn't open source (that would have been a perfect score) but the plugin system (I thought) might be good enough.

The problem is that I can't find anywhere that spells out to me whether what I want to do is possible. If I write a "Logon" plugin - can I (for example) hook into the existing functions to control access to them? Can I filter what movies are visible in My Movies and what aren't? Can I restrict access depending on user and time of day? And so on. It isn't clear.

GB-PVR is a truly great piece of work (huge kudos to it's author), it's core functionality is great, it seems to have an active community, there's lots of info available and it's stable. All that is great. But it needs a bit of "high level" info in some areas, like extensibility, imho.

PS - are there any WWW browser or game plugins in regular use?

[Fatman_do]

The Video Archive plugin has a login feature for stored movies (not live tv however). It does not have time limits either.
http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Plugin/VideoArchive.

[NeBlackCat]

The Video Archive plugin has a login feature for stored movies (not live tv however). It does not have time limits either.
http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Plugin/VideoArchive.

Cheers - I will look into that!

[fluffykeith]

So imagine it like this - when the PC boots into the media centre (eg. GB-PVR) all functions except TV are disabled until someone chooses the (currently non existent) "Logon" menu and identifies themselves. After that, they get to use whatever features are allowed for them, and can view the stored movies enabled for them (so a 16 year old couldn't view M/MA content, or do anything after 10pm, for example).

Is it possible to run the recording service so TV recordings still work but users can login using the windows login?

The problem is that I can't find anywhere that spells out to me whether what I want to do is possible. If I write a "Logon" plugin - can I (for example) hook into the existing functions to control access to them? Can I filter what movies are visible in My Movies and what aren't? Can I restrict access depending on user and time of day? And so on. It isn't clear.

I think that would be possible. Your login plugin would detect that a movie was being started (notification to the plugin), it would the check who is logged in against their predefined priveleges, eg can't watch xyz after 10pm, then close the video if its not allowed.
The helper classes have things like play video, play audio, stop audio methods (I can't see a stop video one but I guess it's there somewhere).
You would also need a notification of screen changes or some way to know what the user is accessing. I'm not sure how you do that.

If you don't want the movies visible then when a user logs in you could just change their extension, so its not picked up.