Developing plugins

[Guest]

Hi,
Downloaded GBPVR.
Looks Great cant wait to get my TV Tuner card to try it out.
I am very interested in the development of this product.
I also have some ideas about plugins and would like to write one. I and C++ programmer "C Builder" I graped a copy of Sharp development IDE,
using the Comics as a start, The compiler cannot find find the GPPVR.plublic files.
Where do I need to put the Dlls for it to work.
Ive put the Dlls in a few places but no luck

Sorry Never used Sharp before. Not really sure how to drive it yet.

Any help appreaciated

Brett

[dottore]

you must add the dll's as resources to sharpdevelop. right-click on resources, add a .net-resource and search the dll's in the gbpvr directory.

[Guest]

Thanks.
I am still not sure about it.
I gather you mean,in Projects->ResourceFiles->Add
only 2 options are *.resx or allfiles
If i click all files and select the *dll the complier still comes up with the same errors??

Side note whats the correct way to import the Comics project into SharpDevelop anyway. The comics source has no *.sln so unable to import as Vstudio,
I created a blank console c# app and added all the files in.

Sorry really new to Csharp develop IDE
Thanks
Brett

[dottore]

i did following:

i imported the jukebox-plugin-source, then renamed the cs-files in the project-tab. then i clicked right on references in the project-tab (NOT the main - menu, must be the project-tab). sorry, i wrote about resources, but it is called reference. in the popup-window, i chose .net assembly browser, then search.... then i pointed to the gbpvrpublic.dll. just click ok and the reference is made.

do the same with gbpvrbackendcommon. this should work. if you want to use the comics-plugin, just overwrite the *Task.cs and the *ConfigForm.cs with the ones from the comics-plugin.

hope that helps!

[Guest]

Hi Thanks for all your help.
Tried it with the Jukebox plugin as you said.
Imported the gbpvrpublic.dll ok into References.

Cannot find the other backend dll you talk about anywhere.

Sorry you must think i am a dill, Its always the hardest to get started with new IDE's.

If I complie it now it comes up with different errors Cannot creat output path ##### the given path format is not supported.

can it not handle long filenames, do I need to keep it all to DOS naming conventions??


Thanks

[dottore]

well, you must configure the output path for the application. maybe, there is an invalid entry, so go to the "projects" -> "options" menu in the main menu. clicking on "configurations" brings you to the two settings "debug" and "release". there you can find "output", where you can set filename, path and type of the ouput. type should be library, assemblyname is what you want (without .dll, just the name) and the path should point to the plugin-path of your gbpvr installation.

i use a german version of sharpdevelop, so maybe some of the above mentioned menus have other names, but this should work.

the dlls to include are:
GBPVRBackendCommon.dll
GBPVRPublic.dll

both can be found in the root-directory of gbpvr.

[brettkelly1]

Hi Dottore.
Thanks so much
It actually works.
I changed a few things in the program and complied to see if it runs. Yep all good.

Now Ive got a start on the complier IDE "how to" I should be right to go.

Thanks again

[reven]

hi im trying to draw buttons for my settings plugin, and i cant find any plugins with the drawButton code implemented, and im having trouble trying to get them look right, font, color etc. also is there a way to get that info from gbpvr so if you change skins it changes, the font, background color, etc. or do i have to put these settings in the skin.xml file?

so could someone fill in this information:
DrawButton(g,"str",**??FONT???**,**??PEN??**,**??SOLIDBRUSH??**,**??SOLIDBRUSH??
**, x, y, width, height, **??RADIUS??**);

can i do something like gbpvr.ButtonFont gbpvr.BorderPen or anything?

[sub]

Its not quite how I do it in my internal plugins, but you could do something like the following (as seen in DVD Ripper plug source).

Add a private inner class to you plugin to encapsulate the idea of a button:
<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">
private class ScreenButton
{
public ScreenButton(string command, Image normalImage, Image selectedImage)
{
this.command = command;
this.normalImage = normalImage;
this.selectedImage = selectedImage;
}

public string command;
public Image normalImage;
public Image selectedImage;
}[/QUOTE]

Then maybe add a utility function for creating instances of your button:
<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">
private ScreenButton SetupButton(string text)
{
// load the
Hashtable args = new Hashtable();
args["@buttonText"] = text;
Image normal = skinHelper.getNamedImage("NormalButtonImage", args);
Image selected = skinHelper.getNamedImage("SelectedButtonImage", args);

ScreenButton screenButton = new ScreenButton(text, normal, selected);
return screenButton;
}
[/QUOTE]
This will look up the images for the button (NormalButtonImage &amp; SelectedButtonImage) from the skin.xml file. The colours, font, and translated text, shape, bitmap and caching etc are then managed by the skin helper.

[reven]

i was trying to draw the buttons via code (using the weather plugin as skeleton code) since there seems to be a problem with the buttons in the weather plugin where theres a white sorta border left on around the button when it is no longer selected, and i thought this was because of its button images, but i used the code
CommonUtilities.DrawButton(g,Buttons[i].ToString(),FontBtn,new Pen(Color.White, 4), new SolidBrush(Color.DarkBlue), new SolidBrush(Color.LightGray), 40, 40+(i*45), 150, 30, 10);
to draw the buttons and the white border is still there (goto the weather plugin and you'll see what i mean, in the blue skin anyways). anyone know what is cause this? the position of the buttons on the side?

on and sub did you mean using just 2 images for every button (and selected and unselected) and drawing the font above it?