New version RSSReader plugin

[HenkH]

I've update Jorm's RSSReader plugin. It will be officially announced after it is uploaded to the Wiki (I'm currently waiting on blader to make me an account).

In the meantime I've uploaded it to my private site as newsplugin4.zip. The zip file contains a readme.txt which should get you skin developers going. I also included some technical remarks in the sample skin files.

Some teasers:
- news ticker
- text feed
- image feed
- zoom in on an image feed
- configuration

[HenkH]

Quote[/b] ]I hope you got rid of those black popup dialog boxes that told you the story (the news). And those errors when you try to click on a news link?

Are you talking about the previous version or mine?

Ofcourse you'll need an active internet connection to use it. I didn't get any error messages on any of the RSS feeds I tried... (knocking on wood   ).

[HenkH]

Quote[/b] (tipstir @ Mar. 20 2005,23:37)]here was an error bring up the Stock report web saying error: the remote server returned an error

This site sometimes returns a '305' error, meaning: why are you asking me the same question as a few seconds ago? A retry will usually help.

[reven]

now we just need to setup a gbpvr rss feed with plugin/skin/gbpvr updates, and bug reports etc.

anyone know how to do this?

[reven]

is this all an rss feed is?
http://www.firingsquad.com/news_rss.xml

a basic xml file? i thought it was something complicated.
anyone to set one up on the wiki or somewhere else, where you can enter a title and link so its added to the feed and that expires after x number of days (this possible could be configurable depending on what type of news item, eg gbpvr update would last for say a week, a skin update a day or two).

[HenkH]

Quote[/b] (reven @ Mar. 21 2005,01:09)]is this all an rss feed is?
http://www.firingsquad.com/news_rss.xml

a basic xml file?  i thought it was something complicated.
anyone to set one up on the wiki or somewhere else, where you can enter a title and link so its added to the feed and that expires after x number of days (this possible could be configurable depending on what type of news item, eg gbpvr update would last for say a week, a skin update a day or two).

A RSS-feed is just a simple structured XML file. The plugin supports several RSS versions (1.0 was a PITA), but it doesn't support 'Atom' yet, which is supposed to be a successor.

The link you posted looks a lot like a RSS-feed, but according to the MicroSoft XML parser it contains invalid characters (i.e. a funny character at the line with '220m bank hacking foiled'. In this case it can be solved by explicitly setting the 'encoding="UTF-8"' in the XML-declaration, but it will be difficult to do this in the code. For now I would say: reject feeds that produce invalid XML (according to the standard  Microsoft parser).

The Wiki site already has a RSS-feed, but I do not find it very useful since it only shows 1 line of text. A few more lines would be better...

I already thought about other RSS uses in gbpvr: what about a RSS feed from the application itself to show things like the recording status? It won't be really useful in the gbpvr applications, but it might handy as an add-on to the web interface (e.g. to allow friends to see your recording list). It looks like the internal gbpvr web-server uses ASP.NET, so it shouldn't be to difficult to piggyback on it..

[HenkH]

Quote[/b] (tipstir @ Mar. 21 2005,01:34)]There is a problem with this ticker and MVP, MY Videos so I had to remove the panel from main menu just to watch videos or else the MVP goes into reboot mode for contacting servers. Once removed MY Videos was back to normal.

HenKH did you test your ticker with the MVP while watching a video? It caused a lot of crashing on my end. I had to tell everyone wait, "I'll fix it!"

To be honest I only tested the ticker on the main menu screen, which works fine here (even on the MVP). I didn't even know it was possible to superimpose a panel on video stream

If you send me a sample skin file which demonstrates your problem I will look into it. In the meantime you might try to increase the 'interval' in the panels\news.xml file to see if that makes any difference.

[reven]

ok i got it working, and well i might add, just the ticking could be improved. you have
<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"><!-- Time in seconds between refresh -->
<CustomElement name="Interval" value="1"/>[/QUOTE]
could you change this to milliseconds, for those of us using a full computer for gbpvr, having it refresh at 100ms isnt a problem, and the scrolling will look a lot better. and those who have an mvp can easily change this.

of course (sub i hope you read this, as you say you read everything) there is the
<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">
21/03/2005 6:30:47 p.m..718 VERBOSE [2] Rendering MenuMenuTask
21/03/2005 6:30:48 p.m..718 VERBOSE [2] Rendering MenuMenuTask[/QUOTE]
issue, everytime the screen is repainted (i think just via the ForceRepaint() method) this is written to gbpvr.exe.log file (anyway to turn this off?, one of the debugging levels, or just in the next release?).

[sub]

I'm not reading everything these days, but I did read this. I've removed this specific message for the next build.

[reven]

i noticed something a little strange, i wanted to watch a dvd, so i put it in and noticed it was flashing every few seconds, it turns out it was because of this plugin. i assume its still calling the forcerepaint, or some other method when video is playing back, any ideas?