Anime Library - Support Thread

[Takkun]

Wow, that was faster than I expected.

I always wished the "Play-File" window used the "Main-Title image" instead. The current-way helps you learn character names however it is completely random, looks dull, and would IMHO be better off in it's own "Character Browser" window.

Regardless, The window(popup) doesn't show what is currently selected (which is then hidden behind said-window. I would love it if the selected Episode-Title was displayed in the window.

[imilne]

Ommina, let me know if you want a look at any of the source for my Videos plugin. It's obviously not the same as what you're working on, but I guess there must be similarities here and there. Not that there *is* much code to it yet, but you might see the odd line or two that helps...

Iain

[Ommina]

I always wished the "Play-File" window used the "Main-Title image" instead. The current-way helps you learn character names however it is completely random, looks dull, and would IMHO be better off in it's own "Character Browser" window.

Regardless, The window(popup) doesn't show what is currently selected (which is then hidden behind said-window. I would love it if the selected Episode-Title was displayed in the window.

But, isn't that just amazingly boring? I already use the main image for every other popup, I thought it would be nice to have something different in that one. (I briefly thought it would be fun to use a frame from the file itself, but that idea fell on it's rear in a hurry.) If you're convinced the main image is the best choice, I don't mind going with that, it's pretty much the same code either way.

But a Character Browser using the icon view UI would be oh so much fun! Maybe I'll do that after the "how about making it play files?" step.

I agree on the episode name, and have also regretted not including it. It's really necessary to tie the popup in to the rest of the plugin.

Ommina, let me know if you want a look at any of the source for my Videos plugin. It's obviously not the same as what you're working on, but I guess there must be similarities here and there. Not that there *is* much code to it yet, but you might see the odd line or two that helps...

I'll likely take you up on that! I'd be particularly interested in the event bus thingie, at which I've not looked at all. I've been able to muddle my way through things so far, but I'm really not above muddling less.

[Takkun]

Sure it is somewhat boring, but so is the lack of animations required for non-PC users. I could be wrong but I don't think the content supports anything more interesting. Besides, think about the purpose of the popup: "to preform operations (like 'play') on an episode."

a Character Browser using the icon view UI would be oh so much fun!

Lol. Do I detect a subtle-hint of sarcasm?

Making things more interesting: It would be neat if new/existing characters in that episode would be the only ones shown for that window and you could flip through brief-descriptions of them. The description may contain spoilers so you would have to make it the episode-after they appear in. It's an idea but still not all that interesting. Better yet, how about a anime-cloud browser? You could cloud organize the anime like a tag-cloud, placing their distance from each other (and possible connecting lines for browsing) according to related anime-tags (more related tags = closer to each other). This, IM"H"O, would definitely be pretty-cool, but the available UI doesn't support it, leaving non-PC users out of the loop forever.

Now granted, I'll say that GBPVR (PVRX/nPVR), as a whole, is really-boring all on its own. The UI is just regurgitated from existing on-screen guides and nothing else could be more-boring. So the question has been: How to make AniLib stand out? My answer to that question is to make a completely-different UI, one that doesn't even look like it belongs in nPVR-X (whatever it's called now). I'll flesh out some mockups and PM them to yea. I'll try to keep them within PVR-Whatever's template-limitations (I'll peruse the "icon view UI" before I start). It'll at least be a source of ideas/inspiration. Besides, now that you've got me thinking about it, I really need to "flush-out" these ideas before they turn into preconceptions. [SIZE="4"]>:3[/SIZE]

Wait a minute ...there are other popups? Sure there's the Info-one but that's the only other one I would ever use (and rarely@that). Hmm... I think I'll dink-around with it tonight than. Now I need to get back to my actual-programming work, lol.

PS: [SIZE="4"]Everyone, please post your opinions![/SIZE] It's pretty embarrassing when your the only one rooting for something. <:3

[Ommina]

Lol. Do I detect a subtle-hint of sarcasm?

Heh, actually, nope! I love the idea of a character page, and it's an effort of will to not do it before the other (mildly more useful) items such as 'play'.

Generally, I do think npvr is far less 'plain' than its predecessors. Whether this is attributed to more robust UI elements (which I don't really think is the case), or Hairy's influence on the graphic work (I still lament that he retired from skin design for npvr), I don't know. But, regardless, it does seem... shinier.

Flipping through characters could certainly be done, although I don't really have a whole lot of information about the character, just name and episode list really. The AniDB API does provide gender and 'type', so I suppose those could be included with relative ease. Anything beyond that is a chunk more work.

I'll pencil it onto The List.

Edit - The anime cloud is an intriguing idea. Both as a way of presenting the titles, but also as a means of finding similar titles. Presuming, of course, that tags are an effective means of determining similarity, given that there are a fair number of highly subjective tags.

I'm not presently saving tag data to the database, but it is readily available. I'd like to return to this after the core bits of the npvr port are no longer flapping in the wind.

[Sykor]

PS: [SIZE="4"]Everyone, please post your opinions![/SIZE] It's pretty embarrassing when your the only one rooting for something. <:3

Lack of AnimeLibrary in NPVR is the only reason (ok, lack of musiclibrary3 is another one), keeping gbpvr still installed along with NPVR. So +1 in the rooting department

[Ommina]

Lack of AnimeLibrary in NPVR is the only reason (ok, lack of musiclibrary3 is another one), keeping gbpvr still installed along with NPVR. So +1 in the rooting department

Heh, thank you for the encouragement.

Tonight I'm switching over the npvr locally, for some play-testing. As it were.

This will, I'm sure, find all sorts of new fiddlies that will need to be changed, but I'm pretty confident things will be ready to go with sub's next npvr release. The most painful bits are behind me, the rest is just gluing things back together.

Can't help you on musiclibrary3 though, sorry!

[mvallevand]

(ok, lack of musiclibrary3 is another one)

I am doing something about that too.

Martin