Checking for updates

[imilne]

I was thinking of tweaking the System plugin so that it could show when updates to NPVR are available.

However, I'd like to keep it simple () so would prefer not to do the actual online check. Can I assume that <CurrentVersion> and <LastNotifiedVersion> in config.xml are all I need to be looking at, ie, if they're different, then a new version is available?

Iain

[sub]

Correct.

[imilne]

Great. Should also have asked, does NPVR just do its check at startup time or periodically every so often?

Thanks

Iain

[imilne]

Final question: is there any way to change the colour of a font in code? I've "kind of" done it before by having two separate text elements (one for each colour I needed) and having the one I didn't want shown set to an empty string. Fiddly though, and makes the skin messy.

Here's the current skin block for System's version message. It's done with a single text element and it would be nice to have it change colour (or font if that's what it takes) when a new version was detected.

Code:

<Element name="Version" location="0,87.44" size="100,4.64" alpha="255" alphaFade="true">
    <Rect location="-2,0" size="104,100" fillColor="BaseColor2"/>
    <Text text="@version" location="0,0" size="100,100" font="Title3Minimum" align="center" valign="center"/>
</Element>

Iain

[sub]

You can specify font="@passedInStyle", where the passed in style is name of a font style defined in your skin files.

[mvallevand]

I don't know if this is correct but in SearchLite I set the fontname

item["@fontName"] = "DefaultMovie";

and then in the skin I define them.

Code:

<Skin>
    <Fonts>
        <Font name="DefaultMovie" color="#8800ff" size="14.05"/>
        <Font name="DefaultShow" color="#d6ebff" size="14.05"/>
        <Font name="DefaultSports" color="#b2d9ff" size="14.05"/>
        <Font name="DefaultTitle" color="#fffb00" size="14.05"/>         
    </Fonts>

Martin

[imilne]

Thanks guys, that works.

But what happens if someone wants to re-skin it? I've now set it in code to one of two possible values from the default skin, but they won't match anything in a 3rd party skin. Or do the skin authors just have to deal with that and ensure their font names match up in these cases?

Iain

[mvallevand]

I have to assume skinners (or should I say Jaggy and NorthPole) start with Default and work from there. The challenge for the developers is to document the Default skin and their changes. I am lax at that, just writing this I remember that I completely forgot to document my recent changes in SearchLite.

Martin

[sub]

As long as your define your styles in your skin.xml file, and give them sensible names, it shouldnt be too hard for the skinners to work out what they're for.

[Jaggy]

As long as your define your styles in your skin.xml file, and give them sensible names, it shouldnt be too hard for the skinners to work out what they're for.

Exactly, as long as they aren't named something like "Title3Minimum" which to start with we will just assume is because you want a different font size or something.