Plugins

[CodeMonkey]

I was starting to do a email reader plugin when I had a philisophical crisis. Should we even do plugins like this? Wouldn't it be better to just minimize gbpvr for a few minutes and use a full featured app like outlook? The same could be said for cd/dvd rippers and everything else that already has nice apps available for windows.

Thoughts?

[Dai]

CodeMonkey

My PVR system sits under the TV, I control it only with the remote and the only output is the TV. It has no keyboard mouse or monitor attached. This was one of the major aims of the project for me, it had to not seem like a PC but more like a video recorder with some additional functions.

In this setup, I dont have the option of leaving GBPVR to do something from the desktop so anything I want to do on this PC must be done as a plugin.

That doesn't mean that I think anything and everthing ought to be done as a plugin because there are many things that I would consider too complex to operate with a remote control and TV out. I don't think I would want to use the web or Email in the normal sense in a plugin. If you want to do that you may as well leave GBPVR and I might as well go and use my other PC.

The weather plugin is effectively, a very simple web browser with a very specific function this seems the right way to do things to me. If you want to know the weather a lot, you install this and it is easy to use and gets the particular information off the web. If you want to do full function web browsing you might as well use an existing browser.

With Emails, I would think that allowing you to have a list of new mails, select one with the cursor keys and read them by pressing OK would be the kind of simplified functionality that would suit a plugin. If you want to start relplying or moving things to folders etc. it;s time to leave GBPVR and use a full email client.

The thing is, once you do an Email plug in, people will keep asking for more and more features until you get to the full functionality in the end

Well, thats my opinion, I'm sure others will feel differently.

Dai

[paulrking]

I agree if you are running gbpvr with the intention of using it on the PC but I am rather more interested in using it with a TV in another room and while I don't particularly want to know when yet more spam has arrived I can see that some people might.

For myself I would like to see...

how much recording time I have used and have got left

a browser would be superb, though input through the remote might be a bit problematic. I'm thinking text message keys or favourites only

Just my twopennyworth
PK

[CodeMonkey]

Good points. Maybe a simple email reader does have value as a plugin after all. And people like Paul can not install, or turn off that particular plugin.

[Dai]

Paul

I've written a plugin which estimates how much recording time you have left (along with other disk information). I emailed it to sub yesterday.

Dai

[AndyCherry]

I was thinking that an email notification might be useful - yes I can see that an email reader on the TV would be interesting (I use mine the same as Dai), but I can't see the rest of my family being too happy with me hogging the TV as well as my PC!

Now an SMS/Text Message plugin - that would be a different story - link to my bluetooth phone and send and receive text messages via my remote and RF keyboard...

Cheers,
ANdy

[CodeMonkey]

Quote[/b] (AndyCherry @ April 21 2004,10:25)]I was thinking that an email notification might be useful - yes I can see that an email reader on the TV would be interesting (I use mine the same as Dai), but I can't see the rest of my family being too happy with me hogging the TV as well as my PC!

Now an SMS/Text Message plugin - that would be a different story - link to my bluetooth phone and send and receive text messages via my remote and RF keyboard...

Cheers,
ANdy

Well, it would be only a reader. So if you wanted to reply you would have to go to your other PC. So you wouldn't be hogging the tv TOO much

As for your plugin suggestion, you have a bluetooth device so get to it

[AndyCherry]

Yeah but you haven't seen my C# coding!

[sub]

Another thing to remember, plugins work with the MVP, XCard and PVR350 - external programs dont.

[colin]

Also, they are plugins. This means you have the choice of installing them or not, so you can write useful plugins or plan outright crazy plugins.

A lot of the time, plugins start out as a learning process or a challenge of "I wonder could we do this"

Sub, do all plugins have to be in C# or other .NET variants? Or are there bindings to other languages (C, Purebasic, etc.)

Cheers,
Colin.