EPGExtra - new tool adds date, ratings, repeat, CC, Stereo to program descriptions.

[reboot]

After trying this months ago, and finding problems (I forget what), I had abandoned it. Just reloaded it, and the new 1.1 verson works seamlessly and smoothly. Well done Ubu!!!

[ubu]

After looking at I-xmltv and epgextra, I found I like the simplicity of ee in it's setup. It only left me wishing for one small tweak.

In reading the threads, I think I saw something like this be asked before, but what the heck, may as well ask in case it matters.

The air date is added to the description with only the year. I picked a bad example, since the year 1995 says a lot, but for something more recent, especially as it comes to the end of the year... it would be nice to see the full date here.

[(2006) could be new.. or could be (2006-02-01)]

EPGExtra currently uses only the year part of the air date so that it is normalized with the year released field for movies (which only has the year portion). It would be relatively easy to add an additional command line option to allow the display of the MM-DD portion. I'm a little averse to adding new features to EPGExtra since it is intended to have a minimal configuration set for simplicity of use (and it is currently very stable). But I will put this one on the to-do list.

[ubu]

After trying this months ago, and finding problems (I forget what), I had abandoned it. Just reloaded it, and the new 1.1 verson works seamlessly and smoothly. Well done Ubu!!!

Glad you find it useful. I haven't touched it for six months on the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" principle. I deliberately designed it to be simple to use and with very little that can cause it break.

[acegolfer]

What's the difference between EPGEXTRA and ZAPTOOLS? Do they overlap?

Most importantly, which should I install? If both, which order?

[acegolfer]

What's the difference between EPGEXTRA and ZAPTOOLS? Do they overlap?

Most importantly, which should I install? If both, which order?

To answer my own question,

EPGExtra modifies TV description. Zaptools adds several more items such as original air date to EWA.

They can coexist and I found they complement each other pretty well.

[ubu]

To answer my own question,

EPGExtra modifies TV description. Zaptools adds several more items such as original air date to EWA.

They can coexist and I found they complement each other pretty well.

Exactly so. EPGExtra originally used the Zaptools database to retrieve the additional description info, but now it reads the Zap2it data directly. The two utilities complement each other but EPGExtra does not require Zaptools be installed.

Another option is I-xmltv (I think it's called "TV Guide Supercharger" on the wiki). While EPGExtra is designed to fulfill a single need (and thus be very simple to install and use), I-xmltv provides a rather sophisticated alternative with a lot of different features, including a nifty "incremental" EPG download capability. Choices are good. For instance, I find Wordpad quite adequate for my needs 99% of the time. Other people may need a full-blown word processor with lots of bells and whistles (and the configuration issues that come with them ).