Info from plugins on the main menu?

[nkh]

Just a suggestion for the future

It would be nice if you could choose to show short pieces of information from the plugins on the main menu, so at the place where the task image should be you could have a line showing the current weather, the subject of the latest email, the free disc space, the name of the mp3 file playing and the next recording GBpvr is going to make.

Maybe it could be put into the skin file so you can define areas for each plugin to show it's information.

Of course, the plugins would have to support this so they can supply GBpvr with strings of text (or a pointer to what image to show or something). There would be the risk of cluttering up the screen, but it'll be up to the user to limit oneself

[dottore]

i think, this could work in the actual release.....we just need to update the task-image. i'll take a look at the function...

[sub]

Yes, this is something I'd like to do. I'd probably allow the plugins to supply a small panel that could contain text or graphics (picture current weather logo etc).

I havn't really spent much time thinking about it, but wasn't really sure where they should sit on the screen. Would they all potentially show in the same rectangle, with the system cycling between the various panels. Or would it be better to say, email is at location A, weather at this location B, currently playing song at C etc?

[nkh]

That sounds great

I guess it would give the most freedom if it was defined the same way as the task image and task description, so you'd have:

<SpecialElement name="TaskDescription" visible="true" loc="350,375" size="300,100"/>
<SpecialElement name="TaskImage" visible="false" loc="260,100" size="300,300"/>
<SpecialElement name="Weather" visible="true" loc="260,100" size="300,200"/>
<SpecialElement name="MP3" visible="true" loc="260,300" size="300,50"/>

but I'm not a programmer, so I don't know if that's the most practical way to do it

[dottore]

sub, would it then be possible to develop plugins without a menu-button? i think, the actual time or a newsticker could be interesting.

just a thought.

[sub]

Yes, I was thinking that would be a good idea also. Could be used for Caller ID etc.

[sub]

This has now been implemented. Plugins wanting to display an information panel on the main menu need to implement the IInfoPanel interface.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">using System;
using System.Drawing;

namespace GBPVR.Public
{
/// <summary>
/// IInfoPanel can be implemented by plugins to show a small panel of information on the GB-PVR main menu
/// </summary>
public interface IInfoPanel
{
/// <summary>Returns the panel name. This is used for looking up its placement in skin.xml files</summary>
string getPanelName();

/// <summary>Called every second or so when the panel is visible</summary>
bool panelNeedsRendering();

/// <summary>Is called by GBPVR to render the image shown to the user (180x80 is a good size)</summary>
Image renderPanel();
}
}
[/QUOTE]

These panels can be positioned in the skin.xml using

&lt;SpecialElement name=&quot;Panel&quot; panelName=&quot;weather&quot; visible=&quot;false&quot; loc=&quot;500,100&quot; size=&quot;180,80&quot;/&gt;

[nkh]

Great how about the 'build in' things in GBpvr? MP3 / Netradio / FM radio (maybe all could be reffered to as an &quot;Audio panel&quot;?) / Upcomming recordings / Current use of the recording device?

[nkh]

I see it's been included in v20, but are there a list of the panels that are included? is there a &quot;now playing&quot; panel or is the comics panel the only panel in this release? I know that the plugin panels are depending on the plugins, but I was thinking that you might have made some internal panels

[sub]

I wanted to do some of my own panels, but knew I was going to busy at work the next few days and didnt want to hold the release up any longer. I'll add some panels for the next release.