Add menu item for My Podcasts?

[cowboyway]

I'm trying to create a menu item in sagemc that will display a list of recent podcasts already downloaded into a shared folder i have. I see from other similar postings this should be possible but don't think i have the right "screen"?!

I'll note the UNC path i have referenced is correct so that shouldn't be the issue. Here's a snipit from my sagemc_menu.xml file.

<internalScreenMenuItem icon="G:\media_root\Shared\podcast\Somepodcast\image.png" screen="MyFileBrowser" title="My Podcasts">
<evalExpression>AddStaticContext("PathFilterExprs", new_java_util_ArrayList())</evalExpression>
<evalExpression>java_util_List_add(PathFilterExprs, "\\\\SERVER\\Shared\\podcast\\Somepodcast")</evalExpression>
<evalExpression>AddStaticContext("PathFilterExcludes", false)</evalExpression>
</internalScreenMenuItem>

I'm not sure if the screen "MyFileBrowser" should be used or "My Music"? I've tried both and guessed at what might work based on a video/movie example elsewhere in the forum. It seems to just dump me into a folder a few levels above... rather then display a list of mp3's.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[razrsharpe]

i think the pathfilterexpression MUST be a direct import directory and not a sub folder of an import directory. Is "\\\\SERVER\\Shared\\podcast\\Somepodcast" a direct import directory (ie if you go to SageTV setup where you setup your video import directories is your folder listed there)?

[cowboyway]

Originally Posted by razrsharpe

i think the pathfilterexpression MUST be a direct import directory and not a sub folder of an import directory. Is "\\\\SERVER\\Shared\\podcast\\Somepodcast" a direct import directory (ie if you go to SageTV setup where you setup your video import directories is your folder listed there)?

Actually no it isn't.

\\\\SERVER\\Shared\\podcast

is mapped as an import directory. I can change that if necessary (assuming i'm pursuing this correctly). On a related note, which "screen" would be the best in this case?

Additionally, some of my podcasts are broken down into hour long segments per show (i.e. 3 hour long mp3 files for a 3 hour show). I've seen vista mc somehow know that all three were part of a single show and played them back to back without user intervention. Can sage do that? Would that require a playlist per day in this case?

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by cowboyway

Actually no it isn't.

\\\\SERVER\\Shared\\podcast

is mapped as an import directory. I can change that if necessary (assuming i'm pursuing this correctly).

its worth a shot to test... easy enough to change.. but i remember some noise awhile back that the pathfilterexpression MUST be an import directory....

On a related note, which "screen" would be the best in this case?

im not sure if the filebrowser screen is intended to be a full screen (rather then just a popup)... my gut says the My Music screen is the one you want.... but would require some playing

Additionally, some of my podcasts are broken down into hour long segments per show (i.e. 3 hour long mp3 files for a 3 hour show). I've seen vista mc somehow know that all three were part of a single show and played them back to back without user intervention. Can sage do that? Would that require a playlist per day in this case?

you would need a playlist... i think... although with the music screens it might just auto play the next "song" in the folder... again not sure because i dont really use sage for music yet.

[cowboyway]

I changed the path in my config file to the shorter path that is set as an import folder (podcast). It doesn't appear to do anything different. All i see is a window with both of my import folders listed.

Instead could i filter based on meta data like Artist? If i manually set the filters and sorting to get what i want i do it like this:

View by Album
Sort by Time
Filter by Genre = Podcast

If so what settings would use for that to get button on the main menu?

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by cowboyway

I changed the path in my config file to the shorter path that is set as an import folder (podcast). It doesn't appear to do anything different. All i see is a window with both of my import folders listed.

its possible that the My Music screens dont support PathFilterExpressions... not sure on that one... would have to dig into to Studio (the SageTV UI programming language) and look at the My Music code to see if PathFilterExpressions work in there.

Instead could i filter based on meta data like Artist? If i manually set the filters and sorting to get what i want i do it like this:

View by Album
Sort by Time
Filter by Genre = Podcast

If so what settings would use for that to get button on the main menu?

Yes you can do all that but would probably require customization and coding within Studio to get the filtering/sorting the way you want....

On second thought there may be settings you can set in the menu.xml file to preselect those "View" settings because you can manually enter the My Music screen and set those settings correct? I don't know what those settings are off the top of my head though.