Plugin: Context Sensitive Main Menu

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Yeah, I get my amusement where I can -- I silently moved the topic after your post pointing out its location.

[tmiranda]

Just as an FYI. I've cleaned up the appearance a little more and I'm currently working on implementing things to display when the secondary menus are in focus. So for example if you have "TV -> Recordings" in focus a list of recordings will be displayed in the far right column and if you have "TV -> Program Guide" in focus, the program guide will be displayed in the far right column. (I'm trying to figure out how to get the guide to "auto scroll" at the moment.)

Let me know if you have suggestions on what info would be useful to display for the "secondary" menus.

[Bagal]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Just as an FYI. I've cleaned up the appearance a little more and I'm currently working on implementing things to display when the secondary menus are in focus. So for example if you have "TV -> Recordings" in focus a list of recordings will be displayed in the far right column and if you have "TV -> Program Guide" in focus, the program guide will be displayed in the far right column. (I'm trying to figure out how to get the guide to "auto scroll" at the moment.)

Let me know if you have suggestions on what info would be useful to display for the "secondary" menus.

Awesome! Looking forward to it

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

(I'm trying to figure out how to get the guide to "auto scroll" at the moment.)

SendUICommandToComponent or something like that can't remember exactly off the top of my head but that can make it scroll

[tmiranda]

I just posted a new version that adds items to the TV submenus. I'll probably add items for the other submenus next.

As I've said, this is a work in progress. Please let me know if you have suggestions for improvements and enhancements.

Tom

[JohanDW]

This is a great plugin! All of us here like it. Some feedback from us:

• Would it be possible to have an option how to display dates & time? dd/mm/yyyy and 24:00 is easier to read for some of us here in Europe

• I like the secondary program guide, but would be better to have some configuration possibilities
  - Enable/disable scrolling (I prefer to have the top 8 channels visible all time)
  - Define what channels you want to see in the secondary program guide (kind of favorite channels)

• I also have upcoming movies under TV, would it be possible to generate something for that as well?

• As a secondary "Watch Live TV" I suggest you show the logo of the station that will start playing when you press OK

Thanks for your hard work!

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by JohanDW

This is a great plugin! All of us here like it. Some feedback from us:

• Would it be possible to have an option how to display dates & time? dd/mm/yyyy and 24:00 is easier to read for some of us here in Europe

• I like the secondary program guide, but would be better to have some configuration possibilities
  - Enable/disable scrolling (I prefer to have the top 8 channels visible all time)
  - Define what channels you want to see in the secondary program guide (kind of favorite channels)

• I also have upcoming movies under TV, would it be possible to generate something for that as well?

• As a secondary "Watch Live TV" I suggest you show the logo of the station that will start playing when you press OK

Thanks for your hard work!

I'll put it on the "to do" list. Thanks for the feedback.

[bastafidli]

Now when I am using this plugin for longer I have two observations

1. The text on 4:3 CRT TV especially on the TV page is quite small and very hard to read. The one for Systems menu is just fine. Sometimes less is more, I would prefer tto somehow limiit the amont of information shown for it to be still readable.

2. With the addition of content for submenus, sometimes the menus overlap the content which makes the menus unreadable. On my 4:3 TV the 3 level of menus fill the entire screen. This sequence causes the problem

TV -> Recordings -> Context for Recordings (very small font, not very readable, see #1)
Now I select the next submenu
TV -> Recordings -> All recordings...
The submenu Recordings overlaps the context for Recordings and I cannot read neither. I think when the submenu is displayed the context for the parent menu show be hidden.

Thanks for this awesome plugin.

[mkanet]

Tom, thanks for the continued effort to refining your plugin. It's coming along great. I think bastafidli has a good point in #1 below. I think with the implementation of grid lines, you may make it easier to read.

Also, if it's not too much trouble, maybe you could consider allowing what pieces of information that get's to be displayed, user definable. That way, you have best of all worlds.. people who want to see more or less information at a glance. The most challenging part would be to be able to elegantly display all information without giving it the cluttered look.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Originally Posted by bastafidli

Now when I am using this plugin for longer I have two observations

1. The text on 4:3 CRT TV especially on the TV page is quite small and very hard to read. The one for Systems menu is just fine. Sometimes less is more, I would prefer tto somehow limiit the amont of information shown for it to be still readable.

2. With the addition of content for submenus, sometimes the menus overlap the content which makes the menus unreadable. On my 4:3 TV the 3 level of menus fill the entire screen. This sequence causes the problem

TV -> Recordings -> Context for Recordings (very small font, not very readable, see #1)
Now I select the next submenu
TV -> Recordings -> All recordings...
The submenu Recordings overlaps the context for Recordings and I cannot read neither. I think when the submenu is displayed the context for the parent menu show be hidden.

Thanks for this awesome plugin.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by bastafidli

Now when I am using this plugin for longer I have two observations

1. The text on 4:3 CRT TV especially on the TV page is quite small and very hard to read. The one for Systems menu is just fine. Sometimes less is more, I would prefer tto somehow limiit the amont of information shown for it to be still readable.

2. With the addition of content for submenus, sometimes the menus overlap the content which makes the menus unreadable. On my 4:3 TV the 3 level of menus fill the entire screen. This sequence causes the problem

TV -> Recordings -> Context for Recordings (very small font, not very readable, see #1)
Now I select the next submenu
TV -> Recordings -> All recordings...
The submenu Recordings overlaps the context for Recordings and I cannot read neither. I think when the submenu is displayed the context for the parent menu show be hidden.

Thanks for this awesome plugin.

I totally agree with #1, it's still quite cluttered. My plan is to first finish up implementing the tertiary menus and then go back and declutter, most likely by adding more user options.

@mkanet - I'm not sure I'm sold on grid lines. I'll try out a few things and see if making them an option is do-able.

I was not aware of issue #2 because I haven't tried it on a 4x3 TV. It's a bug because it should not do that. It works fine on my 4x3 monitor so I'll need to investigate more.

I am aware that there is a bug that prohibits you from disabling the tertiary menus. I've fixed that already.

[tmiranda]

Version 0.04 has been posted. It adds various secondary menu items. Some of the items are "Single Row" style and some are "Thumbnail" style. I plan on adding alternate views in the next version.

Also on the drawing board is a "View Editor" that will allow users to customize the various views. (For example, change font size, remove certain elements - like the date and time, etc.)

This is still very much a work in progress so constructive criticism and feature requests are welcome.

Tom

[Bagal]

Thanks for the update Tom, I have to say that this has quickly become one of my favourite plugins as I really like being able to see everything at a glance!

An improvement that I think might be nice would be the ability to have a semi-transparent background behind the views to make readability easier when used with various backgrounds.

At the moment the plugin seems to work well with the Default theme, however when used with the Diamond theme it can be difficult to read things such as the upcoming recordings, as shown in the first attachment.

This can obviously be resolved by using different background images, for instance the Diamond Serenity theme works really well but it would be nice to have the option of a background as well.

The second attachment shows a quick mockup I did for the weather view (the background comes from the StreamedMP skin of MediaPortal which is itself a port of MediaStream from XBMC) whereby I added some semi-transparent panels directly to the background image itself which then makes reading the text much easier.

[tmiranda]

For the first issue, that looks like a conflict with Diamond. My plugin should grey out the background as you suggest. I'll have to do some testing with Diamond to see what's going on.

Having said that, in the Weather screen I do not grey out the background because I like the way it looks under the default theme. I'll add an option allowing the user to control how this is handled in the event they are using an alternate theme.

BTW - I've been to Leatherhead several times. I used to work for Logica (now LogicaCMG), not sure if they still have an office there or not as it was years ago.

[Bagal]

I've been thinking of late that I might have some conflicts with the various UI plugins I have installed, now I've got an excuse to do some testing...

Logica does still have an office in Leatherhead which isn't too far from where I live. A friend of mine used to work for Logica as well, would have been about 10 years ago now, I have no idea which office he worked in though, still, it goes to show that it is indeed a small world we live in!

Paul.

[Bagal]

I've done some testing, I disabled all of my UI plugins except for your Context Sensitive Main Menu and as you say it does grey out the background.

I then re-enabled the Diamond plugin and the backgrounds are no longer greyed out, so it does look like it's a conflict with Diamond.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Bagal

I then re-enabled the Diamond plugin and the backgrounds are no longer greyed out, so it does look like it's a conflict with Diamond.

As I suspected. I have not done any testing with diamond because this Plugin is still very much in the beta stage.

[Brent94Z]

I really like this plugin but it brings my AMD Athlon™ X2. Model, 4400+ with 4 gig of ram to its knees

I've had to disable it because it just takes too long to navigate around the main menu. And, if going from TV and hitting the down arrow to Videos, it can sometimes take about 10 seconds for the cursor to move to Videos.

It is probably just that my computer isn't a speed demon. Might just need to figure out a way to upgrade... but upgrading has always been a problem because I have 3 PCI capture cards and newer motherboards with 4 PCI slots is kinda hard to find. Will have to put forth a bigger effort to "fix" my situation with my capture devices so I can use this plugin!

[QueOnda]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

I really like this plugin but it brings my AMD Athlon™ X2. Model, 4400+ with 4 gig of ram to its knees

I've had to disable it because it just takes too long to navigate around the main menu. And, if going from TV and hitting the down arrow to Videos, it can sometimes take about 10 seconds for the cursor to move to Videos.

It is probably just that my computer isn't a speed demon. Might just need to figure out a way to upgrade... but upgrading has always been a problem because I have 3 PCI capture cards and newer motherboards with 4 PCI slots is kinda hard to find. Will have to put forth a bigger effort to "fix" my situation with my capture devices so I can use this plugin!

I have the same processor and memory. I have the java heap size about 1gig and works without a flaw for me. Have you tried adjusting your java heap size?

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by QueOnda

I have the same processor and memory. I have the java heap size about 1gig and works without a flaw for me. Have you tried adjusting your java heap size?

Hmm... well, that is good info. I have mine as high as it will go. For some reason, I can't set it to over ~830mb without it giving me an error and not loading.

I do have a lot of videos and a ton of TV recordings I haven't watched so maybe that plays into it?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

I do have a lot of videos and a ton of TV recordings I haven't watched so maybe that plays into it?

Yes, that will make a difference. I notice a difference running it on my "production" server, which has many hundreds of files and my test system which has only a few. Improving performance is on my "to do" list.