So I have been a fan of numerous different themes here and have loved Alaska from xbmc when I had my htpc.
So I have been theming the live hub based on joey smiths/xbmc alaska and I am perplexed at how limited the @@ variables are with regards to plot, overview genre etc between the multiple different view.
i.e. @@overview isn’t available in large_video or preview mode ?
or am i just missing something. I have searched these forums and really can’t find anything on the available variables for each view except a post with a link that is now dead.
I am amazed at the limitations for each view because it really seems arbitrary and can’t see adding access to these variables causing performance issues or am I wrong ?
I should add I have looked at doing coversheets or whatever they are called in thumbgen but my movie collection is massive and thumbgen is a dog when trying to do huge movie/tv collections. 10 minutes of processing at least just to select my movie directory when the external hdd i am using is connected directly to my computer.
Metadata will only display for the Gallery view, but not for any other views. Many of the variable are limited to the views they were created for and the metadata variables are just some.
Yes, this has been a complaint for a long time, that there has been no common set of variables for all views.
After much reading this is the conclusion that I came to. I really just can’t understand it.
I have read numerous threads on firmware and themer’s dissatisfaction with WD but this is a pretty basic functionality. This isn’t getting in to png’s, coversheets, overlays, etc etc etc that I have read about.
Unless the firmware size is at a premium/maximum (can’t gather that it is because that’s pretty short sighted over a few bits and bytes) or general perforamce issues, there is no sane reason this information isn’t generally available under a common standard. It just makes for a mess limiting each view to a subset instead of having a general superset of global @@variables instead of private @@variables for each view.
There is no reason to have to use @@focused_title in one view vs @@browse_text in the next. It should really be the same for both.
The internal scraper is pretty decent. I have had the wonder if we can use the .moviename backdrops in views ?
While I understand a Live Hub is really a 4th rate product for WD. (Personal Storage, Entreprise Storage, Networking) the logic behind the firmware development from a top down view is odd. This is a prodcut (Hub/streaming) that has become very popular with friends and family and I understand being an old product it’s life line is short but that does not excuse shoddy programming standards that would have made developers lives easier using global variables vs private. It’s almost like a seperate person worked on each view with no regard to the others works. If that makes sense I feel I am rambling.
Status changed to: Acknowledged
Thanks for the input. This is very valuable feedback. This happened as different engineers wrote the code in different section. We will keep this in mind and avoid this from happening in the future.
I have a few questions while we are on the topic of theming issues.
@@author or something like @@focused_author doesn’t work in the theme selection page. Is their an option/variable to show just the selected author while using a list to show all themes? Same for rating etc etc any available options for theme creator information.
Is there anyway to resize and move the video preview in preview mode or is it hard coded to size and location.
And judging by all the themes I have seen a vertical home menus are impossible ?
@@author or something like @@focused_author doesn’t work in the theme selection page. Is their an option/variable to show just the selected author while using a list to show all themes? Same for rating etc etc any available options for theme creator information.
Haven’t tried, but most likely not. As stated already, for the most part, if variable doesn’t already exist in an xml, then other variable imported from other views will most likely not work.
Is there anyway to resize and move the video preview in preview mode or is it hard coded to size and location.
No, that is hard coded. Size & postion are set and can’t be changed.
And judging by all the themes I have seen a vertical home menus are impossible ?
No, down is hard coded to pull up the dashboard. And as far as I know, and have pretty much attempted with all known lbmask inputs, you can’t select up.
Not to be discouraging, but many of us here have been themeing for over 2 yrs now and most anything that you can think of has already been attempted. Most discovers have only been “display tricks”, meaning that you can trick the SMP/HUB to display something in a differnent way, but you can’t change the operation.
But I encourage you to try anything you can think of, you may find something that someone else hasn’t thought of and the worst you can do is crash the player and then you have to recover. You can’t brick the player by making changes, or at least I don’t know anyone who has, and there are several of us here who, if it could be brick that way, would have done it several times.
Thanks for the quick response. I just wanted to give authors credit in the theme selection view without showing every single Author in the list.
I know most stuff has been tried but searching these forums is really just **bleep**. Information is really limited or very hard to find without downloading every theme and review the code.
. I.e. choose your user interface background option. I wanted to use overlays and have various coloured backgrounds for my choosing … Yeah cant find info.
Again thank you for your help. For such a great product they have really boned the software support side for an ”available " feature. And to joey Smith for his theme to give me a starting point for my own personal theme hopefully with his permission I can share my theme with the community.
. I.e. choose your user interface background option. I wanted to use overlays and have various coloured backgrounds for my choosing … Yeah cant find info.
Either select Photos, select image, press Options, Set as Background
kmart wrote:
. I.e. choose your user interface background option. I wanted to use overlays and have various colored backgrounds for my choosing … Yeah can’t find info.
Tinwarble is correct. (this will give you a single custom background for all views)
However, if you want different backgrounds for different views_. ie _ Video, Photo, Music etc.
It can be done via a Theme edit if that’s what you’re after. ?
