Help with Custom Browse

[BigTony]

Its seems Custom Browse isn't compatible with N770 skin, so I have to find another way to spilt Live Shows from Albums

Cheers

BT

[erland]

Its seems Custom Browse isn't compatible with N770 skin, so I have to find another way to spilt Live Shows from Albums

Custom Browse and my other plugins has only been tested with the Default and Fishbone skins. The problem with the nokia skin is that I dont have a Nokia device myself so if I spent time implementing support for it I wouldn't have any use for it myself. Since I do all the work on my plugins on my free time I tend to prioritize things that I can use myself.

However, as I have said earlier if any developer that wants support for it and would provide patches/implementation for the Nokia skin I would be very happy to include it in the distribution.

[kdf]

Quoting erland <erland.2oiyxz1175706001 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com>:

> However, as I have said earlier if any developer that wants support for
> it and would provide patches/implementation for the Nokia skin I would
> be very happy to include it in the distribution.

The design of the skin API should make plugins fit the look and feel
of any skin as long as the plugin templates make use of the template
toolkit objects available. processing pageheader.html with the proper
values set should make most pages fit the skin when the skins make
proper use of the pageheader.html template. using the wrappers, such
as contentcontainer, contentitem and controls will also help skins to
frame the page with the right tags to fit the design of the skin.

What little free time I have these days is going toward 7.0 (running,
testing and maintaining two fully capapble versions of slimserver +
patches takes far more than simply twice the time, unfortunately). If
I do get some time and can install the plugins again, I'll be happy to
point out any template changes that might make things easier. One
thing I did notice is that you were still using custom templates for
each skin on the 6.5 versions. as of 6.5, you should only need set of
templates in EN. 7.0 shouldn't change templates all that much.

-kdf

[erland]

The design of the skin API should make plugins fit the look and feel of any skin as long as the plugin templates make use of the template toolkit objects available. processing pageheader.html with the proper values set should make most pages fit the skin when the skins make proper use of the pageheader.html template. using the wrappers, such as contentcontainer, contentitem and controls will also help skins to frame the page with the right tags to fit the design of the skin.

If I do get some time and can install the plugins again, I'll be happy to point out any template changes that might make things easier. One thing I did notice is that you were still using custom templates for each skin on the 6.5 versions. as of 6.5, you should only need set of templates in EN. 7.0 shouldn't change templates all that much.

I think the problem might be that I still have some code in the templates to make it compatible with the 6.2/6.3 releases. After this code has been removed so I can make a clean 6.5 version of the plugin templates it will probably work a bit better. The 6.2/6.3 compatible code in the template is really not needed anymore since most of the plugin now contains other changes that only works on 6.5 or later. Another problem is that I feel that I have never really taken the time to learn CSS fully, the result is that I had some problems to get everything to display correctly in all skins.

Any pointers about appropriate changes would be greatly appreciated, if you get the time.

[bklaas]

...when the skins make
proper use of the pageheader.html template. using the wrappers, such
as contentcontainer, contentitem and controls will also help skins to
frame the page with the right tags to fit the design of the skin.

KDF asked me to make proper use of pageheader.html like a month ago, but I haven't had a spare moment to spend on slim development since then.

For my own clarification, is there anything documented on what "proper use of the pageheader.html template" means? I seem to recall I'm supposed to put the crumblist in pageheader (which on first try several weeks ago screwed up the Nokia/Touch layout royally). Anything else?

cheers,
#!/ben

[kdf]

Quoting bklaas <bklaas.2oj4qb1175713502 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com>:


> KDF asked me to make proper use of pageheader.html like a month ago,
> but I haven't had a spare moment to spend on slim development since
> then.

I ran into a brick wall around then too I'm forcing myself to get
back into working on the experiments in progress in 7.0 before I
forget what I did.

> For my own clarification, is there anything documented on what "proper
> use of the pageheader.html template" means?

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?SkinDevelopment

Feel free to add more.

I seem to recall I'm
> supposed to put the crumblist in pageheader (which on first try several
> weeks ago screwed up the Nokia/Touch layout royally).

The problem is that a third party page will rely on this element being
in the pageheader, and there is no current way to detect if that is
missing in order to offer up something else. Better options are
welcome, as long as they can be implemented across all skins. The
goal is to allow plugin authors to focus on function, and let skin
designers control form.

> Anything else?

nothing else I've seen yet.
-kdf

[kdf]

Quoting erland <erland.2oiyxz1175706001 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com>:


> However, as I have said earlier if any developer that wants support for
> it and would provide patches/implementation for the Nokia skin I would
> be very happy to include it in the distribution.

I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out where the templates are
being broken here. I think much of it stems from the very different
use of the cmdwrappers and hreftemplates. These really are more for
cross-skin support and ease of maintenance, as the template processor
takes a LOT of added time to process blocks in external files, vs
those contained in the same template. For custom blocks, I'd
recommend adding them inline, even if they are adjustments to the
already existing common blocks. The support is mostly there; it is
things like a missing "gallerycontainer" item that causes problems
(strange, as this should already be available but I'll look into it).

I think the best way is to proceed as part of a 7.0 conversion. Since
the plugin API is very different starting with 7.0, there is not much
likelyhood that you can package a 6.5 and 7.0 compatible combined
download. This provides a good point for ripping out some of the more
difficult elements. It helps us flesh out the design of the API to
see as many plugins as possible in operation with the API, adding what
might be needed along the way. Is there a particular plugin from your
suite that would say is "simpler" than the rest? If I start with
something simple, I can have a go at converting it to 7.0 and trying
out some fixes. I've done this already with the WeatherDateTime
plugin as I use it every day. I haven't forewarded it back to the
author yet, as the API is still in progress (no settings validation or
package installer yet). I'll be happy to ad another plugin or two to
my current setup.

-KDF

[erland]

I think the best way is to proceed as part of a 7.0 conversion. Since the plugin API is very different starting with 7.0, there is not much likelyhood that you can package a 6.5 and 7.0 compatible combined download. This provides a good point for ripping out some of the more difficult elements. It helps us flesh out the design of the API to see as many plugins as possible in operation with the API, adding what might be needed along the way. Is there a particular plugin from your suite that would say is "simpler" than the rest? If I start with something simple, I can have a go at converting it to 7.0 and trying
out some fixes.

I you like a "simple" plugin CustomScan or DynamicPlayList is probably best, but I suspect that most of the web interface related problems will only be seen with TrackStat and Custom Browse and converting these to 7.0 at the moment will probably be a lot of work and a bad idea.

A good start is probably if I would remove the 6.2/6.3 compatibility code from the plugins to make them 6.5 only. This way some parts of the web interface should be possible to simplify a bit. However, I will probably not be in the next weeks because I'm in a middle of a major refactoring some of the code in the Custom Browse plugin that I like to finish first.

A bit more information about the state of each plugin:

Custom Browse:
==============
A lot of code, some parts pretty messy. I am working on a major refactoring of parts of the code at the moment, so a conversion to 7.0 at the moment would probably be a bad idea. I think the current version contains some 6.2/6.3 compatibility code in the html templates, this should be removed before trying to convert anything. People have reported that it doesn't work correctly with Nokia skin. If I remember correctly I had some issues with the gallery/artwork handling. I want the artwork/gallery icon that switches between artwork and standard view in the header, I also want the sorting list box but I want to fill it with my own sorting options. I couldn't figure out a good way to do this with the standard SlimServer templates so it contains its own implementation of the sort drop list and artwork icon in the heading. I think this might be causing some of the problems.
HTML/EN/plugins/CustomBrowse/custombrowse_list.html: Main page
HTML/EN/plugins/CustomBrowse/galleryselect.html: Header with custom sort list and artwork icon.

TrackStat
=========
A lot of code, some parts pretty messy. The major problem here was to get the rating stars to display correctly in several skins. The problem is that the rating starts should be placed on the right side of the list. I had to do some skin specific code to get it to work correctly in both default and Fishbone skin, so I suspect it probably doesn't work good in Nokia skin since its quite different. One problem with the rating stars is that 5 stars, play/add buttons and mixer buttons take up a lot more space than what the standard "play/add + mixer" does. The result is that I needed to provide also some custom css styles to get it to display correctly.
HTML/Fishbone/plugins/TrackStat/controls: Fishbone specific code for the rating stars and buttons
HTML/EN/plugins/TrackStat/controls: Generic code for the rest of the skins for the rating stars and buttons
HTML/EN/plugins/TrackStat/index.html: Main page
HTML/EN/plugins/TrackStat/listitems: Items for each statistic row displayed

DynamicPlayList
===============
A bit simplier, however there is some menu handling code that is a bit messy that I would like to refactor if I ever get the time. The web interface is pretty simpe compared to Custom Browse and TrackStat. Could be a good alternative for 7.0 converstion, the only disadvantage is that I would probably like to clean up parts of the code when I convert it to 7.0.

CustomScan
==========
Pretty simple, no major refactoring planned. This is probably a good place to start 7.0 conversion. The only disadvantage is that the web interface is really simple so I suspect that you won't see all potential problems.

CustomSkip
==========
Pretty simple, might be affected by the refactoring of Custom Browse so a 7.0 conversion is probably not a good idea. The web interface is pretty simple.

RandomPlayList
==============
Very simple, but it requires Dynamic Playlist to work. The web interface is similar to the interface of the RandomMix plugin.

SQLPlayList
===========
A lot of code, will also be affected by the refactoring of Custom Browse so due to this it is not good for 7.0 conversion at the moment.

MultiLibrary
============
Pretty simple, but it will also be affected by the refactoring of Custom Browse so due to this it is not good for 7.0 conversion at the moment.