7.3: updates for SaverSwitcher, SyncOptions, PlayLog, and others

[peterw]

If you are now, or plan to, run SqueezeCenter 7.3, please be sure to upgrade to a current version for my plugins, especially SaverSwitcher, SyncOptions, and PlayLog. All my current plugins are coded to work fine in SqueezeCenter 7.0 through 7.3, but some earlier releases only worked up to 7.2.x -- even though their installation information files suggested they'd work with any version of SqueezeCenter 7 or newer.

The easiest way to get up-to-date when you're running SqueezeCenter 7.3 is to delete my plugins from your normal Plugins directory and use the web > Settings > Extension Downloader with my extension respository URL, http://www.tux.org/~peterw/slim/slim7/repodata.xml -- Extension Downloader not only simplifies installation, but also learning about & applying updates.

Thanks,

Peter

[Philip Meyer]

>The easiest way to get up-to-date when you're running SqueezeCenter 7.3
>is to delete my plugins from your normal Plugins directory and use the
>web > Settings > Extension Downloader with my extension respository
>URL, http://www.tux.org/~peterw/slim/slim7/repodata.xml -- Extension
>Downloader not only simplifies installation, but also learning about &
>applying updates.
>
I prefer manual install.

I added your repo to Extension Downloader, and it doesn't seem to list all of your plugins listed from your web page (http://www.tux.org/~peterw/#slim).

eg. I know I have manually installed ContextMenu. i.e. ContextMenu does not show up as either an available plugin or a manually installed plugin.

I would love it if Extension Downloader could indicate if a newer version of a manually installed plugin were available. I could then follow the link and update manually. But I don't think it does that at the moment.

Phil

[Philip Meyer]

>eg. I know I have manually installed ContextMenu. i.e. ContextMenu does not show up as either an available plugin or a manually installed plugin.
Oh, I forgot to mention that ContextMenu settings doesn't show up under Advanced Settings either, or Player Settings. Instead, I have to navigate via Plugins > Context Menu > Settings.

Is that expected?

[Triode]

So Phil - is the only problem with Extension Downloader the lack of ability to set the location? Now that 7.3 is released I hope to add a command line option to set the plugin location for extension downloader to install to, would this fix it?

Likely to be --extensionsdir

[Philip Meyer]

>is the only problem with Extension Downloader the lack of
>ability to set the location?
>
It's not the only problem. I have a lot of plugins installed. I keep on the bleeding edge of development. One of the problems I see is that a lot of plugins have a maxVersion check, and thus would not available for installation, even though they work with the latest SC trunk code.

I tweaked the code to just report a warning in the log if maxVersion was exceeded. Other users tweak the install.xml to get them to run. But with Extension Downloader, I guess you don't get an option - you can't install them (are they even listed?).

I'd prefer it if maxVersion were only set by plugin developers if they know for certain what the max version is. Even then, the plugin may work with limited capability past the max version (some functionality may not work, but may not cause SC problems). I prefer to disable plugins (or move plugins out of the plugin folder) only if they cause problems.

>Now that 7.3 is released I hope to add a
>command line option to set the plugin location for extension downloader
>to install to, would this fix it?
>
>Likely to be --extensionsdir

That would be great. A prefs file setting would be good too, with --extensionsdir overriding the prefs setting.

If I set that to the Server/Plugins folder, would the extension downloader be in harmony with manually installed plugins - i.e. allow them to be uninstalled/updated as if they had been installed via the extension downloader?

Phil

[Triode]

>is the only problem with Extension Downloader the lack of
>ability to set the location?
>
It's not the only problem. I have a lot of plugins installed. I keep on the bleeding edge of development. One of the problems I see is that a lot of plugins have a maxVersion check, and thus would not available for installation, even though they work with the latest SC trunk code.

I tweaked the code to just report a warning in the log if maxVersion was exceeded. Other users tweak the install.xml to get them to run. But with Extension Downloader, I guess you don't get an option - you can't install them (are they even listed?).

I'd prefer it if maxVersion were only set by plugin developers if they know for certain what the max version is. Even then, the plugin may work with limited capability past the max version (some functionality may not work, but may not cause SC problems). I prefer to disable plugins (or move plugins out of the plugin folder) only if they cause problems.

I see that as a plugin author issue, but yes people should only really set maxVesion if they know it won't work (which Alien does as there are multiple versions due to api changes)

I'll think about what will be possible with the command line option - my original thought would not allow you to set it to the location of the manually installed plugins but I will think about it...

[peterw]

I added your repo to Extension Downloader, and it doesn't seem to list all of your plugins listed from your web page (http://www.tux.org/~peterw/#slim).

eg. I know I have manually installed ContextMenu. i.e. ContextMenu does not show up as either an available plugin or a manually installed plugin.

Sounds like an Extension Downloader problem -- the same script creates the HTML list of plugins on my home page and my "repodata.xml" list of available plugins. Even if you'd used my test repo URL, my test set contains a superset of what's listed on my home page. ContextMenu wasn't even shown toward the bottom of the ED page, greyed out?

[gharris999]

So Phil - is the only problem with Extension Downloader the lack of ability to set the location? Now that 7.3 is released I hope to add a command line option to set the plugin location for extension downloader to install to, would this fix it?

Likely to be --extensionsdir

So, with this cmd line option, would SC see all plugins...downloaded or manually installed, in extensiondir? (Yes please!)

[Philip Meyer]

>which Alien does as there are multiple versions due to api changes
>
That brings up another issue - how do we handle different versions of a plugin for different versions of SC?

At the moment, the Extension Downloader is SC7.3 only, and therefore all plugins listed in a repository will have been built for 7.3.

When newer revisions of SC are out, a pluign author may need to create different versions for each SC version. Would the plugin just appear in the repository several times with different min/max version ranges?

If a plugin only works with 7.3, and a user upgrades from 7.3 to 8.0, what will happen with the installed plugin? Will extension downloader uninstall it, or indicate that it is incompatible? If there is also a newer version that does work with 8.0, will be automatically upgrade the installed plugin?

[Philip Meyer]

>ContextMenu wasn't even shown toward the bottom of the ED page, greyed out?
No, doesn't appear anywhere. I think there's other plugins that have been manually installed that don't appear on the extension downloader page.

I'll have to compare lists to see if I can see a pattern to it.

Phil