[DeltaMikeCharlie]

displaying the same information twice in one dialog/window I don’t see the value, really.

This was never the proposal.

If the icon is available, display the icon.  If the icon is not available, but the text is, display the text.  If nothing is available, display nothing.

Whichever is displayed, icon or text, it should be in the same place on the screen.

[ksooo]

displaying the same information twice in one dialog/window I don’t see the value, really.

This was never the proposal.

If the icon is available, display the icon.  If the icon is not available, but the text is, display the text.  If nothing is available, display nothing.

Great. Then we are aligned on this.

[ksooo]

displaying the same information twice in one dialog/window I don’t see the value, really.

Whichever is displayed, icon or text, it should be in the same place on the screen.

I agree. Now we need to find the right place, and for this i would like to hear what our skinners think about this.

[DeltaMikeCharlie]

i would like to hear what our skinners think about this.

Agreed.  Who should we ask?

[ksooo]

i would like to hear what our skinners think about this.

Agreed.  Who should we ask?

We are here in the skinning channel and I hope one of our skinners will jump onto this topic. Maybe @Hitcher has an opinion?

[emveepee]

BTW, why do we need both the icon AND the textual representation? Wouldn't the text be enough?

Text would be enough for me in pvr.nextpvr with it loaded on startup, the backend currently only supports text and the text is going to vary a lot, I don't have a lot of channels in my setup and it still looks like it will be messy.  Definitely not worth a call to the backend while navigating the guide.

Code:

sqlite> select rating, count(rating) from epg_event group by rating;
|26599
-10|126
-12|2
0|929
10|122
10-12 PG|1
11|2
12|2860
12+|11
12A|36
13|58
13+|854
14|275
14+|1176
14A|208
15|227
15 år|6
16|900
16+|5
18|82
18+|288
18A|19
19|24
6|361
7|222
8+|1888
9|41
9 år|2
A|444
A10|8
A12|27
A14|64
A16|2
AA|23
AL|840
ATP|1
All|96
B|101
B15|27
C|1663
C8|471
F|8
Family|179
Från 15 år|7
G|15110
GP|4
K12|778
K16|65
K7|347
L|1404
M|909
MA 15+|347
PG|6376
PG-13|906
R|738
S|181
T|18
TP|97
TV14|5638
TVG|8615
TVMA|690
TVPG|8229
TVY|2091
TVY7|366
Tous publics|183
U|129
Uc|2

Martin

[DeltaMikeCharlie]

Definitely not worth a call to the backend while navigating the guide.

Please excuse my ignorance, I am not very knowledgable regarding NextPVR.

Does pvr.nextpvr provide channel icons and other artwork to Kodi?  I seem to remember that NextPVR supports channel icons at least.

Acknowledging the risk regarding assumptions: I have always assumed that once Kodi had fetched an image from a PVR backend, the image was cached for future reuse.

[emveepee]

Yes the backend and pvr.nextpvr supports channel icons, series art, recording art with thumbs and background etc.  I don't think all images go to the Textures cache though, your change would have to make the call. 

For NextPVR Channel icons are specifically cached from the server in a local add_on cache.  

The default for EPG episode art is not to show it because as a user navigates through the guide they are queuing up art requests for shows that likely will never watch.  Rightfully or wrongfully these are cached on the server for future use.  These requests on the backend are going to many places for the art (TVDB, TMDB, Schedules Direct, XMLTV links) so while the art is for series/movie not episodes it is easy to cache thousands and thousand of images quickly.

Recordings get full access to art and this works pretty well.  Art is cached from the moment it is scheduled or recorded.

For NextPVR because an http token is part of the saved URL caching the URL isn't that useful since tokens expire on logout.  There is no mechanism in PVR core to go back to pvr.nextpvr to get cached art so I would need to to add a proxy server.

I see there is a SetParentalRatingCode() item on the EPG tag but no one has ever asked for it.  For v22 I guess I can populate it to see how messy it looks.  I can't imaging asking users to find the icons, I don't know where I'd start if I wanted to provide them.

Martin

[DeltaMikeCharlie]

@emveepee - Thanks for your response.

I did some very quick and unscientific tests with TVHeadEnd and the server logs shows that channel icons and rating icons are only called for once.  Something somewhere is caching them.  This caching seemed to span Kodi sessions too.   I did a quick search and found them under '/....../.kodi/userdata/Thumbnails/'.

I don't know where I'd start if I wanted to provide them.

If you become interested or your users ask for it, this link provides some interesting background with some icons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television...ing_system

[emveepee]

The icons might be going through the texture cache, but maybe cached for every profile.

I meant how to document a way for users to provide their custom rating icons.  For an eye candy change of limited value I am not about to do a lot of work for the potentially 100's of icons, address naming conflicts between rating system, (TV and movie).  I wouldn't do it for my on data.

Martin

[DeltaMikeCharlie]

I am not about to do a lot of work for the potentially 100's of icons, address naming conflicts between rating system, (TV and movie).

Just in case there is any misunderstanding, I was not suggesting that you should implement it.  I just knew of a resource discussing the topic, so I shared it.

[DeltaMikeCharlie]

I altered a copy of the skin to force as much data as I could into the upper portion of the screen so that I could observe the behaviour.

I found that the topmost line contains the title and the year and that it scrolls horizontally on overflow.

The second line contains a flag and some episode details and it is truncated with an ellipsis on overflow.



Are there any opinions on shuffling the text box (vertical scroll on overflow) and channel logo down a few pixels and then introducing the rating (icon or text) where indicated?

The size of the icon could be reduced.  In this example, it looks a little large.

[mikeSiLVO]

Not sure I am 100% following this discussion but I see a couple of possible options?

Estuary ignores the icon part and adds it to DialogPVRInfo.xml

xml:
<control type="textbox" id="400">

which was previously mentioned iirc.

I'd suggest using the space at the bottom for any image like it currently shows for studio icons in DialogVideoInfo.



Using the plot on one side and the info on the other instead of including all in textbox id="400"?
Looks like that would be incorporating

xml:
<control type="grouplist" id="4000">

from DialogVideoInfo. Doubt all that is necessary but just pointing to code on where to possibly place the rating info.



Basically, shrink the plot and show other info mirroring what DialogVideoInfo does but if the icon exists use the bottom area the same as studio icons do...

[DeltaMikeCharlie]

@mikeSiLVO - Thanks for the feedback.

I really like the idea of making the two areas look more similar.  That would provide a more consistent user experience.

It seems that the sample movie info screen that you show has a smaller border than the PVR screen so that gives more space for information.  I'm not sure if overscan or underscan is a big issue any more like it used to be with CRT displays so cutting off part of the screen may no longer be a major issue.

There is still no place to put the parental rating icon though.

I would consider setting the right info panel height to be about 90-ish% of the plot height and then sticking the rating icon or text in the lower 10-ish%.  The background would remain solid, so the right panel would still look like one single block.

[mikeSiLVO]

It seems that the sample movie info screen that you show has a smaller border than the PVR screen so that gives more space for information.  I'm not sure if overscan or underscan is a bit issue any more like it used to be with CRT displays so cutting off part of the screen may no longer be a major issue.

There is still not place to put the parental rating icon though.

I'm not sure I understand, both screenshots are using the same system which has zero overscan and no modifications. Any over/underscan issues can be solved using video calibration. I think the differences are due to the height of the poster image. The bottom clearance looks the same to me except the buttons cover the entire width instead of stopping short of the poster and the top is shorter due to the same reason, height of the poster image.