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Author Topic: Feature Request: Make MCC Theater View Command Landing Pages Configurable  (Read 2254 times)

greynolds

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I did some searching and this topic has come up a number of times over the years where nobody seems to understand what the magic is behind the MCC Theater View (22001) command and how the options figure out what page to go to.  Like many other users, I have customized my Theater View configuration extensively and this has resulted in some of the 22001 commands not working properly.

Here's the information from the Wiki on this command:

22001   MCC_THEATER_VIEW   0: Toggle, 1: Home, 2: Playing Now, 3: Audio, 4: Images, 5: Video, 6: Playlists, 7: CD & DVD, 8: TV, 9: TV Guide, 10: TV Recordings

Unfortunately, there's nothing there that explains the magic behind how the command figures out where to navigate you to in your Theater View layout.  In my case, I've moved my TV views into a top level view named "TV" so I have my TV content and my Movie (DVD's, Blurays, etc.) content in separate top level views.

So, for discussion purposes, I have my views configured roughly like this (this is just a subset - TV and Video both have more items under them):

TV > Guide
TV > Recordings
Video > All Movies
Video > Bluray Movies
Video > DVD Movies

The MCC 22001,9 command still takes me to my Guide view even though it isn't under the default Video > Guide location.
The MCC 22001,10 command doesn't take me anywhere

Simply renaming the "TV > Recordings" item to "TV > Shows" doesn't work.  However, if I add a view named "Shows" under "Video", the 10 option takes me to that location.  So this means that I have to comply with the default layout of putting my TV views under a main group named "Video" AND I have to name the group "Shows" instead of "Recordings" in order to use the 22001,10 command.  I can live with having to name it "Shows" despite that being inconsistent with "Recordings" being used in the standard view TV group where it can't be renamed, but I really want to use a top level group named "TV" for all of my TV related stuff.

So on to the feature request...

Please add a configuration option that allows the user to select where each of these 22001 commands (for parameters 3 through 10) will land.  I don't believe parameters 0 through 2 need to be (or should be) configurable as I don't believe those are tied to the user configurable view layout in any way.
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JimH

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If you've created new top level categories, the commands may not do what you expect.

One comment about your categories.  We decided many years ago that we wouldn't distinguish between TV and Video.  TV is Video.  A movie can be recorded or can be ripped from a DVD or BD.  It's still a movie.  The same logic applies to Shows.  The source isn't as important as the content category itself.

I'm not suggesting you should change.  I'm just explaining our point of view.
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greynolds

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If you've created new top level categories, the commands may not do what you expect.

One comment about your categories.  We decided many years ago that we wouldn't distinguish between TV and Video.  TV is Video.  A movie can be recorded or can be ripped from a DVD or BD.  It's still a movie.  The same logic applies to Shows.  The source isn't as important as the content category itself.

I'm not suggesting you should change.  I'm just explaining our point of view.
Yes, as I said in my original post, changing the top level categories breaks some of those commands - that's the whole point of the feature request.

And yes, TV and movies are both video, but I prefer to have separate top level groups for them as I have a bunch of subcategories for each and this makes it easier for me to navigate my views.  The default standard view keeps TV and video separate, so there’s a precedent in the product for separating them.

But since the Theater View views are highly configurable, it just makes sense to make the landing page of those MCC commands configurable to match what the user comes up with rather than force the user into whatever your rigid definition of video is.  Otherwise why make Theater View configurable at all?

In the grand scheme of feature requests I can't imagine this one would be very difficult to implement.
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lepa

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Yeah, it would be great to be able to make shortcuts using node name/id path
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marko

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If this became a thing, it would be brilliant. Currently, I get around this problem by using auto hotkey to fire an MCC command that drops from theater view to standard view, then theater view, followed by the required right, down, right cursor key presses to get to where I want to be via a single button press on the remote. I have to update these with every major version upgrade.

Being able to specify my own landing places per button natively would remove a lot of upgrade pain, and give much smoother theater view jumps by removing the need to drop into standard view, which is required to reliably have theater view start at default root point each time.

greynolds

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If this became a thing, it would be brilliant. Currently, I get around this problem by using auto hotkey to fire an MCC command that drops from theater view to standard view, then theater view, followed by the required right, down, right cursor key presses to get to where I want to be via a single button press on the remote. I have to update these with every major version upgrade.

Being able to specify my own landing places per button natively would remove a lot of upgrade pain, and give much smoother theater view jumps by removing the need to drop into standard view, which is required to reliably have theater view start at default root point each time.
Instead of switching out to Standard view and back, have you tried using the 1 parameter on the MCC command to jump to the "home" location and then follow that with the required right, down, etc. sequence?  That's still not nearly as slick as being able to configure the landing locations as several of us would clearly be in favor of.

Edit: I just tried the 1 option on my system and it doesn't seem to do anything.
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marko

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and those times it does do something, it does indeed drop to the home screen, but keeps whatever was last selected there, selected.
By dropping into standard view and back to theater view, the home screen selection is always reset.

greynolds

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Yeah, it would be great to be able to make shortcuts using node name/id path
That’s actually a great twist on the feature request - add a new command where the parameter is the tree path you want to jump to.  This wouldn’t require any changes or additions to the options menus and would be infinitely customizable by the user.
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lepa

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Also favorites already does this so at least similar "mechanism" is there
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greynolds

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Also favorites already does this so at least similar "mechanism" is there
Yeah, this should be very doable to implement and would really be appreciated if they can throw a new version of the command that will accept the TheaterView path name as the parameter (so no changes needed to the options UI).
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rolf_eigenheer

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That’s actually a great twist on the feature request - add a new command where the parameter is the tree path you want to jump to.  This wouldn’t require any changes or additions to the options menus and would be infinitely customizable by the user.

This would be great!
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greynolds

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Re: Feature Request: Make MCC Theater View Command Landing Pages Configurable
« Reply #11 on: February 06, 2023, 03:45:46 pm »

@JimH - you asked me to bump this thread for being reconsidered.

I also posted a similar request in the MC 30 Feature Requests thread (it's post 70 in that thread in case the link doesn't go to the right place):

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,133694.msg927650.html#msg927650

As I mentioned over on AVS Forums:

"If the user makes ANY change to the labels for any of the existing jump targets (changing the "Guide" label to the Spanish equivalent, for example), that breaks the current implementation of the existing MCC_THEATER_VIEW MCE command.  Allowing the user to specify a full TheaterView tree path in the MCE command makes the command a lot more useful.  And I fully understand that you can't implement all suggestions, but this one was arguably a bug fix in some respects in that you allow the user to customize the value that makes the MCE command not work."
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