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Author Topic: Theater View - Themes  (Read 3665 times)

TunaOnToast

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Theater View - Themes
« on: October 15, 2009, 09:28:58 am »

First off I must say that I quite like this new feature. However there are a couple of things that I don not like so much, perhaps these are bugs or just not done yet.

I've created my own theme and I've got somewhere around 300 backdrops from various movies directly under the theme folder. These images replaced the Van Gogh ones. What would be nice is to have MC make a slideshow out of these. Now the image only change when I go into for example Audio and back out to the front end.

Another thing I've noticed. When I play a playlist, be it smartlist or regular playlist, the backdrops in Playing Now is not correct. The images show are taken from the root of the theme folder. In my case that would be the 300 movie backdrops.
I've noticed this happening somethings when playing full albums as well. The backdrops start out fine, but sometimes when I browse around in my videos or pictures and then go back to Playing Now the backdrops are again taken from my theme folder.

Also. Is there a way to not display the cover art in Playing Now? With the backdrop slideshow thing going on I find that the cover art is not necessary.

Last I have a request, perhaps this is something already in the works but I will mention it anyway.
I like to see something similar for movies and tv shows. Perhaps not pulled directly from web, but kind of like the cover art.
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Matt

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2009, 09:48:33 am »

I've created my own theme and I've got somewhere around 300 backdrops from various movies directly under the theme folder. These images replaced the Van Gogh ones. What would be nice is to have MC make a slideshow out of these. Now the image only change when I go into for example Audio and back out to the front end.

We tried always running the slideshow, but some people here found it distracting.


Quote
Last I have a request, perhaps this is something already in the works but I will mention it anyway.
I like to see something similar for movies and tv shows. Perhaps not pulled directly from web, but kind of like the cover art.

I agree.  I like pulling from the web because it requires no work for a user and it's interesting.  

We're still wrestling with how to provide better results for artists like Kansas, Bush, etc.  Then we'd like to expand it to other media types.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

TunaOnToast

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2009, 10:15:20 am »

We tried always running the slideshow, but some people here found it distracting.

I can understand that.
Any plans of perhaps adding a slideshow toggle for this?
It would be quite a cool feature in my opinion.


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HTPC4ME

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2009, 11:43:57 am »

tuna your 300 you have installed. does it move from pic to pic automatically when you open theater view? or is that the slideshow feature you are requesting? has this been implemented yet? not see'n where slideshow is in theaterview settings.ty
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TunaOnToast

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2009, 12:02:22 pm »

tuna your 300 you have installed. does it move from pic to pic automatically when you open theater view? or is that the slideshow feature you are requesting? has this been implemented yet? not see'n where slideshow is in theaterview settings.ty

No, currently it does not change from one picture to another picture automatically. That would be if a slideshow feature is implemented.
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2009, 12:06:16 pm »

ohh ok.. so the 300 you have in there. you just have there for quick switching? and you manually change them?
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TunaOnToast

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2009, 12:25:08 pm »

ohh ok.. so the 300 you have in there. you just have there for quick switching? and you manually change them?

Well, I suppose you can call it semi-automatic. The images do change when I go into Audio, Video etc and go back to the front  view again.
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2009, 12:38:43 pm »

awww ok.
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gappie

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #8 on: October 15, 2009, 01:32:32 pm »

tuna your 300 you have installed. does it move from pic to pic automatically when you open theater view? or is that the slideshow feature you are requesting? has this been implemented yet? not see'n where slideshow is in theaterview settings.ty
just to be sure.. what tuna is talking about is under options>thv>theme, choose as skin obsidian.. to start with.

 :)
gab
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MrHaugen

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #9 on: October 16, 2009, 01:39:36 am »

I'd like for the Images to be context sensitive to the local files. So when you change an artist or a movie, it would change to a picture of those if the names are correct. OR just look in the Artist and Album Directory for files!

It's also discussed before if it would be possible in the future to add URL's or local paths to the library/disk, so you get a slideshow of the pictures pointed to within the files tags. Multiple URLs/paths for each file would be best. That way you can add more art to each album etc, without bothering spreading the tags with different data.

I kind of liked the slideshow function in previous versions, but the transition was just to slow for it to feel right imo.
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llafriel

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #10 on: October 18, 2009, 12:15:14 pm »

Another vote for MC using images from the folder or subfolder where the selected file resides. I've just written a plugin that downloads info and backdrops from themoviedb.org. It would be very slick if MC used these backdrops when browsing movies!


http://www.pix01.com/gallery/E9A2FF1A-2EA6-4BC3-B5E2-C99BC767B982/plugin/bigpage.html?image=704784856_orig0.jpg
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rick.ca

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #11 on: October 18, 2009, 12:28:28 pm »

Quote
I've just written a plugin...

Cool. When might that be released or made available for beta testing?
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llafriel

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #12 on: October 18, 2009, 12:56:40 pm »

I'll see if I can release a version tomorrow. It's very basic at the moment though. I need to allow for customization of location, names and such.
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #13 on: November 06, 2009, 03:26:03 pm »

finally got my theaterview all set up :)

is there a wiki on how to customize it?I'm not finding directions on how to customize the themes.
i'd like to add my own images now and choose which one it shows, and also check out this pull from web you guys are talking about.

TY
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Daydream

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #14 on: November 06, 2009, 05:57:04 pm »

is there a wiki on how to customize it?I'm not finding directions on how to customize the themes.

What's it there to customize? You look at the default theme and it should hit you in 0.43s.
Any image under root (\Default) is shown on the main screen right when you get in Theater View. Everything else is folder based, one folder per category. You drop images in one, they show up in a slideshow when you browse inside that category in Theater View.

Any other options are under Theater view - Appearance - Theme in the main MC Options dialog.

Problem is some of us do have 2000 images just for purposes like this (and I have no problem sharing). So some advanced features where you can truly customize what gets displayed where (by database association, by source folder, by name convention, etc), in other words options that do require some work - would be greatly appreciated.




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HTPC4ME

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #15 on: November 06, 2009, 06:04:49 pm »

well it didnt hit me because there are 4 images under default. van gogh - casa ad Auvers, van gogh - field, van gigh - irises, van gogh - starry night.

and every time i open theater view van gogh Irises always shows up.. and i cant seem to figure out what those other 3 images are for and why they don't show up.. same with the other folders... audio images, news etc.. there are multiple pics in each folder but only one always shows up.
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Daydream

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #16 on: November 06, 2009, 06:22:06 pm »

My mistake, I wasn't clear enough: that's a problem with Van Gogh! Changing one's name to Vincent, moving closer to Amsterdam, and pulling with an absent air at your left year lobe might help! :) :)

Now, seriously. The backgrounds do change, but not in a true slideshow, more like with a slideshow effect. The change takes place when you navigate away from the main page and back to it. For the rest of the sections the background changes when you navigate around the options on the rollers, although the exact logic (order) and timing is not really apparent.
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jmone

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #17 on: November 06, 2009, 06:34:15 pm »

I like pulling from the web because it requires no work for a user and it's interesting.  

We're still wrestling with how to provide better results for artists like Kansas, Bush, etc.  Then we'd like to expand it to other media types.

Matt - I really like this feature it looks great and gives a nice polish to TheaterView and takes no interaction from me!  Like "Kansas" etc I found that when playing "Asia" (sad I know) I get a bunch of maps appearing. I don't profess to know how your search is pulling the data but in playing with various combinations in Google Image search the "best / most relevant" results where when searching using "band asia".  I got a wide variety of relevant images.

Thanks
Nathan.
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Daydream

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #18 on: November 06, 2009, 06:52:46 pm »

"band ABBA" still returns all the possible impersonators. Can we win this game? I don't see how a search alone can be trusted. Any search has a degree of relevancy and its returns are inspected. In MC you'll trusted implicitly 'cause you don't have other options. Maybe it should remain as the first option, covering the needs of people who do not collect or research images,etc themselves, and let the rest use other resources.
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jmone

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #19 on: November 06, 2009, 07:24:19 pm »

You right and "band beethoven" produces worse results than just "beethoven".....
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dees_74

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Re: Theater View - Themes
« Reply #20 on: November 08, 2009, 09:39:45 am »

I am loving this new feature, but I have a couple of requests/ suggestions:

I'd like the online media slideshow to be a choice for playlists as well.

Also, would it be possible to have the 'playing now' window just show the basic cover art the way it does when I am scrolling through tracks instead of opening a miniature 'big screen' window?

Finally, would it be possible to have the currently playing track in 'playing now' automatically roll to the track info and cover art each time the track changes?
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