v1.1.18 Release

[garyan2]

Is there a link to it? The previous link downloads clients with time stamps of 5:50 PM.

5:50PM is the latest.

I'm confused about the examples shown to the right of the "Title" and "Episode Title" optional items used to set up the file names for recordings.

What is "Arrow" on the "Title" item? Is that the name of the series, or the individual program show title in the series?

And then what is the "Fallout" piece of "s06e01 Fallout" in the "Episode Title"? Is this a completely separate and independent example?

Or shouldn't you more appropriately show it as "s06e01 Arrow" to indicate with a consistent example that the episode information is prefixed to "Title" value to produce "Episode Title"?

[garyan2]

I'm confused about the examples shown to the right of the "Title" and "Episode Title" optional items used to set up the file names for recordings.

What is "Arrow" on the "Title" item? Is that the name of the series, or the individual program show title in the series?

And then what is the "Fallout" piece of "s06e01 Fallout" in the "Episode Title"? Is this a completely separate and independent example?

Or shouldn't you more appropriately show it as "s06e01 Arrow" to indicate with a consistent example that the episode information is prefixed to "Title" value to produce "Episode Title"?

The right column is used for the example: Title = Arrow, Episode Title = s06e01 Fallout, etc... If you start typing in the filename pattern textbox, you will see the resulting filename below it. If you change the text to "%T_%Et then the resulting filename will be Arrow_s06e01 Fallout.wtv.

The right column is used for the example: Title = Arrow, Episode Title = s06e01 Fallout, etc... If you start typing in the filename pattern textbox, you will see the resulting filename below it. If you change the text to "%T_%Et then the resulting filename will be Arrow_s06e01 Fallout.wtv.

That's my question. Is your example supposed to indicative of a series named Fallout, with an episode title of Arrow? Or did you just pick Arrow and Fallout as words out of the blue?

In other words in your example what is the significance of the word "Arrow", and what is the significance of the word "Fallout"?

Would I ever really compose a file name model of %T_%Et? Is this supposed to create a file name that provides both series name (e.g. "Curb Your Enthusiasm") as well as an episode name (e.g. "The Shucker") with the series and episode code? In other words "The Shucker_s09e09 Curb Your Enthusiasm"? If this were true and I really wanted the episode name in the file name I'd probably prefer to code it %Et_%T so that the file name would be "s09e09 Curb Your Enthusiasm_The Shucker.wtv".

Or would I simply pick one or the other, i.e. %T or %Et? I can't see using %T by itself. Why would I want a file name of just "The Shucker.wtv" and have no clue what show this was an episode of?

Why not just have three distinct items: (a) %En - series and episode numeric code, e.g. "s09e09" or probably the preferred "S09E09", (b) %Et - episode title, e.g "The Shucker", and (c) %St - series title, e.g. "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Then the user could compose a file name including any one or more of these along with channel and date/time, in any sequence the user chose.

[garyan2]

The right column is used for the example: Title = Arrow, Episode Title = s06e01 Fallout, etc... If you start typing in the filename pattern textbox, you will see the resulting filename below it. If you change the text to "%T_%Et then the resulting filename will be Arrow_s06e01 Fallout.wtv.

That's my question. Is your example supposed to indicative of a series named Fallout, with an episode title of Arrow? Or did you just pick Arrow and Fallout as words out of the blue?

In other words in your example what is the significance of the word "Arrow", and what is the significance of the word "Fallout"?

Would I ever really compose a file name model of %T_%Et? Is this supposed to create a file name that provides both series name (e.g. "Curb Your Enthusiasm") as well as an episode name (e.g. "The Shucker") with the series and episode code? In other words "The Shucker_s09e09 Curb Your Enthusiasm"? If this were true and I really wanted the episode name in the file name I'd probably prefer to code it %Et_%T so that the file name would be "s09e09 Curb Your Enthusiasm_The Shucker.wtv".

Or would I simply pick one or the other, i.e. %T or %Et? I can't see using %T by itself. Why would I want a file name of just "The Shucker.wtv" and have no clue what show this was an episode of?

Arrow is the series and Fallout is the episode (https://www.thetvdb.com/?tab=episode&se ... 4802&lid=7)

EDIT: sorry, hit the submit button by accident. I wouldn't advise using the episode title leading your filename. I use %T_%Et_%Dt to have a unique filename that when sorted in explorer will group each series together as well as have each episode in order. The %Dt date/time of recording is really just to ensure you don't copy over the file if you happen to record the same episode again.

I do not have any safety measures in place to make sure the user doesn't simply name all recordings "something.wtv"... they will be mighty disappointed to find they only have 1 episode recorded! It is planned, but haven't put it in yet. That goes for invalid characters for filenames.

Arrow is the series and Fallout is the episode (https://www.thetvdb.com/?tab=episode&se ... 4802&lid=7)

As I suspected.

Ok, then please see my edited last sentence on the post above yours. I think to avoid all ambiguity you should probably have three distinct unitary title components:(a) %En - series and episode numeric code, e.g. "s09e09" or probably the preferred "S09E09", (b) %Et - episode title, e.g "The Shucker", and (c) %St - series title, e.g. "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Then the user could compose a file name including any one or more of these along with channel and date/time, in any sequence the user chose.

I honestly can't ever see choosing to have a file name with only your %T the episode name (Arrow, in your example, or The Shucker, in my example) as the file name. This would provide no indication of what series this episode was part of and thus would be pretty useless looking through a \Recorded TV directory of file names composed this way.

Seems like using my tokens, %En_%Et or more completely %En_%Et_%St followed by channel and date/time would provide the most intuitive and useful file name.

Or, if you wanted to group all episodes of one series together and see them easily, you would use %St_%En_%Et, e.g. Curb Your Enthusiasm_S09E09_The Shucker. But you really do need these three data items to be distinct.

[garyan2]

Ahhh, there's the rub. These options (%T, %Et, %Dt, ...) are what WMC uses to define the filename it creates. The escape characters are predefined and there is nothing I can add/change about them. Also, the information is direct from the recording request / program information so if you don't opt to have the season/episode information as part of the episode title, it won't be in the filename. This part of the tool is just a method to fill a registry entry used directly by WMC.

%T - series title from program information
%Et - episode title from program information <- this is why I prefix my episode titles with season and episode
%Dt - date and time of start of recording
%Ch - channel number that is recorded
%Cn - channel name (call sign) associated with the channel number

So in my example, if you don't opt for season/episode in the episode title ("Fallout"), the filename will be Arrow_Fallout_2017_10_12_20_00_00.wtv. WMC default is %T_%Cn_%Dt.

[garyan2]

One thing I noticed on my third HTPC before updating was that the text for each cell was centered relative to top and bottom, but now it's not. I assume that's an effect of whatever tweaks I did, but I see it's that way in your screenshot in the first post of this thread. I'm not that OCD, so I'll only pull out a few hairs... kidding, but thought I'd mention it, as it caught my eye.

Centering the program title in the row has been challenging. This is due to the way MS created the table and rows with each cell having multiple elements to it (previous arrow, title, hd image, recording image, next arrow). The only way I could guarantee a vertical center would be to also have a horizontal center... not a path I wanted to take.

That being said, I just finished doing some Excel spreadsheet engineering and derived a formula to better center the title. It does really well at 14 point font sizes and greater, but the lower font sizes might be off a bit. When everything is that small, a single pixel error is noticeable (due to rounding errors).

I updated the beta versions so you can check them out. http://epg123.garyan2.net/downloads/epg ... t_beta.zip

[garyan2]

Okay, looks like I have figured out and "perfected" the spacing/scaling of the cells. That was my final TODO in the Guide Tweak and it works brilliantly. Posted the latest betas on the server (http://epg123.garyan2.net/downloads/epg ... t_beta.zip).

All you OCD folks can jump in and see if there are any algorithms I need to adjust.

Okay, looks like I have figured out and "perfected" the spacing/scaling of the cells. That was my final TODO in the Guide Tweak and it works brilliantly. Posted the latest betas on the server (http://epg123.garyan2.net/downloads/epg ... t_beta.zip).

All you OCD folks can jump in and see if there are any algorithms I need to adjust.

You nailed it. Tested on two HTPCs.

In the Tweaker, I noticed that Guide Row Height auto adjusts from 1.92X to 1.93X after clicking Update. I did change the Guide Cell Font Size from 20 to 22, and adjusted the Channel Column Width from 210 to 220. I kept the logo size at Medium. I assume that is an on-the-fly adjustment. Don't care, as you've managed the text centering perfectly. One more PC to tweak and I'm done.

Cheers

[garyan2]

In the Tweaker, I noticed that Guide Row Height auto adjusts from 1.92X to 1.93X after clicking Update. I did change the Guide Cell Font Size from 20 to 22, and adjusted the Channel Column Width from 210 to 220. I kept the logo size at Medium. I assume that is an on-the-fly adjustment. Don't care, as you've managed the text centering perfectly. One more PC to tweak and I'm done.

Cheers

The row height in pixels for a 1.92X and a 1.93X is the same. EPG123 uses the slider value of 1.92 to calculate the geometries of the guide table, writes the calculated pixel values to the shell file, and then reads everything back to calculate everything again to set the slider values. Basically, the row height slider may change due to rounding. I did everything this way so I wouldn't have to create any registry keys or ini files.

The column width is an on-the-fly adjustment. No need to click the [Update] button when changing the column width, but you will need to restart WMC to see the results.

[STC]

*Stuffs cigar in Gary's mouth*

You're excelling in this stuff, wow, thanks!

%T - series title from program information
%Et - episode title from program information <- this is why I prefix my episode titles with season and episode

I suggest that on your Tweak WMC GUI for %T you actually display the two descriptive words "Series Title" rather than just the single word "Title" in order to explicitly eliminate all ambiguity about what type of title %T is. This is also more consistent with your display of the two words "Episode Title" for %Et.

Note that I have decided to retain the standard default WMC file name structure of %T_%Cn_%Dt, rather than use what would be the other other sensible option of %T_%Et_%Cn_%Dt (I also have the season/episode number activated in EPG123) because the file name would just be extremely long. I don't often need to browse \Recorded TV, so using the real WMC Guide if I want to find episode title and season/episode number is perfectly acceptable.


But back to the subject at hand, I've now installed 1.1.18 on my out-of-service (but "spare") HTPC in which I still do regular automatic nightly Guide updates with EPG123 so that if I happen to be sitting at that computer and want to check to see what's going to be on TV I can still do it. Actually I can always check TitanTV as well, but EPG123 and SD goes out 21 days rather than only 14.

Anyway, as you explained very well, I can still use the logos from MCL XL but have the Guide presentation now configured according to EPG123. So that's what I've done, and I've come up with a very satisfying "Tweak WMC" setup for my tastes. And it also is presented identically out at each extender, so I am pleased that it looks good not only on the computer monitor on my HTPC but also on the large 65" and modest "32" HDTV's around my house. Clear, legible, informative, attractive, easy to read text and channel logos, etc.

In a word: terrific! Excellent functional enhancement. Thank you again.

My settings are: 21 point font, 1.93x row height, medium logo size, 10 rows (+ details), 4 rows (+ details), 180 minutes, 185 pixel channel column width.

[garyan2]

Looks good. Are you using the beta client or the one from the install? The beta has some good improvements, but at your font size you won't notice any difference.

The %T would more accurately be described as "Movie/Series Title". I thought about using that, and still may, but opted to conserve horizontal space for the example entries. I do agree it needs something more than just "Title" ... I also admitted that my documentation is lagging behind with this new feature.

Yes, I'm using the beta client.

[HTPC Specs:]

Are the logos in the Ceton mobile app working for you? Since changing to 1.18, they are all missing. Everything is working great in Media Center. I looked in the mxf file and I believe before there was a section with the paths to the logos, but that is now missing.

[garyan2]

Are the logos in the Ceton mobile app working for you? Since changing to 1.18, they are all missing. Everything is working great in Media Center. I looked in the mxf file and I believe before there was a section with the paths to the logos, but that is now missing.

If the links are missing in the mxf file, make sure the 'Include station logos from Schedules Direct' checkbox in the configuration GUI is checked. With MMC, periodically I have to clear its cache to rebuild the logos, so you can try that as well.

[HTPC Specs:]

If the links are missing in the mxf file, make sure the 'Include station logos from Schedules Direct' checkbox in the configuration GUI is checked. With MMC, periodically I have to clear its cache to rebuild the logos, so you can try that as well.

Yeah the "Include station logos" was it. I guess it was working in 1.17 without having the checkbox enabled. Thanks.

[garyan2]

If the links are missing in the mxf file, make sure the 'Include station logos from Schedules Direct' checkbox in the configuration GUI is checked. With MMC, periodically I have to clear its cache to rebuild the logos, so you can try that as well.

Yeah the "Include station logos" was it. I guess it was working in 1.17 without having the checkbox enabled. Thanks.

I'll take the hit for this one. In 1.1.17, there were 2 checkboxes ... the first for logos override (.\logos folder) and the second for using Schedules Direct logos. That seemed redundant to me, so now there is just the single checkbox to use the Schedules Direct logos which by default will also use the .\logos folder. Since you did not have the schedules direct option selected in v1.1.17, nothing carried over into v1.1.18.

[HTPC Specs:]

I'll take the hit for this one. In 1.1.17, there were 2 checkboxes ... the first for logos override (.\logos folder) and the second for using Schedules Direct logos. That seemed redundant to me, so now there is just the single checkbox to use the Schedules Direct logos which by default will also use the .\logos folder. Since you did not have the schedules direct option selected in v1.1.17, nothing carried over into v1.1.18.

Yeah, I didn't see anything in the change log and I don't have to ever think about or tinker with EPG123.. it just works. So, it had been a month or two since I've even looked at the program. I sent you a donation for this great program. Thank you!