TweakWMC Feature Request

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TweakWMC Feature Request

#1

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jan 31, 2021 4:42 am

So I got a new feature request today. I originally said "probably not", but then thought about it a bit and wondered how I would do it. Basically the request was to add the episode title to the grid cells rather than just the program title -- specifically for sports to see what teams are playing each other without needing to focus on the cell to see the short description. I expanded on this to be global for all programs, and for movies I would show the release year. The below is the proof of concept, now I just have to figure out how to handle this programmatically.
expanded.PNG
Is this something others would be interested in? The grid text will have to get smaller to take advantage of it, but it does a pretty good job.

EDIT: This is not changing any underlying data or messing with recording requests. This is just changing how the data is displayed in the guide.
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#2

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:16 am

Updated GUI. If you like the movie years but not the episode titles, not a problem. Each is selectable.
newTweak.PNG
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#3

Post by IT Troll » Sun Jan 31, 2021 10:34 am

It looks rather cluttered to my eyes, but I can appreciate why it may be useful to some. I prefer having the info pane at the bottom with the episode image. I quite like the movie years though.

I currently modify my EPG rows through MCL (purely for historical reasons). Would I have to switch to doing this through TweakWMC if I wanted to try these new tweaks (if they are implemented).
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#4

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jan 31, 2021 3:22 pm

Looks a bit cluttered in my eyes as well, but can be tweaked to make it look better... smaller text, shorter timespan, larger rows, and you can still keep the bottom info pane. All the options are there to play with. I like the movie years as well which is why I separated out the options for movie year and/or episode title. Sport events definitely look nice showing the teams.

You can switch back and forth with MCLXL. The client will do everything MCLXL does except tweaking the channel column layout (channel number, name, callsign). MCL gives you limited options for the number of rows and doesn't allow you to tweak much else with the grid. Also, the client centers everything horizontally and vertically for a more pleasing visual and handles logos much better as well.

In order to use this feature, you will have to use Tweak WMC. When it opens, it will determine your current font size, row size, channel column width, etc. that you currently have with MCLXL. If you don't touch any of the trackbars, make the selections, and click 'Update', there will be some minor changes in your grid. The text and rows will be the same size, the location of the grid will change (centered vertically), the width of the grid will change to be centered horizontally and span more of the screen, and your channel logos may appear to be larger and will be centered vertically within the cells.

If you don't like how I center things, you can always go back to MCLXL. No problems switching back and forth.
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#5

Post by IT Troll » Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:37 pm

garyan2 wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 3:22 pm If you don't like how I center things, you can always go back to MCLXL. No problems switching back and forth.
That's good to know. I think I prefer my logos right-aligned - or have just got used to them looking like that.
I should probably reduce my font size a bit now I have a 65" screen.

EPG123GuideTV.PNG
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#6

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:50 pm

Looks good. If you don't select the option to center the logos in TweakWMC then they will be right aligned, but still centered vertically.
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#7

Post by IT Troll » Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:53 pm

Great, I'll have a play. :thumbup:
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#8

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jan 31, 2021 7:12 pm

Make a note. I believe MCLXL remembers that last settings applied in a registry or file. So if you switch back to MCLXL it will think your guide has a certain number of rows and the other settings, but that might not be true. I found the easiest think to do before switching over to epg123 is to have MCLXL restore the guide to default settings so it won't be confused when you return.
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#9

Post by IT Troll » Sun Jan 31, 2021 10:48 pm

The font and row height adjustments are great. However, I am not so keen on the positioning of the program details pane, it is on the far left of the screen and much closer to the bottom row of the guide.

I thought I would try to use MCLXL to put this back in a hope that the row customisation would remain. This kind of worked except that MCLXL changed the vertical row alignment back to top (rather than middle).

After jumping between the two a few times I managed to slightly reduce my font size and retain the program details I prefer.
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#10

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:27 pm

Yah, I hug the left side pretty close. The client can be used by anyone and doesn't require a membership to Schedules Direct. When I was developing this MS/Rovi was still active, and Rovi didn't supply short descriptions, so I maximized the amount of horizontal space the program synopsis could use. With SD/Gracenote data and EPG123, this isn't an issue. I can revisit that, but it might take me a while to relearn all the areas that are defined on the guide page.

Both MCL and EPG123 change a couple resource files in a dll to make these modifications, so they will overwrite each other and you will lose the tweaks from one when moving to the other. The only thing that will persist is in the Channel Column Width (or 'space in the logo cell' from MCL) since it is a registry entry.
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#11

Post by IT Troll » Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:04 am

I found that when going from EPG123 to MCLXL the custom font size was retained but row vertical alignment was not.
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#12

Post by garyan2 » Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:15 am

It's been a while. I manipulate 3 resource files for the guide... MCL must only do 1 or 2. In TweakWMC, just click the [Default] button to restore all resource files to their default before going back to MCL and it will be back the way it was.
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#13

Post by StinkyImp » Mon Feb 01, 2021 1:26 pm

garyan2 wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 4:42 am So I got a new feature request today. I originally said "probably not", but then thought about it a bit and wondered how I would do it... The below is the proof of concept, now I just have to figure out how to handle this programmatically.

Is this something others would be interested in?
My .02$ quatloo cents.

I love it! :clap:

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#14

Post by Green Lantern » Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:32 pm

Also love it. Will save time browsing guide for which games to watch/record.

BTW: Is there a prohibitive WMC/technical reason why the guide can go all the way to the left side of the screen but not the right? It's not much but the little bit of extra space would help fit long titles plus, to my eyes, the UI will feel more consistent if both left and right are borderless.

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#15

Post by garyan2 » Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:54 pm

No prohibitive reason, but I did that for the mini-guide. The table left/right locations are shared between the main guide and the mini-guide and the mini-guide does not have the filter bar (view categories) on the left. So the space on the right of the main guide is the same width that the filter bar is. Without the filter bar the table is centered in the page. The right side of the table is also an anchor point for the details below to include the clock, but I should be able to give that some room if need be.

I'm looking at a few things which will involve a lot more MCML coding than I wanted but I'm getting the hang of it. One of those is changing the details location to be more pleasing to IT Troll's point but I think for a 4:3 screen it should be located like I currently have it where it is pushed to the left so those users can have more details visible.
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#16

Post by IT Troll » Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:15 pm

Is it possible to make the episode/poster image any larger?

I think the file itself has a little more resolution.
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#17

Post by garyan2 » Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:28 pm

I already have increased the size from the default. Right now, vertically the image will be the top of the program title to the bottom of 3 lines of text for episode title/movie year and description plus 1 line for start/stop times. The default size was basically 1 line smaller which is the size you will see in the mini-guide.
expanded2.PNG
Compared to:
expanded3.PNG
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#18

Post by IT Troll » Tue Feb 02, 2021 11:12 am

Ah yes, that looks good, nicely positioned and balanced.
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#19

Post by garyan2 » Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:20 am

I believe I've come to the end of the road currently on the TweakWMC algorithms. Below is a snapshot of a guide with 18pt font and 12 rows. The filter button and flyout now scale with the font size selected which is nice. The page title (filter mode) on top right will no longer be squeezed out and the details panel on the bottom has more blank space, so the maximum number of rows has been reduced a little. If a user is using a 4:3 screen, the details will be expanded to the left and right to provide more area... something MS never did for us.
expanded4.PNG
All-in-all, looks pretty good and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.

EDIT: Here's another shot using 16pt font and I increased the row height to get 12 rows again.
expanded5.PNG
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#20

Post by IT Troll » Wed Feb 03, 2021 10:23 am

Looking good. I tend to go for 9 or 10 rows as that is enough to have all our typical channels on a single page.
The smaller font really helps with longer titles and the movie year is a nice addition.
I'm looking forward to the release.

I note that the MMUI+ guide includes a New icon (amongst a few other enhancements). I guess this just doesn't exist in the standard EPG code? I had a thought that it might be possible to repurpose the HD flag for this; by setting the HD flag on any first showings and then changing the graphic used. I realise this is rather hacky and would not work for folk who rely on the HD flag for it's intended purpose.
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