How to add a Custom Advanced Launcher Entry to Aeon Nox Home Screen?
#1
Hi with Advanced Launcher I can add any executable I wish to XBMC. This is really useful, as it means I can include games, twitter, Facebook etc at pretty much do as I please. For me though I wish to make a separate section for 'Games' and basically have my old 2001 XBMC back almost like it used to be, except with much more modern games and much more capable hardware.

However ideally initially (and as a test case) I would like to be able to add an entry created by advanced launcher to the XBMC home screen. For example, for reasons of pure image quality and superior EPG capability, I use Advanced Launcher to launch an instance of MediaPotal from within XBMC exclusively for Live TV viewing. On the face of it, it works really well. But to get to the MediaPortal executable (Windows 7), I have to jump through 3 or 4 different subdirectory levels, before being able to launch MP. However I would much prefer it if I could just add an Advanced Launcher entry to the XBMC home screen and call this 'Live TV', so that when I clicked on it, it would instantly launch an instance of MP. The Idea would be to create a seamless integration between XBMC and MP.

The problem is that as of now as cool a skin as Aeon Nox is, it can't see inside the directory created by Advanced Launcher to see the executable script it has created in order to launch MP. All it can see is the 'advanced launcher' script itself.

In order to see the problem you would probably have to install advanced launcher and try to do this (or add any executable using this) to the home screen yourself.

Can anyone help?
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#2
As an adjunct, there is a sound rational for using MP (or some other external player) to handle TV decoding. In the case of MP, you can switch from using the built in LAV decoders to the Microsoft DVB TV decoders, which are the same decoders present in WMC. The LAV decoders are good, but the WMC decoders are far superior. No dropped frames, no smearing, no glitching, etc.

The built in default decoders in XBMC don't seem to do nearly as good a job.
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#3
Assuming you're using Nox 5 - if you're using a different version of Nox please say, as it does vary between versions - though I believe the favourites advice will work for all Smile

You're right that Nox 5 (actually, it's a script called Skin Shortcuts that is used by Nox 5 to select menu items) can't see inside the directory created by Advanced Launcher*. It can, though, see the directory itself. So if you go via "Add-On >", "Program >", "Advanced Launcher >" (for a main menu item); or click "Type" until add-ons are displayed, then select "Advanced Launcher >" (for a submenu); you can keep selecting directories till you get to the one with your media center shortcut, and "Create shortcut to here". This doesn't get you exactly what you want, but it gets you closer.

To get exactly what you're after, add the media center launcher as a favourite. Then choose that favourite as the menu item. (Once the menu item is set, the favourite can be deleted.)

* Actually this isn't true - the script can see inside the directory, but it discards everything but further directories as - for most plugins - these items are transient. There's no reason, though, that it should do so for Advanced Launcher, where it's much more likely the entries are permanent. I'll look into a script update to make this happen.
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#4
Thanks that would help loads. Really the ideal scenario would be to be able to add an advanced launcher link anywhere on the Aeon Nox menu system. So say for example (just as a test case) I wanted to create an advanced launcher link to VLC and wanted to include a standard looking icon that looked like all the other script icons, and place this link/launcher in my 'Apps' (or 'programs') directory, this in my view would give an enhanced sense of integration.

Right now there are just too many button presses to get things done and too many menu options and I have to jump through two or 3 (or sometimes more) directory levels to get anything done. To my eyes anything more than two button presses to get anything done in a media centre is already excessive.

I would like all of my video steaming apps (including Netflix, or any others I add) to be consolidated along with the other XBMC supplied video streaming scripts I have, so that they more or less look like part of the same set up.

Currently although I can add Advanced Launcher entries to favourites and although I can create a custom home screen menu entry for 'Games', this all seems a little jumbled and messy, as I end up with entries for both advanced launcher apps and games in both favourites and under games. It just seems all very rough and unfinished.

The bottom line though is that the wife is giving me hell. She says the whole thing is too complicated to us and has resorted to watching a small portable TV in the kitchen. I have promised her I would try to sort it out, but I think she will take some convincing!

To be fair I can see her point. She is used to using our old set-top box - and that really was only one or two button presses to get anything done. No one really wants to press 5 or six buttons just to watch TV I suppose, lol.
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How to add a Custom Advanced Launcher Entry to Aeon Nox Home Screen?0