2008-01-05, 15:38
Hi
I'm working on a simple skin to use on an XBMC machine that I've set up for my parents. The default xbmc skin is great but it has so many options and settings that they would get confused and probably break something, then I'd be called upon to fix whatever went wrong!
My simple skin only allows access to Videos (in file mode, not library mode) and Weather info. So far it is working pretty well but I've been getting complaints that there is no way to tell what a particular movie is about. I'd like to give them the option of viewing a plot summary at the push of a button on the remote.
I know that plot summaries, thumbnails and other info can be stored in the library database and can be fetched automatically with scrapers but, to be honest, I've not had much luck getting this to work to my satisfaction. Instead I've gotten used to creating my own thumbnail files for the movies I load onto the NAS, I was thinking that maybe I could create a text file with a short plot summary at the same time - so for each movie I would have:
moviename.avi
moviename.tbn (jpeg thumbnail)
moviename.desc (text file with short plot summary)
The idea is that my parents would highlight a movie in the list and then press the info button (on the DVD remote) which would then popup a small window displaying the contents of the text file. Before I spend a lot of time trying to get this to work I thought I'd ask some experienced skinners whether this is actually possible and, if so, whether you have any advice on how to go about it.
Designing the window should be fairly easy, and I believe there is a way to tell the filename of the currently selected item in a list, from which I could generate the name of the associated text file. Is it possible to read the contents of a text file and display them in a text control? Would I have to write a script to do that?
I'm working on a simple skin to use on an XBMC machine that I've set up for my parents. The default xbmc skin is great but it has so many options and settings that they would get confused and probably break something, then I'd be called upon to fix whatever went wrong!
My simple skin only allows access to Videos (in file mode, not library mode) and Weather info. So far it is working pretty well but I've been getting complaints that there is no way to tell what a particular movie is about. I'd like to give them the option of viewing a plot summary at the push of a button on the remote.
I know that plot summaries, thumbnails and other info can be stored in the library database and can be fetched automatically with scrapers but, to be honest, I've not had much luck getting this to work to my satisfaction. Instead I've gotten used to creating my own thumbnail files for the movies I load onto the NAS, I was thinking that maybe I could create a text file with a short plot summary at the same time - so for each movie I would have:
moviename.avi
moviename.tbn (jpeg thumbnail)
moviename.desc (text file with short plot summary)
The idea is that my parents would highlight a movie in the list and then press the info button (on the DVD remote) which would then popup a small window displaying the contents of the text file. Before I spend a lot of time trying to get this to work I thought I'd ask some experienced skinners whether this is actually possible and, if so, whether you have any advice on how to go about it.
Designing the window should be fairly easy, and I believe there is a way to tell the filename of the currently selected item in a list, from which I could generate the name of the associated text file. Is it possible to read the contents of a text file and display them in a text control? Would I have to write a script to do that?
