Kodi Community Forum

Full Version: Flying Thumnails
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
Pages: 1 2
I am a big fan of the AppTV skin, and have been testing in raspberry pi 3 with OSMC. I have one issue which I have not been able to resolve.

I have been unable to disable the "Flying Thumbnails" feature. Configuration is:

Raspberry Pi 3
OSMC (Latest build)
Kodi Release: Jarvis

After searching thew forum, I found this link.

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?pid=2269895

I found the file with the lowspec setting and, as wrm suggested, changed the setting from false to true. However, after rebooting, the setting is returned to "false" and the "Flying Thumbnails feature is enabled again.

If anyone has found a resolution to this, I would be grateful for the info.

One note. I have multiple Raspberry pi 2 units that I was able to permanently set the feature off while running older versions of Kodi, and after upgrading them to Jarvis, the setting survived the upgrade and they are working great.



Thanks in advance.
(2016-04-03, 16:56)Tomjrob Wrote: [ -> ]I have been unable to disable the "Flying Thumbnails" feature.

If anyone has found a resolution to this, I would be grateful for the info.

I found the thumbnail animation very annoying. I turned it off by ssh'ing into the system and:

sudo systemctl stop mediacenter

<editor of your choice> .kodi/userdata/addon_data/skin.apptv/settings.xml
find the "lowspec-system" setting & change false to true
Save & exit

sudo systemctl start mediacenter

Doing this with kodi stopped prevents the settings being overwritten on exit.
I tried this and it worked great!

Thank you very much.
(2016-04-04, 07:04)HiroProtagonist Wrote: [ -> ]I found the thumbnail animation very annoying.
HiroProtagonist,

First of all thank you for jumping in and helping a fellow user, it helps me to get back coding if you guys look after each other with usage questions like this one. Much appreciated.

Just a quick query on the annoying animation. What is it that you find annoying about this? The animation is only meant to show if your system has remained idle for a period of time, is this not the case on the Raspberry Pi? I am considering making the setting to drop this animation available in the UI but there is already a mountain of settings so I could do with some convincing. And for reference the animation is something the AppleTV does when it's idle.

Wyrm (AppTV)
Wyrm,

First off, great work on this skin. I am very happy with it and my guests find it easy to navigate.
I thought I would weigh in here on your question regarding the Flying Thumbnails. In my case, while I wouldn't call them annoying, the reason I turned them off is that the timer is only about 10 seconds before they begin. When it triggers, the movie information is replaced by the Flying Thumbnails sometimes before you can actually read the entire movie description.
If the timer were longer, say 30 seconds or so, I probably would have left the setting alone. Of course, adding another "setting" for the timer length is probably not the direction you want to go, given your prior comments.

Anyway, that's the reason I was looking to change the setting. I've turned them off, and am very happy.

Thanks again, and keep up the good work.
(2016-04-05, 04:17)wyrm Wrote: [ -> ]Just a quick query on the annoying animation. What is it that you find annoying about this? The animation is only meant to show if your system has remained idle for a period of time, is this not the case on the Raspberry Pi? I am considering making the setting to drop this animation available in the UI but there is already a mountain of settings so I could do with some convincing. And for reference the animation is something the AppleTV does when it's idle.

As Tomrjob already mentioned, it can be a pain when the animation starts up while you're reading program info, & you have to jab a remote button to keep reading. Also my wife is quite prone to motion sickness and finds this sort of animation unpleasant, so this affects the SAF quite a bit.

Unfortunately enabling the 'lowspec' setting turns off the 'Broadcast' option which I use, so I'd really like a way to just disable the animation.

While I'm here, I do have a few questions/requests:

The on-screen keyboard has wraparound when you cursor to the extreme left & right on the top 2 rows, but not on the lower rows. It would be easier to use if it wrapped around on all rows, plus on cursor up & down as well.

When the screensaver is activated, you still get pop-up alerts for events, but the text is invisible.

I don't seem to get an alert message if the PVR backend is unreachable - is there a way to enable this?

When you cursor over an episode in the PVR, the episode start & end times are shown, but the 'end time' is always the current time. Also I think it would be much more useful to show the recording date rather than the start & end times.

Cheers,
tomjrob and HiroProtagonist,

Thanks for the feedback, I had a good long think on the best way to proceed with this issue. After thinking about it I would have to agree that 10 seconds is way too short. This time might have been fine on the AppleTV, but there is little additional information shown on screen in their list type view, so that is probably fine. On this skin on the other hand there is quite a bit of information for the user to digest, so a longer time period before kicking off the animation is almost a given. And since I am not entirely sure what would be the best time to default to, I guess I will need to add someway to change the time for the user. Also since I will need to add the setting somewhere, there is no real reason why I can't offer the option for it to never show. Also there is no real reason why I should place the setting in the skins settings menus as this only relates to one view in the video section (although I was thinking of also adding this to the music section), so here is my solution:

Add a setting to the screen settings menu (what other skins would call the side menu or blade menu). I think if I add the options to select 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes and never I should cover just about everyone's needs for this. And because I am tired of constantly hearing people complain that my skin is too plain, I think I will default to 1 minute, that way everyone gets to see some of the bling the skin is capable of.

So what do you think?

Oh BTW, I'm very busy with another project at the moment, so this won't happen right away, but it will be in the next official release sometime before Krypton is released.

Wyrm
(2016-04-06, 01:19)HiroProtagonist Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-04-05, 04:17)wyrm Wrote: [ -> ]Just a quick query on the annoying animation. What is it that you find annoying about this? The animation is only meant to show if your system has remained idle for a period of time, is this not the case on the Raspberry Pi? I am considering making the setting to drop this animation available in the UI but there is already a mountain of settings so I could do with some convincing. And for reference the animation is something the AppleTV does when it's idle.
Unfortunately enabling the 'lowspec' setting turns off the 'Broadcast' option which I use, so I'd really like a way to just disable the animation.
No, sorry mate that is not the case. The only place that setting is used is the video list view, I would say that the turning off of the Broadcast menu was just a coincidence. Broadcast menu will on the other hand not show if there is no TV or Radio channels available.

Quote:The on-screen keyboard has wraparound when you cursor to the extreme left & right on the top 2 rows, but not on the lower rows. It would be easier to use if it wrapped around on all rows, plus on cursor up & down as well.
Will check but that sounds like a bug. There should be no wrap around anywhere on the Keyboard. The no wrap around idea is something I have tried to implement thru out the skin as I find that is can confuse some users if a wrap occurs when they weren't expecting it. In fact if you still have the skins sound resource still active there are certain places in the skin that if you try to move past the last item on screen you will hear a "bonk" sound. This is to warn you that you are on the edge of the world and that monsters lurk beyond.

Quote:When the screensaver is activated, you still get pop-up alerts for events, but the text is invisible.
Again will check it out, but that sounds like a Kodi bug to me. I have no control over the screensavers and the text of the alerts are all generated by Kodi (again I have no control over that), so it sounds like Kodi is trying to bring up a alert window but has not put any text into the text field because the screensaver is displayed. I would normally suggest you enable debug logging and post a debug log, but it sounds like it only happens fairly rarely. If you do decide to try to catch one of these events and manage it, post a link to the debug log here are I will see if I can spot anything.
Quote:I don't seem to get an alert message if the PVR backend is unreachable - is there a way to enable this?
Sorry no idea, don't run PVR here. But it is a PVR problem not a skin problem, so you would need to ask in the PVR sections of the forum to have any hope of an answer.
Quote:When you cursor over an episode in the PVR, the episode start & end times are shown, but the 'end time' is always the current time. Also I think it would be much more useful to show the recording date rather than the start & end times.
Once again, will take a look but not sure if the PVR subsystem even gives me access to that field at that location. Most of us skin writers don't have PVR systems so we quite often have to code this section of our skins pretty well blind. That and the PVR sub system has in the past been a little brittle, so if it ain't broke don't fix it can be the order of the day (because if you try to fix it you are just as likely to break it further). I understand things have improved greatly, but old lessons die hard.

Wyrm (AppTV)
(2016-04-06, 18:29)wyrm Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-04-06, 01:19)HiroProtagonist Wrote: [ -> ]Unfortunately enabling the 'lowspec' setting turns off the 'Broadcast' option which I use, so I'd really like a way to just disable the animation.
No, sorry mate that is not the case. The only place that setting is used is the video list view, I would say that the turning off of the Broadcast menu was just a coincidence. Broadcast menu will on the other hand not show if there is no TV or Radio channels available.
I think this must be a bug then. I enabled the 'lowspec' setting, showed the 'no animation' feature to my wife, and then realised 'Broadcast' was gone from the Home screen. I went back in and turned off 'lowspec' & broadcast re-appeared as soon as I re-started Kodi.

Quote:
Quote:The on-screen keyboard has wraparound when you cursor to the extreme left & right on the top 2 rows, but not on the lower rows. It would be easier to use if it wrapped around on all rows, plus on cursor up & down as well.
Will check but that sounds like a bug. There should be no wrap around anywhere on the Keyboard. The no wrap around idea is something I have tried to implement thru out the skin as I find that is can confuse some users if a wrap occurs when they weren't expecting it.
OK, I wonder if that could be made optional? The Kodi keyboard is a massive PITA compared to the much more usable XBMC layout [whoever thought
mimicking a hardware keyboard was a good idea?], no wraparound at all would make using it so cumbersome I think I'd change skins.

Quote:
Quote:When the screensaver is activated, you still get pop-up alerts for events, but the text is invisible.
Again will check it out, but that sounds like a Kodi bug to me. I have no control over the screensavers and the text of the alerts are all generated by Kodi (again I have no control over that), so it sounds like Kodi is trying to bring up a alert window but has not put any text into the text field because the screensaver is displayed. I would normally suggest you enable debug logging and post a debug log, but it sounds like it only happens fairly rarely. If you do decide to try to catch one of these events and manage it, post a link to the debug log here are I will see if I can spot anything.
This is not specifically an alert issue - if the screen dims while on the Home screen for instance, the menu text under the current cursor position becomes invisible, which is not a problem in itself, but the alert text appears to be a manifestation of the same issue.
Quote:
Quote:I don't seem to get an alert message if the PVR backend is unreachable - is there a way to enable this?
Sorry no idea, don't run PVR here. But it is a PVR problem not a skin problem, so you would need to ask in the PVR sections of the forum to have any hope of an answer.
I just noticed it because these alerts do appear if I'm using a different skin.
Quote:
Quote:When you cursor over an episode in the PVR, the episode start & end times are shown, but the 'end time' is always the current time. Also I think it would be much more useful to show the recording date rather than the start & end times.
Once again, will take a look but not sure if the PVR subsystem even gives me access to that field at that location. Most of us skin writers don't have PVR systems so we quite often have to code this section of our skins pretty well blind. That and the PVR sub system has in the past been a little brittle, so if it ain't broke don't fix it can be the order of the day (because if you try to fix it you are just as likely to break it further). I understand things have improved greatly, but old lessons die hard
Once again, this is something that I noticed when changing to this skin.
(2016-04-07, 00:55)HiroProtagonist Wrote: [ -> ]I don't seem to get an alert message if the PVR backend is unreachable - is there a way to enable this?
I just noticed it because these alerts do appear if I'm using a different skin.
The alert appears in AppTV too:
Have a look at System-Settings-TV-General, 'Disable Connection lost warnings' should be set to 'off'.
Wyrm, Thanks for considering making changes to increase time or "turn off" the flying Thumbnails.

My reaction to your proposed solution below is that this would be a great solution.

Thanks again and great work on the skin. Looking forward to the next release.




Add a setting to the screen settings menu (what other skins would call the side menu or blade menu). I think if I add the options to select 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes and never I should cover just about everyone's needs for this. And because I am tired of constantly hearing people complain that my skin is too plain, I think I will default to 1 minute, that way everyone gets to see some of the bling the skin is capable of.
(2016-04-06, 18:29)wyrm Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-04-06, 01:19)HiroProtagonist Wrote: [ -> ]Unfortunately enabling the 'lowspec' setting turns off the 'Broadcast' option which I use, so I'd really like a way to just disable the animation.
No, sorry mate that is not the case. The only place that setting is used is the video list view, I would say that the turning off of the Broadcast menu was just a coincidence.
Just letting you know I re-tested this, and you are correct - I now have no flying thumbnails & Broadcast is still active. Not sure what went wrong the 1st time.
(2016-04-07, 00:55)HiroProtagonist Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-04-06, 18:29)wyrm Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-04-06, 01:19)HiroProtagonist Wrote: [ -> ]Unfortunately enabling the 'lowspec' setting turns off the 'Broadcast' option which I use, so I'd really like a way to just disable the animation.
No, sorry mate that is not the case. The only place that setting is used is the video list view, I would say that the turning off of the Broadcast menu was just a coincidence. Broadcast menu will on the other hand not show if there is no TV or Radio channels available.
I think this must be a bug then. I enabled the 'lowspec' setting, showed the 'no animation' feature to my wife, and then realised 'Broadcast' was gone from the Home screen. I went back in and turned off 'lowspec' & broadcast re-appeared as soon as I re-started Kodi.

Quote:
Quote:The on-screen keyboard has wraparound when you cursor to the extreme left & right on the top 2 rows, but not on the lower rows. It would be easier to use if it wrapped around on all rows, plus on cursor up & down as well.
Will check but that sounds like a bug. There should be no wrap around anywhere on the Keyboard. The no wrap around idea is something I have tried to implement thru out the skin as I find that is can confuse some users if a wrap occurs when they weren't expecting it.
OK, I wonder if that could be made optional? The Kodi keyboard is a massive PITA compared to the much more usable XBMC layout [whoever thought
mimicking a hardware keyboard was a good idea?], no wraparound at all would make using it so cumbersome I think I'd change skins.

Quote:
Quote:When the screensaver is activated, you still get pop-up alerts for events, but the text is invisible.
Again will check it out, but that sounds like a Kodi bug to me. I have no control over the screensavers and the text of the alerts are all generated by Kodi (again I have no control over that), so it sounds like Kodi is trying to bring up a alert window but has not put any text into the text field because the screensaver is displayed. I would normally suggest you enable debug logging and post a debug log, but it sounds like it only happens fairly rarely. If you do decide to try to catch one of these events and manage it, post a link to the debug log here are I will see if I can spot anything.
This is not specifically an alert issue - if the screen dims while on the Home screen for instance, the menu text under the current cursor position becomes invisible, which is not a problem in itself, but the alert text appears to be a manifestation of the same issue.
Quote:
Quote:I don't seem to get an alert message if the PVR backend is unreachable - is there a way to enable this?
Sorry no idea, don't run PVR here. But it is a PVR problem not a skin problem, so you would need to ask in the PVR sections of the forum to have any hope of an answer.
I just noticed it because these alerts do appear if I'm using a different skin.
Quote:
Quote:When you cursor over an episode in the PVR, the episode start & end times are shown, but the 'end time' is always the current time. Also I think it would be much more useful to show the recording date rather than the start & end times.
Once again, will take a look but not sure if the PVR subsystem even gives me access to that field at that location. Most of us skin writers don't have PVR systems so we quite often have to code this section of our skins pretty well blind. That and the PVR sub system has in the past been a little brittle, so if it ain't broke don't fix it can be the order of the day (because if you try to fix it you are just as likely to break it further). I understand things have improved greatly, but old lessons die hard
Once again, this is something that I noticed when changing to this skin.

Will look at each of your issues when I get a chance. The Kids are home for school holidays which means I can't get near the main system that I do my dev work on, and even checking the forum is difficult as the Kids either steal my iPad or they just chew thru ALL of my internet bandwidth (such as it is, 2016 and all I can get is about 5Mb). Hopefully will be back in a week and a bit if I don't murder the little darlings in the mean time.

Wyrm (AppTV)
(2016-04-06, 17:58)wyrm Wrote: [ -> ]Oh BTW, I'm very busy with another project at the moment, so this won't happen right away, but it will be in the next official release sometime before Krypton is released.

Wyrm

THIS! I signed up for the forum just to say this is what I need :-) Updated my Apple TV 4 to the newest .deb which is apparently Krypton, and was shocked AppTv wasn't an option. Big Grin
(2016-04-16, 19:53)Bourne Perfection Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-04-06, 17:58)wyrm Wrote: [ -> ]Oh BTW, I'm very busy with another project at the moment, so this won't happen right away, but it will be in the next official release sometime before Krypton is released.

Wyrm

THIS! I signed up for the forum just to say this is what I need :-) Updated my Apple TV 4 to the newest .deb which is apparently Krypton, and was shocked AppTv wasn't an option. Big Grin
Bourne Perfection and everyone else,

Just to be clear, the reason why most skins are not and won't be available for Kyrpton version of Kodi until at least first beta of Kyrpton is available is the following.
  • Until first beta, skin engine changes can and do sometimes change daily
  • Skin writers are only normally allowed to make pull requests to the Kodi repo once a month. A change to the skin engine one day after skin accepted into repo could mean skin is broken for the rest of the month.
  • Usually the changes required to the code between versions can be fairly substantial, thus the amount of work required to follow skin engine changes can also be substantial.

So in short, it's a mugs game to try and release a skin for the newest version of Kodi until at least Beta 1 is released (and as has been the case in the past, right up to when RC's are released). I will start coding the changes required for Kodi Krypton around the time beta 1 is released, but until then any changes I code to the skin will be only for Jarvis Kodi (but keeping Kyrpton in mind for the changes)

If you want to see the changes already announced for the skin engine for Krypton, go look in the skin development sub forum (thread is always a stickied one at the top of the list). This should give you a little idea of just how much work will be required.

Now, as always a reminder. Please start a new thread if the topic of you thread changes. This thread has moved completely away from original post, and so when I go back to make sure I have not missed any requested changes for the skin the chance of missing something is pretty high.

Wyrm (AppTV)
Pages: 1 2