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[RELEASE] AutoWidget - Let your widgets work for you!
(2020-06-12, 15:21)drinfernoo Wrote:
(2020-06-12, 06:54)jdig4240 Wrote:
(2020-06-11, 21:04)drinfernoo Wrote: I have been thinking something like that needs to be in... but haven't figured out exactly how I want to implement it.

I'm pretty sure you should be able to use the path you said though, but the "random" shortcut you add needs to be an "action", like "Force Refresh Widgets".
Ahh, i get what your saying and you gave me the clue.  So setting the Content and the window n the edit path section is key. Content=files, Window=Programs as far as file manager goes, . Gotcha.. Thanks.

These should still be the only stipulations on how the path you're trying to call should work.

Just curious, why do you recommend using the json editor online rather than Notepad++? Just preference?
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(2020-06-13, 02:15)jdig4240 Wrote:
(2020-06-12, 15:21)drinfernoo Wrote:
(2020-06-12, 06:54)jdig4240 Wrote: Ahh, i get what your saying and you gave me the clue.  So setting the Content and the window n the edit path section is key. Content=files, Window=Programs as far as file manager goes, . Gotcha.. Thanks.

These should still be the only stipulations on how the path you're trying to call should work.

Just curious, why do you recommend using the json editor online rather than Notepad++? Just preference?

It is more user friendly, in my opinion, as well as automatically validating and formatting the JSON.

Basically, I recommend it because it makes it impossible to screw it up.
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drinfernoo, as im slowly trying to switchover from SF to AW, ive noticed something else that you might be able to fix in a future update? Sometimes I have the need to move around items in the shortcut sections im using. By moving around, I mean copying a shortcut from one group of shortcuts to another group. For example I made a shortcut group for my Kids stuff. I then decided to create more Shortcut groups to separate the kids stuff, so I made another shortcut group named Kids Movies. So I know I can just click the context menu in the Kids shortcut group and choose add to autowidgets to copy it to my new Kids Movies shortcut group. Heres the problem, AW copies the path it was in when it was in the main Kids shortcut group and adds the path from the group your copying it from, which means if i delete the old Kids Shortcut group the link is now dead. SF gives you the option to copy or link to previous group when copying. This way if you choose copy it copies the original shortcut instead of the shortcut path it was in from the other group. So i guess the question is, when your in AW shortcuts and you choose to add to Autowidgets, can you code it so it copies the original path instead of copying the path that includes plugin.program.autowidgets/group/ from the prevoious shortcut group? Or have a choice like SF where it asks if you want to copy or link to original shortcut group? Hope im explaining it correctly. Thanks.
If im confusing you let me know.
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(2020-06-23, 14:51)jdig4240 Wrote: drinfernoo, as im slowly trying to switchover from SF to AW, ive noticed something else that you might be able to fix in a future update? Sometimes I have the need to move around items in the shortcut sections im using. By moving around, I mean copying a shortcut from one group of shortcuts to another group. For example I made a shortcut group for my Kids stuff. I then decided to create more Shortcut groups to separate the kids stuff, so I made another shortcut group named Kids Movies. So I know I can just click the context menu in the Kids shortcut group and choose add to autowidgets to copy it to my new Kids Movies shortcut group. Heres the problem, AW copies the path it was in when it was in the main Kids shortcut group and adds the path from the group your copying it from, which means if i delete the old Kids Shortcut group the link is now dead. SF gives you the option to copy or link to previous group when copying. This way if you choose copy it copies the original shortcut instead of the shortcut path it was in from the other group. So i guess the question is, when your in AW shortcuts and you choose to add to Autowidgets, can you code it so it copies the original path instead of copying the path that includes plugin.program.autowidgets/group/ from the prevoious shortcut group? Or have a choice like SF where it asks if you want to copy or link to original shortcut group? Hope im explaining it correctly. Thanks.
If im confusing you let me know.
That's possible, but I likely won't get to it for a bit. I'll make sure and add it to my list though Big Grin
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(2020-06-23, 16:52)drinfernoo Wrote:
(2020-06-23, 14:51)jdig4240 Wrote:  
That's possible, but I likely won't get to it for a bit. I'll make sure and add it to my list though Big Grin

Thanks!
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Hey everyone! I wanted to pop in to say I haven't disappeared or given up on AutoWidget, but have been quietly working and waiting, trying to get 2.0 ready. I've already mostly finished (needs some finishing touches, I'm sure Big Grin) the new features that you can look forward to in the future, but need to get your opinions on how to move forward. Unfortunately, one of the big roadblocks that was stopping me from release, when I first started mentioning the update, was actually a bug that needed to fixed in Kodi itself. However, fixing that isn't quite the end of it, either. Let me explain.

In the current version, AutoWidget works by "manually" editing the various metadata files that are created by Skin Shortcuts and whatever skin the user has, in order to physically replace the path that a widget uses to load, and it does this every so often, resulting in the widgets "cycling". While this implementation works, and works pretty well, it has certain drawbacks:
  • It's relatively slow, since it has to actually search through all of the previously mentioned metadata files each time the widget refreshes, essentially.
  • It's "hacky", and certainly isn't the way this is "supposed to work", which I'm sure some of you may have run into... Some operations in the current version cause Skin Shortcuts to end up in an unrecoverable state that is only "easily" reversible by setting them back to defaults.
  • It requires the "initialization" phase to make any newly defined widgets start working.
With that being said, the primary benefit of doing it that way is that the resulting widget path is the exact same path as if you had pointed a widget directly at the represented path. For all intents and purposes, widgets made using AutoWidget are the widget they represent, and should ideally be indistinguishable from the original path.

However, fast forward to me considering how to make AutoWidget better for 2.0. I'd like to get away from those drawbacks, while still adding new features. It became pretty early on in the transition that the only way for me to get around them would be to "recreate" the menus, and display them as an AutoWidget... widget. This meant that, going forward, AutoWidgets would no longer have to be "initialized", wouldn't lose widget properties like aspect and sorting, and would be far more efficient, less "hacky", and more conventional. In working towards that goal, I found that specifically what are referred to as "properties", that get set on items in plugin paths, were simply unavailable to me in the process of "recreating" the needed items in order to populate the widget. This meant that things like unwatched episode counts, watched progress, context menu items, widget titles, and even metadata in the info dialog, could be broken and/or nonfunctional, as I was unable to replicate them faithfully. The solution was to update the JSON-RPC API in order to allow them to be retrieved, which is working quite well.

Unfortunately, this comes at a price.

If (crossing fingers for more of a "when" situation) that PR gets merged, it will be merged into the Matrix branch, meaning those changes should show up in nightlies soon afterward, but won't be in a stable release for what is likely to be months to come, if the pulse lately is telling me anything. It has been made abundantly clear that the changes will not be backported to a future Leia release, meaning that these features will be Matrix-onward, only.

Now, it's time for me to "ask the audience": Would you want to see 2.0, in all of its rewritten, merged, and folding glory, even if it meant of the properties would be missing and things might not work as expected... or should I wait to fully release 2.0 until we're closer to a Matrix release?
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Pump'n'dump, matrix sounds like its gonna be in limbo for abit with core devs busy etc. Don't let future development depend on, the future
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(2020-07-03, 06:46)ohhwee Wrote: Pump'n'dump, matrix sounds like its gonna be in limbo for abit with core devs busy etc. Don't let future development depend on, the future

So eloquently put Big Grin To be fair, I am leaning towards this. I think a great deal of work still needs to be done for Matrix to be ready for primetime, and I really wanna drop these features soon.
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The shortcuts have been working great, the widgets, for me, not so much. Could be my setup as I have more than one skin installed, and I also have the setting in skin shortcuts to "enable shared menus"-Disabled, so that the skins can be independently setup. Was thinking this might be unforseen issue that might be worth bringing up. Look forward to trying your next updates.
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(2020-07-06, 13:31)jdig4240 Wrote: The shortcuts have been working great, the widgets, for me, not so much. Could be my setup as I have more than one skin installed, and I also have the setting in skin shortcuts to "enable shared menus"-Disabled, so that the skins can be independently setup. Was thinking this might be unforseen issue that might be worth bringing up. Look forward to trying your next updates.

What's not working? Are you in the stable or devrepo version?
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(2020-07-06, 15:50)drinfernoo Wrote:
(2020-07-06, 13:31)jdig4240 Wrote: The shortcuts have been working great, the widgets, for me, not so much. Could be my setup as I have more than one skin installed, and I also have the setting in skin shortcuts to "enable shared menus"-Disabled, so that the skins can be independently setup. Was thinking this might be unforseen issue that might be worth bringing up. Look forward to trying your next updates.

What's not working? Are you in the stable or devrepo version?

1.68. Like i said im not ready to blame AW, cause i have a kinda crazy setup with multiple skins, but overall It seems I had too many issues getting the widgets to work correctly. Seems like it worked fine in Xonfluence, but only when i didnt have other skins installed with skin shortcuts, if i had other skins installed on the same setup, then AW in Xonfluence would stop working/fail to initialize. Then on other skins with Skin Shortcuts, Most times at first initialize it would just freeze up Kodi, causing me to force stop. Sometimes I could get it to initialize eventually after a few restarts. Also tried making a shortcut to the refresh widgets in Tools, so I can have a refresh in the submenu and cycle through the widgets, but that seemed like it always worked the first two times, third time would freeze up Kodi.  Tried random and next with same results. Also noticed in Xonfluence skin, even after I deleted the Widget and changed it to something else, Autowidget would automatically change the widget back to the autowidget that was set before i removed the autowidget. (I browsed the files and seems that it was still in the active widgets code in userdata) And autowidgets kept readding the widget to the userdata skin folder, even after manually changing it to something else. Had to delete the active widget from aw section manually. I would really have to play around some more to try to narrow down what im doing wrong, but just blurting out what ive seen so far. Like i said though, I have a multiple skin setup with Enable shared menus set to off in Skin Shortcuts. Most likely the issue is how I have everything setup, not sure.
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@drinfernoo

can you support, please.

Pic#1: Missing sorting feature (file; size; date; name) in AutoWidget like in the default Skin.
Pic#2: My Groups shortcuts with music-videos from NAS-storage indicate crazy size info in AutoWidget and it was not possible to play  music videos > 1 GB  = qokucimeso.kodi (paste)

The rest working fine with your awesome Addon, thank you.

Image

Image
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(2020-07-16, 16:08)sus67 Wrote: @drinfernoo

can you support, please.

Pic#1: Missing sorting feature (file; size; date; name) in AutoWidget like in the default Skin.
Pic#2: My Groups shortcuts with music-videos from NAS-storage indicate crazy size info in AutoWidget and it was not possible to play  music videos > 1 GB  = qokucimeso.kodi (paste)

The rest working fine with your awesome Addon, thank you.

Image

Image

That appears to be a shortcut group with shortcuts to each file? If so, then no sorting is applied, as it's left to the user to maintain their own ordering.

With regards to file size, I suppose it's possible I'm reading it wrong... I'll have a look.
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(2020-07-16, 16:32)drinfernoo Wrote:
(2020-07-16, 16:08)sus67 Wrote: @drinfernoo

can you support, please.

Pic#1: Missing sorting feature (file; size; date; name) in AutoWidget like in the default Skin.
Pic#2: My Groups shortcuts with music-videos from NAS-storage indicate crazy size info in AutoWidget and it was not possible to play  music videos > 1 GB  = qokucimeso.kodi (paste)

The rest working fine with your awesome Addon, thank you.

.
.

That appears to be a shortcut group with shortcuts to each file? If so, then no sorting is applied, as it's left to the user to maintain their own ordering.

With regards to file size, I suppose it's possible I'm reading it wrong... I'll have a look.

Yes Sir, shortcut with each file to the group (Bee Gees).
Thanks again
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(2020-07-16, 16:52)sus67 Wrote:
(2020-07-16, 16:32)drinfernoo Wrote:
(2020-07-16, 16:08)sus67 Wrote: @drinfernoo

can you support, please.

Pic#1: Missing sorting feature (file; size; date; name) in AutoWidget like in the default Skin.
Pic#2: My Groups shortcuts with music-videos from NAS-storage indicate crazy size info in AutoWidget and it was not possible to play  music videos > 1 GB  = qokucimeso.kodi (paste)

The rest working fine with your awesome Addon, thank you.

.
.

That appears to be a shortcut group with shortcuts to each file? If so, then no sorting is applied, as it's left to the user to maintain their own ordering.

With regards to file size, I suppose it's possible I'm reading it wrong... I'll have a look.

Yes Sir, shortcut with each file to the group (Bee Gees).
Thanks again

For this, it makes much more sense to point a widget directly into the source folder. One thing you could do would be to make a smart playlist, and then add that as an AutoWidget, if you like.
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[RELEASE] AutoWidget - Let your widgets work for you!1