[Release] Picture Slideshow Screensaver

Slideshow Screensaver


this screensaver can:

• show video fanart, music fanart or use a custom pictures folder
• enable slide, crossfade or pan/zoom transition effects
• optionally display picture filename, picture date as well as other picture info
  

how-to install this screensaver:

• Settings > Add-ons > Install from repository> kodi.tv add-ons > Screensaver addons
  

how-to activate this screensaver:

• Settings > Appearance > Screensaver > Screensaver mode
• select the Picture Slideshow Screensaver
  

If you have issues with this addon, please please (with sugar on top) post a Debug Log!

I have this addon installed and able to choose folder mode and to select my pictures folder (which is located on a network drive), but it is still shows video fanart data.

(2013-02-01 20:17)Unik Wrote:  I have this addon installed and able to choose folder mode and to select my pictures folder (which is located on a network drive), but it is still shows video fanart data.

it will fallback to video fanart if it can't (for whatever reason) get any images from the folder you've selected.

- is the folder somehow password protected?
- what's the file extension of the images?

@Unik: could you provide a Debug Log using this version:
screensaver.xbmc.slideshow-0.0.10.zip

i've added some extra logging to the script, so hopefully we'll find some pointers there.

upload your log to xbmclogs.com please, and paste the url here.

Here it is.
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=32336

System setup: HTPC with XBMC only software, Windows 8 Russian 32-bit, Samsung TV as a display 1080p, all data on the NAS.

(2013-02-03 13:09)Unik Wrote:  Here it is.
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=32336

System setup: HTPC with XBMC only software, Windows 8 Russian 32-bit, Samsung TV as a display 1080p, all data on the NAS.

weird, nothing at all in the log.

mind giving it one more shot with v0.0.11:
http://ronie.googlecode.com/files/screen...0.0.11.zip

I'm very sorry, it was my bad.

Here is right version of debug log.
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=32462

May be excessive \ in path cause a problem?
P:\ is networked drive where are my pictures located.

(2013-02-03 21:15)Unik Wrote:  I'm very sorry, it was my bad.

Here is right version of debug log.
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=32462

May be excessive \ in path cause a problem?
P:\ is networked drive where are my pictures located.

cheers, i could reproduce it.
looks like it's a bug in xbmc.

i've made a ticket for the issue:
http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/14051

Hi,

Is that the reason why iphoto doesn't work as well?
I mean, it doesn't find pictures from the iphoto plugin so by default it shows video fanarts ?

Thanks for your answer.

best regards,
Torpen

(2013-02-06 12:55)Torpen Wrote:  Is that the reason why iphoto doesn't work as well?
I mean, it doesn't find pictures from the iphoto plugin so by default it shows video fanarts ?

don't assume i have just the slightest idea of what iphoto is ;-)

if you have issues, please get me a Debug Log using v0.0.11 posted above.

The Slideshow Screensaver works ok but sometimes i found it very hard to exit or stop it.
Its looks like it goes into the background... and the only way is to exit XBMC by pressing "S" -> exit.

Am i the only one who facing this issue ?


version 0.8 & 0.11

Thanks for the great work in putting this screensaver together.

A couple of issues/suggestions:

I’m pointing to a picture folder with my entire digital image collection from the past 15 years. In total 77K images organized into a three level folder hierarchy. The startup time for Slideshow Screen saver is about 3-4 minutes with the spinning icon to get going while it appears to traverse the file system collecting all the filenames to work with. Once it is running everything looks gorgeous. I’m sure the performance is made a lot worse by having everything located on a NAS. Any ideas on how to speed things up? It would be great if it could start instantly in displaying at least some pictures. Maybe something like caching a list of all the filenames once (or periodically) that could then be loaded quickly on start-up each time?

Any chance this script could be adapted to work like the Artist Slideshow add-on to provide a photo slideshow while music is playing with the song/artist/cover-art being displayed on top? This would match a nice feature of Windows Media Center which I’m working to replace with XBMC.

The pan and zoom effect is a nice way to keep in more interesting. If anyone is feeling really ambitious, the Windows Media Center “Play Pictures” visual effect is really spectacular when you have a large collection of images. It has a really attractive way of displaying your collection at a higher level and then panning/zooming to specific images, including rotating a small set from picture of the same day. The use of coloring the picture in focus and using black-and-white for everything else is quite clever. There is someone who put together a Windows Screen Saver version that emulates the functionality of this WMC slideshow feature (http://www.photoscroll.net) that you could take a look at for an example if you don’t have WMC. If this visual effect could be implemented it would really enhance the photo capabilities of XBMC.

(2013-02-12 00:31)NotGrounded Wrote:  Thanks for the great work in putting this screensaver together.

A couple of issues/suggestions:

I’m pointing to a picture folder with my entire digital image collection from the past 15 years. In total 77K images organized into a three level folder hierarchy. The startup time for Slideshow Screen saver is about 3-4 minutes with the spinning icon to get going while it appears to traverse the file system collecting all the filenames to work with. Once it is running everything looks gorgeous. I’m sure the performance is made a lot worse by having everything located on a NAS. Any ideas on how to speed things up? It would be great if it could start instantly in displaying at least some pictures. Maybe something like caching a list of all the filenames once (or periodically) that could then be loaded quickly on start-up each time?

I would LOVE this also. My mother-in-law has a ton of pictures also and it takes quite a while to get loaded. I like the idea of putting them all in a database and maybe have it search in the background for new photos or maybe allow the user to force an update for new pictures.

Quote:Any chance this script could be adapted to work like the Artist Slideshow add-on to provide a photo slideshow while music is playing with the song/artist/cover-art being displayed on top? This would match a nice feature of Windows Media Center which I’m working to replace with XBMC.

I believe this is already there. Check the advanced settings. On that note though, I would like it to have the option of having the info only stay for a set amount of time when the song starts. The one test I did, it stayed on all the time.

Quote:The pan and zoom effect is a nice way to keep in more interesting. If anyone is feeling really ambitious, the Windows Media Center “Play Pictures” visual effect is really spectacular when you have a large collection of images. It has a really attractive way of displaying your collection at a higher level and then panning/zooming to specific images, including rotating a small set from picture of the same day. The use of coloring the picture in focus and using black-and-white for everything else is quite clever. There is someone who put together a Windows Screen Saver version that emulates the functionality of this WMC slideshow feature (http://www.photoscroll.net) that you could take a look at for an example if you don’t have WMC. If this visual effect could be implemented it would really enhance the photo capabilities of XBMC.

Not sure about that part.

J_K_M_A_N

(2013-02-12 00:31)NotGrounded Wrote:  I’m pointing to a picture folder with my entire digital image collection from the past 15 years. In total 77K images organized into a three level folder hierarchy. The startup time for Slideshow Screen saver is about 3-4 minutes with the spinning icon to get going while it appears to traverse the file system collecting all the filenames to work with. Once it is running everything looks gorgeous. I’m sure the performance is made a lot worse by having everything located on a NAS. Any ideas on how to speed things up? It would be great if it could start instantly in displaying at least some pictures. Maybe something like caching a list of all the filenames once (or periodically) that could then be loaded quickly on start-up each time?

i'm not sure how to handle this to be honest.
i don't see a way to display an initial set of images while the addon is still scanning all directories.

caching would be possible to implement, but it would require quite a bit of additional code and settings:
1) it needs to be optional, as it's not useful for the majority of users
2) find a way to create the initial cache
3) how / when to update the cache
4) it probably needs a way to delete the cache as well i think

if anyone has a brilliant idea on how to implement this without affecting users who don't need this
and without adding a bunch of additional settings or hard to maintain code,
i'm open to suggestions.

(2013-02-12 00:31)NotGrounded Wrote:  The pan and zoom effect is a nice way to keep in more interesting. If anyone is feeling really ambitious, the Windows Media Center “Play Pictures” visual effect is really spectacular when you have a large collection of images. It has a really attractive way of displaying your collection at a higher level and then panning/zooming to specific images, including rotating a small set from picture of the same day. The use of coloring the picture in focus and using black-and-white for everything else is quite clever. There is someone who put together a Windows Screen Saver version that emulates the functionality of this WMC slideshow feature (http://www.photoscroll.net) that you could take a look at for an example if you don’t have WMC. If this visual effect could be implemented it would really enhance the photo capabilities of XBMC.

i'm not feeling ambitious :-)
maybe someone can turn that one into a separate screensaver.

(2013-02-14 02:44)ronie Wrote:  i'm not sure how to handle this to be honest.
i don't see a way to display an initial set of images while the addon is still scanning all directories.

caching would be possible to implement, but it would require quite a bit of additional code and settings:
1) it needs to be optional, as it's not useful for the majority of users
2) find a way to create the initial cache
3) how / when to update the cache
4) it probably needs a way to delete the cache as well i think

if anyone has a brilliant idea on how to implement this without affecting users who don't need this
and without adding a bunch of additional settings or hard to maintain code,
i'm open to suggestions.

One idea that might be simple to implement is the ability to use of a static playlist text file ala M3U format. Using path relative format it would be easy to create those files by anyone with lots of images and wants to speed up the screensaver. I took a look at the gui.py code and it seems that just the _walk subroutine would need to be changed. To avoid additional configuration/complexity it could just look for a static file in the root directory and use that if it finds it. It would seem like reading in a single file and building up the file list would be many many times faster than traversing the file system as it does now. It might cut something that is 3-4 minutes down to maybe 5 seconds or less?

I'm sure there are more elegant solutions but I understand that could be a lot of work for what may be a small group that would like that feature.

I just added this morning to the Slideshow Screensaver directory my collection of gorgeous high quality wallpapers and an extensive collection of master artwork pictures bringing the total to over 150K images. Amazingly enough it is working great aside from the even slower start-up time. It is quite sweet to have all these in rotation. My kids never looked better mixed in with van Gogh and some stunning nature pictures...

Btw. Is it possible to make it so the text is on top of an opaque black/dark gray box so it can be easier to read regardless of the image? I was looking at the skinning guide at the backgroundcolor tag but was not sure if that is a solid color or opaque?