released: New MediaPortal Configuration and VoxCommando 0.936

[shango]

TV series has more control than I was expecting, didn't think we could play a specific episode.

What addition control do you have in XBMC for tv shows? the MP one seems fairly complete to me. Although requesting an episode by it's name would be awesome rather than it's season and episode number.

[jitterjames]

It's fairly complete but also fairly buggy at the moment.  I think it is related to the same problem of calling window IDs and I think the solution will be found in modifying the MpWifi code.

What can be done with XBMC is somewhat limited by how well you know the inner working of XBMC.  You can get creative with the actions and calls to execbuiltin etc.

One thing we can do with XBMC is create custom smart playlists and inject voice payloads into them, which allows us to bring up a list of just about anything.  It would be nice if we could do something similar in MediaPortal.  It seemed like a hack at first to get around what the XBMC http api was missing but it really works so well that I don't think of it that way anymore.  Because it involves writing to a file from VC and then telling XBMC to read the same file, it can be a bit problematic when VC and XBMC are not running on the same machine.

[shango]

I have noticed though when using command, "play album X" it seems to start play on a random track rather than starting at the 1st track, is this normal, as far as I know I have no shuffle options enabled, when selecting an album to play with remote it starts from track 1.

Is there anyway to change this behaviour in Vox? I'd imagine it's something to do with MP though, there is an option to shuffle playlists but I don't have it selected.

[jitterjames]

yes it is very easy to change.

if you edit the command you will see the action MpWifi.RequestMusicBySQL has a parameter is this:

strAlbum like '%{1}%' order by random() limit 100

just change it to :

strAlbum like '{1}' order by iTrack

Thanks for mentioning this. I'm going to make this the standard for request album in the next release too.  And I'll have it go to nowplaying in stead of plalist

I like to have a request for artist or playlist come up as random and show the playlist (as the default) but you can change that too!

[shango]

yes it is very easy to change.

if you edit the command you will see the action MpWifi.RequestMusicBySQL has a parameter is this:

strAlbum like '%{1}%' order by random() limit 100

just change it to :

strAlbum like '{1}' order by iTrack

Thanks for mentioning this. I'm going to make this the standard for request album in the next release too.  And I'll have it go to nowplaying in stead of plalist

I like to have a request for artist or playlist come up as random and show the playlist (as the default) but you can change that too!

Thanks, will have a look, there is an option in MP to tell it what to jump to after selecting a song or album, would vox mimic this setting if you didnt tell it where to go after selecting music?

[jitterjames]

probably not, but give it a try and let us know.

[shango]

No it doesnt, i tried it and it plays the album but stays on the current screen

[jitterjames]

right which is actually a really good thing because it gives us the choice.  You may want to make a macro "entertain us", which queues up a photo slideshow and starts playing random music.  You would not want it to automatically change views.

While you are watching the slideshow, you might want to change the music, and you would not want to switch to another view, you would want to continue with the slideshow, etc. and btw in this scenario you might want to ask "who is this?" etc.  Or I will often listen to music with my TV off completely and this is when the voice commands, and the TTS really shine.

[jitterjames]

if anyone wants to vote on the MpWifi Activate window issue please do so here:

http://code.google.com/p/wifiremote/issues/detail?id=82&thanks=82&ts=1326407647

[jitterjames]

I think this might fix the activateWindow issues.  But I haven't tested too much yet, so maybe you can help me.  Let me know if it works well for you so I can recommend to the WifiRemote team to implement my changes in the official version.

http://db.tt/fC0YrwU5

unrar and put replace the dll in your MP process folder.  On my system it is found here :

C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\plugins\process

[powermarcel10]

I think this might fix the activateWindow issues.  But I haven't tested too much yet, so maybe you can help me.  Let me know if it works well for you so I can recommend to the WifiRemote team to implement my changes in the official version.

http://db.tt/fC0YrwU5

unrar and put replace the dll in your MP process folder.  On my system it is found here :

C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\plugins\process

Thanks, will test it soon and report my findings..

[jitterjames]

It seems to be working perfectly for me now.  Wow, what a difference!

[shango]

Doesnt seem to have made a difference on my system, It wasnt really all that bad before but it's still the same with this new version with some odd graphical glitches.

[jitterjames]

Yeah, it's weird.  It works well on my 32bit machine but still has problem on the x64 htpc.  Probably has nothing to do with 32 vs 64 though since there are plenty of other differences between the two machines.

try this one.  It works well for simple activateWindow commands, but still has problem with the ones that use load parameters.

http://db.tt/fC0YrwU5

going to the music view should work well...

note: same link as earlier but a new file.

[jitterjames]

with the current version you need to have MP running first.  If you have connection problems, restart VC and it should connect right away.

I'm working on a fix for that. Sorry.

see the first post of this thread for an updated version of the MPWifi plugin for VoxCommando