(outdated thread) XBMC for Dummies!

[Rojoyinc]

Also - I want to put some IR strings into vox commando.  Must I use eventghost, or can I call strings from vox as is?
I was thinking - I could make some .cmd files with IR calls to  IRBLAST.EXE  (I have some that I manually click on at present)
I could just launch these? via voice command?

___  UPDATE

I thought I'd just try it and it works fine.  = )  
unless you can think of a better way?  But seems pretty simplistic as is.

Oh which brings me to another question.   Is it better to enter the command like

launch tee vee
as oppose to
launch tv or t v ?

[Auri]

Thanks - yeah - getting the xml in a text file would be great as I could search for strange characters.

Also - I have a question, I'd like to add commands like  view live tv etc.  I was looking at the xml code to see what I'd need to edit and it looks pretty straight forward. (I use to program  aLOT in pascal in the olden days).

anyway where do you get a list of all the XBMC strings... like

<cmdString>ExecBuiltin(ActivateWindow(MusicLibrary,Songs))</cmdString>

musiclibrary,songs ?   Appears there are some executables built in... is there a list of them that can be called?
I'd like to find the TV/channels built ins.  I could then edit your code to add my own vox commands.

Hi Rojoyinc,
Currently Vox Commando uses XBMC's HTTP API found here http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Web_Server_HTTP_API
When you scroll down abit you will find the Command Tables Reference.
Here you will basicly find everything you need.

To talk specificly about the ExecBuiltin command, you can find it's functions and explaination here http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=List_of_Built_In_Functions

For instance :

ActivateWindow(window[,dir,return])
Opens the given window. The parameter window can either be the window's id, or in the case of a standard window, the window's name. See here for a list of window names, and their respective ids. If, furthermore, the window is Music, Video, Pictures, or Program files, then the optional dir parameter specifies which folder XBMC should default to once the window is opened. This must be a source as specified in Sources.xml, or a subfolder of a valid source. For some windows (MusicLibrary and VideoLibrary), the return parameter may be specified, which indicates that XBMC should use this folder as the "root" of the level, and thus the "parent directory" action from within this folder will return the user to where they were prior to the window activating. On Xbox, the special command ActivateWindow(MyFiles,autodetection) opens the filemanager with the autodetected Xbox in the left hand pane.  

I'm fairly new this this also so I hope this is helpfull to you.
Correct me if I'm wrong james

Regards
Auri

[jitterjames]

that all sounds like good and correct advice as far as I can tell.

there is one little trick that can help you though, if you are having problems figuring out the exact text to use in ActivateWindow

see a previous post here:
http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=98.msg708#msg708

[jitterjames]

Oh which brings me to another question.   Is it better to enter the command like

launch tee vee
as oppose to
launch tv or t v ?

It doesn't really matter but in some cases it may be more likely to understand you if you write it tee vee or even T V (with a space) .  Especially with longer and less common ones like XBMC.  Ex bee em see, might work better.

[jitterjames]

paste the following into a web browser on a machine where xbmc is running.

http://127.0.0.1:8080/xbmcCmds/xbmcHttp?command=querymusicdatabase(select%20strArtist%20from%20artist%20order%20by%20strArtist)

you can then do a view source.  copy and paste that to a text file.  If you can't figure out what is wrong with it, send it to me and I'll take a look.

[Rojoyinc]

That's a big help, and what a mess...  searching - I have  54763 files with a ( )
so much for manual rename.  (would be nice if you could add a search during that xml generation that would remove them. (hint hint).

Trying someting here...  Using renamer (by den4b)
hoping it allows me to add  54783 files... did a search - (win7 lists them) select all and drag and drop into renamer.

Making a rule  "remove  "(".")"

running - says it could take several minutes (no dah...)
waiting...

says not reponding, so I'll let it cook a while.  ;-)

bbl  to post results.

[jitterjames]

There is no problem with brackets ( ) the problem is with greater than and less than symbols < > (hint: they are much pointier).  I have songs with brackets in them and they don't cause a problem.

Also, renaming your files isn't going to help, it has to do with the mp3 tags.  Most likely whatever is causing a problem is in only a few items so manual rename should be ok.  If you don't know what you are looking for, then please send me the text file generated from the html "view source" as I outlined above.

[Rojoyinc]

Seemed to work  (it went through the actions) but I still have many...  I see them in your  "URL  view source" link.
so - is there a way to save - load into word of similar - do a find and replace (to remove them)
save the file and have it use that as the xml file it's generating?

Or some such.

[Rojoyinc]

oops- you had said   < >   and not ( )  (my bad)

I'll search for those - in the tags.
I'll see how many there are first.

bbl

[Rojoyinc]

I can't find any <>
Hard to search the code since  it's loaded with  <field> statements.  = )

You said to post them


http://www.ronkramer.net/temp.htm

or

http://www.ronkramer.net/ronslist.htm

[jitterjames]

Your last item is: ボブ・マーリィ&ザ・ウェイラーズ

which doesn't look good.

Also your 10th item in the list is <Unknown> which has both a < and a > and is almost certainly causing a problem.  I don't know if that will fix it or not but it seems to be the only one using < or >

how do you manage your music library, tags etc?

[Rojoyinc]

I don't do much music managing...  itunes probably...

[jitterjames]

ok, then all you need to do is a search for < or > in itunes, and then rename it.

[Rojoyinc]

Will go look and try that - thanks so much for the assistance. My music is a mess. I had HD problem a while back and I have a lot of  0 file length music files that won't play.
I'm going to restore from backup to clean things up.  I never really used the other tags (other than filename) but with vox commando and amulet - I really need them now
so I can play artist and browse albums. 

[jitterjames]

you should try to clean them up a little.   Like any collection, it will be much more valuable if it is properly organized.  I personally prefer media monkey for managing and listening to music.

As far as the problems you are having with GenXML go, I have finally decided to rewrite my code that gets info from XBMC.  I am no longer relying on an xml format since XBMC is not really following it.  I am using regular expressions now and it seems to work great.

So, long story short, the next version of VC should not have a problem reading anything that XBMC throws at it.  Unless you have an artist tagged as "<field>" lol.  But even then, it would probably just miss that artist, but wouldn't choke on it.