Rename function problems.

[Bluebird]

With the DP series, my wife and I kept track of what we viewed by adding a prefix to the title of the recording.
This worked well, and when we had both seen the recording the last to view it would delete it.
I have tried to do the same thing with my T2 and found the title of the recording in the "Rename" function didn't scroll to the start of the title. I assume this is because the title was longer than the space provided. It seems to be right justified. Sort titles do not seem to be an issue.
keypresses from live tv.
media.
down or up arrows to select recording.
menu.
down arrow to "Rename".
Select the left arrow and multiple "Ok"s

Am I doing it right?
Is this the intended result?

[Star6key]

Am I doing it right?

Yes

Is this the intended result?

No. Looks like a bug.

edit -

Until it's fixed, the only thing I can suggest is to move the file to another folder.

[MrQuade]

Is it possible to change your approach to marking finished shows?

The T series provides you with a nice progress indicator for your media files that tells you how far through the movie you have watched. Anything that shows up as being mostly watched (80-90%) would then be something you have seen already. Though I think there is an outstanding bug whereby fully watched shows (ones you have watched to the end of the file) will revert to showing up as unwatched.

Of course that won't work if you try to view the files from some other device like your PC. The progress indicators only show up on the T series boxes.

Stars6ky's suggestion to move the files is a good one too.

The lack of scrolling on the rename box does sound like a bug though, so good that you have reported it.

[prl]

There are buttons for move cursor LEFT/RIGHT. Not obvious, but CH+/- do it. The obvious ones are already taken for navigation in the onscreen keyboard (LEFT/RIGHT) or delete prev/next (PREV/NEXT).

It doesn't help with scrolling, though.

You could place the "watched by" marker at the end of the name instead of the beginning, though that won't work for very long names.

[Star6key]

Is it possible to change your approach to marking finished shows?

Can of worms...

I know what you're saying, but having to change the way you do things because of a bug... that would 'grate my goat'.

[prl]

Is it possible to change your approach to marking finished shows?

Can of worms...

I know what you're saying, but having to change the way you do things because of a bug... that would 'grate my goat'.

It's an acknowledged bug. A workaround has been offered. I don't see a problem with that, really.

[Star6key]

...though that won't work for very long names.

Speaking of which... why doesn't the show name scroll (for long names) in the Media view?

[Star6key]

A workaround has been offered. I don't see a problem with that, really.

Wow... just... wow.

A workaround which you also pointed out would not work for shows with long names as you wouldn't be able to see the end of them in the Media viewer (see my previous post).

[prl]

...though that won't work for very long names.

Speaking of which... why doesn't the show name scroll (for long names) in the Media view?

Because it hasn't been coded like that. It's open source. Give it a whirl.

If you had a lot of long names scrolling in a view, I suspect the result would be rather difficult to look at.

[MrQuade]

I think Star6key is suggesting that only the highlighted media file should scroll.

That seems to be how most fancy UIs handle it from the ones I have come across.

[prl]

A workaround has been offered. I don't see a problem with that, really.

Wow... just... wow. ...

"It's an acknowledged bug" elided.

I wonder what I've been looking at the last hour or so?

[prl]

Bug #317 Unable to edit long file names - created 2014-10-09

[prl]

I had a look at the code for the text input widget in the on-screen keyboard that's used for rename and in many other contexts, and the problem is that the code doesn't support any scrolling of long text if the cursor moves out of view in the text entry widget when the text is longer than the available display space.

There's no quick fix available for this as far as I can tell, which may explain why it's been sitting waiting for attention for so long.

This is actually a bug across all uses of the on-screen keyboard, except when used for fixed-length text that fits in the widget. It becomes apparent only when the text is longer than the available space.

A workaround for adding text to the beginning of a long name occurred to me overnight.

Press-and-hold CH- to move the cursor left, past where it drops out of visibility and keep it held for a while to ensure it gets to the start of the name, then enter the text you want to add at the beginning.

Obviously, both the positioning of the cursor and the text entry will be "blind", but the procedure does work.

[Bluebird]

Yes, moving the cursor until it disappears and adding an extra number of cursor left movements does work.
Another workaround is to shorten the title when adding the prefix.
Seems scrolling is difficult.
How difficult is making the font smaller?

[prl]

... How difficult is making the font smaller?

Easy, but really not the right thing to do, for legibility reasons.

[prl]

If you want to change the font size in the text window of the onscreen keyboard yourself you need to:

1. Back up your settings before starting.
2. Use an FTP client to copy /usr/share/enigma2/easy-skin-aus-hd/skin.xml to your computer, or use the File Commander (MENU>Sources>T3 (or T2 or T4 as appropriate) to copy that file (in the device called Internal Flash) to a USB stick and thence from that to your computer, or use File Commander to copy the file onto a share mounted on the PVR from your computer.
3. Make a backup copy of the original skin.xml file.
4. Edit skin.xml in any editor that can read/write plain text files (or in an XML editor), and look for the '<screen name="VirtualKeyBoard" '.
5. Locate <widget name="text" ... /> in the screen element (between <screen name="VirtualKeyBoard" ...> and the matching </screen>).
6. Within the widget element, find the
   font="Regular;40"
   attribute, and change the "40" to a smaller number. The number is the nominal font size in pixels on a 720x1280 overlay screen, but the actual character height is a few pixels more than the nominal size.
7. You could also adjust the widget height (size="536,46") from 46 to a smaller number to make it a bit tidier, but make the height 3-5 pixels more than the font size.
8. Save the file
9. It may be useful to check the integrity of the file before you put it on the PVR if you made the change using a plain text editor. One simple way to do this is to read it into a Web browser using File>Open File... (Firefox, but similar in other browsers). It should tell you if there are any syntax errors in the XML content of the file.
10. Copy skin.xml back to the PVR as /usr/share/enigma2/easy-skin-aus-hd/skin.xml.
11. Restart the PVR GUI, or reboot.

Undo it by copying the backup copy of the skin.xml file back to the PVR and restart the GUI or reboot.

It's also possible to edit skin.xml directly on the PVR by logging in with telnet or ssh and then using the "vi" editor available in the firmware.

Errors in the skin.xml file can cause the startup of the PVR's main application (the one that drives everything, including the GUI) to fail, or for some GUI elements to not display correctly or crash.

You can probably recover by copying the backup skin.xml file back to the PVR. Enough of the system should be running in the case of a corrupted skin.xml file for this to work. If not, you'll have to reload the firmware from USB.

Clearly, this isn't likely to appeal to everybody.

[MrQuade]

It's also possible to edit skin.xml directly on the PVR by logging in with telnet or ssh and then using the "vi" editor available in the firmware.

I am always frustrated by the steep initial learning curve of both vi and EMACS, and have never had the will to push myself over that curve.
I usually install nano on whatever Linux based box I use, and it serves me very well for light text editing duties.

I am sure prl is aware of this, but for the potential benefit of other readers, the command to install nano is:
opkg install nano

And just as an aside, because I am also super-lazy, and like intuitive TUIs, I also install midnight commander for general file manipulation:
opkg install mc

[Star6key]

It's even easier if the machine is on your network as you can edit the file directly through Windows Explorer (assuming you're using Windows ). I changed the ' font="Regular;40" ' to ' font="Regular;20" '. It took all of a few minutes (including gui reboot).

Works well. Thanks Prl.

(now... I wonder what else I can tinker with in the skin... ).

[IanSav]

Hi Star6key,

Lots!

Regards,
Ian.

[prl]

It's even easier if the machine is on your network as you can edit the file directly through Windows Explorer (assuming you're using Windows ). ...

As Larry Wall once said of Perl, "There's more than one way to do it." The files can also be copied over using scp or rsync (not so Windows-friendly). I wanted to keep the instructions reasonably flexible, but not enumerate all the many possibilities.

Works well. Thanks Prl.

Credit for the idea belongs to Bluebird. I merely provided the mechanics. But thanks anyway

(now... I wonder what else I can tinker with in the skin... ).

I find doing anything substantial with the skin really, really tedious. It also requires a fair understanding of the code. Ask IanSav, who's doing a complete skin make-over.

[Star6key]

I find doing anything substantial with the skin really, really tedious. It also requires a fair understanding of the code. Ask IanSav, who's doing a complete skin make-over.

From what I saw, you're right. I wait with baited breathe to see what IanSav has concocted.

[Bluebird]

Hi,
Changed font size to 20 as Star6key suggested via Windows Explorer, and works a treat.
Title font size is similar to Virtualkeyboard's font.
Picked longests recording name "the chronicles of nania: prince cas", and it still left 1/3 of space unused.
Whilst not as good as scrolling, very acceptable.

Thanks guys.

[prl]

... baited breathe ...

"bated breath"?

[MrQuade]

... baited breathe ...

"bated breath"?

Where is the twitchy-eye emoticon?

[Star6key]

... baited breathe ...

"bated breath"?

I ran out of Listerine...

[IanSav]

Hi,

I went for breakfast at Milliways this week so I have found a way to do something I was told was impossible. I am trying to code it up now. If successful another major stumbling block for releasing the new skin will be resolved. (While I believe I have a useful and reliable resolution I will need to convince PeterU to accept it and then start changing small parts of the code to implement it.)

Regards,
Ian.

[Bluebird]

I went to Milliways once with a mixed experience.
When the waiter went to get the order from the next table, they said they were waiting for someone. Their father or leader perhaps.
Mind you the waiter was right, the beef does sell itself.
My wife has indicated the font in the epg is a bit small. I wonder if I can use this to buy a bigger TV.

[prl]

... My wife has indicated the font in the epg is a bit small. I wonder if I can use this to buy a bigger TV.

You may want to keep this quiet , but both the number of rows shown and the font size are configurable in the Graphical EPG.

If you get rid of the Picture in Graphics, you have even more room for a larger font and more rows, though you also lose the synopsis information for the current program in focus. MENU when you're in the EPG for all those options.

The font sizes are relative to the default.

[IanSav]

Hi Bluebird,

I wonder if I can use this to buy a bigger TV.

Small subtitle text (broadcast) on the screen is why I upgraded my TV.

Regards,
Ian.

[prl]

Hi Bluebird,

I wonder if I can use this to buy a bigger TV.

Small subtitle text (broadcast) on the screen is why I upgraded my TV.

Regards,
Ian.

The subtitle text size is also adjustable.

[IanSav]

Hi Prl,

Not the graphical text in live broadcasts (or media files for that matter).

Regards,
Ian.

[dRdoS7]

Hi,

I had a look at the "Skin.xml" file and made the changes as suggested, nothing changed!

Then I realised because I am using OverlayHD skin, I should change it in that "skin.xml" file.

It looked quite a bit better.

Reading the file, I thought it should be possible to make the text box longer, so I did.

Sadly the outline is now transparent. All I did was lengthen the existing png, and save it under a diff. name. FIIKW

I also overwrote the "Yellow button" text at the bottom, 'cause I wanted people to know you can use the CH +/- buttons to move the cursor, and figured I wouldn't need to change the KB lang..

I added 2 new png file to "buttons" folder.

The changes (2 lines) to skin.xml are:

Code: Select all

		<ePixmap pixmap="buttons/vkey_text2.png" position="10,85" size="685,52" alphatest="on" transparent="1" />
		<widget name="text" position="12,100" size="668,25" font="Regular;20" halign="right" noWrap="1" transparent="1" valign="center" zPosition="+1" />

and added one new line (before </screen>"):

Code: Select all

		<ePixmap pixmap="buttons/vkey_text3.png" position="10,435" size="685,50" alphatest="on" transparent="0" />

It could be made bigger even, but I didn't want to change the size of the VKB screen.

dRdoS7

EDIT: This thread should maybe be under "Bugs", "Tips" or "Hacks".

[jazza]

... My wife has indicated the font in the epg is a bit small. I wonder if I can use this to buy a bigger TV.

You may want to keep this quiet , but both the number of rows shown and the font size are configurable in the Graphical EPG.

If you get rid of the Picture in Graphics, you have even more room for a larger font and more rows, though you also lose the synopsis information for the current program in focus. MENU when you're in the EPG for all those options.

The font sizes are relative to the default.

Correct! (Rake, lol).

I use no preview epg on the smaller spare TV and up the font size to match a single page list.

The original musing of an angle to buy a bigger TV is why I rarely unplug electrical gear before an impending lightning storm.

"Look honey the TV just blew up, better replace it". That said my Denon amp is now ~20 years old so that strategy is not really working that well or my power surge protection is effective....!


Workaround for OPs question:

When I have the original non-scrolling rename problem, my solution when renaming to remove 'Movie:' from the name that's too long is to scroll left almost as far as I can see, then delete everything to the start of the file and then (save first if required) re type the new name as I can now see it being entered in one letter at a time.