Ant plugin and movie path(s)

[dalanik]

How things are:

I use ant movie catalog to catalogue all my offline movies. Then, via ant plugin, the database info is transfered on startup to xlobby. And this works fine.

Now, the problem. I have a number of movies online, that is on hard drive (30-40 films). These films are there only temporary and are NOT in Ant catalog, because I keep films (avis) there for a couple of weeks/months and then burn 'em onto CDs and new ones are moved there, etc.

In a perfect world, ANt plugin would create DB from ant database on startup, and then XLobby would kick in and ADD movies it finds in the path.

But when I start XLobby, all I get is ant movies, not additional online movies that are not in ant catalogue.

I tried making an startup event that would update the database, but it doesn't work.

I suspect that this is because this update is performed PRIOR to Ant overwriting the XLobby database...

Is there anything that can be done concerning this?

What is the exact order in which this is done? I suppose this would make most sense:

* xlobby starts
* xlobby loads plugins
* ant plugin writes database
* xlobby finishes loading plugins and resumes
* xlobby scans paths for films and adds newly found avis to the database

Anyone?

D.

[dalanik]

To answer my own question: There is a workaround, that is to assign "update" event to the screen, so that when the screen opens, update takes place.

But it'd still be kinda cool to do this (only) on startup... Now, images are shown, and then it blinks for a couple of seconds while it updates...



D.

[badubo]

Hello,

Ant creates the databases on startup (when you see loading plugins)
So, the procedure is like you wrote:

* xlobby starts
* xlobby loads plugins
* ant plugin writes database
* xlobby finishes loading plugins and resumes
* xlobby scans paths for films and adds newly found avis to the database

Don't know why it doesn't work.

In the french forum, we are working on a new procedure, using a
- VB script that parses some folders and create an AMC database (in XML format)
- A merger, that merges the result with the full AMC database.
- An improved XAnt plugin that can process xml AMC databases directly


http://forums.studio-biorythm.com/index ... c=698&st=0

sorry, it's in french, but if some are interrested, we can make a tutorial in english

[dgemily]

why don't you use 2 different databases ? and then ( on your screen,) switch between those databases, online and offline databases...

later

[dalanik]

Too complex (for my wife) No matter what I do, she fins it too complex, I can imagine what confusion i'd create by introducing yet another switch button This way, if it's there it plays, if it's not it asks for a CD/DVD, voila! And also, no point in 2 different bases now since the image for online/ofline clearly indicates whether it's offline or online...

Not important issue though, It works when I assign "refresh" event to the screen startup. I just thought it'd be better if it would work on xlobby start...

Thanx for help, I'll have a look at the french forum!

D.

[dgemily]

anyway the better solution, is that you list your online movies with ant movies catalogue: use a AMC case to indicate your path ( like "URL") and then when you will burn your movies, you will have just to change this case to indicate an other parameter.
we use myOMP to manage the online and offline movies:
is it available here: http://users.skynet.be/fa426932/temp/myomp.zip
you have to edit myomp.cfg and change the lines to your configuration:

Code: Select all

Skin="\skins\default\default.skn"
CDROM=
Opentray=false
Exe_offline="c:\program files\zoom player\zplayer.exe", "/q /play /mouseoff /f %1"
Exe_online="c:\program files\zoom player\zplayer.exe", "/q /play /mouseoff /f %1"
Exe_ID="e:\multimedia\zoom player\zplayer.exe", "%1video_ts\video_ts.ifo",normal
position=

you can also take a look on our skin to know how is organized:
download the french pack it will download all that you need, and install it on C:\Program Files\XlobbyFR (you don't need to install all components of this pack).

I'm happy to see that you are trying to use this marvelous plugins (XAnt),
did you try the autoplay fonction ? if not, try it for the cd audios it's fantastic, (use the command "OnInsertAudio" of the plugin,if your cd audio are not listed in your database of cds audio, it will recover informations on freedb and the cover on amazone.com and then build a temporary database. so you insert a new cdaudio and xlobby will display all information and cover about this cd audio (genre, year, albumtracks, comments and covers) it’s very fun.
look at our skin to understand how use it.
We use this plugin and ant movies catalog, also for our comics, video games, tv movies, photos… it’s easy to create a database with AMC and you can recover information very quickly. We start to share our AMC database; like that every one can download the database that he wants.

later,

[dalanik]

use the command "OnInsertAudio" of the plugin,if your cd audio are not listed in your database of cds audio, it will recover informations on freedb and the cover on amazone.com and then build a temporary database. so you insert a new cdaudio and xlobby will display all information and cover about this cd audio (genre, year, albumtracks, comments and covers) it’s very fun.
look at our skin to understand how use it.

This sound interesting! I browsed the French forum but couldn;t find any docs on plugin commands and how 2 use it. What skin should I try? maTV?

D.

[dgemily]

This sound interesting! I browsed the French forum but couldn;t find any docs on plugin commands and how 2 use it. What skin should I try? maTV?

yes try with matv, if you install the pack, it will install by default maTV...

For the plugin command : here is my config: I associate to the xlobby autoplay the event:
- plugin (XAnt)
- chose the command : OnInsertAudio
- in variables :

Code: Select all

oncdaudio Cdaudio e:\

oncdaudio: is the name of my cdaudio database, but it's working if you haven't a database for you cds audio, just leave it like that

Cdaudio: is the name of the temporary database that it will be created.

e:\ : is the letter of my cdrom player

you should also configure the Xant.ini :

Code: Select all

[Cdaudio]
input=c:\Program Files\Ant Movie Catalog\Catalogs\cdaudio.amc,audio
output=c:\Program Files\XlobbyFr\databases\cdaudio.xml
images=c:\Program Files\Ant Movie Catalog\Pochettes cdaudio\
sort=$$ITEM_ORIGINALTITLE
template=c:\Program Files\XlobbyFr\plugins\cdaudiotemplate.xml
filters=
cdrom=e:\

make sure, you put all the files of FreeDB2Ant.zip in the repertory of ant movies catalogue, and created a repertory like "Pochettes cdaudio" for your covers.

if you download the french pack, normally you have just to configure the letter of you driver in the event plugin command of "autoplay/audio cd popup".
we associate also to this event groups an event show overlay.

there are some variables to display informations, during the plugin recover informations : plugin>xAntMovie>artist and plugin>xAntMovie>album.

I hope you understand me, it's difficut for me to explain to you in english.

later