Virtual Tour/Walkthrough of XBMC

[pike]

hello python developers :-)

i got this idea that a virtual tour of xbmc would be a nice thing for beginners. it could walk thru and explain various ui elements and maybe even simulate navigation? i'm not sure what python can and can't do

let's see what developers say, and we can have this thread to discuss the future of this idea (if it has one)

regards / pike

[incognegro]

yes lets start a campaign to make xbmc more noob friendly. ive had this thing for a couple years now and i still feel like a noob

[Bernd]

please don't flame me since i reply here in the phyton forum.
but wouldn't a simple slideshow be a good start?
ok it won't be very interactive, but it would be a "easy to implement" solution.*

bernd

*oh my god! i sound like my boss :d

[pike]

slideshow would:

*) have to be alot of pictures, thus large size
*) become outdated on smallest change in skin or layout
*) be very limited compared to a script

script would:

*) be small, very small compared to pics
*) hopefully not become outdated quickly

basically, what i want is a visual representation using the xbmc user is running, where it "selfnavigates" and explain what it does along the way.

[Nuka1195]

a script could very easily display windows with the activatewindow command and you could have text display what the window is or does.

three buttons. next, prev, cancel.

simulating navigating would be hard without images, unless you just meant activate the next window when next was pushed or maybe change the buttons name to a button in the window. not all views are able to be activated this way (ie the library view, you can't specify songs, genres...) also the user would already have had to scan the music.

[Asteron]

how standard are the control id's in the skins?

you can use window.getcontrol(id) to find where a particular control is in a skin and find the postion of the control and draw like a circle around it and explain what it does.

edit: nevermind, controls dont have get position.

[pike]

asteron, now we're getting somewhere, that sounds a bit like what i wanna do, ie:

xbmc behaves like someone (the script) is "using" it, ofcourse everything is faked.

im hoping we can narrow down what is missing for this to become a reality

[los93sol]

i think i see what pike is wanting...

a "virtual" walkthrough, meaning you load the script and it would start with an image of the home screen and start a presentation. you wouldn't actually control anything, just watch it.

the presentation would do something like select a button and draw an arrow to make it obvious, then display a popup dialog with some information about it. then it would move to the next button and do the same, once it finished explaining everything about that screen it would move into the next window to be explained (ex. my programs) and start the process to explain it.

is this something like what you are looking for. of course it should probably be more than just a video presentation, but it would be a nice start.

regards,
los93sol

[Livin]

know know what is even better... if the manual is updated and close to complete!

a complete manual is the best thing for a user possible.

[los93sol]

i started rewriting the manual, feel free to add to it if you wish
http://manual.xboxmediacenter.de/wakka.p....h&v=iag (http://manual.xboxmediacenter.de/wakka.php?wakka=manualscratch&v=iag)
i agree that this is a good idea though since most people don't bother to read. it would be great to have both.

[thor918]

to simulate navigation we could use nads exellent httpapi, that was exposed to python jul 21 2005.

mouseclick,keyboard, and other keys simulation is in there.

sendkey(buttoncode;[lefttrigger];[righttrigger];[leftthumbx];[leftthumby] ;[rightthumbx];[rightthumby])
o initiates a button, key or mouse event. buttoncode specifies the type of event and the other parameters specify additional information that is specific to each buttoncode value.
 to send a button event just set buttoncode to the appropriate value. e.g. the left_trigger has a buttoncode value of 262. for a full list of buttoncodes see: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs....=markup (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/xbmc/xbmc/guilib/key.h?view=markup)
 to send a keyboard event set buttoncode to f100 (hex) and add the required key’s ascii value.
 (experimental) to send a mouse event set buttoncode to efff (hex) , then set the following parameters:
• leftthumbx – mouse x position
• leftthumby – mouse y position
• lefttrigger – indicates a single mouse click and takes a value of one of 1-left button, 2-right button, 3-middle button.
• righttrigger– indicates a double mouse click and takes a value of one of 1-left button, 2-right button, 3-middle button.


and using httpapi getguistatus we can get what control is selected.


activewindow:10000
activewindowtype:10000
activewindowname:home
controlbutton:my programs

activewindow:10006
activewindowtype:10006
activewindowname:my videos
controlbutton:play dvd