Ideas for scripts

[Athirne]

*yahoo launch browser for music videos

*bittorrent multi client with ip range blacklist support

*big script that turns xbmc into a half decent dashboard (ie apps, games, emulators, ect like menu setup) (ok so more of a feature request)

*script that checks for updated versons of apps and latter versons could even install it.

*script that could browse and apply skins (even download ones off of the net like in avalaunch)



weather replated:

*radar and satalite maps

*animated weather images (ok so this is more of a mod)

*script that will act like weatherbug and allert when severe weather is in your area.

[Alexpoet]

my thoughts.

i've been working on some of the weather related, but kinda hit a brick wall when i learned the website i was getting my images from was sending gifs that wouldn't display in xbmc. it took me a while to realize that gifs do display in xbmc--just not the ones i was getting from noaa.

anyway, weather radar is pretty reasonable, if i could just find a free source of the images that would provide images usable in xbmc. it would take a lot of reworking my regular expressions, though, so i'm not saying it would be immediate.

i also like the idea of a script that can download/update apps for you. i've been working on the idea for one for a while, but haven't put anything down on paper yet. i'll let you know if i get to that before someone else does.

regarding the skins downloader... would be easy to download, probably--not so easy to apply. we'd have to make that a feature request, because currently xbmc python doesn't have any function to change the skin, although i can think of a workaround (create a copy of the skin called "active" and manually set "active" to your active skin, then the script could download a new skin and also make a copy of it, overwriting "active" with the new one).

[Athirne]

perhaps you could just get the images from weather.com since the media center already gets text information about weather. weather.com uses .jpg images for the most part and they have an application that makes calls to the site for radar and satalite maps (so they cant just suddenly change what they are naming everything). since their naming scheme is automated it shouldnt be to hard to make it so that with a properly set system clock and time sensitive scripting one should be able to call the proper maps with little problem.

http://www.w3.weather.com/maps/


the main problem when it comes to skins and applications is there needs to be a central area to grab them from with verson information and a specific structure. avalaunch does this, but xbmc skins can be a bit over the place. also you need to be able to specify which directory to install things into.
the most simple solution would probebly be a script that checks and updates only scripts at first. we already have a central repository for downloading scripts and i belive it does have verson numbering.
with some minimal alterations to the script repository database we could easily have xbmc do a quick query of avalible scripts then comare them to those installed on the box. if the versons are equal or greater then skip. if the verson is less then the remote verson value then offer to download.

[MikeZ]

alex,

i figured out the reason why your script doesn't show the gifs from noaa. it is the same reason why my traffic script is currently hitting your wall as well.. :bomb:

there are two gif standards, one gif87a and one gif89a.
the gifs we are downloading are of the type gif87a. i looked up a gif from noaa. such as here and of my traffic site. i use httpwatch and on the stream tab the gif type is shown.
so.... darkie come to the rescue ! please and put a gif library in that handles gif87a images....

uhhm i think i need to put a feature request of some sorts in right ?
such as this one here

mikez

well as stated in the feature request...
it does not seem to be a gif87a/89a issue but more a gif content issue...

[jaga]

Originally Posted by (alexpoet @ sep. 06 2004,18:24)

regarding the skins downloader... would be easy to download, probably--not so easy to apply.

if the skin downloader/brower is doable, the ability to change the current skin isn't as important. i think it would be a good thing if a nice skin browser/automagic update system were available. it would likely end up creating a single xbmc skin repository, and could do some version checking to solve some all too common problems. please put this one on your list.

[Alexpoet]

heh. funny that this (pretty old) thread got bumped today. one of the things i discussed in it was the weather radar (and using weather.com instead of noaa), which i've been working on for the last week. i've got it 99% of working.

it's a pretty simple little script, after the changes. cool, though.

i'll post as soon as i've got it working completely.

alexpoet