BTV Negociator - Alpha release

[Bilar Crais]

Oops...got this .NET error after a reboot with Negociator in the startup folder:
(version 1.57)

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.
************** Exception Text **************
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file "C:\Documents and Settings\******\English.txt".
File name: "C:\Documents and Settings\******\English.txt"
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String str)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean useAsync, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize)
at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor(String path, Encoding encoding, Boolean detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks, Int32 bufferSize)
at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor(String path, Encoding encoding)
at BTV_Negociator.Negociator.ReadLanguageFromFile()
at BTV_Negociator.Negociator.Negociator_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Mes sage& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Mess age& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage (Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(M essage& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


Edit: Tried it again, this time Negociator gave the error instead of .NET....something about "couldn't find english" and then it was looking in my user folder in "documents and settings", asked if I wanted to continue, so I pushed OK (or whatever it was), then .NET error was thrown.

It must be something about Windows closing it that it still doesn't like, because I can open and shut it down continually within the program itself with no problem. This might be significant though...Negociator is telling me I have unsaved parameters when Windows is trying to close it...I clicked yes during the first reboot, but with the second reboot, there wasn't time to answer...it went bye-bye before I could click it.

[Bilar Crais]

Alright...some pics this time.


From the top: Click Windows Restart. Negociator warns that I have unsaved parameters, and would I like to save them now. I click yes. Windows restarts.
When Negociator attempts to start on boot, it throws this error.

.


This time, I just left the error on the screen. About twenty seconds later, the following error appears:




Weird that it's looking for the english file in my user folder...I have Negociator installed in the root directory, and the english language file is present in the Negociator install.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by Bilar Crais

But I think your app would be a natural to have in the Windows start-up folder. Maybe a a checkbox in the configuration tab to place a shortcut in the startup folder or current user run? Not that it is any major problem to do manually. It would just add additional slickness.

I have no clue how to do that, but I will look into it.

As for your crashes from the startup folder, it simply means that it is not finding all the related files in that particular folder. Have you put a short-cut rather than a copy of the file in your startup folder? You can probably right-click it and make sure that the app folder is correctly defined and not using the startup folder for all the other files... I should probably save the path in the .ini file and re-read it to avoid such problems...

[Bilar Crais]

Your hunch was on the right track. With a startup editor I have, I setup Negociator to start with an entry in the registry, under "current user run."
That would explain why it was looking for program files in my user directory. I'm not sure why it didn't like starting by that particular method, but that's hardly important.


Once I simply dropped a shortcut into the startup folder instead, it shuts down and starts up perfectly. Sorry for the false alarm.

Anyway, it's great to have a utility that I can set to my own personal update preferences and not worry about having to restart after every reboot or reconfigure after starting. "Set it and forget it," as it were!

[blacksmith]

Do your mass recordings look for shows already recorded? This is something that BTV used to do naturally and was taken away over a year ago and doesn't seem to be making it back into the schedule.

In trying to collect all the episodes of a particular show to be able to have the schedule look for all the ones missing from your collection on all channels would be great.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Do your mass recordings look for shows already recorded? This is something that BTV used to do naturally and was taken away over a year ago and doesn't seem to be making it back into the schedule.

No, the Mass recordings option will simply create Recording jobs on any other channels that the selected show/movie might be, to decrease the chance of missing a recording due to a conflict... It also uses the recording parameters of the selected show.

In trying to collect all the episodes of a particular show to be able to have the schedule look for all the ones missing from your collection on all channels would be great.

I made the Episode search tab for that, if you have a known serie (need to flag it somehow) and want to look for specific episodes (or auto-record them if enabled). But you do need to manually enter the titles of the missing episodes (one by one), using a line of the form Serie: episode.

[Fonceur]

Version 1.58 (beta) is available.

- Third step for the Advanced search, it is now possible to filter out in which field the search terms are located.

So if you are looking for Kelsey Grammer as a producer (credits) rather than an actor, or a documentary on Bruce Willis (Description) rather than a movie in which he is, the Advanced search will help you... Just keep in mind that it is based on a Keyword search, with some extra filtering. So searching for Bruce Willis is not the same as searching for Willis Bruce and good and evil is not the same as good evil...

[Fonceur]

Version 1.59 (beta) is available.

- Changing the Advanced search filters no longer force an update of all the other searches (Title, Keyword and Episode).

- Updated the BTV-Library to get the BTV server's version and displayed that version on the About tab... This is mostly a test to see if I can easily add missing functionalities to dawanderer's great BTV-Library without having it crash...

[Fonceur]

Version 1.60 (beta) is available.

- It is now possible to use BTV-Negociator.exe BTV-Negociator_full-path to launch the app from a different folder than where the configuration files are located. (used in the next point)

- It is now possible to automatically launch BTV-Negociator on startup of Windows. The way that it works, is that an entry is added to the registry. Unchecking the box will remove the registry entry. When this feature is used, the launch will be performed (minimized) with a 60 seconds delay (before the lists are filled to allow for BTV itself to start). If a non-zero launch delay value already exist, it will be used instead of the default 60 sec.

[Bilar Crais]

Fonceur -

Tried setting it to "auto launch." It did startup on boot, but it was looking for the english file again...

Curious that this program thinks the target file doesn't exist.

[merrypig]

I don't use that, but put quotes around the path. I imagine the tool cannot tell the last argument ( C:\BTV Negociator" ) from the path since there are spaces in it. So it's all being merged into one long (invalid) path. Putting quotes around the actual path should let the tool figure out the arguments to the filename.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by merrypig

I don't use that, but put quotes around the path. I imagine the tool cannot tell the last argument ( C:\BTV Negociator" ) from the path since there are spaces in it. So it's all being merged into one long (invalid) path. Putting quotes around the actual path should let the tool figure out the arguments to the filename.

Indeed that space makes it 2 arguments, which I was not expecting. I've always hated spaces in name/folder, breaks too much things... Easy enough to fix, just have to think if there's any reason why I might want more than one argument later on...

[Fonceur]

Version 1.61 (beta) is available.

- Fixed some bugs with the automatic launch on startup:

* Was missing the ending "\"...
* It should really be minimized on launch...
* If you stop it and restart it, the delay should not be used (unless you also checked the launch minimised and have a delay set)
* It should work for a folder containing spaces... (while " " (single space) works, " " (double space) does not)


Known issue:

Guide update is still not always being recognized as completed when it should, thus preventing the other automatic tasks from proceeding...

[Bilar Crais]

That nailed it!


Hey...don't you ever sleep? Come to think of it, I should be sleeping.

[Fonceur]

Version 1.62 (beta) is available.

- Yet another try to fix a problem where the Guide update was not recognized as completed. I was having problems resolving the start and end of the update, should be fine now.

- Fixed some auto Conflict resolution problems. Basically the third and fourth iterations were not working, should be better now...