BTV Negociator - Alpha release

[opilion]

I already submitted it Sunday

I don't see it in the download section - can you provide a link?

op

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by opilion

I don't see it in the download section - can you provide a link?

I updated the version in the first message to 1.0 release, hopefully they won't take as long to have it in the download section as my French translation update that still has not shown up after over 8 months...

Sorting with the Date and Time colum is not fixed yet, have to change the order of a few things, but should have an update soon.

[Fonceur]

Version 1.01 is now available.

- Fixed the sorting by "Date and Time" column for people with regional setting different than 2005/10/19... I am now sorting out the original date (the unreadable 12774247200000000).

[Fonceur]

Version 1.02 beta is available.

The main new feature of this version is the introduction of a permanent search. By default the searches are not performed automatically (as they can lengthen the start time of the application quite a bit, but this can be toggled) and the number of results is limited to 50 (can be adjusted up to BTV's limit of 200). Presently you need to manually edit the BTV-Negociator.search file and add lines like Title = "Lost" or Keyword = "matrix" (avoid using ',' and " as it might throw off the search).

Since BTV does not allow to toggle off the blocked/forced flags, just to switch from one to the other, I added the possibility of removing those in the forced/blocked list view. Same thing for the recent recordings, so if a recording went wrong (cable was out, someone changed the channel mid-recording, etc.) you can remove it from the recent recording and BTV might record the next showing if you are using record always.

Fixed some crashes when clicking an empty area of some list.

To do list:

- Add some field/button to add/remove those search title/keyword. (the empty space between the treeview and extended info box)
- Create a recording job from a search result.
- Exclude a serie from future Title/Keyword search.
- Search for specific episodes of a serie (the currently empty Episode tab).
- Better display of the results, probably grouping the results of the Keyword search.

On a longer time scale, adding the possibility of automatically creating recording jobs for the search results.

[Fonceur]

Version 1.03 (beta) is available.

- I had planned to wait for the search feature to be more advanced before uploading an update, but then I found out that when I created the new Configuration tab with sub-tabs (back in 1.0 RC1) I should have re-associated the events linked to the checkboxes, so this part is fixed.

- You can now add new search terms to the Keyword or Title search without having to edit the file by hand.

- I removed the possibility of having the main tab menu in more then a line as that was messing up the positioning of some items.

[Fonceur]

Version 1.04 (beta) is available.

Added some more features to the search tab, such as being able to remove a search term or exclude specific TV show/movie from the future searches. The BTV-Negociator.search file gets updated after each modification, I might eventually change that and add a button to manually save the updated version...

Now time to add the other features mentionned in the to do list of 1.02 beta...

[Fonceur]

Version 1.05 (alpha) is available.

This time, I left the previous version available too as this alpha version is not as polished and I might have introduced some crashing bugs... You can now search by specific episode(s) of a serie. The search by Keyword and Title have an extra menu item to add the serie/episode to search as we need to catch the serie's ID for that. This search will be added to other list menus like Recent recordings and Recording jobs later on. Of course the idea is to add episodes that are not currently showing up in the search, though presently you need to manually edit the BTV-Negociator.search file (see the example in the zip file or ReadMe.txt) for that, until I figure out how to do better...

[Fonceur]

Version 1.06 (beta) is available.

This update is half a day after the previous one, since I wanted an easy way of adding episode(s) to the search by episode page (a good night sleep does help!) and finally came up with one. Assuming the Serie is already flagged (i.e. was added through the other searches and appears in the Episode list) simply use the format: "Serie: Episode" (without the "") in the input field (i.e. Lexx: Eating Pattern). If the serie is not already flagged, this will not work as it needs the Serie's Key (well, an EPGID)...

[Fonceur]

Version 1.08 (beta) is available.

- Condensed the main tab by creating more sub-tabs instead.

- Fixed some problems with the searches. Also there are more ways of adding searches.

- Using double quotes or commas should not interfer with the searches anymore.


Now I mostly need to add the creation of recording jobs from the searches and to take care of the context menus.

[Fonceur]

From now on, the lastest version will be in the download section. Version 1.09 (beta) includes:

- Results of searches can now be used to add new recordings.

- The previous problem with missing menu items should be solved now.

- Cleaned up the code, hopefully without breaking anything...

Since it has been built with the BTV 3.7.4 API, it most likely will not work correctly on BTV 4.0... In particular, the change to UniqueChannelID most likely breaks the creation of new recordings. Since I have not upgraded yet, I am interested in hearing how it reacts on BTV 4...

Should I go ahead and upgrade to BTV 4, I would probably add a new tab to search for duplicate recordings (now that BTV 4 no longer skip recording the same show on different channels) and block the un-needed ones...

[bpsmicro]

This is looking good. I'd tried an earlier release with unsuitable results, but this latest build is pretty solid. I'm running against my BTV4, but on a separate machine on the network (I manually copied over the reg key with the license string).

A couple of random comments:

- The search should be case-insensitive. Right now it requires you to enter a title *exactly* as it appears in the BTV guide. Entering "this hour has 22 minutes" returns zero results, while "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" works.

- Is it possible to have the search results simply not show the "hidden" returns at all? They're hidden because I don't get those channels, so I don't want to know anything about them. It's good that they're color-coded (grey), but I'd like to see it taken that extra step (perhaps as an option).

- Under "Problem Recordings", in the "Rejected" list I have a recording tagged as "Not a first run". I realize that info is coming from the Guide, but I know it really *is* a first-run. I'd like to be able to force it to be recorded from within this app. Now I have to go to my BTV box, locate the errant recording and select "Record this episode".

- In the "Recording Jobs" list (and anywhere else appropriate), would it be possible to add a column for duration (or end time if that's easier)? I realize the details window at the bottom includes that, I'm just asking for an "at a glance" view.

Keep up the good work. This is really quite slick. One could argue all this stuff should be *in* BTV itself, but in the meantime this'll do just nicely (and has the added bonus of running on a separate machine).

Brad.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by bpsmicro

I'm running against my BTV4, but on a separate machine on the network

Thanks, starting with version 1.12b, you no longer need a license on the remote machine when connecting to a BTV 4 server.

- The search should be case-insensitive. Right now it requires you to enter a title *exactly* as it appears in the BTV guide. Entering "this hour has 22 minutes" returns zero results, while "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" works.

I will need to check, but I suspect this might be an API limitation... Or I just need to convert them to lower case for the comparison, I will see.

- Is it possible to have the search results simply not show the "hidden" returns at all?

Yes I can definately add another check box for that. Personally I like to see the hidden channels too, as it might be an indication that I should change my subscription...

- Under "Problem Recordings", in the "Rejected" list I have a recording tagged as "Not a first run". I realize that info is coming from the Guide, but I know it really *is* a first-run. I'd like to be able to force it to be recorded from within this app.

Yes the first-run flag is dependant on the guide data. I had considered adding the context menu to the other listings before, but was not sure there was much need. Since I can see that there is, I will add more. Just need to make them a bit more polyvalent...

- In the "Recording Jobs" list (and anywhere else appropriate), would it be possible to add a column for duration (or end time if that's easier)? I realize the details window at the bottom includes that, I'm just asking for an "at a glance" view.

Actually it might be easy to add it to the "Recording Jobs" list, but might be harder to do for the others. Let me see what I can do.

Keep up the good work. This is really quite slick. One could argue all this stuff should be *in* BTV itself

Indeed, I would much prefer for that stuff to be part of BTV itself or to have some way of building it in the FSUI itself. But until then, this will have to do...

[Fonceur]

Release Version 1.13 (beta). This is based on some fixes/suggestions from bpsmicro. Expect a version 1.15b to appear in the download section within the next few days for the things that will need more work to implement (i.e. extra context menus for the other list).

- Searches are now case insensitive. I made sure to convert the strings to lower case before comparing them...

- The "exclude hidden channels" check box now also applies to the searches. I had forgotten to add the same checks as for the alternate recordings...

- Added a duration column to the Recording Jobs list. Adding it there was trivial, adding such a column to the other list is far from trivial, so I will see...

[jeffreyd_tx]

I am getting an unhandled exception with the past few releases:

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at BTV_Negociator.Negociator.SelectedIndexChanged(Obj ect sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.ListView.OnSelectedIndexChang ed(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.ListView.WmReflectNotify(Mess age& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ListView.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)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/microsoft.net/framework/v1.1.4322/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
BTV-Negociator
Assembly Version: 1.0.2155.29633
Win32 Version: 1.0.2155.29633
CodeBase: file:///C:/BTV-Negociator_1.08b/BTV-Negociator.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.windows.forms/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.windows.forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.drawing/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
LaMarvin.Windows.Forms.ColorPicker
Assembly Version: 1.1.81.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.81.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/BTV-Negociator_1.08b/LaMarvin.Windows.Forms.ColorPicker.DLL
----------------------------------------
CG.FontCombo
Assembly Version: 1.0.1889.23263
Win32 Version: 1.0.1889.23263
CodeBase: file:///C:/BTV-Negociator_1.08b/CG.FontCombo.DLL
----------------------------------------
MultiLineListBox
Assembly Version: 1.0.947.40946
Win32 Version: 1.0.947.40946
CodeBase: file:///C:/BTV-Negociator_1.08b/MultiLineListBox.DLL
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.VisualBasic
Assembly Version: 7.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 7.10.3052.4
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/microsoft.visualbasic/7.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/microsoft.visualbasic.dll
----------------------------------------
Accessibility
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/accessibility/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/accessibility.dll
----------------------------------------
BeyondTVLibrary
Assembly Version: 1.0.2030.21420
Win32 Version: 1.0.2030.21420
CodeBase: file:///C:/BTV-Negociator_1.08b/BeyondTVLibrary.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Web.Services
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.web.services/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.web.services.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.xml/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.xml.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Web
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.web/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.web.dll
----------------------------------------
cuhpfas7
Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------
raqvxqd_
Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------
rfj3ge2r
Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.573
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just in time (JIT) debugging, the config file for this
application or machine (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the machine
rather than being handled by this dialog.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by jeffreyd_tx

I am getting an unhandled exception with the past few releases:
...

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at BTV_Negociator.Negociator.SelectedIndexChanged

Could you describe in more details when this crash occurs? Is it when it is loading, when you are viewing a different tab, when clicking an empty list or such? I am attaching a version here that might solve that problem if it is ocuring at load time...