I would like to point out too, that these UIs were designed to be used from 10' away, on a TV.... have you tested these UIs like that?

-Thom

okay...so...you...tested and glanced at a smattering of version control systems....

I can understand the familiarity with svn, with cvs..

however, given the sheer size of the code, the number of individual sub-systems within this code, and the potential for so many people to be working on these subsystems independently, it is much easier to test individual ideas within git, or darcs, or bzr, than it is to deal with svn.

I know i'm pressing hard on this issue, but i want you all to seriously consider and weigh the pros and cons. SVN and CVS are badly suited for this project in the long run.

-Thom

Also, where do you get off saying it would be harder to integrate with other SVN trees with these methods? why don't you do a little research? People like you seriously piss me off because you just say things without actually either (a) looking them up, or (b) having the experience of extensively using systems that others suggest.

I happen to have both on my side.

-Thom

also, you might want to do a little bit more searching....

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/repoview/trac-git-plugin.html

you can take your foot out of your mouth, now.

-Thom

would you care to elaborate on why "darcs is not ready for prime time?"

or are you just talking out of your arse?

-Thom

Check this thread:

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2300.0

-Thom

honestly, why don't we use a distributed version control system like git or darcs?

given the immense size of the code-base, git may very well be the better option.

-Thom

oh, also..hmm.. there isn't a field for the current user, this is important too.

-Thom

I will try to adapt the Basic skin to this. you might want to look at the Basic skin to see how many graphic elements need to be updated.

-Thom

fantastic, if anything, i'd just drop the opacity of the menu bar back slightly.

-Thom

It is worth noting that the interface was designed initially for media that was imported into it, DVDs etc. For this purpose, it works exceptionally well. I have over 600 DVDs which i have inside the system, and they're easy enough to find.

One thing I've done for the mean-time, is to create a large DVD image for things like TV shows etc, and group them by seasons.

If anything, I would probably add an additional line of info to the right pane, but I do NOT want to impose a folder system, whatsoever.

-Thom

not really, no.

-Thom

I am sorry you've had such difficulties, but there really are people who are using this system (and its ancestor, PlutoHome) on a day to day basis, in homes with multiple media directors and storage hanging all over the place, with home control etc.. it does work, honest.

The biggest problems thus far that i've seen with most people seem to center around:

* Video Card... this is currently very touchy, because the NVIDIA drivers that ship with the current Kubuntu are old, the NVIDIA 6150 and 6200 cards work best with UI2-AlphaBlending and the 5xxx cards work great with UI2-Masking. Other cards will work in either UI1, or UI2-Masking, you might have to fiddle a bit.... I hope the developers find a solution to allow download/install of the vendor drivers, this would solve so many problems... or at least try to track the latest NVIDIA drivers into deb packages...

* SATA... very strange indeed.. some SATA chips are not supported well with the DVD image, and the CD image seems to have better luck here...

* Network... Make sure you have TWO network cards... one for internal, one for external.. if you have to, DOUBLE NAT.. but run the DHCP and network services.. otherwise you will be fighting tooth and nail for nothing, really.

* Drives... this one heh....This is an example of the two converging worlds of users for this system... Pluto was originally designed as an appliance...drop the drives into the core...go... if you had windows shares, cool! it would find em... if you had a NAS dangling around, it would see it as shares, and just go with the appropriate credentials... I've seen so many users try to force their world view into this setup, at the expense of their own sanity, and I do believe that compromise needs to be done on both the developer and user end of things to make this better.

I hope you'll try again soon, it really is an amazing system. I've been running mine for a while now, and I can't live without it.

-Thom

yup, the Web Orbiter could run there out of the box, but an orbiter could be built specifically for it as well, all the Linux Orbiter needs is SDL and the Pluto libraries. It is very thin in that respect. (if it can run on my teeny little Nokia 770, it can run on anything)

native orbiters perform MUCH faster than the proxy web orbiter. (and without the page refresh action.)

to answer your question further, only Javascript is needed.

-Thom

After a lot of scrummaging around the code and the system, I've come to the realisation that the Media Plugin _MIGHT_ be able to be adapted to play emulator games.

I can see there is enough to add a Games media type, with sub types for different consoles... to best handle the emulations themselves, I think that xmame, zsnes, etc should be individually wrapped into their own plugins each handling their respective media types (we may have to change mame's rom file extension to .mame or something like that to keep things from colliding), and just have the respective plugins bring up windows and swallow them appropriately.

The games would be placed into the Pluto/LinuxMCE file structure under Games, with sub-folders for each game type (or in the same folder, it really doesnt matter if the ROMs are named to separate them by game media type.) This would allow for the games to replicate themselves automatically to all the media directors in the house.

Finally, I believe that support for the individual game systems should be placed under the Add Software banner (I mean, why else do we have that screen if not for adding additional software packages!), adding an emulator would automatically add the Games scenario under Media, which would bring up the File list for all Games.

In addition, there could be plug-n-play scripts for various USB sticks (such as the Tankstick, which I am a proud owner of.) which would add configurations to the installed emulators, this REALLY could be done right, for the first time _EVER_ !

Is there anyone here who has experience with making media plugins who had done so on the Pluto side of things? What direction should I go in? I really think there is enough here to keep things consistent and clean, without reinventing a ton of functionality.

-Thom