LinuxMCE Forums

As promised,

I am preparing a series of Screen-casts which detail the operation of the Orbiter Designer application.

Through each successive segment, practical and theory concepts will be introduced, while I build the Orbiter UI for my MAME plugin across ALL of the different variations.

The very first screencast was done using xvidcap, and it has display glitches... It has subsequently been replaced by RecordMyDesktop, which does much better (and in a free format too!)

But here they are:

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/01-basic_hadesigner_fundamentals.html
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/02_designobj_basics_1.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/03_ui2_popup_part_1.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/04_ui2_popup_part_2.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/05_UI1_Orbiter.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/06_UI1_Full_Screen_OSD.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/07_UI1_Full_Screen_OSD_2.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/08_UI1_PDA.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/09_Mobile_Remote.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/10_cisco_7970_orbiter.ogg
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/11_Monitor_mode.ogg

I will post them here, as well as reply to this thread when more of them become available.

-Thom

Thom,

Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to produce these excellent screencasts.

I am sure more people will now have a play with HADesigner which to be honest was previously a little scary  ;D

NOS

Thanks for great work also....

major leaps can be done with more people capable of that magic....

Regards,

Bulek.

Thanks for the tutorials.  They are going to be a lot of help!

I'm going to start working with HADesigner as soon as my finals are over.

Dude,

You ROCK!

:)

I have added the next installment:

Now that I have shown how to make individual "buttons", we combine them together, to finish the UI2 design, and show it in action:

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/04_ui2_popup_part_2.ogg

I have updated the primary post, as well.

-Thom

And now, the next installment:

The following screencasts will show the process for laying out the different design variations.

Starting with the Normal Horizontal 3:4 design variation, which is used on such orbiters as:
* Nokia 770
* Windows PC's and Tablets
* Windows CE Tablets
* the default orientation for the Web Orbiter

I also show the process of grouping controls to make placement much easier, as well as the pre-design process that I use when laying out controls.

The Screencast is here:
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/05_UI1_Orbiter.ogg

-Thom

Hey all,
please don't think of me as a money throwing person to get something i want, and beleive me once i get the time to get and install a new cpu fan for my old comp i will be trying out Ha design for myself.

however in the meantime. would a contribution of a donation to LMCE encourage the team to design a new UI?
i believe this is the only thing keeping me from changing from media portal.

Hope i can help out in anyway possible with my resources and limited knowledge on Linux systems.

Your Pal trying to help in anyway.
Aussie.

I have posted the next installment of the HA Designer Screencast series:

Designing an OSD (Full Screen) orbiter screen.
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/06_UI1_Full_Screen_OSD.ogg

This is used by UI1 and UI2 when media is playing. UI1 is special, because it needs an "Options" screen to show the Orbiter controls, so that an IR remote control can be used to control the screen in UI1. This screencast goes through the entire process.

-Thom

I have made an addendum to screencast 6... Which shows the results on a real MD, and shows a couple of extra relations I had to put into the database.

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/07_UI1_Full_Screen_OSD_2.ogg

Enjoy,
-Thom

This Screencast shows the laying out of the PDA variation, and its differences to the Horizontal variation.

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/08_UI1_PDA.ogg

-Thom

New Screencast, this one showing me laying out the orbiter UI For mobile phones (Called the Symbian 60 variation)

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/09_Mobile_Remote.ogg

-Thom

New Screencast, this time. Designing the UI for the SmallUI skin, used by the Cisco 7970 IP phone currently. Includes a small discussion on skins and their interaction with DesignObj Variations.

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/10_cisco_7970_orbiter.ogg

-Thom

p.s. are you guys watching these?

thank you for doing all this work with the screencasts. When I get my system in and some freetime I'm going to make a new UI based on UI2 that will work for a touchscreen (hopefully anyway)

If you intend to do this, you must create a new skin, Please do not alter the existing stuff in the Basic skin. It is used by us, and pluto.

-Thom

ok understood

New Screencast:

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/11_Monitor_mode.ogg

In this one: Monitor Mode, how Broadcast Video DesignObjs work, and designing the monitor mode screens for all variations and the smallUI skin for the Cisco 7970

Large screencast, most of the UI placement edited out.

-Thom

Hi,
I am new to LinuxMCE.I have followed all the screencast .I didnot find any information regarding the command ScreenGen. Actually I have designed a new Menu and have placed a button on Main menu. I have updated the database as well linking the designobj(MenuCreated)with the screen and added a new screen.This button actually requires to show the menu but whenever I click the button on the log it shows ScreenHandler:BadGotoScreen.. error.
Can you please explain about Screenhandler and Where is ScreenGen command as explained in wiki .. at http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Integrating_custom_controls_in_Orbiter

Please help I just want to add a new menu and want that menu to show whenever i click a button.

Thanks..

You have to check out a copy of the SVN, and go to src/ScreenGen, and build a copy of ScreenGen and run it. You then build a new copy of Orbiter.

-Thom

Sorry Thom,
I didnot understand. I have the SVN and I can see the folder ScreenGen and has the ScreenGen.cpp file as well.. what do you meant by "build a copy of ScreenGen ... and build a new copy of Orbiter "? .
I have setup the development environment as shown on wiki.

Thanks..

You need to prep the makefiles for ScreenGen and Orbiter.

ScreenGen can be built with 'make'

Orbiter can be built with 'make bin' and 'make -f Makefile_opengl bin'

-Thom

Hi,
Now I have build the ScreenGen as well as the orbiter .
What is the next step?
do I have to copy the ScreenGen and Orbiter  to /usr/pluto/bin ?

Can you please explain step by step  on how to compile after finishing the design in HADesigner ? I think this part is missing in your screencast .

Thanks,

no, you run ScreenGen from the same folder you built it from.

./ScreenGen

this generates the new header files for the screen handler.

You can then build Orbiter using the method I described above, and copy the resulting Orbiter files to /usr/pluto/bin

If you have any other orbiters, You will have to copy or build the new Orbiter binary for them.

-Thom

Hi ,
I got this error
/linuxmce@dcerouter:~/trunk/src/ScreenGen$ ./ScreenGen
05      04/16/09 23:26:55.432           Generating classes... <0xb6dd2940>
Segmentation fault

What am I doing wrong ?

Thanks

copy the contents of /usr/pluto/lib to src/lib

and rebuild screengen, and try again.

-Thom

Hi Thom,
I am getting this errro while trying to copy the files.

linuxmce@dcerouter:~/trunk/src/lib$ cp /usr/pluto/lib/* /trunk/src/lib/
cp: target `/trunk/src/lib/' is not a directory: No such file or directory

Thanks,
sameer

try cp /usr/pluto/lib/* .

instead,

since you're already in the target directory.

-Thom

I did it .
with this error :

linuxmce@dcerouter:~/trunk/src/lib$ cp /usr/pluto/lib/*
cp: target `/usr/pluto/lib/libSerial.so' is not a directory

After that i rebuild the ScreenGen but I got the same error .What is missing ?

Thanks,

Hi Thom,
Thanks for your help. I solved. Obviously I was not following the whole steps as described.I solved it . It working now.

One small question, I want to change the mouse pointer in the UI , I like the mouse pointer of UI2.How can I change it ? which command should I implement?
Thanks again for your help.

Hi ,
I am getting an error while trying to run ./ScreenGen .

Generating classes... <0xb6dde940>
Segmentation fault

Please help;

You are getting that message because your libpluto_main.so does not match up. the quickest way to make sure this matches up is to copy the contents of /usr/pluto/lib to src/lib and rebuild screengen...

-Thom.

Hi ,
I am still unsuccessful to compile . Let me explain what I did .
I followed the instruction as described in wiki about setting up the dev environment.I had svn Linuxmce 0710. It was downloaded at home/trunk/.  After I downloaed I saw a directory called lib already in the trunk/src .Inside the trunk it had .svn directory inside and was empty. But according to he instruction on wiki I had to make a lib directory inside the src directory. But I am confused now .
Anyways I copied all the files of /usr/pluto/lib to trunk/src/lib .
I made some changes with HADesinger and added some screens in the Screen table and associated the Design Obj in screen Design obj table .Now as Thom suggested me to make the ScreenGen by using make command . I did so .and when I try to run ./ScreenGen I get error .. "Segmentation fault ".
I tried to follow the wiki instructions on Developement environment about 3 times and installed Linuxmce 3 times..I am no developer or programmer but I try my best. I have  already changed the skin of linuxmce to mine and it works fine though.But I need to add some extra screens for my own purpose .I am not able to do that . Since I had to compile it, something is going wrong.
Please can you explain me step by step , including the compilation of ScreenGen and Orbiter ..

I will be very greatful.

Thanks,
sameer

I am sorry for the problems you've been having,

I would suggest actually going with 0810.

We are not doing any development work on 0710 anymore, and do not accept any patches on that branch.

svn is here: http://svn.linuxmce.org/branches/LinuxMCE-0810

There is a complete page on building a builder for 0810:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Building_LinuxMCE_0810

Once you've done a full builder pass, you can go into the directory where SVN is stored (/var/lmce-build/svn), and build a copy of ScreenGen that should work fine.

-Thom

Hi,
Thanks for the response. As mention I already have LinuxMCE 0710 installed , and the wiki http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Building_LinuxMCE_0810 you gave me is for the building in 0810 but I dont have that . So this means I donot have a fresh copy of Kubuntu 0810 . And my kernel is also 2.6.22 as delivered with LINUXMCE -710 dvd . I am very confused here.

Lets make it easy.I have a clean Linux0710 install.
what should I do next ?
bit confused with building from source and Building LinuxMCE-810.
Please provide me the step guidance after installing LinuxMCE0710.
Thanks

Moderated: Unhelpful and negative posts removed, please be aware of tone.

 ;)I am a newbie to LinuxMCE, I want to customize the Orbiter skin and seems it can be customized. Can anyone help to summarize the steps need to do or point out which post should I refer to? Thanks a lot!

Please read this post, as well as the other sticky post on the Minimo skin. You will need both of them.

-Thom

Thom,

Your screencasts really helpful, thanks a lot!

I have question regarding 03_ui2_popup_part_1.ogg, how can you inserted the lmce game plug in code/db level? Or there have related posts to introduce how to add new plug ins?

Thanks,
Eric

the code is a media plugin, which is located in our SVN:

http://svn.linuxmce.org/svn/branches/LinuxMCE-0810

in src/Game_Plugin
and src/Game_Player

basically, these code bits sit on the core, and on each media director respectively, the plugin handles stream creation and triggering the game player device on each MD appropriately. and the Game Plugin wraps MAME.

The database linkage for these is in the MediaType, and MediaType_DesignObj, and DeviceTemplate_MediaType tables, with the rest being implemented in the Plugin/Player pair. No I have not created screencasts for them.

-Thom

Thom,

basically, these code bits sit on the core, and on each media director respectively
[ERIC] I think Game_Plugin sit on the core, and Game_Player sits on the MD, am I right? And is the following flow correct?

DB<-->DCERouter<-->Game_Player(MD) <--> Game SW
DB<-->DCERouter<-->Game_Plugin <--> Game SW

So there didn't have communication between Game_Plugin and Game_Player, right?

Sorry to bring to you so many questions!


Thanks,
Eric

Thom,

I cant view 2 of the screencasts, 02_designobj_basics_1.ogg and 04_ui2_popup_part_2.ogg. I've downloaded them twice each.
All the other screencasts work except for those two. Can you pls verify if they are indeed working.

Thanx
Karel

those are ogg theora movie files. They do indeed work. There are many different players that can play them. Try renaming to .ogv or .ogm

-Thom

Thom,

Nope didnt work. Its only those two that seem to be the problem.

then play them with videolan client or something else. Promise, they work.

-Thom

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/01-basic_hadesigner_fundamentals.html <-- the first one.

-Thom

Thom,

All the others play. I even updated my vlc player to the latest. Busy watching the first one now.

http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/01-basic_hadesigner_fundamentals.html   <---- Working
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/02_designobj_basics_1.ogg              <---- Not Playing
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/03_ui2_popup_part_1.ogg                <---- Working
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/04_ui2_popup_part_2.ogg                <----- Not Playing
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/05_UI1_Orbiter.ogg                         <---- Working.
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/06_UI1_Full_Screen_OSD.ogg            <---- Working
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/07_UI1_Full_Screen_OSD_2.ogg         <---- Working
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/08_UI1_PDA.ogg                              <---- Working
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/09_Mobile_Remote.ogg                      <---- Working
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/10_cisco_7970_orbiter.ogg                 <---- Working
http://www.localeconcept.com/HADesigner-Screencasts/ogg/11_Monitor_mode.ogg                       <---- Working


Thnx Karel

Both of the ones you marked are playing here.

-Thom

Im thinking those 2 files are corrupt on the localeconcept website?
Is there somewhere else where I can download them from?

Karel

They're NOT. I just played them here from the website.

No, there isn't. That is the canonical download location.

-Thom

Thom,

It seems to be something on my Laptop. Damn MS.
Its playing now. Working my way through them. I'm planning on creating a new orbiter skin.
Lets see how it goes.

Thanx for the replies and patience.