Could any of you plugin wizards tell me if it's at all possible to create a plugin for profiler that would display the front images of all/certain profiles as a screensaver.  I've copied all the front covers into a separate folder and told the built in slideshow screensaver to display those but everytime I add new dvds I'd have to copy them all again.  And it would be great if parameters could be set so that only certain covers showed, e.g. unwatched movies only.

So is this possible?  Or am I just p****ng into the wind? 

Download this screensaver:

http://doena-soft.de/dvdprofiler/screensaver/DVDProfilerScreenSaver.zip

Unzip it and edit the settings.xml. There you can set the interval and the selection of files you want to see - currently it is set to show the front covers of UPC and manual profiles, not of DiscID profiles.

Then you copy both files to the windows\system32 directory and activate it the usual way.

The problem is that a screensaver is a program running independently from DVDProfiler which is started by the operating system. A plugin is running in the context (and process) of DVD Profiler.

Such a screensaver would need access to the DVDP database after it has been started. It would be possible to design it as a two-part application (one runs as plugin and serves as "host" and one os the screensaver client) with an inter-process communication, but that's quite a bit of work.

Another possibility would be write a secondary program that scans the database and creates a settings file for my screensaver but that would create a "snapshot" of the collection and would have to be done regularily.

Quoting DJ Doena:

Quote:
Another possibility would be write a secondary program that scans the database and creates a settings file for my screensaver but that would create a "snapshot" of the collection and would have to be done regularily.

That would call for a plugin ... 

cya, Mithi

Quoting Mithi:

Quote:
Quoting DJ Doena:

Quote:
Another possibility would be write a secondary program that scans the database and creates a settings file for my screensaver but that would create a "snapshot" of the collection and would have to be done regularily.

That would call for a plugin ... 

cya, Mithi

Yeah, but I was never a good plugin writer, I never really liked the API. My programs are all based on the xml export.

Here's the source if anyone wants to make modifications:

http://doena-soft.de/dvdprofiler/screensaver/DVDProfilerScreenSaver_src.zip

And here's a samll program that lets you create a settings file for your owned collection, you only need the exported XML and the path to your images and then it will save a settings.xml into your windows\system32 folder:

http://doena-soft.de/dvdprofiler/screensaver/CreateScreenSaverSettings.zip

Also with source code if someone wants to modify it to filter for unwatched entries:

http://doena-soft.de/dvdprofiler/screensaver/CreateScreenSaverSettings_src.zip

Quoting MarEll:

Quote:
Thats way over my level of understanding, how would I go about editing that to show only unwatched entries?  Or ones with a certain tag if thats even possible?

Thanks for posting though.

OK, expanded the program a bit. Now you've got the following options:

/Owned
/Owned=true
/Owned=false

(default=false)
if set or set to true, only profiles from the owned collection will be used

/DiscIDs
/DiscIDs=true
/DiscIDs=false

(default=true)
if set or set to true, DiscID profiles will be included, if set to false only manual or UPC profiles

/Tag=<your tag>
if set, only profiles with that tag will be included

/Watched=<your username>
if set, only profiles with a watched event with that user name will be included

/Unwatched=<your username>
if set, only profiles that have not a watched event with that user name will be inluded


And now some parameters to circumvent the file selection dialogs

/CollectionFile
path and file name of your exported collection

/ImagesPath
path to your images folder in your database folder

/SettingsFile
path and file name of your settings file in the windows\system32 folder


And finally for debugging reasons:

/Verbose
/Verbose=true
/Verbose=false

(default=false)
if set or set to true, the program will tell you why it didn't include a profile in the list


For example, my start parameters look like this:

CreateScreenSaverSettings.exe
  /owned
  /unwatched="DJ Doena"
  /tag="never seen"
  /discids=false
  /collectionfile="d:\xampp\phpdvdprofiler\collection.xml"
  /imagespath="d:\files\dvd profiler\databases\dj doena\images"
  /settingsfile="%windir%\system32\settings.xml"
  /verbose

Download for exe and source is same as above.

It doesn't seem to be showing unwatched titles for me.  It show titles with certain tag (cheers for that) but it seems to be ignoring the watched satus.

Thanks for all the time you've put into this!