Addin to launch specific MB profiles as workaround for entrypoints

[jhoff80 87]

Any chance of an update for .108?

 

Edit:  Never mind, it still works, as long as you don't choose "Hide this user from login screens" for the profile you're trying to access.

Edited January 11, 2014 by jhoff80

[Logos302 86]

Thanks for this plugin, just tested it on a VM and it's exactly what I need to be able to upgrade fully to MB3.

 

The profile workaround is a tiny inconvenience because it's a separate watched status from the main profiles, but considering that 99% of the time things will be watched via this anyway, the workaround is more than tolerable, and again very much appreciated.

 

Edit:  Although unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work on extenders.  Is there anything that can be done to fix that, or is it pretty much stuck that way since the plugin needs to run an exe?

Trakit can solve your tiny inconvenience for you I believe by sync one user to trakit and then syncing it back to the other user you will essentially sync the profiles.  Anther way which I think is still being worked out is more than one user in the room (but I think this is in early dev still and not support by any client yet).  

Edited January 13, 2014 by Logos302

[marcelveldt 736]

Edit:  Although unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work on extenders.  Is there anything that can be done to fix that, or is it pretty much stuck that way since the plugin needs to run an exe?

 

I don't have an extender to test. Seems to me that it should work, plugin just navigates to MediaBrowser.

Can you be more specific in what is not working ?

[marcelveldt 736]

do you guys have .net development experience or you just doing your best to figure out what works?

 

Forgive me @@ebr for attempting to speak for you, but the MBC code is open source:

 

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/MediaBrowser.Classic

 

Ebr has basically come out and said that the entry points will significantly increase his support burden with the application. Is there anyone here who might be interested in helping? I'm talking from start to finish, not only coding support for custom entry points, but also being around afterwards to provide users with support on them. I think Ebr is probably thinking there's no way I can do entry points if I'm the only developer supporting MBC. So maybe if we can grow our team a little it would become more realistic to add this (and other) features.

 

I do have an idea how to integrate the custom entry points thing in MBC code without having to use the profilehack, which is not a big thing to integrate (if my idea is right).

I'll checkout the source one of these days to test my idea. After that I'll report back and willing to help to get it integrated and supported.

[James 31]

Hi James,

 

My addin will keep working unless there are MB3 updates. But you are right that MB3 adds its own start menu entry every time an update is launched.

What I do is simply disable the default MB3 entry within MCE settings.

This can be automated like you mention, preferrably a setting in the MB3 settings to not (re)create the entry, but if you want i can also extend my MCE addin with a background task to disable the entry....

 

Hi Marcel,

 

Happy New Year. I have a functional setup so I don't see the need to invest additional time if it's just for me. There may be other users however that may benefit from this functionality.

 

I see you are looking at possibly modifying the MB source to integrate custom entry points, that would be awesome if it is not a huge time investment on your part. Wish you the best of luck.

 

Cheers

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[ebr 14948]

I do have an idea how to integrate the custom entry points thing in MBC code without having to use the profilehack, which is not a big thing to integrate (if my idea is right).

I'll checkout the source one of these days to test my idea. After that I'll report back and willing to help to get it integrated and supported.

 

The main problem here - and why I have not been willing to implement it - is that creating these entry points requires modifications to the WMC environment (using hacking tools) that have to be repeated every time a new version comes out.  Unless we find a way around that limitation, I don't want the functionality in there.

 

The support burden is explaining why these things all broke with each update.

 

Is your idea one which gets around this problem?

 

Additionally, how do you handle user profiles?  How do you tell each entry point which user it belongs to?  How do you NOT show entry points for users that shouldn't see them?

[Luke 37175]

Great news. We love it when new contributors step forward.

[chef 3749]

The main problem here - and why I have not been willing to implement it - is that creating these entry points requires modifications to the WMC environment (using hacking tools) that have to be repeated every time a new version comes out.  Unless we find a way around that limitation, I don't want the functionality in there.

 

The support burden is explaining why these things all broke with each update.

 

Is your idea one which gets around this problem?

 

Additionally, how do you handle user profiles?  How do you tell each entry point which user it belongs to?  How do you NOT show entry points for users that shouldn't see them?

 

In Media Browser Kinect I use the Media Browser user Profile Ids to create their Speech Registry Profile Counter parts.

 

If that is of any help to the people figuring this project out.

[jhoff80 87]

I don't have an extender to test. Seems to me that it should work, plugin just navigates to MediaBrowser.

Can you be more specific in what is not working ?

Sorry, meant to respond to this sooner.

 

If you run it from the extender, you just get the error message "Sorry, mb3launcher has stopped responding"

[jhoff80 87]

Huh, sorry about that.  It appears that was user error.  I fixed a server-side permissions issue and now it works on the extenders every time.

[breakthestatic 0]

Huh, sorry about that.  It appears that was user error.  I fixed a server-side permissions issue and now it works on the extenders every time.

 

I'm getting this error as well.  What was the server-side permissions issue that you corrected to get this to work?  Any help would be great!

[jhoff80 87]

In my case I was having issues with Media Center scanning my networked media, so I added Anonymous Login support and thought that was what fixed it.

 

I then stupidly later realized it was something entirely different that was the fix when I was trying to use my second extender.  Sign in on the extender to each profile, and make sure you configure the settings for each profile on the extender.  I had to choose to disable the EHS and all of the 'extra' music folders and all of that stuff, as well as re-enable auto-enter single item folders.

 

I had already done this on the PC itself, but apparently I needed to re-do it for each MediaBrowser profile for each extender as well (seems its tied to the PC user, not the MB profile).

[jeremyzone 0]

Wow this is awesome, I've been looking for this functionality for days now!

 

I am almost there with my setup but I've hit a snag. Not sure if it's something that can be fixed.

 

When I use a custom entry point, MB3 seems to be "stuck" on that profile for the rest of the time when using WMC.

 

For example, I have two entry points set up. One goes to a "movies" profile and the other a "tv show" profile. If I click on the movies one from the start menu, it successfully takes me to the movies profile I've set up. However, if I go back to the start menu and then select the TV Shows entry point, it takes me back to the movies screen I was just on.

 

Is there a way to fix this?

 

Thanks in advance for any replies!

[ebr 14948]

You would have to fully exit MBC for this to work.  You are obviously going back to the start menu with the "green button" which leaves MBC running and when you go back, you just come back to where you were.

[jeremyzone 0]

You would have to fully exit MBC for this to work. You are obviously going back to the start menu with the "green button" which leaves MBC running and when you go back, you just come back to where you were.

Ah thanks a lot for the reply. That makes sense with what I'm seeing

 

I went ahead and downgraded back to MB2 because it suits my needs better as far as entry points goes

[chef 3749]

I am interested in how you have accomplished starting mbc with a specific profile.

[chef 3749]

I am interested in how you have accomplished starting mbc with a specific profile.

[ebr 14948]

This tool was written a while ago so I'm not sure how he is accomplishing it but there is now a field in the config file specifically for startup parameters.  It is not published or designed to be used externally, but PM me and I'll fill you in.

[jhoff80 87]

Just saying, but if someone does eventually come up with a better way of doing this (don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful for the workaround at all, because it's what makes MB3 usable for me), I'd love if it worked for profiles that are hidden from the login screen so that these extra users don't show up on the web interface.

[ge2301 4]

Hi,

 

I have one wish, that many are also interested in I guess. I'd like to make 2 seperated entries in mediacenter for music and audiobooks.

Currently they are combined and need to be filtered by category, which is not very convenient and user friendly.

 

I already saw a few interesting examples here about what is possible, so perhaps you have an ideo how to code it in a reg or xml file.

For me to would be ideal to rename the standard music entry in MCE to "Audio" and then having to sub entries "Music" and "audiobook".

The challenge will be to separate the filter options in the entry point!

 

Thanks for any feedback or idea.

 

Ge2301

[slink 2]

Thanks for this.  Your workaround meant I could happily update to MB3 after being forced to due to Throgsoft themes no longer working.

 

Seems most MB users just don't get the entry points thing but I'm surprised more people don't setup their media in the way we do.  For those of us (seemingly few) that use WMC as their media center as opposed to just a media library we want a single interface with logical options into Music, Photos, LiveTV and recording setup, in addition to all the media library stuff.  I don't want to watch something from my media library using the EHS to get there and then have to drop out to the WMC interface to setup a recording or stick some music on.   The MB implementaiton of music and photos and TV just isn't as good.

 

For me entry points into libraries seems far more useful than the new MB3 profiles feature.  Who really needs that?  All the people that use their setups in different ways to us it seems!

 

Cheers

Slink

[marcelveldt 736]

Hi all,

 

Been a while since i last posted here. Despite the fact that I've been a long time fan of Microsoft MCE (with offcourse MBC) I decided to leave MCE because it isn't developed anymore and a lack of support like support for common plugins like YouTube and Netflix.

I have off course looked at MBT, looks very promising but not yet a replacement for my MCE-installations.

The last months I've been busy with creating the ideal setup based on XBMC with a special very-user-friendly skin: just easy big buttons on home screen to get the function you want.

And most important of all... what was holding me back from XBMC was that Mediabrowser's library is much better then the XBMC one so I've integrated the XBMB3C plugin in my custom skin for XBMC.

 

Looking at the replies in this thread I guess more people are looking for this kind of setup (no techie interface, just user damn friendly) I wanted to let you know.

My skin is at the XBMB3C section of this forum:  http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/9255-mediaportals-titan-skin-port-for-xbmc-gotham-with-xbmb3c-support/

 

Off course, If any problems or questions raise for my entrypoint-workaround for MBC I'll still assist!

Edited July 31, 2014 by marcelveldt

[slink 2]

I looked at XBMC shortly after I found out it could do LiveTv and for the same reasons as you (lack of continuing development with WMC) but I ultimately switched back to WMC because I didn't like the way XBMC did YouTube, which has become pretty essential now with my kids loving their own playlists of songs and kids TV.  I much prefer the way I have it in WMC, where I use a custom entry point to launch Chrome into full screen with the YouTube TV interface.  I have an AHK script that kills Chrome when I press the Green button to get back to WMC and it works flawlessly.  I much prefer the YouTube interface to the XBMC plugin I was using and there was some functionaility missing in the plugin.

 

Before I go down the route of tinkering with XBMC again, do you know whether you can launch into a web browser session through XBMC so I can get YouTube via the web TV interface?  I couldn't seem to do it last time but I didn't look too hard TBH.

 

 

[marcelveldt 736]

I looked at XBMC shortly after I found out it could do LiveTv and for the same reasons as you (lack of continuing development with WMC) but I ultimately switched back to WMC because I didn't like the way XBMC did YouTube, which has become pretty essential now with my kids loving their own playlists of songs and kids TV.  I much prefer the way I have it in WMC, where I use a custom entry point to launch Chrome into full screen with the YouTube TV interface.  I have an AHK script that kills Chrome when I press the Green button to get back to WMC and it works flawlessly.  I much prefer the YouTube interface to the XBMC plugin I was using and there was some functionaility missing in the plugin.

 

Before I go down the route of tinkering with XBMC again, do you know whether you can launch into a web browser session through XBMC so I can get YouTube via the web TV interface?  I couldn't seem to do it last time but I didn't look too hard TBH.

Yes there is a really great add-on for that:  http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=170965

[slink 2]

Nice.  Thanks for that.  Time to get tinkering again.  WMC is very good and works well but it is clearly a dying beast.  It's a shame as MS were actually way ahead of the curve on this one.  They were actually too early to the party but lord knows why they didn't continue to develop through Windows 8 and 10, it could have been their killer product.  Nobody, even Apple, has cracked TV yet but I think 2015 will be the breakthrough year with the perfect storm of fast streaming and SmartTVs bringing it to the masses.   Too bad MS dropped the ball (again).  Ballmer really was the worst CEO in technology firm history.