[mythtv] Mythplugin Tutorial on the Wiki.

[Stuart Morgan]

On Saturday 12 July 2008 16:53:06 Michael T. Dean wrote:
> Though the HelloMyth plugin (referenced at
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Plug-in_developers_guide ) does not
> use mythui, there exists another plugin tutorial, mythtutorial2, that
> was developed using mythui.  It was quite a while ago, so it may need
> updating.  And, if you do work with Bert to update it (or update it
> yourself), it may be nice to get it into the wiki for other
> (license/Bert's permission permitting--I think the license should be
> GPL2, so it shouldn't be a problem, but Bert may have planned to do
> something more with it before posting to the wiki).

Mythui in trunk has evolved from what was there in 0.21 meaning that tutorials 
may already be out of date. The basics remain much the same, but 
mythlistbutton has changed completely from a themers perspective and changed 
names too. Several additions have been made and some methods have been 
renamed.

I know changing the API and xml is annoying from the perspective of backward 
or forward compatibility but mythui has had to adapt to real world situations 
once I started to convert plugins to use it. Along the way it also seemed the 
best time to consolidate the API, using identical naming for methods etc. One 
recent example was the differing naming for methods which reverted widgets to 
their initial state - some called it Clean(), some Reset(). So they were 
changed to be the same. Other changes have resulted from wanting to give 
mythui increased flexibility or to lay the framework for future features.

> Note, though, that there are probably no good examples of what you can
> do with mythui as mythui is developing/progressing quickly (thanks to
> Stuart Morgan's hard work).  And, even Stuart (who probably best
> understands mythui's capabilities) hasn't had the time to really work
> through the existing themes to rewrite them to take advantage of mythui
> (he's been basically doing conversions for now so he can work on mythui).

As Michael says, there are no good examples of a how mythui can be used, the 
existing converted plugins merely mimic how they looked or worked in the 
past. I'm not sure anyone has grasped the full picture of the ideas buzzing 
around my head for just how differently mythui screens could be designed and 
themed. The following two images actually show two different plugins, but for 
the purpose of demonstration imagine they are the same - the screen is 
identical, the difference in the layout is down to the theme.
http://miffteevee.co.uk/imagebin/mythui_video_mockup.png
http://miffteevee.co.uk/imagebin/mythuibuttonlist1.png

Ideally we'd write a plugin which did nothing more than demo the different 
widgets and just some of their possible configurations, I just don't want to 
take time away from the conversion to do it though.
-- 
Stuart Morgan