Difference between revisions of "Menu theme development guide"
| Line 20: | Line 20: | ||
It is generally a good idea to sketch out how the new menu is to be laid out. This will decrease the chance of error as well as speed up the development process. | It is generally a good idea to sketch out how the new menu is to be laid out. This will decrease the chance of error as well as speed up the development process. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Creating a Main Menu== | ||
| + | To create the main menu, create a new document called "mainmenu.xml" For example, this command can be typed at the terminal: | ||
| + | |||
| + | $ gedit mainmenu.xml | ||
| + | |||
| + | The first line of the document will always be | ||
| + | <mythmenu name="MAIN"> | ||
| + | |||
| + | After the mythmenu tag, one or more button tags will define the buttons shown on the screen. Finally, the document will end with | ||
| + | </mythmenu> | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Buttons== | ||
| + | A button defines what text appears on the screen and what action will be taken when the user selects the button. | ||
| + | |||
| + | <button> | ||
| + | <type>SOME_TYPE</type> | ||
| + | <text>My Text</text> | ||
| + | <text lang="XX">My Text in XX</text> | ||
| + | <action>SOME_TYPE_ACTION</action> | ||
| + | <depends>myplugin</depends> | ||
| + | </button> | ||
| + | |||
| + | Below is a description of each tag | ||
| + | |||
| + | * <type> This tag defines what kind of button this is. This will determine what picture is shown when the button is highlighted. A list of known types can be found in Apendix A: Types. | ||
| + | * <text> The default text that appears on the screen. This is generally written in English. | ||
| + | * <text lang="XX"> Text that will appear if the user's local is XX. There may be more than one of these tags | ||
| + | * <action> The action that will result when the user selects the button. A complete list of known actions can be found in Apendix B: Actions | ||
| + | * <depends> Indicates that the button will only be shown if the indicated plugin is installed | ||
| + | |||
| + | TODO: Complete Guide. | ||
Revision as of 00:20, 13 March 2006
Introduction
Menu themes allow the user to customize where certain myth features are located. By creating a customized menu theme, users can tailor MythTV to there own usage. The goal of this guide is to familiarize users with the menu's XML format and to create a comprehensive list of actions that will allow the user to invoke plugins and other menus. This document assumes that mythtv is installed in the "/usr" directory. If it is installed in the "/usr/local" directory, substitute everywhere that says "/usr/" with "/usr/local/".
Overview
Menu themes are a series of XML documents. The XML document defines what "buttons" are shown on each menu. Each XML document describes one menu.
First Step
The first step is to create a directory to hold the menu's XML document. If unsure, a good place is in the home folder. The directory can be called anything that is not already a theme of any kind. To find out what not to call the menu theme, use the following command in a terminal:
$ ls /usr/share/mythtv/themes
Type the following to create a directory for a menutheme in "~/mymenuthemes/mymenu".
$ cd ~ $ mkdir mymenuthemes $ cd mymenuthemes $ mkdir mymenu $ cd mymenu
It is generally a good idea to sketch out how the new menu is to be laid out. This will decrease the chance of error as well as speed up the development process.
Creating a Main Menu
To create the main menu, create a new document called "mainmenu.xml" For example, this command can be typed at the terminal:
$ gedit mainmenu.xml
The first line of the document will always be
<mythmenu name="MAIN">
After the mythmenu tag, one or more button tags will define the buttons shown on the screen. Finally, the document will end with
</mythmenu>
Buttons
A button defines what text appears on the screen and what action will be taken when the user selects the button.
<button> <type>SOME_TYPE</type> <text>My Text</text> <text lang="XX">My Text in XX</text> <action>SOME_TYPE_ACTION</action> <depends>myplugin</depends> </button>
Below is a description of each tag
- <type> This tag defines what kind of button this is. This will determine what picture is shown when the button is highlighted. A list of known types can be found in Apendix A: Types.
- <text> The default text that appears on the screen. This is generally written in English.
- <text lang="XX"> Text that will appear if the user's local is XX. There may be more than one of these tags
- <action> The action that will result when the user selects the button. A complete list of known actions can be found in Apendix B: Actions
- <depends> Indicates that the button will only be shown if the indicated plugin is installed
TODO: Complete Guide.
