SS Plus

SSPlus is more than just a replacement for the default screensaver. It provides a range of user selectable Views from a simple logo to detailed Now Playing information including Album Art and tag information. While music is playing it can display fullscreen Fanart/Backgrounds from the users own collection. It has a Photo Slideshow facility based on user defined Collections (albums) featuring a comprehensive navigation system.

The following screenshots are just a small sample of the views available...

NPVR idle

Music playing with Fanart

Music Playing with no Fanart

Photo Slideshow (paused)

Key Features

• works with MusicBox4, WebRadio and the built-in Music plugin to enhance your music experience
• will optionally display your own music Fanart collection
• start a MusicBox4 random playlist with one click on your remote (or Alt-R on your keyboard)
• passive Slideshow mode - simply startup and watch - SSPlus will do the rest
• active Slideshow mode - easily navigate through your Collections, Directories, and Photos
• build a Favourites Photo Album - quickly add Photos to your Favourites Directory with a single keystroke
• large choice of Views for each mode - selectable while SSPLus is running
• View/Mode memory - as you change Mode, the View changes automatically
• Client-Specific settings - each one of your Clients/Extenders can have their own individual SSPlus settings

Downloading and Installing

The latest version of the SSPlus plugin is v1.2.0

Download, uncompress and run the installer, then set SSPLus as your default screensaver (see below). When the screensaver kicks in, follow the instructions on the introductory view.

Download:SSPlus.zip (1276 downloads)

The installer includes a 'Universal' skin which will be installed under Skin\Default.

If your preferred skin supports SSPlus, it will be used in preference to the Universal skin.

If your preferred skin does not support SSPlus, for best results you will need to copy the following font files from your "Data Directory\Skin\Default" to "Data Directory\Skin\YourSkin"

aescrawl.ttf (if MB4 is installed)
aenigmascrawl.txt (if MB4 is installed)
DroidSans.ttf
DroidSans-Bold.ttf

To set SSPlus as your default screen saver

edit "Data Directory\config.xml"
(Using Notepad.exe or similar NOT Wordpad.exe)

and change

to

To activate Fanart

 edit "Data Directory\Plugins\SSPlus\SSPConfig.xml"
(Using Notepad.exe or similar NOT Wordpad.exe)

and add the following between <settings> and </settings>

SSPlus will look for Fanart called ArtistName*.jpg in "Data Directory\Media\Artists" - if you are using the latest version of Music Box 4 this will already exist, otherwise you may need to create this directory and populate it with your own Fanart. If no Fanart is found for the currrently playing ArtistName, SSPLus will display a (pseudo)random image from "Data Directory\Skin\Default\MusicBox4\Backdrops". Again, you may need to create this directory and populate it with your own Backdrops.

To activate Slideshow

 edit "Data Directory\Plugins\SSPlus\SSPConfig.xml"
(Using Notepad.exe or similar NOT Wordpad.exe)

and add the following between <settings> and </settings>

Change the paths in the <Directory></Directory> nodes to point to your own Photo Directories and change the Collection name(s) as required. You can use Drive letter paths of the form C:\My Photos or full network paths of the form \\PCName\My Photos.

You can have one or more Collection(s) each containing one or more Directory(s). SSPLus does not enforce a limit on the number of Collections or Directories. SSPlus will look for photos in the specified directories and first level sub-directories.

Requirements

This plugin has been tested with NPVR v2.4.3 or later.

Configuration

SSPlus keeps its settings in the "Data Directory\Plugins\SSPlus\SSPConfig.xml"

The following settings are user configurable:
(Edit using Notepad.exe or similar NOT Wordpad.exe)

Change to false to stop displaying the Date/Time at the top/bottom of the screen

Number of seconds between screensaver moves

List of FileTypes to be included in Album Art search - add or remove any valid image types

This controls where SSPlus looks for Album Art and the order images are displayed

Supported sources are...

The option above can also be over-ridden for specific music directories by creating a file in the directory named sspartsource.txt containing options from the list above - for example: track|folder|embedded

Change to false to disable Fanart

Client Specific settings

For users with extenders (NMT/MVP), each client can over-ride any and all of the general SSPlus settings. Simply add a <PCH-MACADDRESS></PCH-MACADDRESS> with your extender's MAC Address to the <ClientSpecificSettings> node (or change one of the supplied ones) and insert/remove any settings you want. In the example above, <moveFrequency>15</moveFrequency> is for illustration purposes only and can be removed.

Using the Plugin

SSPlus is a screensaver with a variety of Views which can be scrolled through while SSPlus is active, each displaying a different combination of available metadata. Different Views are designed for different NPVR Modes like music playing, slideshow running, both active, NPVR is idle, etc. SSPlus will 'remember' the current View for each Mode between NPVR sessions. A View can be Locked to a specific mode.

Pressing Home then Home (or Info then Info) anytime while SSPlus is active will display a context sensitive menu of the keystrokes which are available for the current Mode.

While SSPlus is running (All Modes)

While SSPlus is running (Music not playing)

While SSPlus is running (Music playing)

While SSPlus is running (Slideshow active)

Skinning

You can create your own views by adding your own Elements(s) to SSPlus.xml. (You should also keep a separate copy of your xml code for adding to future releases of the skin.)

The file SSPlus Skin Fields.txt in the SSPlus skin folder contains a list of the text and image fields provided by SSPlus.

Support

This plugin is discussed in the Plugin & Skin support forum

Un-installation

<Instructions on how to un-install the plugin.>

Todo

• Our policy is one of continued improvement...

Author(s)

Developed by ACTCMS Jaggy. Thanks to psycik for the original MLPanel source which paved the way for SSPLus and for the continued use of his Interfaces.dll tag interface. Thanks to mvallevand for suggestions, testing and help with NMT support as well as continuing to develop and support Interfaces.dll. Thanks to Steeb for help with the wiki stuff.

Fanart: thanks to mvallevand for making it so easy to build a Fanart collection using MusicBox4.

History

v1.2.0 (12 August 2012)

• added support for Music Fanart
• fixed the bugs reported for v1.1.0 BETA
• fixed some untidyness when NPVR running in command line mode

v1.1.0 BETA (17 June 2012)

• added Photo Slideshow feature

v1.0.0 (23 January 2012)

• fixed a rendering problem where initial display was not being cleared
• fixed a bug where Album Art wouldn't cycle on the last track in a playlist
• fixed a bug where the Album Art cycle could start on the second image
• fixed a bug where skin field @ArtistTitle was not correctly displayed
• suppress NPVR static Date/Time/Nowplaying when running as a plugin (needs NPVR 2.2.6 or later)

v0.9.1 BETA (17 July 2011)

• Initial public release

Category:Plugin