Simplifying menu structure

General discussion about the media server. Feature requests. Hints, tips and tricks.
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arjones85
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Joined:Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:40 am
AV Hardware:No AV hardware. Simple home-built media box running TwonkyServer
Simplifying menu structure

Post by arjones85 » Tue Feb 08, 2011 6:44 am

I am trying out the TwonkyServer software prior to purchase, and am trying to setup the navigation menu on my DLNA devices so that it is *nothing* but the exact folder and file layout that I have shared out. I do not want any other options to show up.

I have set my LG TV in the "Media Receivers" section to be "By Folder", disabled all media feeds, and added a single video folder with a few videos in it to the share list and select "Video Only".

However, when connecting to the server I still get several levels of folders such as "Music" and "Videos", and within these "All Videos" and "By Folder". All I want is a single menu that drops me directly into the media I have shared out in the exact folder structure that it is on my hard disk. Nothing else added to the menu.

How can I go about achieving this? I sent in a support ticket and unfortunately they replied and said it was impossible. I'm hoping maybe somebody here has created a customized menu structure that can achieve this =)

steamhead
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Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by steamhead » Tue Feb 08, 2011 3:09 pm

The very first level of Music, Photos and Video you cannot do anything about in Twonky. That is down to the client to pre-select those specific nodes of the menu tree i.e. if it's a Music Only Player, then if configured well it should automatically select the "music" tree. From there onwards though it is relatively simple to cut down the selection to something simple.

In the Twonky resources/views directory, create file called myfolders.view (or call it what you like just make sure all the references to the name match and don't clash with anything else), that has contents like this -

Code: Select all

<view name='myfolders' path='myfolders.view'>
	<navtree>
		<container id='music'>
			<link id='music/folders' />
		</container>
		<container id='video' >
			<link id='video/folders' />
		</container>
		<container id='picture' >
			<link id='picture/folders' />
		</container>
	</navtree>
</view>
Then edit view-definitions.xml to change the first line to include the name of your new view in both the viewlist and guilist.

Code: Select all

<view name='base' viewlist='advanced,folder,ipodlike,simple,classified,playlists,mobile,myfolders' guilist='advanceddefault,ipodlike,simpledefault,byfolder,myfolders'>
Then restart your server, select myfolders as your view and that should be about as cut down as you can get.

arjones85
Posts:5
Joined:Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:40 am
AV Hardware:No AV hardware. Simple home-built media box running TwonkyServer

Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by arjones85 » Sun Feb 20, 2011 2:29 am

Thanks for the help!

This worked great to make it only show the "By Folder" folder. Is there any way of getting rid of the "By Folder" folder so after I go into Videos it just shows the content?

In addition, unfortunately after adding two video directories it combined both of them. Is there a way of keeping the two video directories separated? Ideally I would like to keep it so that all shared folders I add are separated just like they are on my disk. I would like to be dropped into the Video folder, and then if I added "TV Shows" and "Movies", it shows me "TV Shows" and "Movies" folders for me to select.

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phibertron
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Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by phibertron » Sun Feb 20, 2011 3:23 am

I too only wish we could make changes that appear to be simple requests
This wasnt always the case...
Post version 5.0.68 the ability to make any changes to the way the root navtree works, end in disaster!

Code: Select all

This would be awesome, but this does NOT work

   <navtree>
      <container id='music'>
      </container>
      <container id='picture' >
      </container>
      <container id='video/folders' ' >

      </container>
   </navtree>
1. They made it so that ONLY 3 roots can exist, there is no 4th dimension =)
2. The 3 amigos names must be must be named music, picture, video
3. The roots are not allowed to be populated with anything other than other conainers,
meaning the roots themselves can NOT be created from buildon, filteron, etc.
In addition, unfortunately after adding two video directories it combined both of them. Is there a way of keeping the two video directories separated?
Not sure what you mean by two video shares?
Do you mean you have twonky looking at to shares marked as video?

I went through some examples of things one could do here in this post with multiple video shares
http://twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9273
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10627
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9353
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9408
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9416
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9424
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9364
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9497

arjones85
Posts:5
Joined:Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:40 am
AV Hardware:No AV hardware. Simple home-built media box running TwonkyServer

Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by arjones85 » Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:50 pm

Yes, I have two shares added in twonky that are both marked as video only.

I appreciate the help, but having to go through all of this crud just to get a simple upnp player that doesn't try to be smarter than me is crazy =(

The only upnp player that has done exactly what I've wanted it to do is nero mediahome, but that one for some reason causes an insane amount of disk I/O when you are writing to the same folder that it has shared out.

.Mezzmo also worked fairly well, but I couldn't get it to work with my WDTV properly.

Almost makes me want to just write my own....

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phibertron
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Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by phibertron » Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:51 pm

Twonky is a love hate thing right =)

On the one hand I love that it works, and for me it works well, others not so much
On the other, there are many things you cant do to modify it to fit ones needs

I have used a lot of the other products out there
Yeah nero is a bit unoptimized
TVersity somewhat allows what we are talking about in folder navigation, plus has transcoding
PS3mediaserver has some add in to do something also
Then there Orb, PlayOn, serviio, etc.

But in Twonky's favor, they do at least offer the ability to modify a lot of the menu structure
But not in the way one would expect =)

Trust me if I had the time, I too wouldnt mind just banging out a simple server
its the media scanner that looks to be the bigger thing to code
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10627
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9353
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9408
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9416
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9424
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9364
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9497

arjones85
Posts:5
Joined:Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:40 am
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Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by arjones85 » Thu Feb 24, 2011 4:49 am

Thanks for the help! I ended up figuring out what was causing Mezzmo. to not talk to my WDTV properly. Works beautifully. It's the only one I've found so far that allows me to define exactly what I want my folder structure to look like without having the crazy disk I/O issues that Nero had.

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phibertron
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AV Hardware:Hardware
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XBOX 360
iTouch - Gen 2 and Gen 3
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Encoders
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Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by phibertron » Thu Feb 24, 2011 5:49 pm

Sweet! glad to hear you got mezzmo working for you

FWIW
I kept banging away at things and finnally had some success

But if you go back to twonky take a look at the below post I made

Navtree (How to show folders at the root solved and more)
http://twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9353

This is the one you would want to use
Scenario 14
http://twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9353#p34318

Note:
Everything has a plus and a minus right...
I have played with mezzmo, and love its flexability
But what I dont like is that "everything" has to be parsed through ffmpeg
even if it is not transcodeing it, it still rebuilds the mp4/passthrough
I could never figure out how to make it not do that
for ex: al of the mp4 videos I stream with twonky are ps3 compliant
but when streamed with mezzmo, mezzmo turns then into mpeg ts streams

but this is the twonky forums, so I'll leave it at that


But Sadly we are still constrained, in that we can not make direct links to folders or build smart playlists
like one can with mezzmo, but it is a solution for the most part
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10627
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9353
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9408
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9416
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9424
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9364
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9497

arjones85
Posts:5
Joined:Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:40 am
AV Hardware:No AV hardware. Simple home-built media box running TwonkyServer

Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by arjones85 » Fri Feb 25, 2011 1:25 am

Strange, I haven't had that problem. When streaming the ffmpeg process is not running, and if it was I would definitely notice it as my media machine is just an Atom D510. That tiny Atom processor is not going to transcode anything very smoothly.

I know that you can disable transcoding either per device or globally. I disabled it globally as both my TV and WDTV don't need it.

I guess you already tried that huh?

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phibertron
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Re: Simplifying menu structure

Post by phibertron » Fri Feb 25, 2011 1:41 am

yeah i tried that, im running things on an HP ex485 with the 2ghz celeron

when i turned off transcode globally, my ps3 would not see anything as supported

im going to start taking a look at it again, havent tried to hard on it yet

focused too much time trying to muck with navtree stuff
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10627
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9353
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9408
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9416
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9424
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9364
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9497

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