conditional fields to display different content

[nico1080]

Having a feature that will display different content based on a condition.

Exemples:

1. if cover thumbail available, then display thumbail , else show the plot text instead of the thumbnail
2. some videos have integrated chapters (info label Player.Chapter, Player.ChapterCount, Player.ChapterName) if the video have no chapter kodi will sent back "00" for Player.Chapter, Player.ChapterCount, so if I display these info label it wil show "00"
   This feature will allow to do:
   If Player.ChapterCount>1, then display something (eg, Chapter xx/yy, {chapter name}) else display nothing

[mattblovell]

2\. If Player.ChapterCount>1, then display something (eg, Chapter xx/yy, {chapter name})  else display nothing

This is somewhat similar to the handling of "Unknown" for the artist special treatment that exists in audio_text_fields(). At present, there is a hard-coded comparison that occurs against the string "Unknown" and a test checking of the boolean drop_unknown from the TOML file.

That approach could be extended to have an exclude_value string (or possible a list of strings) to check for. If the named InfoLabel matches that string (or, if a list proves possible, any entry in the list), then display of that textfield (and the associated label, if present) gets skipped (just as if the InfoLabel value was the empty string). (Kodi appears inconsistent here, although perhaps the approach is always to provide a value for fields that are intended to be numeric.)

Regarding Point 1, an "alternate" is possible. Although, for cover art specifically, one would have to either pass info to or get info back from get_artwork() to interact properly with the selection of default images.

However, all of the above may not be relevant if special treatment via a lookup dictionary (Idea #16) is implemented. Since the user-specified callback functions would all be in Python, they could use any desired conditions and have any number of fallback approaches that the user might want to implement. Both of the above (as well as other proposed Ideas) could be implemented with that approach.

[mattblovell]

For the second item in the original post, I think (with kodi_panel v1.27) it should now be possible to specify

exclude = "00"

for Player.Chapter. More sophisticated conditional behavior would best be handled by writing a new string manipulation function and adding it to the STRING_CB lookup table.

[mattblovell]

if cover thumbail available, then display thumbail , else show the plot text instead of the thumbnail

The above should now be possible, albeit with some Python programming. One could add a new entry to the ELEMENT_CB table and have a fields entry refer to it, and completely omit the thumb at the top-level of a layout.

The new element-drawing callback function could invoke get_artwork(), saving the result and checking the status of the newly-added _image_default flag. That flag gets set if get_artwork() had to make use of one of the default files for artwork.

• If _image_default is True, then one could return the plot (as a string for rendering, making use of additional wrap, etc keys).
• If _image_default is False, one could then place the artwork as usual.

The above is admittedly non-trivial! Since I haven't tried implementing it, there could also be a few holes in my description.

For those reasons, I'll try to ponder how easy it would be to add alt functionality to the thumb entry.

[nico1080]

All these possibilities should work for my exemples but is is not exactly the feature I had in mind.

I will try to re-formulate it by explaining what I will need to create in order to have the wanted behaviour:

Create a new callback functions family: layout_heuristic_CB
exemple:

def chapter_test:
If Player.ChapterCount>1, return "A", else return "B"

This layout_heuristic_CB could then be invoked for any item in the layout with a heuristic key

[[A_LAYOUT.A_DEFAULT.fields]]
name = "MusicPlayer.TrackNumber"
posx = 420
posy = 132
font = "font7S"
fill = "color_7S"
heuristic ={chapter_test}="A"

in my exemple track number would be displayed only if chapter count returned by kodi infolabel is >1, otherwise it would be not displayed

and an other layout:

[[A_LAYOUT.A_DEFAULT.fields]]
name = "MusicPlayer.Time"
posx = 420
posy = 132
font = "font7S"
fill = "color_7S"
heuristic ={chapter_test}="B"

in my exemple time would be displayed only if chapter count returned by kodi infolabel is =<1, otherwise it would be not displayed

The combination of these two [[A_LAYOUT.A_DEFAULT.fields]] will display either track number or time based on result

One could also imagine more than 2 retrun value for layout_heuristic_CB function that would conditionaly displaymore layout items. (if "A" display layout1, if "B" display layout2, if "C" display layout3 etc
Or it could be just "dumbed" to true (or true/false) result.

This feature would allow simpler writing of the setup.toml file

[mattblovell]

This feature would allow simpler writing of the setup.toml file

Ah, I think I understand now.

I've opened Issue #36. Per what I post there, I don't believe TOML supports exactly the syntax you propose.

My thought would be to permit a fields entry to provide the new keys

• display_test and
• display_if

where display_test is the name of a STRING_CB callback function and display_if specifies the string match that must occur for the entry to be rendered.

[nico1080]

The drawback of this syntax is that setup.toml file would need two additionnal keys for one feature, It is not that user friendly as user can ommit a key. but it should stay managable

Upon further though, would it not be better to:

• make the display_test compatible with infoLabels (not limited to callback function)
• add a display_ifnot keys that just reverse the display_if

In my exemple for displaying various label based on Player.chapter content (different than "00")

It will make the following field

[[V_LAYOUT.V_DEFAULT.fields]]
name  = "my custom name"
format_str = "chapter {Player.chapter}/{Player.chaptercount} {Player.chaptername} "
posx  = 340
posy  = 180
font  = "font_tiny"
fill  = "color_7S"
dynamic = 1
display_test= "Player.chapter"
display_ifnot = "00"

With this one would not need a custom callback function for simple test --> A lot user friendly.
I think most user will not use custom callback function

[mattblovell]

With this one would not need a custom callback function for simple test

See update posted to Issue #36

[mattblovell]

Implemented in kodi_panel v1.29.

[nico1080]

I used this function to display timeshift offest if higher than 10s nico1080@ab5874e

Also for chapter test : nico1080@60503a5

[nico1080]

another exemple for showing thumb or plot if thumb is empty b56f56c