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diff --git a/PLUGINS/src/pictures/README b/PLUGINS/src/pictures/README new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd6bb7d --- /dev/null +++ b/PLUGINS/src/pictures/README @@ -0,0 +1,119 @@ +This is a "plugin" for the Video Disk Recorder (VDR). + +Written by: Klaus Schmidinger <kls@cadsoft.de> + +Project's homepage: www.cadsoft.de/vdr + +Latest version available at: www.cadsoft.de/vdr + +This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify +it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by +the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or +(at your option) any later version. +See the file COPYING for more information. + +Description: +============ + +The 'pictures' plugin implements a simple picture viewer. + +There is already an 'image' plugin out there which has a lot more +functionality than this one, but it's way too complex for my taste, +and also converts the image files on-the-fly, which makes it slow +on slow hardware. + +This plugin assumes that the pictures have already been converted to +MPEG frames (with the 'pic2mpg' script that comes with this archive), +and doesn't implement any fancy features like zooming, panning or +tiled previews. It's just a very simple viewer. + +It also assumes a rather particular directory structure (see below), +which I have found to fit well for my needs. If you use a different +structure, the plugin should still work, but the information displayed +in the caption may not be as expected. + +Remote control key functions while in the Pictures menu: +======================================================== + +- Left/right/Up/Down: navigate in the menu as usual. +- Ok: opens a directory or displays the selected + picture. +- Red/Play: start a slide show at the first picture in the + selected directory (or at the selected picture). + +Remote control key functions while displaying pictures: +======================================================= + +- Left/Right: advances to the previous/next picture. At the end of a directory + it automatically advances to the first picture of the next + directory and displays the caption. +- Up/Play: start the slide show. +- Down/Pause: stop the slide show. +- Blue/Stop: exit from the picture viewer. +- Green/Prev: skip to the first picture in the previous directory. +- Yellow/Next: skip to the first picture in the next directory. +- Ok: toggle the caption display. +- Back: return to the picture selection menu. + +The slide show starts with the picture immediately following the one that +is currently visible, and continues until the last available picture, +automatically crossing directories as necessary. + +Pressing any of the Left/Right, Green/Prev, Yellow/Next or Back keys +automatically stops an ongoing slide show. + +Directory structure: +==================== + +The 'pictures' plugin requires a particular directory structure in order to +work properly. Starting at some base directory (e.g. "/path/to/pictures"), +there is one directory level marking the year in which the pictures were +taken, followed by a level with a properly sortable combination of month +and description, and finally the plain picture files, as in + +/path/to/pictures/YEAR/MONTH_DESCRIPTION/*.jpg + +For example + +/path/to/pictures/2007/06a_Vacation_in_Colorado/dsc01234.jpg +/path/to/pictures/2007/06a_Vacation_in_Colorado/dsc01235.jpg +/path/to/pictures/2007/06b_Our_cat/dsc01236.jpg + +The MONTH is "01" for January through "12" for December. If there is more +than one entry for one month, it should be followed by a letter to make them +sort correctly. Note that this is just a suggestion on how to make the +directories sort in the correct chronological order. Instead of the two digit +month number, optionally followed by a letter, you can use anything else you +like. There must be an underscore between the MONTH and the DESCRIPTION part, +and any underscores within the DESCRIPTION will be converted to blanks when +displaying the description (this is done so that blanks can be avoided in +the directory names). + +Preparing the files: +==================== + +In order to display the pictures as "still pictures" on the DVB device, they +need to be converted into MPEG frames. This procedure takes some time, and +would make viewing pictures sluggish, especially on slow hardware. Therefore +the script "pic2mpg" must be used to convert all picture files before +using this plugin, as in + +pic2mpg /path/to/pictures /path/to/pictures.MPG + +This will recursively walk through all pictures in the source directory and +convert them into MPEG frames, stored in the destination directory. The +extension ".MPG" is just a suggestion, you can name the directory anything +you like, and it doesn't have to start with the same path as the source +directory. Just don't make the destination directory a subdirectory of +the source directory, because this would surely lead to problems. +See "pic2mpg -h" for a list of available options. +The pic2mpg conversion can be run any time, even if converted pictures +already exist. It will only convert pictures that haven't been converted +yet. Any changes to the source directory will be reflected in the destination +directory accordingly after pic2mpg has finished (note that this especially +means that any files or directories in the destination tree that have no +corresponding entry in the source tree will be deleted!). So you can run +pic2mpg, for instance, after copying new pictures into your picture +directory, or after making any other kind of changes to your existing +pictures. It might even be a good idea to run pic2mpg in a (nightly) +cron job. |