Software update: myHTPC R21

Version R21 of myHTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer) is available for download. This program is especially useful if you have a DivX box and want to operate it with a remote control on the couch. It allows you to control the program, play movies, view pictures and listen to music. The back-end of myHTPC works with XML files that can be modified to your own wishes. The changelog looks like this:

• (#231) The channel number that is specified in channels.ini is now a string. You can put whatever you desire there. This was required for some systems that need more than a single number to change channels.
• myHTPC now calls a function called “Cancel” in the EPG plug-in whenever a recording is cancelled. This function takes the same parameters as the “Watch” and “Record” functions.
• The program sub-title has been added as a parameter to the Cancel, Watch and Record functions. It is now the last parameter after the channel number.
• This release includes a new version of the standard EPG TVPI plug-in that incorporates the changes listed above. If you have modified the original plug-in, the installation will over-write it.
• myHTPC now verifies whether the EPG plug-in is registered correctly at start-up. It displays messages in the log accordingly.
• You can now specify the directory to use when loading listings. This is configurable from the EPG node in the configuration app. If you leave it blank, it will use the current default, which is datatvlistings.
• When building the music library, the “datacatalogs” directory is now created automatically if it is not present. In previous versions it would generate an error.
• myHTPC now has icons for the main application, the configuration app and the wizard. Many thanks to Brian H. Johnson for creating these.
• The application can now hide the taskbar icon or run in the system tray. This is configurable through the Display node in the configuration.
• There is a new version of the Winamp2 plug-in that now uses the standard Winamp window name and does not always launch a new copy of winamp. This should help with problems running other winamp plug-ins that require the window name. I don’t anticipate this causing any other problems, but if it does, please let me know.
• (#218) The titles in the Now Playing screen did not get updated properly in some cases when using the Winamp plug-in.
• (#170) Solved the problems with the Weather module and Celsius temperatures. There was a bug in the wizard that did not configure things properly. Also, the module did not notice if you changed between F and C and kept loading old weather data. In addition, the module will now expire cached weather data after one hour.
• The metadata editor now allows you to have values ​​with “=” in them; they are no longer stripped off.
• The music module now allows you to customize the views it displays. Even though you have 4 “tags” to work with, you can now combine them how you please. A “view” is a name and an ordered list of tags to browse. The default views are:
  • Genre : genre, artist, album, title
  • Artist : artist, album, title
  • Album : album,title
  • Title : title
• In the future we can add more tags, and make this a bit more flexible.
• The Music module now has “Clear Queue” and “Play All” buttons that are configurable. Play All will play all the items that are currently visible in the list.
• The Jukebox screen now has a “Back” button under the cover art. It is only visible if you configure myHTPC to always add BACK buttons (under Display)
• There is now a new command in the remote control section. It’s called CLEAR. The default mapping for this key is VK_CLEAR, which translates to SHIFT-NUMPAD5. This is a weird key, because if NumLock is turned OFF, then SHIFT is not necessary.
• The Music, Now Playing and Jukebox screens now processes the CLEAR command, which stops playback and clears the queue.
• The Now Playing screen also now responds to the DISPLAY command, (mapped to the INSERT key by default) which switches it between showing files/video or files/cover art.
• myHTPC now responds to the EXIT command, (mapped to F12 by default) which takes you back to the main menu from wherever you may be.
• I removed a pretty significant memory leak and two smaller ones. The pictures and video browser are also a little bit faster now.

[break]If you do not use Windows XP, you need GDI+, which can be downloaded from this one microsoft web page.