epgsearch(5) Epgsearch Version 0.9.24 epgsearch(5)
NAME
epgsearch - Searchtimer and replacement of the VDR program menu
OVERVIEW
EPG-Search can be used as a replacement for the default schedules menu
entry. It looks like the standard schedules menu, but adds some addiâ
tional functions:
- Commands for EPG entries with 5 built-in commands like 'show repeats',
'create search'. One can add own commands for other needs, like adding a
VDRAdmin auto-timer.
- Add up to 4 user-defined times to 'now' and 'next' and an optional
favorites menu
- Searching the EPG: Create reusable queries, which can also be used
as 'search timers'.
- Search timers: Search for broadcasts in the background and add a
timer if one matches (similar to VDRAdmin's auto-timers) or simply
make an announcement about it via OSD
- Avoid double recordings of the same event
* timer preview
* recognition of broken recordings
* fuzzy event comparison
- Progress bar in 'What's on now' and 'What's on next'
- Shift the time displayed by key press, e.g. 'What's on now' + 30 minutes
- Start menu can be setup between 'Schedule' or 'What's on now'
- background check for timer conflicts with a timer conflict manager
- detailed EPG menu (summary) allows jumping to the next/previous
event
- support for extended EPG info for search timers
- extension of the timer edit menu with a directory item, user
defined weekday selection and a subtitle completion.
- Timer conflict check, informs you over the OSD about conflicts
- Timer conflict menu, show detailed information about the conflicts
and let you resolve them
- Email notifications about search timer updates and timer conflicts
Works only with >= vdr-1.3.46 or newer.
Parts of the sources are based on the repeating-ECG patch from Gerhard
Steiner, who gave me the permission to use them. Thanks for his work!
OPTIONS
-f file, --svdrpsendcmd=file
the path to svdrpsend.pl for external SVDRP communication (default
is internal communication, so this is usually not needed anymore)
-c path, --config=path
to specify a specific config directory for all epgsearch config
files, default is â<plugins configuration directory>/epgsearchâ
-l file, --logfile=file
to specify a specific log file for epgsearch (default log file is
epgsearch.log in the epgsearchs config directory)
-v n, --verbose=n
verbose level for log file. Value 0 means no logging. Other values
are 1 (general messages), 2 (detailed messages), 3 (planned for
extra detailed info for debugging purposes)
-r, --reloadmenuconf
reload epgsearchmenu.conf with plugin call. This can be useful when
testing customized menu layouts.
-m file, --mailcmd=file
the external command to be used for mail delivery. The default uses
âsendEmail.plâ. If you are using a different command or script make
sure that it has the same parameter interface as sendEmail.pl.
CONTENT
1. Description
1.1 Menu commands
1.2 Menu search
1.2.1 Menu edit search
1.2.2 Menu search results
1.3 Extended 'now' and 'next'
1.4 Menu setup
2. Search timers
2.1 'Avoid repeats' - internals
2.2 How do we compare two events?
2.3 How and when do we compare?
3. Usage from other plugins or scripts
4. Using extended EPG info
5. Replacing the standard schedule menu
6. Add-ons
1. Description
At first glance EPG-Search looks like the schedules menu entry of VDR.
By pressing the key â0â, one can toggle the bottom color keys to access
additional functions (the default assignment of the color keys can be
adjusted by setup):
1.1 Menu Commands
This menu displays commands that can be executed on the current item.
There are 8 built-in commands:
- Repeats: Searches for repeats
- Record
- Switch
- Create search
Switches to search menu and adds a new search with the name of the current
item (to avoid editing the name manually)
- Search in recordings:
Search the recordings for a broadcast with the same name
- Mark as 'already recorded':
This puts the selected event in the file epgsearchdone.data and instructs
epgsearch to avoid recording this event if an according search timer is set
to "avoid repeats". An already created timer will be automatically removed
with the next search timer update.
- Add/Remove to/from switch list?:
Controls the switch list. If there is an event in the switch list, epgsearch
will announce it and switch to the event before it starts. To access the
complete switch list, call 'Search/Actions/Switch list'.
- Create blacklist:
A blacklist is used to ignore events when using search timers. A search
timer can be setup to ignore events from arbitrary blacklists.
You can add your own commands to this menu by editing the file
epgsearchcmds.conf in epgsearchs config directory. Thereâs a sample
conf file with some sample commands (see directory âscriptsâ, taken
from vdr-wiki.de, thanks to the authors).
The format of the file is the same as VDRâs commands.conf or recâ
cmds.conf. When a command is executed the following parameters are
passed to it:
$1: the title of the EPG entry
$2: the start time of the EPG entry as time_t value (like in the
shutdown script)
$3: the end time
$4: the channel number of the EPG entry
$5: the long channel name of the EPG entry
$6: the subtitle of the EPG entry, "" if not present
To execute a command from the main menu you can also press its associâ
ated number without opening the commands menu.
1.2 Menu search
Here you can add, edit, delete and execute your own queries on the EPG.
The usage and behavior of this menu is similar to VDRâs timer menu.
1.2.1 Menu edit search
Most things in this menu are quite clear, so only some notes on:
- Search term:
The term to search for. If you like to search for more words, sepaâ
rate them by blanks. Leaving this empty (combined with search mode
âPhraseâ) will match anything. This is useful, if you search e.g.
for anything that starts between some times on a specific channel.
With âblueâ you can also select a template for the new search. If
one of the templates is set to default, new searches will automatiâ
cally get the settings of the default template.
Note: fuzzy searching is limited to 32 chars!
- Search mode:
âPhraseâ searches for the expression within the EPG. âAll wordsâ
requires, that each word of the expression occurs in the EPG item.
âat least one wordâ requires, that only one word occurs in the EPG
item. âMatch exactlyâ requires, that your search term matches
exactly the found title, subtitle or description.
With âRegular expressionâ you can setup a regular expression as
search term. You donât need a leading and trailing â/â in the
expression. By default these are POSIX extended regular expresâ
sions. If you like to have Herl compatible regular expression,
simply edit the plugins Makefile and uncomment #HAVE_PCREPOSIX=1 to
HAVE_PCREPOSIX=1 (you will need pcreposix installed, comes with
libpcre from www.pcre.org, but itâs already part of most distribuâ
tions).
See also epgsearch(4) âDescription of the search processâ.
- Use extended EPG info:
Only available if configured, see below âUsing extended EPG infoâ.
- Ignore missing categories:
If set to âYesâ this tells epgsearch that a missing EPG category
should not exclude an event from the results. Caution: Using this
without any other criterions could flood your timers.
- Use channel:
Search only for events in the given channels interval, channel
groups or FTA channels only.
Channel groups (e.g. sport channels or Pay-TV channels) can be manâ
aged with a sub-menu called with âblueâ.
ATTENTION: After changing the channels order please check the setâ
tings of your search timers!
- Use day of week:
Besides the weekdays you can also set up a user-defined selection,
e.g. search only on Monday and Friday.
Youâll find the user-defined selection in the list after Friday.
- Use blacklists:
You can select one or more or all blacklists here. If any search
result is also contained in one of the selected blacklists it will
be skipped.
- Use in favorites menu:
Only available if turned on in setup. With this option you can mark
a search to be used in the favorites menu. The search results of
all these searches are listed in the favorites menu.
- Result menu layout:
Only available if you have defined more than one menu template for
search results in epgsearchmenu.conf. This option is used to assign
a different menu layout for the search results of this search.
- Use as Search Timer:
If set to yes, the plugin will do a background scan of the EPG in
certain intervals and add a timer, if there is a match. You have to
activate the âsearch timersâ in the setup. If set to "user defined"
one can specify time margins with key âblueâ where the search timer
is active or not.
- Action:
Default action is creating a timer for the search results. But you
can also choose to simply announce the found event via OSD or to
switch to the event one minute before it starts.
- Serial recording:
If set to yes, the recordings will be stored in a folder with the
name of the broadcasting and the recordings itself will have the
name of the episode. If there is no episode name, the date and time
of the recording will be used.
- Directory:
Here you can assign a directory, where the recording should be
stored, e.g. âSciFiâ. Use the key âblueâ to select directory
entries already used in other search entries or given by entries in
the file epgsearchdirs.conf (simply place your directories here one
at each line without the leading video directory, also see MANUAL).
If your provider delivers extended EPG infos you can also use variâ
ables like "%Genre%" or "%Category%" in your directory entry. These
are replaced with the current EPG info, when a timer is created.
See also epgsearch(4) âUsing variables in the directory entry of a
search timerâ.
- Delete recordings after ... days:
Some recordings should only be kept for a few days, like news. With
this feature you can tell epgsearch to delete them automatically
after ... days.
- Pause if ... recordings exist:
If the given numbers of recordings currently exists, then epgsearch
will not create further timers. After deleting one or more recordâ
ings it will go on generating new timers.
- Avoid repeats:
If you donât want to record repeats, this feature tries to check if
an event was already recorded/programmed and skips it. Please refer
to the section âAvoid repeats - internalsâ below before using it.
- Allowed repeats:
If you like to accept a certain amount of repeats you can give here
their number.
- Only repeats within ... days:
Give here the number of days a repeat has to follow its first
broadcast. 0 is equal to no restriction.
- Compare title:
When comparing to events then specify here if the title should be
compared.
- Compare subtitle:
When comparing to events then specify here if the subtitle should
be compared. If there is no subtitle than this event is always difâ
ferent to an event with/without a subtitle.
- Compare description:
When comparing to events then specify here if the description
should be compared.
For comparison all parts of the description, that look like a cateâ
gory value, are removed first. The remaining text will be compared.
If this is similar at 90% (regarding the Levinshtein-Distance algoâ
rithm) then it will be accepted as equal.
- Compare categories:
With the button âsetupâ you can also specify which categories
should be compared. As with subtitles an event is different if it
has no according category value.
- Priority, lifetime, margins for start and stop:
Each search timer can have its own settings for these parameters.
Defaults can be adjusted in the plugins setup.
- VPS:
If set to yes, VPS is used, but only, if activated in VDRâs setup
menu and if the broadcasting has VPS information.
- Auto delete:
to automatically delete a search timer if the following is true:
* after x recordings, or
* after x days after the first recording
Only complete recordings are counted. The deletion is executed
directly after the correspondig recording
To toggle the flag âUse as search timerâ without editing the search
entry you can use the key â2â. This will call directly the second comâ
mand of the command menu.
1.2.2 Menu search results
This menu displays the search results. A âTâ lets you know, that there
is already a timer for the event. A âtâ means that thereâs only a parâ
tial timer for it, as in standard schedules menu.
1.3 Extended ânowâ and ânextâ and favorites
By setup, one can add up to 4 additional times to extend the green butâ
ton, e.g. âafternoonâ, âprime timeâ, âlate nightâ. Times, that are
already passed, are skipped (you will not get âafternoonâ at evening)
with the exception that a time will be displayed for the next day, if
it is less then 20h in the future. In these menus you can shift the
currently displayed time by pressing FastRew or FastFwd to move back
and forward in time. If you donât have these keys on your remote, you
can access this function by pressing â0â to toggle the green and yellow
button to â<<â and â>>â. This toggling can be adjusted by setup.
You can display a progress bar in ânowâ and ânextâ. When using
text2skin you should use the setup option "text2skin" in the setup
option "Show progress in âNowâ"/Show progress in âNextâ" (the setting
âgraphicalâ may also work with text2skin, but this depends on the
selected skin).
Furthermore you can enable in the setup an favorites list. You can conâ
figure your searchtimers ("Use in favorite list") to display their
results in you favorite list. This list display event in the next 24
hours ordered by time.
1.4 Menu setup
1.4.1 General
- Hide main menu entry:
This hides the main menu entry âsearchâ. Attention: when the plugin
is assigned to key âgreenâ then hiding the plugin will give you
VDRâs standard schedule menu (see below to avoid this).
- Main menu entry:
If not hidden, the name of main menu entry can be set here. Default
is âProgram guideâ. Note: If you set it to something different from
the default then the main menu entry is no longer dependent on the
OSD language. Setting it back to default or empty restores this
behavior again.
- Start menu:
Select the starting menu âSchedulesâ or âNowâ
1.4.2 EPG menus
- Ok key:
Choose here the behavior of key âOkâ. You can use it to display the
summary or to switch to the corresponding channel. Note: the funcâ
tionality of key âblueâ (Switch/Info/Search) depends on this setâ
ting.
- Red key:
Select if you like to have Standard (âRecordâ) or âCommandsâ as
assignment for key âredâ.
- Blue key:
select if you like to have Standard (âSwitchâ) or âSearchâ as
assignment for key âblueâ.
- Show progress in âNowâ:
In the menu âwhatâs on nowâ you can display a progress bar, that
displays the progress of the current item. When using text2skin you
should use the setup option "text2skin" (the setting âgraphicalâ
may also work with text2skin, but this depends on the selected
skin).
- Show channel numbers:
Select this if you like to have a leading channel number before
each item in the EPG menus.
- Show channel separators:
Display channel group separators between channel in the menus
âOverview nowâ,...
- Show day separators:
Display a day separator between events on different days in the
schedule menu.
- Show radio channels:
Also list radio channels.
- Limit channels from 1 to:
If you have a large channel set you can speed up things when you
limit the displayed channels with this setting. Use â0â to disable
the limit. If the current channel is above the limit, the limit is
ignored and all channels will be displayed again.
- âOne pressâ timer creation:
If set to âyesâ a timer is immediately created when pressing
âRecordâ as introduced in vdr-1.3.38, else the timer edit menu is
displayed.
- Show channels without EPG:
Display channels without EPG to allow switching or create a timer.
- Time interval for FR/FF [min]:
In the menus ânowâ, ânextâ, âuser def 1â, ... you can shift the
displayed time by pressing FastRew, FastFwd on your remote control.
Adjust the amount of minutes to jump here.
- Toggle Green/Yellow:
If you donât have FastRew, FastFwd on your remote control, set this
to yes. When pressing â0â in the menus, this toggles the assignment
of the color keys and assigns e.g. â<<â and â>>â to âgreenâ and
âyellowâ.
- Show favorites menu:
A favorites menu can display a list of your favorite broadcasts.
Enable this if you want an additional menu besides âNowâ and
âNextâ. You can choose between displaying this menu before or after
the menus with user-defined times. Any search can be used as a
favorite. You only have to set the option âUse in favorites menuâ
when editing a search.
- for the next ... hours:
This value lets you adjust the timespan used to display the
favorites.
1.4.3 User-defined EPG times
- Use user time 1..4:
Add up to 4 user-defined times besides ânowâ and ânextâ.
- Description:
Name of the user-defined time, e.g. âAfternoonâ, âPrime timeâ,
âLate nightâ.
- Time:
The associated time of the user-defined time.
1.4.4 Timer programming
- Use VDRâs timer edit menu:
When programming a standard timer epgsearch uses an extended menu,
that also supports a directory item, user defined weekday selection
and subtitle completion. If you are using a patched version of VDR,
that also has an extended timer edit menu and like to use this menu
rather than epgsearchâs then set this option to âYesâ.
- Default recording directory:
This entry will be used in standard timer programming as default
directory. You can also use EPG category variables (e.g. âMy
Movies~%Category%~%Genre%â). When the timer edit menu is launched
epgsearch tries to replace all variables with the values found in
the description of the event. If not all variables could be
replaced then the directory item is left blank.
- Add episode to manual timers:
When manually adding a timer epgsearch can automatically add the
episode name to the timer file resulting in a sub-folder for the
later recording, that is named with the episode name. Choose here
how this should be done. âsmartâ tries to recognize if this makes
sense. Therefore it checks the length of the event and skips the
subtitle if the event has more than 80min.
- Default timer check method:
Manual timers can be checked for EPG changes. Here you can setup
the default check method for each channel. The following methods
exist:
* no check
* by event ID: checks by an event ID supplied by the channel
provider.
* by channel and time: check by the duration match.
Not all channels provide a proper event ID, so you can setup the
default for each channel here. When programming a manual timer,
this default use used in epgsearchâs own timer edit menu.
1.4.5 Search and search timers
- Use search timers:
If yes, the plugin makes a background scan of the EPG and adds
timers if it finds matching entries. This applies only to searches
that are marked with âuse as search timerâ.
- Update interval:
The update interval of the background scan for search timers in
minutes.
- SVDRP port:
If you are using a SVDRP port other than 2001 then enter this here
to get the search timers working.
- Default Priority:
Default priority of generated timers.
- Default Lifetime:
Default lifetime of generated timers.
- Margin at start/stop:
Default margins of generated timers.
- No announcements when replaying:
suppress event announcements while any replay is active.
- Recreate timers after deletion:
epgsearch remembers by default which timers where already created
by search timers and will not recreate them if they were removed.
To disable this behaviour set this to âYesâ.
Default margins of generated timers.
- Ignore Pay-TV channels:
Set this to âYesâ if you donât want to have events from Pay-TV
channels when searching for a repeat.
- Search templates:
Here you can manage search templates which can be used when creatâ
ing a search.
- Blacklists:
Here you can manage blacklists which can be used to suppress
unwanted events within a search.
- Channel groups:
Here you can setup channel groups (e.g. Sport channels, Pay-TV
channels) that can be used as criterion in searches. The same can
be done in the search edit menu.
Important: if you get your EPG from external sources make sure that
search timer updates are disabled while your EPG is updated. The reason
for this is that epgsearch will remove timers without events assigned
to them. This situation can exist while the new EPG is feeded to VDR. A
simple way to disable search timer updates is to use the SVDRP command
SETS in your EPG update script:
svdrpsend.pl plug epgsearch SETS off
<your EPG update script>
svdrpsend.pl plug epgsearch SETS on
1.4.6 Timer conflict checking
- Ignore below priority:
If a timer will fail with a priority below the given value, you
wonât get an OSD message about this and the conflict will be clasâ
sified as ânot relevantâ in the conflicts overview.
- Ignore conflict duration less ... min.:
If a conflict will last only the given minutes it will not produce
an OSD message and the conflict will be classified as ânot releâ
vantâ in the conflicts overview.
- Only check within next ... days:
Here you can specify the day range that should be used for the conâ
flict check.
- After each timer programming:
This performs a conflict check after each manual timer programming
and - if the new/modified timer is involved in a conflict - pops up
an OSD message about it.
- "When a recording starts:
Set this to âyesâ if the conflict check should be performed when a
recording starts. In the case of a conlfict you get immediately a
message that informs you about it. The message is only displayed
if the conflict is within the next 2 hours.
- After each search timer update:
Specify here if you want to have a conflict check after each search
timer update. If set to âNoâ:
- every ... minutes:
performs a conflict check in the background every ... minutes and
informs about relevant conflicts via OSD. Set this to â0â to
disable this feature.
- if conflicts within next ... minutes:
- every ... minutes:
if you like to have a more frequent check and OSD notification
when a conflict appears within the given time, use this feaâ
ture.
- Avoid notification when replaying:
Set this to âyesâ if the donât want to get OSD messages about conâ
flicts if you currently replay something. Nevertheless messages
will be displayed if
the first upcoming conflict is within the next 2 hours.
Also have a look at epgsearch(4), section âWorking with the timer conâ
flict menuâ.
1.4.7 Email notification
Please make sure, that âsendEmail.plâ is in the path of your executaâ
bles and that the âepgsearchupdmail.templâ and âepgsearchconâ
flmail.templâ exists in epgsearchâs configurations directory!
- Search timer notification:
Enable this, if you want to get an email notification, when the
search timer background thread has
- created a new timer
- modified an existing timer
- deleted a timer, that was void because of EPG changes or other user
actions.
(Also requires âUse search timersâ in the search timer setup to be
activated.)
- Timer conflict notification:
Enable this, if you want to get an email notification about timer
conflicts. The notification will only include ârelevantâ conflicts
as specified in the timer conflict setup. epgsearch will always
send a new notification if there is any change in the current conâ
flicts.
(Also requires âAfter each search timer updateâ or âevery ... minâ
utesâ in the conflict check setup to be activated.)
- Send to:
The mail adress of the recipient. Note: Some providers (like Arcor)
donât allow the same adresse for sender and recipient.
- Mail method:
You can choose between:
- sendEmail.pl: this is a simply script shipped with epgsearch, that allows
mail delivery also on systems without a configured mail server. Please
copy it to your $PATH
- sendmail: requires a properly configured mail system
- Email address:
Your full(!) email account address to be used for sending the mail.
- SMTP server:
The name of your SMTP server to be used for sending the mails.
- Use SMTP authentication:
Select âyesâ if your account needs authentication to send mails.
- AUTH user:
Specify the accounts username if your account needs authentication.
- AUTH password:
Specify the accounts password if your account needs authentication.
Note: The password is saved as plain text. You have to make sure on
your own that your system is safe and no VDR configurations files
are visible to non authorized persons.
After the account setup, check if it works with âTestâ. If you are
using âsendEmail.plâ for mail delivery, there should be something like
âEmail sent successfullyâ at the end of the test output. The test funcâ
tion is not available for method âsendmailâ.
Also have a look at epgsearch(4), section âEmail notificationsâ.
2. Search timers
This is quite the same as VDRAdminâs auto-timers, but needs no external
software. When you create a search, you can give it an option to use it
as search timer. Now the plugin scans EPG entries in certain update
intervals (->setup) in the background and creates timers if there are
matching entries. If you donât like to get a new timer, but only want
to be informed about the event set âAnnounce only (no timer)â to yes.
Since these search timers are quite useful for serials, you can set the
option âserial recordingâ in a search, which creates timers whose
recordings are stored in a folder with the serials name and whose
entries are named with the episode name. If there is no episode name,
the plugin names the recording with a date/time string.
To use search timers, you also have to activate them in the plugins
setup. Also edit the SVDRP port, if you are not using the default
2001.
If you want to trigger a background scan manually simply
touch /etc/vdr/plugins/epgsearch/.epgsearchupdate
This can also be part of your shutdown script. (Add here a sleep afterâ
wards to give the plugin the time to finish the scan.)
For more info about searchtimers please refer to epgsearch(4),
âDescription of the search processâ and âHow do Search Timers work?â
2.1 âAvoid repeatsâ - internals
This section explains the feature âAvoid repeatsâ for a search timer.
Sometimes one cannot avoid double recordings of an event only by setâ
ting the corresponding search criterions.
Therefore the feature âavoid repeatsâ tries to check before creating a
timer, if the same event was already recorded in the past or if there
is a timer that records the same event. If so, there will be no new
timer for the event.
2.2 How do we compare two events?
To check if two events are the same there are many possible settings
for a search timer. You can choose the title, subtitle, description or
extended EPG categories within the description of an event to be comâ
pared with the elements of another event.
This comparison is always done case-sensitive and for the whole term.
But the description of an event makes an exception of this. First all
text within the description will be truncated that looks like an
extended category entry, e.g. âRating: tipâ. An extended category entry
is a line of text beginning with max. 40 signs, followed by â:â and
ending with max. 60 further signs. The reason for this cutting is that
some categories like the rating of an event are not part of the
description of the repeat of the same event.
The remaining text will now be compared by length. If the difference is
bigger then 90%, then we rate the description of the two events as difâ
ferent. If not, we apply the Levinsthein-Distance-Algorithm (LD), which
makes a fuzzy text comparison. We accept the description of the events
as equal, if LD returns a match of more then 90%. Since LD is quite
runtime intensive (O(mn)), you should not choose âcompare descriptionâ
as the only comparison criterion, but combine it always with other criâ
terions.
2.3 How and when do we compare?
As already mentioned each search timer update checks search timers with
this feature for recordings in the past or an already existing timer
for the same event.
To remember past recordings epgsearch stores their info in the file
epgsearchdone.data. You can have a look at the contents of this file
calling âshow recordings doneâ in the âactionsâ of the searches menu.
This file only stores info about recordings that are complete, i.e.
that started and stopped just in time. So a broken recording will not
be stored in this file and epgsearch will automatically try to record
the next repeat, if there is any.
How to use it?
As you see, the whole feature depends on the quality of the EPG. After
creating such a search timer, you should first check if it does what is
intended. Therefore the menu of search results has an additional mode
for the key âblueâ named âTimer previewâ. Here you can see, what timers
the next update would create. Existing timers are labeled with âTâ,
future timers with âPâ.
Hint: If the programming results in a conflict simply disable the conâ
flicting timer in the timers menu. The next search timer update, will
try to program a different timer for the same event, if it exists.
When it works not correctly :-)
To get a better control of the programming or not-programming of the
timers when using this feature a log file was introduced. When starting
epgsearch with the command line option â-v nâ where n is the log level
than you get additional info in the file epgsearch.log. Available log
levels are 0 (no logging) to 3 (extended logging). See also the manual
for the command line options.
3. Usage from other plugins or scripts
See epgsearch(4).
4. Using extended EPG info
Some EPG providers deliver additional EPG information like the type of
event, the video and audio format, cast,...
Using tvm2vdr or epg4vdr you can import this into vdr. To use this
information with search timers one has to configure it with the file
epgsearchcats.conf in epgsearchs config directory. The format of the
file is as follows:
ID|category name|name in menu|values separated by ','(option)|search mode(option)
- 'ID' should be a unique positive integer
(changing the id later on will force you to re-edit your search timers!)
- 'category name' is the name as delivered by the EPG provider, e.g. 'Genre'
- 'name in menu' is the name displayed in epgsearch.
- 'values' is an optional list of possible values
- 'search mode' specifies the search mode:
text comparison:
0 - the whole term must appear as substring
1 - all single terms (delimiters are ',', ';', '|' or '~')
must exist as substrings. This is the default search mode.
2 - at least one term (delimiters are ',', ';', '|' or '~')
must exist as substring.
3 - matches exactly
4 - regular expression
numerical comparison:
10 - less
11 - less or equal
12 - greater
13 - greater or equal
14 - equal
15 - not equal
Sample files for epgsearchcats.conf are delivered with the plugin in
the directory âconfâ.
Simply copy the one that fits for you to epgsearchs configurations
directory filename epgsearchcats.conf and then have a look to the
search timers edit menu (after a restart of VDR).
Since setting up a new epgsearchcats.conf is a lot of work, Iâve added
a small tool âcreatecatsâ, that makes the biggest part of the job. It
should have been compiled with the plugin and exists in the sources
directory.
See createcats(1) for information about how to use it.
Internals: epgsearch scans the summary of an event for the category
name followed by â: â for all categories that have a corresponding
value set in the search timer. The search is case sensitive regarding
the category name as also the value.
5. Replacing the standard schedule menu
To use this plugin as a replacement for the default green key, simply
put the line
Green @epgsearch
in your keymacros.conf. If you donât like to get another plugin entry
in your main menu, first hide it by setup. Then you could use my
launcher-plugin and put the line
Green @launcher x
in your keymacros.conf, where x is the position of the Epgsearch plugin
within launchers menu listing.
Attention: Hiding the plugin without using the launcher plugin or other
patches that enable calling hidden plugins will show the standard
schedules menu when you press the green key. This is not needed anymore
after VDR >= 1.3.32.
Another approach is using a patch to VDR that replaces vdrâs standard
schedule menu with epgsearch (vdr-replace-schedulemenu.diff.gz in the
patches subdir, thanks to the author Uwe/egal@vdrportal). When using
this patch the entry should look like
Gree Schedule
This patch is already included in some patch collections, like the Bigâ
patch.
6. Add-ons
epgsearch delivers 2 âminiâ-plugins. Both require an installed
epgsearch (but epgsearch can be hided in the main menu):
- epgsearchonly:
For those who only want to use the search feature and/or search
timers or simply want to have a separate main menu entry for the
search feature. This plugin creates a main menu entry âSearchâ
which calls epgsearch search menu. Activation in VDR start script
with "-Pepgsearchonly".
- conflictcheckonly:
The timer conflict check can also have its own main menu entry
which displays epgsearch conflict overview menu. It has a setup
option to display an information about the last check directly in
its main menu entry. Activation in VDR start script with "-Pconâ
flictcheckonly".
Have fun!
Christian Wieninger
Advanced description
See epgsearch(4) or read online
<http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/README.DE>
<http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/README>
<http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/MANUAL>
SEE ALSO
"epgsearch.conf(5)", "epgsearchcats.conf(5)", "epgsearchcmds.conf(5)",
"epgsearchdirs.conf(5)", "epgsearchmenu.conf(5)", "epgsearchuserâ
vars.conf(5)", "epgsearchdone.data(5)", "epgsearchswitchtimer.conf(5)",
"epgsearchblacklists.conf(5)", "epgsearchchangrps.conf(5)"
FILES
epgsearch.conf
Searchtimers. See "epgsearch.conf(5)".
epgsearchcats.conf
Categories, advanced epg. See "epgsearchcats.conf(5)".
epgsearchcmds.conf
EPG-commands, like the commands in commands.conf. See
"epgsearchcmds.conf(5)".
epgsearchdirs.conf
Pre-defined patches which can be selected while editing an searchtimer.
See "epgsearchdirs.conf(5)".
epgsearchmenu.conf
Configuration of the OSD menu layout. See "epgsearchmenu.conf(5)".
epgsearchuservars.conf
User defined variables. See "epgsearchuservars.conf(5)".
epgsearchdone.data
The done-data. See "epgsearchdone.data(5)".
epgsearchswitchtimers.conf
The switchtimers. See "epgsearchswitchtimer.conf(5)".
epgsearchblacklists.conf
The blacklist. See "epgsearchblacklists.conf(5)".
epgsearchchangrps.conf
The channelgroups. See "epgsearchchangrps.conf(5)".
epgsearchtemplates.conf
Templates for searchtimers. See "epgsearchtemplates.conf(5)".
AUTHOR (man pages)
Mike Constabel <epgsearch (at) constabel (dot) net>
REPORT BUGS
Bugreports (german):
<http://www.vdr-developer.org/mantisbt/>
Mailinglist:
<http://www.vdr-developer.org/mailman/listinfo/epgsearch>
COPYRIGHT and LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2004-2008 Christian Wieninger
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.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERâ
CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Or, point
your browser to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
The author can be reached at cwieninger@gmx.de
The projectâs page is at http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch
The MD5 code is derived from the RSA Data Security, Inc. MD5 Message-
Digest Algorithm.
perl v5.8.8 2008-04-13 epgsearch(5)
