Re: Didn't Work

Hi Larry,

Woodgeard, Larry A wrote:

> Ok. I started over by uninstalling. Because the uninstall does not clean
> up the registry, a subsequent re-install failed. So I uninstalled again,
> and manually deleted all references to freeguide in the registry. Then I
> tried the install fresh.
>  
OK, I've added this to the TODO list.  This may be a problem with NSIS, 
or it could be my uninstall code going wrong.  Could you specify which 
registry entries were left, and in what way the uninstall failed?

> With http_proxy already set before the install, the configure ran fairly
> smoothly this time. The only glitch I experienced was the font on the
> dialog box where I enter the username was messed up. I enter the
> username and every character is a vertical bar. 
Yes, we've had this reported a few times, and I can't track it down.  
The problem is in the Tk GUI for XMLTV I developed, and Tk is so flakey 
it _may_ be practically unfixable.  I've added it to the TODO to have 
another look.  Thanks.

> But it apparently
> captured the username anyway because the rest of the configure and
> subsequent download succeeded. In fact, help works now. Before, using
> help took me to some null host path.
>  
Yes, this happens if something goes wrong during installation.  Often 
the problem is that Java wasn't installed when you installed FreeGuide.

> I believe the proxy needs to be set before the initial startup or one
> seems to get into a quagmire.
This _shouldn't_ be a problem as you can re-run the "Choose channels" 
stage at any time.  I think the problem was what I described above.  If 
Java isn't installed when you install FreeGuide, it fails to put some 
items into the registry.  I've added to the TODO list the need to 
complain to the user if this has happened.

> Uninstalls are problematic making
> re-installs problematic (for me). The proxy is problematic even if it's
> set. I'm on a laptop, I'm mobile, and some networks I use have firewalls
> and some don't. If I set the http_proxy, I have to unset it on the
> wireless network. Hard-wired environment variable proxy is problematic
> for mobile users.
>  
I think you'll need to take this up with the XMLTV people if you want it 
fixed.  Perhaps a couple of batch files to set and unset the variable 
would serve as a workaround.

> I noticed xmltv has commands to fetch icons. I didn't see any obvious
> instruction on how to utilize icons with FreeGuide. I think icons would
> be a really nice touch, particularly if they are available, and
> automatically employed.
>  
Some of the grabbers in XMLTV automatically provide icon URLs, and for 
those FreeGuide already displays them (although they are all different 
sizes, which doesn't look too neat, and is on my list to fix).  The 
na_dd grabber uses a separate command to add icons, and I haven't got 
around to figuring out exactly what I need to do to make this work with 
FreeGuide.  Basically, if the XML contains icon URLs, FreeGuide will use 
and cache them automatically, but I think the na_dd icons command 
actually downloads them rather than adding URLs to the XML.

If you had time to figure out how to do this, I'd be really happy, and 
add this functionality to FreeGuide.

> This is just a feature suggestion. If you dump the output from the
> personalized TV guide to a xml file, then you could use the output as a
> to-do list for recording by another program. I'm not sure if you guys
> have some kind of solution like that already but it seems like it would
> enhance the value of the FreeGuide.
>  
Yes, that is such a good idea that it is somewhere on my TODO list already!

Thanks again for your useful comments and reports.

Andy


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