Allow user to quick play items with play button

[cewert]

This allows the user to "quick play" an item with type "Movie" or "Episode" from the home screen, itemgrid2, and the tv season episode list using the play button on the remote.

Changes
Create field quickPlayNode to hold selected (focused) item node
Create observers on the quickPlayNode fields that report to main loop
Validate and play video from main loop

Issues
N/A

[neilsb]

I like the idea. Not had a chance to try the code yet, but hopefully this weekend.

Wondering if there was maybe something we could do to avoid having to modify IF statement when we add new supported types (E.g. Music albums, tracks, photos etc). Perhaps we could have a CanQuickplay property of the JFContentItem class that could be set for each type that inherits it?

And possibly even a GetQuickplayItem() function that each item type can override to provide the media info to play. This would let TV Series or Seasons to implement it to return the appropriate video?

[cewert]

something we could do to avoid having to modify IF statement when we add new supported types

I like that idea but the home screen uses HomeData I believe - not JFContentItem but I'd have to double check. Also, I'm not sure the API call I'm using can support all of those different types. If we need different API calls for each type then we can't avoid the type check. we'd have to either validate type before sending to function or have one giant function that writes api call based on type.

a GetQuickplayItem() function that each item type can override

I don't follow. Where would this code live?

[neilsb]

I like that idea but the home screen uses HomeData I believe - not JFContentItem but I'd have to double check.

No, you're right. I thought I had moved the home screen over to using the items based of JFContentItem but not yet.

Also, I'm not sure the API call I'm using can support all of those different types.

a GetQuickplayItem() function that each item type can override

I don't follow. Where would this code live?

I think I probably need to think this through some more. I was thinking that the end goal for the selection stuff would be to have a single "Selected Item" (that would be based on a JFContentItem) and for it to have an additional property to tell us whether it should be Viewed or Played. There was then just one function in the main even loop that observed the selectedItem and would perform the appropriate action based on the type

Type	View / Play	Action
Folder	View	Show in ItemGrid
Folder	Play	Play 1st item in Folder (video / photo / music)
Library	View	Show in ItemGrid
Library	Play	Play 1st item in Folder (video / photo / music / etc)
Movie	View	Movie Details Screen
Movie	Play	Play Video
Music Album	View	Album Details Screen
Music Album	Play	Play Album from 1st track
Music Track	View	Album Details Screen
Music Track	Play	Play track
Photo	View	View photos from Album in ItemGrid
Photo	Play	Show photo
Photo Album	View	View photos in ItemGrid
Photo Album	Play	Start slideshow from 1st photo
Playlist	View	Playlist Details Screen
Playlist	Play	Play 1st Video in Playlist
TV Show	View	TV Show Details Screen
TV Show	Play	Play 1st unplayed Episode
TV Show Season	View	TV Show Details Screen - Season Selected
TV Show Season	Play	Play 1st unplayed Episode
TV Episode	View	TV Show Episode Screen
TV Episode	Play	Play Video
Video	View	Video Details Screen
Video	Play	Play Video

The JFContentItem would define the GetQuickPlayItem() function in the interface, which would be implemented in each of the Data items (i.e. SeriesData would implemented it that it performed an API call to get the 1st unplayed episode in the Series, or if there are none then S1E1. Or whatever logic was decided to be the correct one). The function in the main even loop knows that it could call 'GetQuickPlayItem()' on any JFContentItem and would receive back either a Video, Music Track, or Photo - and display that accordingly.

As I say, needs to thought through some more (if it's even a direction we want to go).

[cewert]

On one hand, I like where your heads at. It seems like the more "roku" way of doing things - attaching the data to nodes.

But on the other hand, it seems unnecessary. We can't get rid of the type check, we'll still have to manually modify the logic as we add support for more item types, and doing this before the home screen rewrite would create extra work.

Like you said, I think we should think it out more. Maybe make issues for all of our big picture stuff i.e. the future plans for JFContentItem, quick play etc.

PS: I also thought quickplay could be used as a way to support deep links but i still need to look into that more.