How to Add Recently Added to your homescreen

[brokentrees]

UPDATED 07.12.10
this post should contain all pertinent information, including updates found posted later in thread

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I have always been a forum lurker and have learned a great deal over the past couple years and thought I would begin giving back. Sooooooo.....

How to Add Recently Added to your Homescreen

Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk. There is little chance of messing things up to badly however I do suggest backing up your boxee install or having a reinstall close by

I have been mucking around the Boxee XML files since the original Alpha (I didn't have a lot of friends so I removed the Friends and Recommended feeds on its screen). It has been posted elsewhere how to completely rid yourself of the recommended and featured columns however I wanted more

For the beta it is a simple edit of the Home.xml located @

Program Files (x86)\Boxee\skin\boxee\720p

for Win 7 users I haven't played much with linux or mac versions but surely the process should not be to different. Attached is my edited home.xml file which you can simply paste over the original file.

This will put the recently added filed in the middle column and moves the featured column to the left. A great deal more customization is possible however I liked the default looks so I just changed the feeds referenced


Stop Reading if you are happy and do not wish to get technical about what I did.

For now I will just lists the lines changed and if you wish to have more info just comment on the thread or PM me if needed

line 317 <texture>icons/icon_featured.png</texture>
line 328 <label>54063</label>
line 979 feed://featured/?limit=10
line 990 <texture>icons/icon_whatsnew.png</texture>
line 1001 <label>52008</label>
line 1106 boxeedb://recent/?limit=20

You could potentially put whichever feed you like

boxeedb://recent/?limit=6
boxeedb://movies/?limit=0
boxeedb://tvshows/?limit=0
boxeedb://albums/?limit=0

feed://activity/?limit=6
feed://recommend/?limit=6
feed://queue/?count=0

Edit 07.12.10
history://all/?limit=10
history://video/?limit=10
history://audio/?limit=10
history://picture/?limit=10

or your own feed if defined correctly
label and icon change of title is fairly non-technical as well if willing to dive-in

the value at the end is the marker for amount of items displayed
0 = All items displayed

I know much of this info may be found elsewhere and I only wish to share with the boxee community to create an even better boxee experience

Edit 05.10.10
The feeds column on the home screen at installation is the 'featured' rss which includes videos suggested by friends as well as those imported from twitter/facebook/etc. if linked to your account

Add MY_RSS Feeds to Home Screen

Note: This will ONLY list on Home Screen your subscriptions, not the individual items within
Also, &v= removed from end of url thus on occasion you should open rss app through apps to update the 'last_feed_refresh' value

Sort - A to Z
rss://www.boxee.tv/rssapi/userfeeds?sort=name


Sort - Recently Added
rss://www.boxee.tv/rssapi/userfeeds?sort=date
End Edit 05.10.10


Edit 07.12.10
The different feed label ids are listed in strings.xml located at

Win XP C:\Program Files\Boxee\language\English
Win 7 C:\Program Files (x86)\Boxee\language\English

Listed below are the most commonly used/sought after labels

String = String ID

Removable = 51350
Recommendations = 51400
Friends Activity = 51401
Recently Added = 51402
Recently Used = 51403
Friends = 51404
Activity = 51405

Albums = 51407
Artists = 51408
My Photos = 51412
My Videos = 51410
My Sources = 51406

Unresolved = 51414
Applications = 51415
Queue = 51416

Applications / Music = 51409
Applications / Video = 51411
Applications / Photos = 51413


To hide/remove a column simply remove applicable code in xml; however, I strongly suggest commenting lines out in case boxee gets angry (and you wouldn't like boxee when it's angry "queue ominous music"). i.e.
<!-- SOME.LINE -->

End Edit 07.12.10

as you can see I didn't do anything special just some quick edits. If you wish to change the color of the text you can do so in the code which applies in home.xml. To edit the color of the icons use your favorite image processor on applicipal files located @
Program Files (x86)\Boxee\skin\boxee\media\icons

Hopefully that wasn't to confusing and thanks goes to the boxee team for creating such an awesome product.
Also thanks to: Sccrluk9, toomanyplugs, & generator85
Keep up the excellent work

[roylt84]

love customization, I actually do like this layout a little better, one option i wish if we could delete things from our hard drive while still in boxee with the simple press of a button followed by a confirmation prompt before being deleted. Maybe even a password prompt that way someone just can't go and delete all your stuff.

[darcilicious]

You can vote for this feature -- see my signature for the link

[darcilicious]

Would I use

boxeedb://tvshows/?limit=0

To get JUST tv shows in the Recently Added column? Right now my Recently Added column is show only the music files Boxee scanned when I first set it up. I since added local sources for TV Shows, plenty of new ones have shown up since the Boxee scanned the music files but no TV Shows are showing up at all...

(P.S. Thanks for this, I really really miss the recently added feature!

[bmoura]

You can vote for this feature -- see my signature for the link

I submitted a vote for your request. It's on my Get Satisfaction/Boxee wish list !

[4lex]

So I've been able to place my Hulu queue RSS URL in lieu of the suggested feed and it works great. But i got to thinking...Since I have all of my video podcasts that I subscribe to in Google Reader,, within a folder...I was wondering if there was a way to make one RSS URL to rule them all.

I've tried sharing the folder but that URL isn't being recognized. I tried the atom feed url, opml url, tried using bit.ly for both (don't know why) but that didn't work either. This was easy when the "My Feeds" app was still in boxee but it's been pulled for improvements for a while with reassurances that it will be returning "very soon" since early Jan.

Does anyone have any insight on how to pull various video podcasts into one list on the home screen. Am I on the right track with the GReader approach or is there something better/easier?

If it matters, some of the podcasts are:
Tekzilla
Geekbrief
CNet's Apple Byte
CNET Loaded
Scam School
HD Nation
Film Riot
and my Hulu Queue

[focusontheclouds]

You could potentially put whichever feed you like

boxeedb://recent/?limit=6
boxeedb://movies/?limit=0
boxeedb://tvshows/?limit=0
boxeedb://albums/?limit=0

feed://activity/?limit=6
feed://recommend/?limit=6
feed://queue/?count=0

Is there a way to list recent episodes, rather than just the TV shows? How can I look through the feed options? Is there documentation of this online, or can you direct me to a spot to browse in the boxee files?

[darcilicious]

Is there a way to list recent episodes, rather than just the TV shows? How can I look through the feed options? Is there documentation of this online, or can you direct me to a spot to browse in the boxee files?

Hopefully, the "add to my shows / queue new episodes" will be modified to work correctly with newly added local media (like it does now for online sources). If so, then the bit above wouldn't be necessary I think.

Go here to vote this issue up: http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-3705

[betx983]

thanks brokentrees and boxee - the level of customization and the cross platform support is a winner

[focusontheclouds]

Is there a way to add the 'boxee feeds' that you define for your account on the boxee website to the first column on the home screen?