Boxee+Hacks 1.3.4

[solitude]

BOXEE+HACKS, a set of extensions for the default Boxee UI to enable a host of new features:

What does it look like?


Currently at 1.4.5

New features
- Adds the Music section back to the Home screen
- Enable/disable icons on the Home screen
- Replace built-in features such as Movies with apps like Netflix or Vudu
- Adds fan art for TV Shows and Movies
- Adds movie Studio labels on the Movie details page
- Customise the icons listed on the Home screen
- Overlays for 3D movies and Concerts
- New (optional) subtitle search system
- Change the featured content on the Home screen
- More view modes (fan art based carrousel and tiny poster mode)
- New music visualisations
- Access Weather app directly from the home screen
- Growl Notification Plugin for Mac
- Option to automatically select the last unwatched episode of a TV Show
- Super fancy credits screen

Improvements
- Faster HD streaming
- Better VPN performance (MTU tweak)
- Faster UI
- FTP access to your mounted drives
- Block forced updates (hopefully)
- Access to a bunch of advanced settings
- New APIs

Installation is reasonably simple. Just download the package, copy the install files to a USB drive named "BOXEE", enable file sharing, and enter a special install string into your Boxee Box's hostname. After you've installed you can use the update system in the new settings menu.

The full set of instructions and the download can be found at:

http://boxeeplus.com/

If you run into any issues, first read the FAQ:

https://github.com/boxeehacks/boxeehack/wiki/FAQ

The software is completely Open-Source and you are free to make your own modifications. You can fork the project on GitHub.

Important
If you find bugs, or have feature requests, please add them as issues on GitHub. That helps keep track of requests a lot better than we can do through the forum.

Also we can only change certain parts of the Boxee application, since we don't have access to certain core parts of the software. This means that not everything is possible.

Finally, to figure out how to use certain features, check out the Wiki. There isn't much there yet, but this will change over the course of the next few days.

Any questions? Make sure to check the FAQ first!

Thanks
@GTVHackers for finding the original hack to allow this mod
@Ronald for providing the initial version of the new 9x3 view mode
@Jerbob92 for a lot of work on the subtitle system and various other cool improvements
@Mike3y @D4yz @Cigamit @Winedog for various other tweaks and improvements
And thanks to everyone else who helped getting this project this far

Updates:
- Version 1.4.5 - Stability fixes for fanart! Added pandora to home screen options. Friends can be replaced with apps. And minor fixes and stability improvements
- Version 1.4.1 - A small fix for some icons not showing up in certain cases
- Version 1.4.0 - The big one! Adds more home screen customisations. More fan art stuff. A brand new carrousel view mode. Direct access to the weather app on the home screen. Auto jump to last unwatched episode of a Show. Growl Notification plugin. New plugin system and APIs for developers.
- Version 1.3.4 - VPN fixes (finally working)
- Version 1.3.1 - Missing VPN settings added back in + fixes small issue with layout of menu with LiveTV
- Version 1.3.0 - Undertexter.se support, Movie Studio labels, enable/disable any home screen icon, new visualisers, access mounted drives through ftp, set the browser homepage in settings, revamped B+ settings, flat folder fanart support for TV Shows, cleaner movie filename display, credits, MTU tweak now works, browser crashes fix, and many more tweaks, bugfixes and enhancements
- Version 1.2.2 - honest to goodness updater!, more options for replacing the "recent" list on the home screen + more subtitle improvements
- Version 1.2.1 - fixes the "recent" list on the home screen, and some issues with the subtitles.

[mrplow]

yay!, but changing home to recent content didn't work

19:16:56.204 T:3072378656 M:498630656   DEBUG: CItemLoader::AddControl, window = 10000, control = 8200, path = fe
ed://recent/?limit=15 (browse)
19:16:56.204 T:3072378656 M:498630656   DEBUG: CItemLoader::AddControl, 3 GUI_MSG_LOADING, window = 10000, contro
l = 8200 (basecontainer)
19:16:56.205 T:3072378656 M:498630656   DEBUG: CGUIBaseContainer::CGUIBaseContainer,  GUI_MSG_LOADING, 8200 (base
container)
19:16:56.205 T:2959063952 M:498622464   DEBUG: CGetDirectoryJob::DoWork, NEWUI, loading directory, path = feed://
recent/?limit=15
19:16:56.206 T:2959063952 M:498622464   DEBUG: CDirectory::GetDirectory , calling g_directoryCache.GetDirectory w
ith path: feed://recent/?limit=15 , items: 0 , retreiveAll: 0 (cache check)
19:16:56.206 T:2959063952 M:498622464   DEBUG: CDirectory::GetDirectory , g_directoryCache.GetDirectory returned 
false (cache check)
19:16:56.206 T:2959063952 M:498622464   DEBUG: CBoxeeFeedDirectory::GetDirectory - Enter function with [strPath=f
eed://recent/?limit=15] (bf)
19:16:56.207 T:2959063952 M:498622464   DEBUG: CBoxeeFeedDirectory::GetDirectory - [strPath=feed://recent/?limit=
15] was parsed to [dir=recent][file=] (bf)
19:16:56.207 T:2959063952 M:498622464   ERROR: CBoxeeFeedDirectory::GetDirectory - Unrecognized feed path [feed:/
/recent/?limit=15]. Exit function and return FALSE (bf)
19:16:56.207 T:2959063952 M:498622464   DEBUG: Going to return list with size [0] for type [recent] (bf)
19:16:56.207 T:2959063952 M:498622464   DEBUG: GetDirectory - Error getting feed://recent/?limit=15
19:16:56.208 T:2959063952 M:498622464   DEBUG: CGetDirectoryJob::DoWork, NEWUI, done loading directory, bResult =

[Ronald]

@solitude:
I've just downloaded the new version (the one with 153 commits) as of 6:15 AM Swedish time (GMT +1).
Unfortunately there is an error in the otherwise excellent new installer script, as follows:

/bin/busybox sed -i 's/","password/;sh \/data\/boot\/hack.sh","password/g' /data/etc/boxeehal.conf
/bin/busybox sed -i "s/<\/hostname>/;sh \/data\/hack\/boot.sh\<\/hostname>/g" /data/.boxee/UserData/guisettings.xml

Those two 'sed' commands are supposed to insert identical command strings in those two files but the command for "boxeehal.conf" has the names of the script folder "hack" and the prefix of the script filename "boot" switched. So that file will be modified incorrectly. (Typical effect of long-night coding...)

The fix is of course obvious to you, but others might need some help...

-----

@Everyone:
If the "install.sh" file you downloaded has exactly the two lines above (ie: if solitude hasn't had time to notice and fix it yet), then you need to change the first of those lines, so that they become like this:

/bin/busybox sed -i 's/","password/;sh \/data\/hack\/boot.sh","password/g' /data/etc/boxeehal.conf
/bin/busybox sed -i "s/<\/hostname>/;sh \/data\/hack\/boot.sh\<\/hostname>/g" /data/.boxee/UserData/guisettings.xml

-----

@solitude:
I also think you might want to reconsider the simple 'copy' approach used for the case of an install made from $BASEDIR/hack, as a new version might need some old stuff to be cleaned out first, which is not done with the present method. I think it would be better to make a full cleanup for both install cases.

Best regards: Ronald

[Jesseblue]

just downloaded now and it still had the /boot\/hack.sh on the first line...thanks Ronald...thanks Solitude...

edit 1: installed and looks like everything about the hack is gone...no music icon...

edit 2: i think i will unistall it for now. i feel that for my box, its feeling more sluggish...maybe having both folder.jpg and poster info in the nfo is causing things to slow down....i think my previous problem of poster issue is that some of my poster were poster.jpg rather than folder.jpg...

edit 3: i got it installed...best to ensure that the usb with the install files is the only usb inserted...as i suspeted, having the folder.jpg on each movie can slow the gui (when scrolling)...moved them away and now, it is even snappier...niw my only issue are othermovie files that dont have posters....good thing i saved the posters somewhere else..

[aaronwt]

Does the new version still allow you to show 27 pieces of cover art? Instead of the normal 12 that are shown without Boxee+?

[Cybrow]

Yes, I just tried it with Ronald's fix to the typo in install.sh and the 27 covers are there as well as a few other new things in the Boxee+ settings menu. Very nice.

[solitude]

Fixed the typo and added the cleanup of the hack folder

[bartsidee]

Cool! I might be able to help with development when I have some spare time

[doolaik]

so i think i bricked my box.

when 1.2.0 came out (it was only 20mins old on github), i tried to install it with the install.sh and all was well; logo was red and all that jazz. it's been red for over 5 hours now and had to hard boot it to restart it (i guess it locked up while installing). now it boots past the boxes forming the boxee logo and then blackscreens and logo turns red (i've had it on for the past 5 mins to see if it'll redownload or something to fix itself).

any help available?

[Jamflava]

so i think i bricked my box.

when 1.2.0 came out (it was only 20mins old on github), i tried to install it with the install.sh and all was well; logo was red and all that jazz. it's been red for over 5 hours now and had to hard boot it to restart it (i guess it locked up while installing). now it boots past the boxes forming the boxee logo and then blackscreens and logo turns red (i've had it on for the past 5 mins to see if it'll redownload or something to fix itself).

any help available?

Already tried to get into recovery mode?

Turn off the boxee box (if its still on), hold the button on the boxee box for 6 seconds, the color of the logo should turn a bit yellow/green, do a factory reset.