1epgsearch(1) Epgsearch Version 2.4.1 epgsearch(1)
2
6 epgsearch - Searchtimer and replacement of the VDR program menu
7
9 EPG-Search can be used as a replacement for the default schedules menu
10 entry. It looks like the standard schedules menu, but adds some
11 additional functions:
12 - Commands for EPG entries with 5 built-in commands like 'show repeats',
14 'create search'. One can add own commands for other needs, like adding a
15 VDRAdmin auto-timer.
16 - Add up to 4 user-defined times to 'now' and 'next' and an optional
18 favorites menu
19 - Searching the EPG: Create reusable queries, which can also be used
21 as 'search timers'.
22 - Search timers: Search for broadcasts in the background and add a
24 timer if one matches (similar to VDRAdmin's auto-timers) or simply
25 make an announcement about it via OSD
26 - Avoid double recordings of the same event
28 * timer preview
29 * recognition of broken recordings
30 * fuzzy event comparison
31 - Progress bar in 'What's on now' and 'What's on next'
33 - Shift the time displayed by key press, e.g. 'What's on now' + 30 minutes
35 - Start menu can be setup between 'Schedule' or 'What's on now'
37 - background check for timer conflicts with a timer conflict manager
39 - detailed EPG menu (summary) allows jumping to the next/previous
41 event
42 - support for extended EPG info for search timers
44 - extension of the timer edit menu with a directory item, user
46 defined weekday selection and a subtitle completion.
47 - Timer conflict check, informs you over the OSD about conflicts
49 - Timer conflict menu, show detailed information about the conflicts
51 and let you resolve them
52 - Email notifications about search timer updates and timer conflicts
54 Parts of the sources are based on the repeating-ECG patch from Gerhard
56 Steiner, who gave me the permission to use them. Thanks for his work!
57
59 -f file, --svdrpsendcmd=file
60 the path to svdrpsend for external SVDRP communication (default is
61 internal communication, so this is usually not needed anymore)
62 -c path, --config=path
64 to specify a specific config directory for all epgsearch config
65 files, default is '<plugins configuration directory>/epgsearch'
66 -l file, --logfile=file
68 to specify a specific log file for epgsearch (default log file is
69 epgsearch.log in the epgsearch config directory)
70 -v n, --verbose=n
72 verbose level for log file. Value 0 means no logging. Other values
73 are 1 (general messages), 2 (detailed messages), 3 (planned for
74 extra detailed info for debugging purposes)
75 -r, --reloadmenuconf
77 reload epgsearchmenu.conf with plugin call. This can be useful when
78 testing customized menu layouts.
79 -m file, --mailcmd=file
81 the external command to be used for mail delivery. The default uses
82 'sendEmail.pl'. If you are using a different command or script make
83 sure that it has the same parameter interface as sendEmail.pl.
84
86 1. Description
87 1.1 Menu commands
88 1.2 Menu search
89 1.2.1 Menu edit search
90 1.2.2 Menu search results
91 1.3 Extended 'now' and 'next'
92 1.4 Menu setup
93 2. Search timers
94 2.1 'Avoid repeats' - internals
95 2.2 How do we compare two events?
96 2.3 How and when do we compare?
97 3. Usage from other plugins or scripts
98 4. Using extended EPG info
99 5. Replacing the standard schedule menu
100 6. Add-ons
101
103 At first glance EPG-Search looks like the schedules menu entry of VDR.
104 By pressing the key '0', one can toggle the bottom color keys to access
105 additional functions (the default assignment of the color keys can be
106 adjusted by setup):
107 1.1 Menu Commands
109 This menu displays commands that can be executed on the current item.
110 There are 8 built-in commands:
111 - Repeats: Searches for repeats
113 - Record
115 - Switch
117 - Create search
119 Switches to search menu and adds a new search with the name of the current
120 item (to avoid editing the name manually)
121 - Search in recordings:
123 Search the recordings for a broadcast with the same name
124 - Mark as 'already recorded':
126 This puts the selected event into the file epgsearchdone.data and instructs
127 epgsearch to avoid recording this event if an according search timer is set
128 to "avoid repeats". An already created timer will be automatically removed
129 with the next search timer update.
130 - Add/Remove to/from switch list?:
132 Controls the switch list. If there is an event in the switch list, epgsearch
133 will announce it and switch to the event before it starts. To access the
134 complete switch list, call 'Search/Actions/Switch list'.
135 - Create blacklist:
137 A blacklist is used to ignore events when using search timers. A search
138 timer can be setup to ignore events from arbitrary blacklists.
139 You can add your own commands to this menu by editing the file
141 epgsearchcmds.conf in the epgsearch config directory. There's a sample
142 conf file with some sample commands (see directory 'scripts', taken
143 from vdr-wiki.de, thanks to the authors).
144 The format of the file is the same as VDR's commands.conf or
146 reccmds.conf. When a command is executed the following parameters are
147 passed to it:
148 $1: the title of the EPG entry
150 $2: the start time of the EPG entry as time_t value (like in the
151 shutdown script)
152 $3: the end time
153 $4: the channel number of the EPG entry
154 $5: the long channel name of the EPG entry
155 $6: the subtitle of the EPG entry, "" if not present
156 To execute a command from the main menu you can also press its
158 associated number without opening the commands menu.
159 1.2 Menu search
161 Here you can add, edit, delete and execute your own queries on the EPG.
162 The usage and behavior of this menu is similar to VDR's timer menu.
163 1.2.1 Menu edit search
165 Most things in this menu are quite clear, so only some notes on:
167 - Search term:
169 The term to search for. If you like to search for more words,
170 separate them by blanks. Leaving this empty (combined with search
171 mode 'Phrase') will match anything. This is useful, if you search
172 e.g. for anything that starts between some times on a specific
173 channel.
174 With 'blue' you can also select a template for the new search. If
176 one of the templates is set to default, new searches will
177 automatically get the settings of the default template.
178 Note: fuzzy searching is limited to 32 chars!
180 - Search mode:
182 'Phrase' searches for the expression within the EPG. 'All words'
183 requires, that each word of the expression occurs in the EPG item.
184 'at least one word' requires, that only one word occurs in the EPG
185 item. 'Match exactly' requires, that your search term matches
186 exactly the found title, subtitle or description.
187 With 'Regular expression' you can setup a regular expression as
189 search term. You don't need a leading and trailing '/' in the
190 expression. By default these are POSIX extended regular
191 expressions. If you like to have Herl compatible regular
192 expression, simply edit the plugins Makefile and uncomment
193 '#REGEXLIB = pcre' to 'REGEXLIB = pcre' (you will need pcreposix
194 installed, comes with libpcre from www.pcre.org, but it's already
195 part of most distributions).
196 See also epgsearch(4) 'Description of the search process'.
198 - Use content descriptor
200 Some providers deliver content descriptors in their EPG, like
201 "Movie/Drama", "Documentation",...(available with vdr-1.7.11)
202 Select here the descriptors to search for. Multiple choice is
203 possible, that must match with all given descriptors (AND
204 operator).
205 - Use extended EPG info:
207 Only available if configured, see below 'Using extended EPG info'.
208 - Ignore missing categories:
210 If set to 'Yes' this tells epgsearch that a missing EPG category
211 should not exclude an event from the results. Caution: Using this
212 without any other criterions could flood your timers.
213 - Use channel:
215 Search only for events in the given channels interval, channel
216 groups or FTA channels only.
217 Channel groups (e.g. sport channels or Pay-TV channels) can be
219 managed with a sub-menu called with 'blue'.
220 ATTENTION: After changing the channels order please check the
222 settings of your search timers!
223 - Use day of week:
225 Besides the weekdays you can also set up a user-defined selection,
226 e.g. search only on Monday and Friday.
227 You'll find the user-defined selection in the list after Friday.
229 - Use blacklists:
231 Blacklists are a way to exclude unwanted events. Select only
232 global, one, more or all blacklists here. If any search result is
233 also contained in one of the selected blacklists it will be
234 skipped.
235 - Use in favorites menu:
237 Only available if turned on in setup. With this option you can mark
238 a search to be used in the favorites menu. The search results of
239 all these searches are listed in the favorites menu.
240 - Result menu layout:
242 Only available if you have defined more than one menu template for
243 search results in epgsearchmenu.conf. This option is used to assign
244 a different menu layout for the search results of this search.
245 - Use as Search Timer:
247 If set to yes, the plugin will do a background scan of the EPG in
248 certain intervals and add a timer, if there is a match. You have to
249 activate the 'search timers' in the setup. If set to "user defined"
250 one can specify time margins with key 'blue' where the search timer
251 is active or not.
252 - Action:
254 Default action is creating a timer for the search results. But you
255 can also choose to simply announce the found event via OSD as soon
256 as it is found or to automatically switch to the event before it
257 starts. It's also possible to get an announcement via OSD before
258 the event starts and to switch to its channel with 'Ok'.
259 - Serial recording:
261 If set to yes, the recordings will be stored in a folder with the
262 name of the broadcasting and the recordings itself will have the
263 name of the episode. If there is no episode name, the date and time
264 of the recording will be used.
265 - Directory:
267 Here you can assign a directory, where the recording should be
268 stored, e.g. 'SciFi'. Use the key 'blue' to select directory
269 entries already used in other search entries or given by entries in
270 the file epgsearchdirs.conf (simply place your directories here one
271 at each line without the leading video directory, also see MANUAL).
272 If your provider delivers extended EPG infos you can also use
273 variables like "%Genre%" or "%Category%" in your directory entry.
274 These are replaced with the current EPG info, when a timer is
275 created.
276 See also epgsearch(4) 'Using variables in the directory entry of a
278 search timer'.
279 - Delete recordings after ... days:
281 Some recordings should only be kept for a few days, like news. With
282 this feature you can tell epgsearch to delete them automatically
283 after ... days.
284 - Pause if ... recordings exist:
286 If the given numbers of recordings currently exists, then epgsearch
287 will not create further timers. After deleting one or more
288 recordings it will go on generating new timers.
289 - Avoid repeats:
291 If you don't want to record repeats, this feature tries to check if
292 an event was already recorded/programmed and skips it. Please refer
293 to the section 'Avoid repeats - internals' below before using it.
294 - Allowed repeats:
296 If you like to accept a certain amount of repeats you can give here
297 their number.
298 - Only repeats within ... days:
300 Give here the number of days a repeat has to follow its first
301 broadcast. 0 is equal to no restriction.
302 - Compare title:
304 When comparing to events then specify here if the title should be
305 compared.
306 - Compare subtitle:
308 When comparing to events then specify here if the subtitle should
309 be compared. With 'yes' epgsearch will classify two events only as
310 equal if their episode names match and are not empty. With 'allow
311 empty' two events may be equal if both subtitles are empty.
312 Normally you would choose "no" in this case.
313 - Compare description:
315 When comparing to events then specify here if the description
316 should be compared.
317 For comparison all parts of the description, that look like a
319 category value, are removed first. The remaining text will be
320 compared. If this is similar at the value of the next option
321 (regarding the Levinshtein-Distance algorithm) then it will be
322 accepted as equal.
323 - "Min. match in %:"
325 The needed minimum match of descriptions in percent.
326 - Compare date:
328 Sometimes an event is repeated many times within some period (day,
329 week, month,...), but one cannot distinguish the repeats based on
330 the EPG contents. So the only information is its time. To use this
331 for comparison select the appropriate period.
332 - Compare categories:
334 With the button 'setup' you can also specify which categories
335 should be compared. As with subtitles an event is different if it
336 has no according category value.
337 - Priority, lifetime, margins for start and stop:
339 Each search timer can have its own settings for these parameters.
340 Defaults can be adjusted in the plugins setup.
341 - VPS:
343 If set to yes, VPS is used, but only, if activated in VDR's setup
344 menu and if the broadcasting has VPS information.
345 - Auto delete:
347 to automatically delete a search timer if the following is true:
348 * after x recordings, or
350 * after x days after the first recording
351 Only complete recordings are counted. The deletion is executed
353 directly after the correspondig recording
354 To toggle the flag 'Use as search timer' without editing the search
356 entry you can use the key '2'. This will call directly the second
357 command of the command menu.
358 1.2.2 Menu search results
360 This menu displays the search results. A 'T' lets you know, that there
362 is already a timer for the event. A 't' means that there's only a
363 partial timer for it, as in standard schedules menu.
364 1.3 Extended 'now' and 'next' and favorites
366 By setup, one can add up to 4 additional times to extend the green
367 button, e.g. 'afternoon', 'prime time', 'late night'. Times, that are
368 already passed, are skipped (you will not get 'afternoon' at evening)
369 with the exception that a time will be displayed for the next day, if
370 it is less then 20h in the future. In these menus you can shift the
371 currently displayed time by pressing FastRew or FastFwd to move back
372 and forward in time. If you don't have these keys on your remote, you
373 can access this function by pressing '0' to toggle the green and yellow
374 button to '<<' and '>>'. This toggling can be adjusted by setup.
375 You can display a progress bar in 'now' and 'next'.
377 Furthermore you can enable in the setup an favorites list. You can
379 configure your searchtimers ("Use in favorite list") to display their
380 results in you favorite list. This list display event in the next 24
381 hours ordered by time.
382 1.4 Menu setup
384 1.4.1 General
385 - Hide main menu entry:
387 This hides the main menu entry 'search'. Attention: when the plugin
388 is assigned to key 'green' then hiding the plugin will give you
389 VDR's standard schedule menu (see below to avoid this).
390 - Main menu entry:
392 If not hidden, the name of main menu entry can be set here. Default
393 is 'Program guide'. Note: If you set it to something different from
394 the default then the main menu entry is no longer dependent on the
395 OSD language. Setting it back to default or empty restores this
396 behavior again.
397 - Start menu:
399 Select the starting menu 'Schedules' or 'Now'
400 1.4.2 EPG menus
402 - Ok key:
404 Choose here the behavior of key 'Ok'. You can use it to display the
405 summary or to switch to the corresponding channel. Note: the
406 functionality of key 'blue' (Switch/Info/Search) depends on this
407 setting.
408 - Red key:
410 Select if you like to have Standard ('Record') or 'Commands' as
411 assignment for key 'red'.
412 - Blue key:
414 select if you like to have Standard ('Switch') or 'Search' as
415 assignment for key 'blue'.
416 - Show progress in 'Now':
418 In the menu 'what's on now' you can display a progress bar, that
419 displays the progress of the current item.
420 - Show channel numbers:
422 Select this if you like to have a leading channel number before
423 each item in the EPG menus.
424 - Show channel separators:
426 Display channel group separators between channel in the menus
427 'Overview now',...
428 - Show day separators:
430 Display a day separator between events on different days in the
431 schedule menu.
432 - Show radio channels:
434 Also list radio channels.
435 - Limit channels from 1 to:
437 If you have a large channel set you can speed up things when you
438 limit the displayed channels with this setting. Use '0' to disable
439 the limit. If the current channel is above the limit, the limit is
440 ignored and all channels will be displayed again.
441 - 'One press' timer creation:
443 If set to 'yes' a timer is immediately created when pressing
444 'Record', else the timer edit menu is displayed.
445 - Show channels without EPG:
447 Display channels without EPG to allow switching or create a timer.
448 - Time interval for FR/FF [min]:
450 In the menus 'now', 'next', 'user def 1', ... you can shift the
451 displayed time by pressing FastRew, FastFwd on your remote control.
452 Adjust the amount of minutes to jump here.
453 - Toggle Green/Yellow:
455 If you don't have FastRew, FastFwd on your remote control, set this
456 to yes. When pressing '0' in the menus, this toggles the assignment
457 of the color keys and assigns e.g. '<<' and '>>' to 'green' and
458 'yellow'.
459 - Show favorites menu:
461 A favorites menu can display a list of your favorite broadcasts.
462 Enable this if you want an additional menu besides 'Now' and
463 'Next'. You can choose between displaying this menu before or after
464 the menus with user-defined times. Any search can be used as a
465 favorite. You only have to set the option 'Use in favorites menu'
466 when editing a search.
467 - for the next ... hours:
469 This value lets you adjust the timespan used to display the
470 favorites.
471 1.4.3 User-defined EPG times
473 - Use user time 1..4:
475 Add up to 4 user-defined times besides 'now' and 'next'.
476 - Description:
478 Name of the user-defined time, e.g. 'Afternoon', 'Prime time',
479 'Late night'.
480 - Time:
482 The associated time of the user-defined time.
483 1.4.4 Timer programming
485 - Use VDR's timer edit menu:
487 When programming a standard timer epgsearch uses an extended menu,
488 that also supports a directory item, user defined weekday selection
489 and subtitle completion. If you are using a patched version of VDR,
490 that also has an extended timer edit menu and like to use this menu
491 rather than epgsearch's then set this option to 'Yes'.
492 - Default recording directory:
494 This entry will be used in standard timer programming as default
495 directory. You can also use EPG category variables (e.g. 'My
496 Movies~%Category%~%Genre%'). When the timer edit menu is launched
497 epgsearch tries to replace all variables with the values found in
498 the description of the event. If not all variables could be
499 replaced then the directory item is left blank.
500 - Add episode to manual timers:
502 When manually adding a timer epgsearch can automatically add the
503 episode name to the timer file resulting in a sub-folder for the
504 later recording, that is named with the episode name. Choose here
505 how this should be done. 'smart' tries to recognize if this makes
506 sense. Therefore it checks the length of the event and skips the
507 subtitle if the event has more than 80min.
508 - Default timer check method:
510 Manual timers can be checked for EPG changes. Here you can setup
511 the default check method for each channel. The following methods
512 exist:
513 * no check
514 * by event ID: checks by an event ID supplied by the channel
515 provider.
516 * by channel and time: check by the duration match.
517 Not all channels provide a proper event ID, so you can setup the
519 default for each channel here. When programming a manual timer,
520 this default use used in epgsearch's own timer edit menu.
521 1.4.5 Search and search timers
523 - Use search timers:
525 If yes, the plugin makes a background scan of the EPG and adds
526 timers if it finds matching entries. This applies only to searches
527 that are marked with 'use as search timer'.
528 Search timers will always be created local, even if
530 SVDRPDefaulthost is set to a different host.
531 - Update interval:
533 The update interval of the background scan for search timers in
534 minutes.
535 - SVDRP port:
537 For VDR versions through 1.7.14, the default SVDRP port was 2001.
538 Starting with vdr-1.7.15 it was changed to 6419. If you want to use
539 a port other than the default, set it here to get the search timers
540 working.
541 - Delay threads:
543 The start of the Searchtimer-Update Thread and the following
544 Conflict check can be delayed after VDR-Ready between 0 and 300
545 seconds (Default is 10 secs).
546 - Default Priority:
548 Default priority of generated timers.
549 - Default Lifetime:
551 Default lifetime of generated timers.
552 - Margin at start/stop:
554 Default margins of generated timers.
555 - Allowed Errors:
557 Allowed errors before a recording is marked as incomplete. (not
558 available in vdr 2.4)
559 - No announcements when replaying:
561 suppress event announcements while any replay is active.
562 - Recreate timers after deletion:
564 epgsearch remembers by default which timers where already created
565 by search timers and will not recreate them if they were removed.
566 To disable this behaviour set this to 'Yes'.
567 - Check if EPG exists for ... [h]:
569 If you get EPG content from external providers it is possible, that
570 something fails and some recordings are skipped because of the
571 missing EPG. With this function one can check if EPG content exists
572 for the next ... hours. With '0' the check is disabled.
573 - "Warn by OSD:"
575 Set this to 'Yes' to get warned via OSD.
576 - "Warn by mail:"
578 Set this to 'Yes' to get warned by email. Please configure the
579 email account in 'email notification'
580 - "Channel group to check:"
582 select hier the channel group to check. Perhaps you have to create
583 it before in 'channel groups'
584 - Ignore Pay-TV channels:
586 Set this to 'Yes' if you don't want to have events from Pay-TV
587 channels when searching for a repeat.
588 - Search templates:
590 Here you can manage search templates which can be used when
591 creating a search.
592 - Blacklists:
594 Here you can manage blacklists which can be used to suppress
595 unwanted events within a search. A blacklist can also be marked as
596 global. Since the default setting of a search timer for 'use
597 blacklists' is 'only global', this is a simple way to exclude
598 unwanted events form all search timers, except: If the search timer
599 has the option 'use blacklists: none' no blacklists are taken into
600 account. Also the search for repeats within the OSD ignores any
601 blacklists.
602 - Channel groups:
604 Here you can setup channel groups (e.g. Sport channels, Pay-TV
605 channels) that can be used as criterion in searches. The same can
606 be done in the search edit menu.
607 Important: if you get your EPG from external sources make sure that
609 search timer updates are disabled while your EPG is updated. The reason
610 for this is that epgsearch will remove timers without events assigned
611 to them. This situation can exist while the new EPG is feeded to VDR. A
612 simple way to disable search timer updates is to use the SVDRP command
613 SETS in your EPG update script:
614 svdrpsend plug epgsearch SETS off
616 <your EPG update script>
618 svdrpsend plug epgsearch SETS on
620 1.4.6 Timer conflict checking
622 - Ignore below priority:
624 If a timer will fail with a priority below the given value, you
625 won't get an OSD message about this and the conflict will be
626 classified as 'not relevant' in the conflicts overview.
627 - Ignore conflict duration less ... min.:
629 If a conflict will last only the given minutes it will not produce
630 an OSD message and the conflict will be classified as 'not
631 relevant' in the conflicts overview.
632 - Only check within next ... days:
634 Here you can specify the day range that should be used for the
635 conflict check.
636 - Check also remote conflicts:
638 If SVDRPPeering is active, conflicts for remote timers will be
639 checked, if set to "yes". For this to work epgseach-plugin has to
640 be active on the remote host too. Default is "no".
641 - After each timer programming:
643 This performs a conflict check after each manual timer programming
644 and - if the new/modified timer is involved in a conflict - pops up
645 an OSD message about it.
646 - "When a recording starts:
648 Set this to 'yes' if the conflict check should be performed when a
649 recording starts. In the case of a conlfict you get immediately a
650 message that informs you about it. The message is only displayed
651 if the conflict is within the next 2 hours.
652 - After each search timer update:
654 Specify here if you want to have a conflict check after each search
655 timer update. If set to 'No':
656 - every ... minutes:
658 performs a conflict check in the background every ... minutes and
659 informs about relevant conflicts via OSD. Set this to '0' to
660 disable this feature.
661 - if conflicts within next ... minutes:
663 - every ... minutes:
664 if you like to have a more frequent check and OSD notification
665 when a conflict appears within the given time, use this
666 feature.
667 - Avoid notification when replaying:
669 Set this to 'yes' if the don't want to get OSD messages about
670 conflicts if you currently replay something. Nevertheless messages
671 will be displayed if
672 the first upcoming conflict is within the next 2 hours.
673 Also have a look at epgsearch(4), section 'Working with the timer
675 conflict menu'.
676 1.4.7 Email notification
678 Please make sure, that 'sendEmail.pl' is in the path of your
680 executables and that the 'epgsearchupdmail.templ' and
681 'epgsearchconflmail.templ' exists in epgsearch's configurations
682 directory!
683 - Search timer notification:
685 Enable this, if you want to get an email notification, when the
686 search timer background thread has
687 - created a new timer
689 - modified an existing timer
690 - deleted a timer, that was void because of EPG changes or other user
691 actions.
692 (Also requires 'Use search timers' in the search timer setup to be
694 activated.)
695 - Time between mails [h]:
697 For search timer notifications one can set the minimum distance in
698 hours between the mails. As soon as this time has elapsed a new
699 mail is sent after the next search timer update. A value of '0'
700 means no delay and will cause immediate mail delivery.
701 - Timer conflict notification:
703 Enable this, if you want to get an email notification about timer
704 conflicts. The notification will only include 'relevant' conflicts
705 as specified in the timer conflict setup. epgsearch will always
706 send a new notification if there is any change in the current
707 conflicts.
708 (Also requires 'After each search timer update' or 'every ...
710 minutes' in the conflict check setup to be activated.)
711 - Send to:
713 The mail address of the recipient. Note: Some providers (like
714 Arcor) don't allow the same address for sender and recipient.
715 - Mail method:
717 You can choose between:
718 - sendEmail.pl: this is a simply script shipped with epgsearch, that allows
720 mail delivery also on systems without a configured mail server. Please
721 copy it to your $PATH
722 - sendmail: requires a properly configured mail system
723 - Email address:
725 Your full(!) email account address to be used for sending the mail.
726 - SMTP server:
728 The name of your SMTP server to be used for sending the mails.
729 - Use SMTP authentication:
731 Select 'yes' if your account needs authentication to send mails.
732 - AUTH user:
734 Specify the accounts username if your account needs authentication.
735 - AUTH password:
737 Specify the accounts password if your account needs authentication.
738 Note: The password is saved as plain text. You have to make sure on
739 your own that your system is safe and no VDR configurations files
740 are visible to non authorized persons.
741 After the account setup, check if it works with 'Test'. If you are
743 using 'sendEmail.pl' for mail delivery, there should be something like
744 'Email sent successfully' at the end of the test output. The test
745 function is not available for method 'sendmail'.
746 Also have a look at epgsearch(4), section 'Email notifications'.
748
750 This is quite the same as VDRAdmin's auto-timers, but needs no external
751 software. When you create a search, you can give it an option to use it
752 as search timer. Now the plugin scans EPG entries in certain update
753 intervals (->setup) in the background and creates timers if there are
754 matching entries. If you don't like to get a new timer, but only want
755 to be informed about the event set 'Announce only (no timer)' to yes.
756 Since these search timers are quite useful for serials, you can set the
757 option 'serial recording' in a search, which creates timers whose
758 recordings are stored in a folder with the serials name and whose
759 entries are named with the episode name. If there is no episode name,
760 the plugin names the recording with a date/time string.
761 To use search timers, you also have to activate them in the plugins
763 setup. Also edit the SVDRP port, if you are not using the default
764 2001.
765 If you want to trigger a background scan manually simply
767 touch /etc/vdr/plugins/epgsearch/.epgsearchupdate
769 This can also be part of your shutdown script. (Add here a sleep
771 afterwards to give the plugin the time to finish the scan.)
772 For more info about searchtimers please refer to epgsearch(4),
774 'Description of the search process' and 'How do Search Timers work?'
775 2.1 'Avoid repeats' - internals
777 This section explains the feature 'Avoid repeats' for a search timer.
778 Sometimes one cannot avoid double recordings of an event only by
779 setting the corresponding search criterions.
780 Therefore the feature 'avoid repeats' tries to check before creating a
782 timer, if the same event was already recorded in the past or if there
783 is a timer that records the same event. If so, there will be no new
784 timer for the event.
785 2.2 How do we compare two events?
787 To check if two events are the same there are many possible settings
788 for a search timer. You can choose the title, subtitle, description or
789 extended EPG categories within the description of an event to be
790 compared with the elements of another event.
791 This comparison is always done case-sensitive and for the whole term.
793 But the description of an event makes an exception of this. First all
794 text within the description will be truncated that looks like an
795 extended category entry, e.g. 'Rating: tip'. An extended category entry
796 is a line of text beginning with max. 40 signs, followed by ':' and
797 ending with max. 60 further signs. The reason for this cutting is that
798 some categories like the rating of an event are not part of the
799 description of the repeat of the same event.
800 The remaining text will now be compared by length. If the difference is
802 bigger then 90%, then we rate the description of the two events as
803 different. If not, we apply the Levinsthein-Distance-Algorithm (LD),
804 which makes a fuzzy text comparison. We accept the description of the
805 events as equal, if LD returns a match of more then 90%. Since LD is
806 quite runtime intensive (O(mn)), you should not choose 'compare
807 description' as the only comparison criterion, but combine it always
808 with other criterions.
809 2.3 How and when do we compare?
811 As already mentioned each search timer update checks search timers with
812 this feature for recordings in the past or an already existing timer
813 for the same event.
814 To remember past recordings epgsearch stores their info in the file
816 epgsearchdone.data. You can have a look at the contents of this file
817 calling 'show recordings done' in the 'actions' of the searches menu.
818 This file only stores info about recordings that are complete, i.e.
819 that started and stopped just in time. So a broken recording will not
820 be stored in this file and epgsearch will automatically try to record
821 the next repeat, if there is any. Starting with vdr 2.5.x also
822 recordings with errors are not stored. If you would like to allow a
823 certain amount of errors, you can raise the value of "Allowd Errors".
824 How to use it?
826 As you see, the whole feature depends on the quality of the EPG. After
828 creating such a search timer, you should first check if it does what is
829 intended. Therefore the menu of search results has an additional mode
830 for the key 'blue' named 'Timer preview'. Here you can see, what timers
831 the next update would create. Existing timers are labeled with 'T',
832 future timers with 'P'.
833 Hint: If the programming results in a conflict simply disable the
835 conflicting timer in the timers menu. The next search timer update,
836 will try to program a different timer for the same event, if it exists.
837 When it works not correctly :-)
839 To get a better control of the programming or not-programming of the
841 timers when using this feature a log file was introduced. When starting
842 epgsearch with the command line option '-v n' where n is the log level
843 than you get additional info in the file epgsearch.log. Available log
844 levels are 0 (no logging) to 3 (extended logging). See also the manual
845 for the command line options.
846
848 See epgsearch(4).
849
851 Some EPG providers deliver additional EPG information like the type of
852 event, the video and audio format, cast,... in the content summary.
853 Note: This is different from the content descriptors introduced in
855 vdr-1.7.11, that are delivered as extra data with a common standard.
856 Unfortunately not all providers deliver this data, or the set wrong
857 descriptors. So you can use the approach of 'extended EPG info' here,
858 which is a way to extract that info from the content summary.
859 Using tvm2vdr or epg4vdr you can import this into vdr. To use this
861 information with search timers one has to configure it with the file
862 epgsearchcats.conf in the epgsearch config directory. The format of the
863 file is as follows:
864 ID|category name|name in menu|values separated by ','(option)|search mode(option)
866 - 'ID' should be a unique positive integer
868 (changing the id later on will force you to re-edit your search timers!)
869 - 'category name' is the name as delivered by the EPG provider, e.g. 'Genre'
870 - 'name in menu' is the name displayed in epgsearch.
871 - 'values' is an optional list of possible values
872 - 'search mode' specifies the search mode:
873 text comparison:
874 0 - the whole term must appear as substring
875 1 - all single terms (delimiters are ',', ';', '|' or '~')
876 must exist as substrings. This is the default search mode.
877 2 - at least one term (delimiters are ',', ';', '|' or '~')
878 must exist as substring.
879 3 - matches exactly
880 4 - regular expression
881 numerical comparison:
882 10 - less
883 11 - less or equal
884 12 - greater
885 13 - greater or equal
886 14 - equal
887 15 - not equal
888 Sample files for epgsearchcats.conf are delivered with the plugin in
890 the directory 'conf'.
891 Simply copy the one that fits for you to the epgsearch configuration
893 directory filename epgsearchcats.conf and then have a look to the
894 search timers edit menu (after a restart of VDR).
895 Since setting up a new epgsearchcats.conf is a lot of work, I've added
897 a small tool 'createcats', that makes the biggest part of the job. It
898 should have been compiled with the plugin and exists in the sources
899 directory.
900 See createcats(1) for information about how to use it.
902 Internals: epgsearch scans the summary of an event for the category
904 name followed by ': ' for all categories that have a corresponding
905 value set in the search timer. The search is case sensitive regarding
906 the category name as also the value.
907
909 To use this plugin as a replacement for the default green key, simply
910 put the line
911 Green @epgsearch
913 in your keymacros.conf. If you don't like to get another plugin entry
915 in your main menu, first hide it by setup. Then you could use my
916 launcher-plugin and put the line
917 Green @launcher x
919 in your keymacros.conf, where x is the position of the Epgsearch plugin
921 within launchers menu listing.
922 Another approach is using a patch to VDR that replaces vdr's standard
924 schedule menu with epgsearch (vdr-replace-schedulemenu.diff.gz in the
925 patches subdir, thanks to the author Uwe/egal@vdrportal). When using
926 this patch the entry should look like
927 Green Schedule
929 This patch is already included in some patch collections, like the
931 Bigpatch.
932
934 epgsearch delivers 2 'mini'-plugins. Both require an installed
935 epgsearch (but epgsearch can be hided in the main menu):
936 - epgsearchonly:
938 For those who only want to use the search feature and/or search
939 timers or simply want to have a separate main menu entry for the
940 search feature. This plugin creates a main menu entry 'Search'
941 which calls epgsearch search menu. Activation in VDR start script
942 with "-Pepgsearchonly".
943 - conflictcheckonly:
945 The timer conflict check can also have its own main menu entry
946 which displays epgsearch conflict overview menu. It has a setup
947 option to display an information about the last check directly in
948 its main menu entry. Activation in VDR start script with
949 "-Pconflictcheckonly".
950 Have fun!
952 Christian Wieninger
954
956 See epgsearch(4) or read online
957 <http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/README.DE>
959 <http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/README>
961 <http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/MANUAL>
963
965 "epgsearch.conf(5)", "epgsearchcats.conf(5)", "epgsearchcmds.conf(5)",
966 "epgsearchdirs.conf(5)", "epgsearchmenu.conf(5)",
967 "epgsearchuservars.conf(5)", "epgsearchdone.data(5)",
968 "epgsearchswitchtimer.conf(5)", "epgsearchblacklists.conf(5)",
969 "epgsearchchangrps.conf(5)"
970
972 epgsearch.conf
973 Searchtimers. See "epgsearch.conf(5)".
975 epgsearchcats.conf
977 Categories, advanced epg. See "epgsearchcats.conf(5)".
979 epgsearchcmds.conf
981 EPG-commands, like the commands in commands.conf. See
983 "epgsearchcmds.conf(5)".
984 epgsearchdirs.conf
986 Pre-defined patches which can be selected while editing an searchtimer.
988 See "epgsearchdirs.conf(5)".
989 epgsearchmenu.conf
991 Configuration of the OSD menu layout. See "epgsearchmenu.conf(5)".
993 epgsearchuservars.conf
995 User defined variables. See "epgsearchuservars.conf(5)".
997 epgsearchdone.data
999 The done-data. See "epgsearchdone.data(5)".
1001 epgsearchswitchtimers.conf
1003 The switchtimers. See "epgsearchswitchtimer.conf(5)".
1005 epgsearchblacklists.conf
1007 The blacklist. See "epgsearchblacklists.conf(5)".
1009 epgsearchchangrps.conf
1011 The channelgroups. See "epgsearchchangrps.conf(5)".
1013 epgsearchtemplates.conf
1015 Templates for searchtimers. See "epgsearchtemplates.conf(5)".
1017
1019 Mike Constabel <epgsearch (at) constabel (dot) net>
1020
1022 Bugreports (german):
1023 <http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/plg-epgsearch>
1025 Mailinglist:
1027 <http://www.vdr-developer.org/mailman/listinfo/epgsearch>
1029
1031 Copyright (C) 2004-2010 Christian Wieninger
1032 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
1034 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
1035 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
1036 option) any later version.
1037 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
1039 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1040 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
1041 General Public License for more details.
1042 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
1044 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
1045 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Or, point
1046 your browser to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
1047 The author can be reached at cwieninger@gmx.de
1049 The project's page is at http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch
1051 The MD5 code is derived from the RSA Data Security, Inc. MD5 Message-
1053 Digest Algorithm.
1054perl v5.36.0 2022-08-04 epgsearch(1)