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Cover Art - MetroCase font


techywarrior

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techywarrior

Ebr, we sort of discussed this before, and maybe I should move it to the feature request thread instead, but the MetroCase treatment doesn't work on my server on unRAID. You said it was probably the Segui font it was trying to load but I have so far been unable to find out how to install a font on unRAID. I would imagine that installs on Linux and OSX have the same issue although it may be easier to install the font for them.

 

Would it be possible to program in a fallback generic font? Or have the text part of the image, which I imagine you have for some of the other treatments since they don't give me a font family not found error.

 

It's hard to tell in the little image but is MetroCase basically the same as FlatCase but without the bottom? FlatCase works fine on my server and in the little thumbnail the top looks the same. I really like having the visual to see which are DVD and which are Blu-ray but FlatCase has that extra bottom which is a little distracting.

 

What's the difference between ignore and plain? The images look the same. Is plain just because people weren't finding ignore in the misc. section?

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1) What would be a valid generic font?  Arial?

 

2) MetroCase writes the actual season number of seasons on the treatment.  e.g. "Season 4" where as the others just have "Season" on them.  That's why it needs to write text dynamically.

 

3) "Ignore" means CoverArt will not touch the original image.  "Plain" will still write indicator overlays on it if you have those setup (audio, video, subtitles, etc.).

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techywarrior

1) I can't find anything about what font(s) are installed by default and I don't see an obvious location in unRAID that has font files. Just some font definitions. I didn't get the font error when I selected any of the other case options so I guess whatever font you are using for them should work (or do they not write anything on the sample image?

 

2 & 3) Ah cool. That's a nice feature on that one. This may have bearing on my question above but it doesn't appear that the sample image of the treatment always does it justice. Since they are just samples perhaps they should show things like audio/video/season etc. that can be written on it. Or is the feeling that people may be confused since those overlays are controlled separately?

 

It's just that in the sample "plain" doesn't appear to do anything. I'd be happy to run any tests to determine the font that can be used if you need. I went thru a lot of the other options and none seemed to give me the font not found error.

 

If you want you can send me a special dll that tries to load different fonts in a try/catch loop and we can see which one works :) I'd suggest trying to use as generic a font-family as possible, like sans-serif, and let the OS choose the font. (obviously just as a fallback since it won't look as good as Segui)

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The overlays are only shown on the sample in the Indicator Overlay section where you set them up.

 

No other treatments should have an issue with fonts as MetroCase is the only one that writes the special season numbers.  However, the subtitle overlay indicator also writes text to show the language of the sub.  If you turn that on, does it also crash?

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techywarrior

Do I need to apply it to some files or will the preview work? In the preview if I set subtitles overlay to internal the image fails to generate (but doesn't throw that error like MetroCase does). Setting it to custom generates the preview fine but I don't see anything on the preview so I am guessing that is different.

 

If the preview doesn't write text then there is a different bug with that particular thing.

 

If I need to test a real cover I'll have to create a test library and add that (so I don't have all my files created again)

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The preview will put an English subtitle icon on there if you turn that option on.  So, yes, it writes text just like the real thing.

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techywarrior

Ok, so then that doesn't work either. Funny that the way the errors are presented is different. Since it's just these two things maybe for now you can just catch the font missing error and not write the text?

 

It would be better if a substitute font can be used but I can understand that may be a pain to worry about if you have to load the font by name and different OSes could have different fonts installed (especially headless Linux setups that like unRAID may have no additional fonts).

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We just need to find a safe one for the linux world to fall back on.  Not writing the text renders the subtitle feature useless.

 

Certainly, someone knows what a safe linux font is...

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techywarrior

haha, yes (on both counts)

 

Maybe one of the Linux guys here will know. I tried all kinds of searches and couldn't find any info. Every post about fonts talks about X or the GUI and since headless servers don't install that there are no font files. But text renders so there must be some font there :)

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techywarrior

"Argument cannot be null parameter name: font"

 

It only happened the first time I selected MetroCase. I changed back to Case and then back to MetroCase (to try get the exact wording on the error) and going back to it showed the preview image.

 

I viewed my collection and the treatment appears to be working. Couple things I noticed with the treatment tho (not sure if this is how it's supposed to be or just that you did some alterations to make it work). On the Blu-ray posters is says "HD" but the preview image has a cool Blu-ray logo on it. DVD posters don't have any wording on them. I expected it to say DVD to sort of match Blu-ray.

 

Going back to the plugin a second time doesn't seem to be displaying any errors and everything is working including the subtitle text overlay.

 

So, it looks like your fix works.

 

If the normal behavior (or at least in this fallback method) is to display HD can the DVD ones say SD on them to keep it consistant? Also, that makes the treatment not look like it's just adding a gray bar at the top of the poster. And if the text you displayed was just for testing the fix I'll wait to see what the final update does before commenting more.

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I didn't do anything to affect the text being written.  I've just handled the font problems.

 

What text ends up on the treatments depends on how you have CA configured and the types of content involved.

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techywarrior

Oh, hm, do I have a setting wrong then? I'd like it to do SD/HD or DVD/Blu_ray. Right now it's weird that it's nothing/HD.

 

This may be related to the type of font you have to fall back on but the word HD isn't centered vertically in the blue space. It's very close to the top.

 

I do like the treatment overall... now all my devices have a lot of caching to do :)

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In the options panel for the profile did you select "Cover by Definition instead of Type"?  Or, have you configured specific covers for types?

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techywarrior

I have the "Cover by Definition" selected because if I do by type then all my videos shows as "HD" because I use h.264 encoding for both SD and HD content. The only way I can see the difference quickly on the poster is by selecting by definition. But by type shows h.264 at the top. The preview has a cool Blu-ray logo... I guess there is no way to get that? It's looks so sweet in the preview :)

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1) The missing "SD" was a bug no one had noticed until now.  Re-download the dll I linked above and that should be fixed.

 

2) The Cover by Type doesn't put Blu-Ray logos on those items because they are not Blu-Rays.  They are MKVs with video inside them that came from a BD disc but they aren't BD discs anymore.

 

BUT, CoverArt is very flexible and you can make it do almost whatever you want.  Hit the "Specific Covers" button and map "HD" -> "BD" and "SD" to "DVD" and keep your cover by definition setting and you should get what you are after.

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techywarrior

haha, well, glad then we fixed a general bug besides the more niche issue for Linux/OSX users.

 

I sort of understand the reasoning but since it's pretty discouraged to do ISO or BD folder rip I thought that the assumption would be made that HD content is "Blu-ray" and SD is "DVD". But maybe that would confuse people as well since TV shows may show up as "Blu-ray" or "DVD".

 

I'll do the mapping. Thanks. CA needs an instruction manual :)

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