SAGETV - CUSTOMIZING
THE MENU INTERFACE

SageTV 4 comes with the new SageTV Studio Development Kit Personal License which allows you to personally customize your version of SageTV. If you want to find out about the SageTV Studio customizations, then go to the official SageTV Studio Development Kit page for more information about SageTV Studio for customizing the latest verison of SageTV.

However, if you are using a previous older version of SageTV, then you may have to use .STV customization or you may have to manually tweak your SageTV files to make SageTV look and work the way you want SageTV to be. This page discusses what Ruel has done with SageTV 2 where SageTV 2 initially comes with a drab basic blue menu interface layout. If you get tired of it, then you too can change it to give you a different menu interface on your TV screen. You can at least make a simple change to the background graphic file while maintaining the same menu layout. Or you can also make more dramatic changes changes to how the menu is presented on the screen.

First, let's take a look at the basic default drab blue background for the menu interface for SageTV:

If you are happy with the default look of SageTV, then stick with that. But if you want to make some changes, then have at it. Before you make any changes, you may want to make a complete backup of your SageTV directories and files for just in case you want to go back to what SageTV looked like before you attempted to make any changes.

SIMPLE CUSTOMIZATION
OF SAGETV BACKGROUND

SageTV 2 comes with a default blue background as seen above. You can keep that or you can change the background. All you have to do is change the background1024.jpg file found in the C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\STVs\OriginalV2\ directory. You may want to rename the origintal background1024.jpg file to background1024original.jpg and then name your favorite background graphic file image as the new background1024.jpg file. Just be sure to put your new background1024.jpg file in the aforementioned directory. A simple background change is the easiest custom change that you can do immediately. So, as you can see from the next screenshot below, a simple change of the background picture will give SageTV a change of view that may make SageTV more appealing as to what you may see on the screen.

MORE CUSTOMIZATION OF THE
SAGETV MENU INTERFACE

And then there are other specialized STV customizations that you can do with SageTV. For instance, there are the free STV customizations by Nielm, Mlbdude, Malore and others. These STV customizations are created by the SageTV Studio software which is only available on a limited basis to a closed circle of users. However, anyone can use the STV customizations without the studio software. The folks like Nielm, Mlbdude, Malore and others are providing nifty customizations that can do a lot of numerous things including external commands that are not normally included with SageTV. Note that the Nielm STV customization uses some of the functions from the Malore STV customization -- the various authors of the STV customizations borrow from each other.

Below is a screenshot of what the Nielm STV customization looks like (with Ruel's first minor tweak to SageTV by merely changing the background file).

And with the Nielm STV customization, there is a menu.xml file that you can edit with Notepad to further customize the menu selection items on the screen. Please note that the Nielm STV customization would install the menu.xml file in the C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\ directory. If you want to change your menu.xml file, then be sure to first save a copy of the original menu.xml file that you have been using.

I've tweaked my copy of the menu.xml file to have mostly TV-related functions and I've removed many of the external functions that tend to be included with many of the different STV customizations. (If you want to look at my menu.xml file, then right-click the menu.xml file link, save the file, and view with notepad.) My tweaking of the menu.xml file includes rearranging menu selections from one menu to another and also changed many of the icons.

As you can see from the icons, I've borrowed icons used in the other STV customizations and tweaked them. For example, I've turned the TV set icon around because the original was tilted facing to the right instead of facing to the left as I have it. And also, I took the basic scheduling icon (that has the multiple flat panel screens) used in another STV customization and added hearts for favorites, or added a magnifying glass for searching schedules, or added a movie clapboard for movie schedules. I also added icons of videotapes for the recorded shows menus.

If you want to make your own icons, then you may want to edit any picture or graphic software that you want to use. And then to make those icons into transparent files where the background is transparent in the icon graphic file, then you may want to use the GIMP software. To use GIMP to make transparent files, you have to right-click the picture and select

     Layer | Transparency | Add Alpha Channel

and then right-click the picture again and select

     Select | By Color

and then click the part of the picture that you want to be transparent and then again right-click that part of the picture that you want to be transparent and select

     Edit | Clear

You should then see that the part that you want to be transparent will become checkerboxed. Then you can save the file. Save the file to be either a .png file or a .gif file. And then you may want to edit your menu.xml file to match the name that you may be giving to the .png or .gif file -- and also be sure that you specify the correct directory location for the file.

Many of the STV customizations should work with both version 2.0 and 2.1 of SageTV. However, with the introduction of SageTV 2.1, several of the new STV customizations are taking advantage of new updates in SageTV 2.1 and therefore the new STV customizations may not work with SageTV 2.0. For instance, Mlbdude's SageMC STV customization (see below) seems to only work with version 2.1 of SageTV. So, if you want to use Mlbdude's SageMC STV customization which makes SageTV look more like Windows Media Center Edition, then you may want to make sure that you are using SageTV 2.1.

Note that Mlbdude's SageMC STV customization is still a work in progress at the time of this writing. And someone else may very well tweak it so that it works with version 2.0 of SageTV if you are still using that version of SageTV. Also, it is said that the Windows Media Center Edition menu interface is so much easier for people to use and accept. So the SageMC customization may be one that you may want to have particularly if you don't want to search around to buy a copy of Windows Media Center Edition.