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epgsearchmenu.conf(5) EPGSearch Version 2.4.6 epgsearchmenu.conf(5)

NAME

epgsearchmenu.conf – configuration of EPG menus

DESCRIPTION

The display of selected EPGSearch menus can be customized to your own preferences. The configuration is done using this file.

The file epgsearchmenu.conf is not reloaded with every plugin call, since this is only useful when testing the configuration file itself. To activate permanent reloading the file during testing a configuration change, add the start parameter '−r' or '−−reloadmenuconf' in the VDR's start script (e.g., runvdr).

SYNTAX

Each line configures the display of a certain menu. The entries specify the layouts for the following menus:

Template for the menu 'Now'.
Template for the menu 'Next'.
Template for the menu of a user-defined time.
Template for the menu 'Schedule'.
Template for the menu 'Search results'.
Template for the menu 'Favorites'.

Without a respective entry, EPGSearch uses a menu's default layout.

The entry 'MenuSearchResults' has a special feature: If different layouts for search results are desired depending on the search, additional menu templates can be provided. Just add an entry for each template, with the template name directly appended to 'MenuSearchResults', like 'MenuSearchResultsTip of the Day'. If more than one entry starting with 'MenuSearchResults' exists, the menu 'Edit search' will be extended by a menu item 'Result menu layout' that allows choosing between the menu's default template and own templates.

VARIABLES

The following variables exist (case ignored):

%Time%
An event's start time in 'HH:MM' format.
%TimeEnd%
An event's stop time in 'HH:MM' format.
%Time_D%
An event's start date in 'DD' format.
%Time_W%
Name of the weekday on which an event starts.
%Time_Lng%
An event's start date and time in Epoch encoding (i.e., seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00 UTC).
%TimeSpan%
Time span til the start of an event (like 'in 15m') or the time an event is already running (like '10m').
%Date%
An event's start date in 'DD.MM.YY' format.
%DateSh%
An event's start date in 'DD.MM' format.
%Date_ISO%
An event's start date in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format.
%Day%
An event's start day (1..31).
%Week%
Calendar week of an event's start date (01..53).

According to the ISO 8601 standard, Monday is the first day of a week. Calendar week 1 is the first week where four or more days fall within the new year, that is, the first week that contains a Thursday or has January 4 in it.

%Month%
An event's start month (1..12).
%Year%
An event's start year (1970..2038, or even later).
%EventID%
An event's numeric identifier.
%LiveEventID%
An event's identifier as used in the front end live.
%Title%
An event's title.
%Subtitle%
An event's subtitle.
%Summary%
An event's summary.
%Aux%
An event's auxiliary information.
%HtmlSummary%
An event's summary with all line feeds replaced by '<br />'.

Caution: The HTML reserved characters '<&">' will not be replaced by their substitutes '&lt;', '&amp;', '&quot;' and '&gt;'.

%<EPG Category>%
An event's value of the respective EPG category as specified in epgsearchcats.conf, like '%Genre%' or '%Category%'.
%Length%
An event's length in seconds.
%Status%
An event's status (the same as '%T_Status%%V_Status%%R_Status%').
%T_Status%
A timer's status ('T', 't', or 'R'), else a space.
%V_Status%
An event's VPS status ('V'), else a space.
%R_Status%
An event's running status ('*'), else a space.

For the menus of user-defined times and the menu 'Search results', there are also:

%ChNr%
An event's channel number.
%ChSh%
The short name of an event's channel.
%ChLng%
The long name of an event's channel.
%ChData%
The VDR's internal channel representation (e.g., 'S19.2E-1-1101-28106').
%Progr%
A graphical progress bar; not available for the menu 'Search results'.

Note: The VDRSymbols font must be installed to display the graphics.

%ProgrT2S%
A progress bar in text2skin style; not available for the menu 'Search results'.

And, finally, some common variables:

%TimeNow%
The current time in 'HH:MM' format.
%DateNow%
The current date in 'DD.MM.YY' format.
%DateShNow%
The current date in 'DD.MM' format.
%Date_ISO_Now%
The current date in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format.
%VideoDir%
The VDR's video directory (e.g., /video).
%PlugConfDir%
The VDR's plugin configuration directory (e.g., /etc/vdr/plugins).
%EPGSearchDir%
The EPGSearch configuration directory (e.g., /etc/vdr/plugins/epgsearch)
%Colon%
The ':' character.

You can also use variables for extended EPG categories defined in epgsearchcats.conf or use your own variables defined in epgsearchuservars.conf. Variable names are not case sensitive.

An entry consists of up to six table columns, separated with '|' characters. The last entry of each table row should declare the table width in characters, separated with a ':' character.

When using characters like '~', '−' or '#' to separate items (e.g., '%Title% ~ %Subtitle%') with trailing elements being empty, EPGSearch will attempt to remove orphaned spaces and separators.

To enable icons from the font VDRSymbols, simply add the following line to the file:

    WarEagleIcons=1

The font VDRSymbols can be downloaded from <http://andreas.vdr-developer.org/fonts/download.html>.

Note: Once a file epgsearchmenu.conf is present and includes an entry for a certain menu, the default settings for displaying this menu are ignored.

EXAMPLE

A sample epgsearchmenu.conf is provided in the subdirectory conf of EPGSearch. For quickly trying out, copy the file to the EPGSearch configuration directory (e.g., /etc/vdr/plugins/epgsearch).

    MenuWhatsOnNow=%chnr%:3|%progrt2s%:5| %time% %t_status%:8|%category%:6| %title% ~ %subtitle%:35
    MenuWhatsOnNext=%chnr%:3|%time% %t_status%:8|%category%:8| %title% ~ %subtitle%:35
    MenuWhatsOnElse=%chnr%:3|%time% %t_status%:8|%category%:8| %title% ~ %subtitle%:35
    MenuSchedule=%time% %t_status%:8|%genre%:14| %title% ~ %subtitle%:35
    MenuFavorites=%chnr%:3|%time%:6|%timespan%:7|%t_status%:14|%genre%:8| %title%%colon%%subtitle%:35
    MenuSearchResults=%chnr%:3|%datesh% %time% %t_status%:14|%genre%:8| %title%%colon% %subtitle%:35

The entry 'MenuWhatsOnNow' instructs EPGSearch how to format a line for the menu 'Now'. The menu line starts with the channel number, followed by a progress bar in text2skin style, a single space, the start time, the timer status, the EPG category (like "movie") and, finally, the title and subtitle.

Furthermore, suppose the following entry gets added:

    MenuSearchResultsTip of the Day=%chnr%:3|%time_w%:4|%t_status%:3|%genre%:10|%title%%colon% %subtitle%:35

This will result in an additional menu item 'Result menu layout' in the menu 'Edit search' that allows choosing between the menu's default template and own templates. For the example above, 'Tip of the Day' will be listed as additional option, since EPGSearch simply strips the prefix 'MenuSearchResults'. When displaying the search results, the chosen layout will be used instead of the default one.

You should adapt the column-width values to fit your needs, since the layout often depends on the selected skin.

AUTHORS (man pages)

Originally provided by Mike Constabel <epgsearch (at) constabel (dot) net>.

Revised and adapted to recent plugin features by the current maintainers.

PROJECT SITE

The plugin is maintained as GitHub project:

<https://github.com/vdr-projects/vdr-plugin-epgsearch/>

REPORTING BUGS

Issues can be reported, and features be suggested, through the project's bug tracker:

<https://github.com/vdr-projects/vdr-plugin-epgsearch/issues/>

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2004-2010 Christian Wieninger

Copyright © 2011-2025 TomJoad (VDR-Portal), et al.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Or, point your browser to <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html>

The original author can be reached via cwieninger@gmx.de.

Current maintainers can be reached via the project's GitHub site (see above).

The MD5 code has been derived from the MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm of RSA Data Security, Inc.

SEE ALSO

epgsearch(1), epgsearchcats.conf(5), epgsearchuservars.conf(5)

2026-04-19 perl v5.40.1