[mythtv-users] Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 07/02/2009 09:33 PM, Matt Beadon wrote:

> >> So what I'd see is that on the tv all the menus would appear but
> >> over vnc I would just see the background image.  This didn't seem
> >> to change with different themes so I grumbled and figured it was
> >> something odd about vnc/frontend.
>
>  <snip>
>
>  I had originally (and still have) set my painter to be opengl in TV
>  Settings|Appearance
>
> > (I.e. anything that's not "opengl" uses the default, which is the
> > Qt painter.  And, really, even "opengl" uses the Qt painter if the
> > frontend was not compiled with OpenGL support.)
>  <snip>
>
>  So basically my typo exposed the fact that I should have been using
>  qt all along.  8-) Thanks for the info!
>
> > The -O argument to myth applications is the, "Settings Override,"
> > argument--meaning, "For /just/ this one execution, ignore the value
> > of the setting that I configured and stored in my database and use
> > the one I'm supplying on the command line."  So, you just need to
> > fix the setting in mythfrontend settings under TV
> > Settings|Appearance.  If you can't use OpenGL (and, when you're
> > using VNC, you probably can't use OpenGL as VNC has no
> > OpenGL--though it might kind of work with sufficient processor
> > power if using a :0 VNC session), set the Theme Painter to Qt in
> > settings.
>
>  Would it be worth submitting a bug to suggest that myth FE (and
>  perhaps all myth programs) loudly complain about unrecognized
>  arguments on the command line rather than quietly ignoring them?

That would be kind of impossible*** for the settings override as the 
command-line-argument-parsing code knows nothing about the settings.  
And, even if it did, there are over 400 settings in Myth (yeah, now you 
see why some of us complain when users suggest adding new settings), so 
it would have to know about those 400 settings and all the allowed 
values for each setting or every part of Myth that uses a setting would 
have to be changed to complain about invalid values in the database.

And, since the -O settings override is /not/ meant to be used except as 
a one-time override for fixing a broken configuration, passing a bad 
value for a setting shouldn't happen all that often.

Mike

***Code for "way more work than it's worth."