OSDServer provides VDR OSD access to external programs and scripts through a TCP/IP socket connection, just like an X server does. The connection protocol is designed for easy interpretation by script languages and shell scripts.

OSDServer allows scripts to show messages, menus, and configuration dialogs, with lots of user interaction.

The examples folder contains a hello world sample in perl and an identical one in shell script using netcat. This is the initial OSD of the sample:

This is the console output, where ">" is the communication from the script to OSDServer, and "<" is the reply of OSDServer:

$ ./helloworld.pl
< 201 Welcome to OSDServer version 0.0.2, VDR version 1.5.5.
> Version 0.1
< 200 Ready.
> menu=New Menu 'Hello world'
< 200 Ready.
> menu.SetColorKeyText -blue 'Help'
< 200 Ready.
> menu.SetColumns 15
< 200 Ready.
> menu.EnableEvent keyBlue close
< 200 Ready.
> menu.AddNew OsdItem -unselectable '--- What do you think? --------------------'
< 200 Ready.
> opt1=menu.AddNew OsdItem 'This is awesome!'
< 200 Ready.
> opt1.SetCurrent
< 200 Ready.
> opt1.EnableEvent keyOk
< 200 Ready.
> opt2=menu.AddNew OsdItem 'You ain\'t seen nothing yet'
< 200 Ready.
> opt2.EnableEvent keyOk
< 200 Ready.
> opt3=menu.AddNew OsdItem 'All your OSD are belong to us'
< 200 Ready.
> opt3.EnableEvent keyOk
< 200 Ready.
> opt4=menu.AddNew OsdItem 'User comment: OSDServer is cool'
< 200 Ready.
> opt4.EnableEvent keyOk keyRed focus blur
< 200 Ready.
> menu.Show
< 200 Ready.
> menu.SleepEvent

The example script reacts on selection of the last menu item by setting the red button to "Edit", allowing to open a sub-menu where this menu item can be edited. By pressing OK, one item gets selected, and the script reacts by showing a matching message.

2011-08-1948kbvdr-osdserver-0.1.3.tgz

Fix for VDR 1.7.20+

Updates for Makefiles, warnings, etc.

2008-10-0447kbvdr-osdserver-0.1.2.tgz

Fix for VDR 1.5.11+, string edit didn't work

New: experimental OSDServer perl module bindings

2008-06-0841kbvdr-osdserver-0.1.1a.tgz

Fix for VDR 1.5.15+, previously available as patch

2007-10-0741kbvdr-osdserver-0.1.1.tgz

Fix stupid bug with menu.GetCurrent

2007-10-0641kbvdr-osdserver-0.1.0.tgz

Local variable contexts

_Focus pseudo variable referring to current menu

osdserverhosts.conf and configurable port number

Bug-fixes

2007-07-2138kbvdr-osdserver-0.0.2.tgz

Input dialogs for text, numers and lists

sub-menus, columns and color keys

More complex event system

2006-11-2227kbvdr-osdserver-0.0.1.tgz

Milestone 1 - very basic menus and messages