This latest release adds a few improvements and fixes, including notification icons and offline synchronization with WMC channels.

• Improved performance when excluding a program from searches.
• Improved performance when updating all searches.
• Capped the number of threads to use when getting results (to reduce database contention).
• Right-aligned the WMC icons in the search results. (Thanks, Derek!)
• New: Cache DVR stations so they can be used even when DVR isn’t running.
• New: Save stations from Windows Media Center so synchronizing them in the Stations window no longer requires WMC to be running.
• New: Closing main window leaves Typecast in the notification area. (Exit with icon’s context menu.)
• New: Typecast WMC server has a notification area icon that can hide the console window.
• Fix: Prevented rare crash if user issues right-click commands VERY quickly.
• Fix: Improved colors on Stations window for red/green color-blindness. (Thanks, Derek!)

There are some helpful things in this minor upgrade. Typecast will now use more CPU cores if it can. This can give a small performance boost when it’s updating every search (at startup and after an update).

I’ve added a button to the Stations window that will get the stations from your Windows Media Center and set Typecast’s to match. This works best when WMC is using Schedules Direct’s listings as well, but if the callsigns match, it should work for any listings provider. It only does it one time, and it will highlight which channels have been added or removed, so you can decide if you want those changes. The Stations window no longer saves the changes until you press the Save button, so you don’t have to worry about those changes being committed unless you want them.

Be sure to upgrade the Typecast WMC server because it needs to respond to Typecast’s request for stations.

I found the Typecast configuration file was being locked by OneDrive, so Typecast wasn’t able to save it. Now, Typecast waits a few seconds and retries. (If that’s insufficient, I’ll do something more intensive, like waiting for it to be unlocked, but hopefully that won’t be necessary.) Please let me know if you see this happen. (And, if you do, edit a search and save it–this will force Typecast to try saving the configuration file again.)

• Dynamically increases the number of cores used to search.
• Improved matching programs on DVR with Typecast listings.
• Stations window requires user to press the Save button instead of saving changes automatically.
• New: Ability to synchronize stations with WMC in Stations window.
• New: Added icon to Edit Search command and modified toolbar icon.
• Fix: Retry saving configuration file if it’s locked. (This time for sure!)
• Fix: Matching programs between Typecast and WMC in case of mismatched listings.
• Fix: Aligned “badges” (premiere, HD, new, CC) in detail pane.

This is a small update to Typecast just to correct a few simple things.

• Retry saving configuration file if there’s an error.
• Limit the station logo’s width (allowing more space for other columns).
• Fix: Prevent multiselect in Stations window (until it’s actually supported).
• Fix: Do not crash when user clicks off schedules while context menu is displayed.

Typecast 3.1.0 wraps up the Windows Media Center features and has a few new features on top of that.

• Added ability to search for only Premieres.
• Added ability to search for only Episodes (i.e., serial programs).
• Watch for changes to WMC files with cached information (recordings, schedules, requests, and responses) for when synchronization services take a while to synchronize.
• Don’t request recording information twice after requesting a recording.
• Improved accuracy of handling offline requests/responses files.

This is a minor release that fixes a few minor issues. If you use the WMC features, be sure to download the updated Typecast WMC server as well. See 12noon.com for the full release notes.

Typecast now offers commands to tell your Windows Media Center to record a single program or a series. It may not be perfect (yet), but after two months of work, it’s good to let people start using it and to get some feedback.

I’ve added a tab to the Settings window for configuring the e-mail settings. You don’t need to deal with the raw configuration file. Typecast is now also better at maintaining settings across updates. (This update might lose some, but after this, it should remember them.)

Release Notes

• Warn user if WMC’s Use Guide option isn’t set as needed to schedule recordings.
• When recording a series, record only new episodes (not reruns).
  
• Programs that were recorded with an error now show all airings of that program (or episode) as an error.
• Added a Settings tab for the Mail plugin (instead of editing Mail.config directly).
  
• Automatically maintain mail settings after an update. (Eliminated Mail.config file.)
• Fix: Excluding a series didn’t also exclude when that program has an episode without season/episode info.
  
• Fix: Mail plugin overwrote e-mail addresses with the default e-mail address.
• Fix: Cast and crew had some corrupted ordinals and didn’t allow more than 99.
• Fix: Continue to show recordings of a program after actual airing is no longer in listings.
• Fix: Handle WMC exception that could prevent returning recording information.
• Fix: Occasional crash when bad Internet connection during update.
• Fix: Keep Mail and WMC server options after an upgrade.
• Fix: Ignore lineups that return an error code in the Lineups window.

As you’ve already seen, Typecast can get recording information from Windows Media Center and display what programs in your search results will be or have been recorded. I’m working on adding more Windows Media Center features to Typecast. In the next version, Typecast will be able to tell your Windows Media Center (via a small “Typecast WMC Server” component running on your WMC) to record a single program or to record a series. The biggest advantage Typecast will have over similar utilities (e.g., the no-longer-available Ceton My Media Center) is that Typecast will not require WMC to be running at the same time as Typecast. Typecast can use your file synchronization service (e.g., OneDrive, Google Drive, Syncthing, etc.) to communicate even though one of them is offline. I hope to release this in February 2019.

After that, I think I’ll add an option for Typecast to automatically schedule recordings of programs that appear in your search results. For example, if you have a search for new five-star movies released after 2017, you will be able to tell Typecast to automatically tell WMC to record any movie that appears in that search’s results.

Anyway, in order to prepare for this release, please be sure that you’re running the latest version. In the next release, I will delete some code that I added to migrate old files and convert old data formats. Rather than try to carry that code around forever (because I can’t test it forever), I’m deleting it. If you’re running the latest version of Typecast, all of your files and data are up to date, and you won’t care about that old code going away.

Typecast 2.9.1 has been released. This version ignores invalid lineups in the Lineups window. I’ve also added an optional Windows Media Center component so that Typecast can display information about your scheduled and completed recordings on your WMC machine. Please see 12noon.com for details.

I fixed an occasional crash that could occur when a program finished airing.