TV Programm

tvprogram adapter for ioBroker

This adapter downloads television programme data and provides it to ioBroker VIS widgets. Programme data is stored as files and kept in adapter memory instead of being copied into data points.

Table of contents

• Installation
• Adapter configuration
  • Programme sources
  • Alternative channel logos
• Widgets
  • Common widget configuration
  • Timetable
  • Favorites
  • TV Control
  • Search
• Data points
• sendTo commands
• Examples
• Features
• Planned work
• Changelog
• License

Installation

Install the adapter from the ioBroker stable repository. Use the beta or latest repository to test a development version.

After the first start, wait until the adapter has downloaded programme and channel data before configuring the widgets.

Adapter configuration

Create one TV configuration for each independent channel selection, favorites list and switch target. Each TV gets its own set of data points below the adapter instance. The readonly device key is derived from the configured TV name. It uses lowercase letters and digits without spaces; German umlauts are written as ae, oe and ue. For example, Wohnzimmer Süd becomes wohnzimmersued. Reordering table entries does not change their device keys. TV names must produce unique keys.

At startup, the adapter synchronizes these devices with the configuration. Missing TV devices are created and surplus devices are removed together with their data points. When a legacy tv1, tv2, ... key is replaced for the first time, its existing state values are copied to the new device key.

Programme sources

Select the programme source separately for every TV configuration. The adapter supports:

• TV für alle
• IPTV-EPG.org

For IPTV-EPG.org, select the required country in the corresponding TV row. The daily download time applies to all IPTV-EPG sources and uses HH:mm format. The download starts at a stable random offset of up to 60 minutes after that time. This distributes requests from separate ioBroker installations.

At startup, the adapter checks whether the configured source contains usable channel data and programme data for the current broadcast day. Missing data is downloaded immediately. Failed downloads are retried after one hour.

Programmes between midnight and 04:59 belong to the previous broadcast day. Downloaded data is stored separately for each source and country. Switching a TV to another source does not delete an existing cache. Channel selections are stored as files in the adapter cache per TV and source identity. The active selection is copied to channelfilter after a source change and before the widgets receive their reload command. Programme data for today and the four previous calendar days remains cached even when a later provider response no longer contains those days.

Set info.reset to true to delete all source data and saved channel selections from the adapter cache. The adapter acknowledges the button, clears the active TV selections and immediately downloads the configured sources again.

Alternative channel logos

Set the optchnlogopath data point to a browser accessible directory if you want to replace source logos, for example:

http://192.1.2.3:8082/vis.0/icons/tvlogos/

Use lowercase PNG filenames based on the IPTV-EPG channel ID without its final country suffix. DasErste is an alias and always uses ard.png.

Regional IDs use the same rule: ORF2Wien.at becomes orf2wien.png, and SRFzwei.ch becomes srfzwei.png. Check failed image requests in the browser developer tools if a filename is unclear.

When optchnlogopath is empty, widgets use source logos. The channel selector always uses source logos so that channels remain identifiable.

See Alternative channel logo examples for setup and conversion examples.

Widgets

The widgets require a modern browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera or Chromium based Edge. Internet Explorer and legacy Edge are unsupported.

Common widget configuration

Select any data point of the required TV, usually its cmd data point. The widget derives the remaining data point IDs automatically.

Common display options control the channel logo width, row height, programme pictures, font sizes, favorite color and detail dialog dimensions. Configure an explicit foreground and background color when the view theme does not give the programme entries enough contrast.

If widgets are missing or outdated after an installation, run:

iobroker upload tvprogram

Widget CSS customization examples are available in Widget styling.

Timetable

The Timetable widget shows programmes by channel on a time axis. It marks the current time, supports zoom and day navigation, and opens programme details from the complete programme card.

Open the channel selector from the widget menu. Click a card to enable or disable a channel. Active channels appear first and retain their user defined order. Drag an active card to move it; on touch screens, hold it briefly before dragging. Search matches names and channel IDs across all channels, including those on other pages. The sort button cycles inactive channels through source order, A–Z and Z–A. The checkmark saves changes, while the cross or Escape closes without saving. The top right button switches between the configured size and full screen.

The Other channels section displays up to 100 channels per page by default. Use the first page, minus (previous page), plus (next page) and last page buttons below its heading to navigate. The indicator shows the current page and total number of pages. Selected channels remain visible in their separate section. Set Channels per page in channel selection (tvprogram_channelpagesize) in the widget configuration to change the page size. Existing widgets use 100 when this setting is empty. Searching and changing the sort order return to the first page; search results are paginated using the same page size.

Logos retain their proportions and are centered within the configured channel width and row height. Images load close to the visible area with up to four concurrent requests and one retry. The vertical scrollbar is hidden; a slim horizontal scrollbar remains available below the programme rows.

After the current day loads, the widget waits at least ten seconds and prefetches the following two broadcast days. Active image downloads may delay this operation.

Favorites

The Favorites widget lists upcoming programmes whose titles are in the TV's favorites data point. Results are sorted by date and time and refresh every minute.

When the selected channel limit is enabled, Favorites uses the Timetable selection for the same TV. Before a selection has been saved, the first four channels are used. An explicitly empty selection produces no results.

TV Control

TV Control shows the programme running now or at a configured time. Clicking a channel logo writes a switch command; clicking anywhere on a programme card opens its details. It scrolls vertically without displaying a scrollbar.

Search

Search finds programmes by title, description, category and start date. At least the search text or a category must be provided. An unchanged current date starts the search at the current time; another date starts at midnight. Alternative channel logos from optchnlogopath are supported. Results scroll vertically without displaying a scrollbar.

Data points

Each configured TV provides these data points:

The record value contains startTime, endTime, title, channel, channelid, channelname and eventid.

sendTo commands

Use these commands to build custom integrations:

Parameters and runnable calls are documented in sendTo command examples.

Examples

All longer examples are maintained in docs/EXAMPLES.md:

• widget CSS customization
• sendTo requests
• Harmony and MagentaTV channel switching
• alternative channel logo setup
• recording list and favorite status scripts
• record highlighting templates

Features

• Programme timeline with current time marker and automatic scrolling
• Configurable channel selection and ordering
• Programme detail dialogs and text copying
• Day navigation and zoom controls
• Favorite filtering and upcoming favorite list
• Channel switching through a data point
• Optional programme pictures and alternative channel logos
• Configurable logo width, row height, colors and dialog dimensions
• Record data point populated from programme details

Planned work

• Consider an additional widget for highlighted programmes.
• Evaluate other programme sources or hardware sources when there is sufficient demand.

Changelog

6.2.0 (2026-10-28)

• Configurable paging mechanism in the channel select dialog

6.1.0 (2026-09-28)

• more fixes and adjustments
• add reset button under datapoint info/reset

6.0.0 (2026-09-28)

• improve and extend translation
• improve configuration dialog
• improve and fix dataloading
• improve seperation of data
• Improving the management of the selected channels
• reduce amount of data transfered to widgets

5.0.1 (2026-09-23)

• fix tests

5.0.0 (2026-09-23)

• Comprehensive revision
• New data source added

License

MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Copyright (c) 2025-2026 oweitman oweitman@gmx.de