Category Archives: Guides

Tips, tricks, and guides around pitfalls of technology.

Fixing the Onkyo TX-SR806 Receiver’s Blue in Deep Black Issue

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This issue manifests itself as bands of blue in what should be a dark black gradient. A good example of this is the top AMD Catalyst Control Center as seen below.

AMD Catalyst Control Center Header in YCbCr 4:4:4 Mode

AMD Catalyst Control Center Header in YCbCr 4:4:4 Mode

The above is a picture taken by a camera of a TV connected to a Onkyo TX-SR806. The graphics card was set to use the YCbCr 4:4:4 color pixel format in this instance. This causes problems for the TX-SR806 which has problems with certain dark colors, rendering them blue rather than black—directly connecting to the TV does not have this issue.

To fix this, change the color pixel format to RGB 4:4:4 mode. For AMD Radeon users, AMD Radeon Software Crimson can do this (in the drop down menu, it is called “RGB 4:4:4 Pixel Format PC Standard (Full RGB)”).

AMD Catalyst Control Center Header in RGB 4:4:4 Mode

AMD Catalyst Control Center Header in RGB 4:4:4 Mode

Ignoring the moiré pattern due to the alignment of the camera, the dark area looks much better when in RGB 4:4:4 mode. Lastly, this is not an AMD specific issue. The previous HTPC which had Intel graphics also exhibited the same behavior.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

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Automatically Reconnect a Bluetooth Device in KDE Plasma 5

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If  you’re having issues getting your Bluetooth device to automatically reconnect between KDE sessions (or rebooting your computer), try opening a terminal (e.g. Konsole) and clear the contents of your /var/lib/bluetooth directory. After doing this you will need to restart the bluetooth daemon. For reference, in a Gentoo/Funtoo system, the following will accomplish this:

rm -rf /var/lib/bluetooth/*
/etc/init.d/bluetooth restart

Note that the above needs to be run as root (or use sudo). After removing the contents of your /var/lib/bluetooth directory, you will need re-pair your device in the Bluetooth manager. When paring your device, make sure it is set a trusted device.

Now, KDE should automatically reconnect the Bluetooth device after rebooting your computer. Note that the device may not reconnect until after you have logged in. To reconnect sooner, try using a command line Bluetooth device manager.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

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Calling the Breadcrumb Trail

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There are several ways of calling Breadcrumb NavXT’s breadcrumb trail. The first decision is between using the included widget, or calling one of the bcn_display* functions. This guide covers some examples for calling the breadcrumb trail using the bcn_display() function.
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Remove the Link in a Breadcrumb

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A topic that comes up time to time in support requests is how to unlink a breadcrumb. Typically this is due to having an empty page that exists to facilitate a logical hierarchy. Naturally, linking to this blank page in the breadcrumb trail is not useful. While it is bad form to have a breadcrumb in the breadcrumb trail that is not linked, there is a filter that can facilitate this behavior.

The presented solution is a simplistic example for a single page. However, it can be extended for multiple pages, or taxonomy terms. Finally, rather than being hard-coded, the IDs could come from a post_meta/term_meta field.

The Code (Breadcrumb NavXT 6.5)

Introduced in Breadcrumb NavXT 6.5, the bcn_breadcrumb_linked filter makes changing the linked status quite simple:

add_filter('bcn_breadcrumb_linked', 'my_breadcrumb_url_stripper', 3, 10);
function my_breadcrumb_url_stripper($linked, $type, $id)
{
	if(in_array('post-page', $type) && (int) $id === MYPAGEID)
	{
		return false;
	}
	return linked;
}

The Code (Pre-Breadcrumb NavXT 6.4)

Due to changes introduced in Breadcrumb NavXT 6.4, the below only works with versions of Breadcrumb NavXT prior to 6.4:

add_filter('bcn_breadcrumb_url', 'my_breadcrumb_url_stripper', 3, 10);
function my_breadcrumb_url_stripper($url, $type, $id)
{
	if(in_array('post-page', $type) && (int) $id === MYPAGEID)
	{
		$url = NULL;
	}
	return $url;
}

After placing this code into your site specific plugin, you will need to update one part of it. Just replace MYPAGEID with the ID of the page you want to remove the link to. That’s it. Simple, right?

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Link to a Page Rather Than the Category Archive in a Breadcrumb

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A topic that frequently comes up in the support forums is how to have a breadcrumb representing a category link to a Page (instance of the Page post type) rather than a category archive. Since this is not natively supported by WordPress, Breadcrumb NavXT does not natively support it. However, there is a filter that can facilitate this behavior.

The presented solution is a simplistic example for a single category. However, it can be extended for multiple categories, or taxonomy terms. Finally, rather than being hard-coded, the IDs could come from a term_meta field.

The Code

add_filter('bcn_breadcrumb_url', 'my_breadcrumb_url_changer', 3, 10);
function my_breadcrumb_url_changer($url, $type, $id)
{
	if(in_array('category', $type) && (int) $id === MYCATID)
	{
		$url = get_permalink(PAGEID);
	}
	return $url;
}

After placing this code into your site specific plugin, you will need to update two portions of it. Replace MYCATID with the ID of the category you want to change the link on, and replace PAGEID with the page you wish for the breadcrumb to link to. That’s it. Simple, right?

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]