EPG Planer

The EPG Planer is where your team builds the channel's programme schedule: you keep a library of shows, place broadcasts in a weekly grid, and publish the result as XMLTV, JSON and iCalendar feeds for cable networks, websites and apps.

01Getting started

1. Log in with the username and initial password you received from your administrator. You can switch the language (DE / EN / IT / FR) at the top of the login window.
2. Set your own password. On the first login with an initial password you are asked to choose a personal one (at least 8 characters).
3. Find your way around. The planner opens on the current week, scrolled to the current time.

02The screen

03Roles & approval

Everyone always sees the working version in the planner. The feeds only ever contain the approved version. Items waiting for approval are marked with an amber dot ● and a dashed outline.

04Shows (library)

A show is the reusable template: title and default details. A broadcast is one airing of a show at a specific time. Changing a show updates all its broadcasts.

Create or edit a show

In the Shows list below the day programme, click + New, or click an existing show. The show opens in a window:

A brand-new title typed into a broadcast's Show field also creates a show automatically when you save.

Archive or delete

• Archive moves a show out of the library and the title suggestions, e.g. when a series has ended. Its broadcasts stay in the schedule and the EPG; if some are still planned, you are asked to confirm.
• Archive (n) in the header of the show list opens the archive. Click a show there and choose Restore, or simply schedule it again: it is restored automatically.
• Delete is only possible when the show has no broadcasts in the EPG period or later. Its past broadcasts are deleted with it. Until then, archive it instead.

05Scheduling broadcasts

There are several ways to put a broadcast into the plan:

Move a broadcast by dragging it, also to another day. Change its length by dragging its bottom edge. Times snap to your grid (see Grid).

Editing a broadcast

Click a broadcast in the grid or in the day list. The editor on the right shows:

• Show: as soon as you start typing, existing shows are suggested with genre, duration and how often they are scheduled (also archived ones and matches in the category). Pick one with the mouse or ↑ ↓ Enter; its default duration is taken over. A new title can be created directly from the list. ✎ opens the show itself. The hint below shows its default duration, how often it is scheduled and its genre.
• Date, Start, Duration min: the end time is shown below. Start times and durations work in 5-minute steps.
• Recurrence: see Recurring series.
• This broadcast: details for this airing only. Leave a field empty to use the show's value (shown greyed out).
  • Season, Episode: published as e.g. S12E05.
  • Subtitle / episode title, Description, Image.

Save (Ctrl+S) stores the broadcast. Duplicate creates a copy directly after it, with the episode number increased by one. Delete asks for confirmation (click twice).

Recurring series

Set Recurrence to turn a broadcast into a series:

Optionally set Until to end the series. Series broadcasts show ↻.

When you change, move or delete a broadcast that belongs to a series, you are asked what the change applies to:

Images

Click the image area, drag a file onto it or paste with Ctrl+V. JPG, PNG, WebP and GIF are accepted.

A broadcast without its own image uses the show's image; it is shown faded with the label from show.

06Day programme, gaps & overlaps

The Schedule tab lists the selected day in order. Click a day header in the grid to select another day.

• Gap Empty time of 5 minutes or more. Click + fill to schedule into it.
• Overlap Two broadcasts at the same time, shown with a red dashed outline. Overlaps are allowed but usually a mistake.
• missing: Description, Image marks broadcasts whose EPG details are incomplete.

Past broadcasts are dimmed; the one on air is highlighted in red.

07Approvals

Changes by editors who need approval are collected in the Approvals tab. The badge shows how many are open.

• Each entry shows what is New, Changed or Deleted, which fields changed, the previous state, who made the change and when.
• Admins click ✓ Approve or ✕ Reject per entry, or Approve all / Reject all.
• Approve publishes the change to the feeds. A new show needed by a broadcast is approved with it.
• Reject restores the last approved version in the planner.

08EPG output (feeds)

The links XMLTV JSON ICS in the toolbar open the current feeds. While you are logged in they work without a token.

Partners receive their own link with an access token (see EPG output settings). Send them the Feed Guide; it explains the formats, fields and date filters such as ?date=2026-10-20.

Only approved data appears in the feeds.

• XMLTV follows the official XMLTV standard. Empty fields are left out, so receivers such as TVHeadend, Plex or Enigma2 read it without problems.
• Genres are sent with their official English name, translated into every channel language (German, French, Italian) and with the full DVB code (e.g. 0x63). The channel languages are set in EPG output settings.
• Only fields you have filled in are sent: no description, no image or no season simply means that element is missing in XMLTV.

09Settings

Open ⚙ Settings in the status bar. Editors see Grid and Users; admins also see EPG output.

Grid

Choose the snap step from 5 to 30 minutes. It applies to dragging, resizing, double-clicking and scheduling, and is saved for your account only. Times typed into the editor can still be any 5-minute step.

EPG output Admin

Click Save after changing channel data or the feed period. The logo is saved as soon as it is uploaded.

Users

Your account (everyone): choose the interface language and Change password.

Team Admin:

• + User: enter username, name and role. Turn on Publish without approval if this editor's changes should go live directly. An initial password is generated; pass it on. The user must set their own password at first login.
• Rename a user by clicking the name on their card.
• Switch the role between Editor and Admin, and toggle Publish without approval for editors.
• Reset password sets a new initial password; Delete removes the user.
• At least one admin always remains. You cannot change your own role or delete yourself.

10Keyboard & mouse

Text pasted from websites or Word is cleaned automatically: no HTML, no hidden characters.

11For administrators

• Server: PHP 8.1 or newer with the extensions pdo_sqlite (database) and GD (image conversion). The folders data/ and uploads/ must be writable.
• Data: everything is stored in the SQLite database data/epg.sqlite (plus the working files epg.sqlite-wal and epg.sqlite-shm – do not delete them while the planner is running). Only the requested days are loaded, so the planner stays fast however many years of schedule it holds.
• Several users at once: any number of people can work and any number of partners can fetch feeds at the same time. Saves are processed one after another, each completely or not at all, so no change is lost. If two people edit the same broadcast at the same moment, the later save wins.
• Backups: once a day, on the first save, a complete copy is written to data/backup/epg-YYYY-MM-DD.sqlite; the last 14 are kept. To restore, stop access, replace data/epg.sqlite with a backup and delete the -wal / -shm files. Also back up data/backup/ and uploads/ to another system regularly.
• Update from an older version: an existing data/epg.json is imported automatically on the first request and then renamed to epg.json.imported. The file epg.lock is no longer needed.
• Storage location: keep data/ on a local disk, not on a network share (NFS/SMB), otherwise locking is not reliable. On Apache the folder is protected by data/.htaccess; on nginx block it in the server configuration, e.g. location /data { deny all; }.
• Short feed links (/epg/<token>.xml) need Apache with mod_rewrite and the file epg/.htaccess. If they are not available, the planner automatically uses the long form (/epg/?t=…&f=xml).
• Defaults such as the initial admin password and time zone are in config.php. Change initial_password before the first start – the shipped default is publicly known and is refused.
• Forgotten admin password: set 'reset_admin' => true in config.php, log in as admin with the initial_password, choose a new password, then set it back to false.

Security & going live

Built in – nothing to configure:

• Login lock: after 5 wrong passwords for the same username from the same address, that combination is locked for 15 minutes; after 20 wrong attempts from one address, the whole address is locked. Others, including the real admin elsewhere, can still log in.
• Requests from other websites are refused: changes are only accepted from the planner itself (own header and same origin), and the planner cannot be embedded in other pages.
• Security headers on all PHP responses, strict sessions (HttpOnly, SameSite, Secure on HTTPS), passwords stored as bcrypt hashes.
• No internal details in error messages; they go to the PHP error log only.
• Self-check for admins: a red Security notice appears after login if the data folder can be downloaded from the internet, the site runs without HTTPS or reset_admin is still on. It is re-checked when you open ⚙ Settings → EPG output.

Checklist before going public:

1. HTTPS with a valid certificate (e.g. Let's Encrypt).
2. Data folder outside the web root – the safest option, independent of the web server. In config.php set e.g. 'data_dir' => '/var/epg-data' (writable by PHP). If it must stay in data/: on Apache, AllowOverride must allow the shipped data/.htaccess; on nginx add the block below.
3. Change initial_password, log in, set your own password; keep reset_admin on false.
4. Delete demo.php if you do not need demo data.
5. After login, check that no red Security notice appears.

# nginx: data folder blocked, security headers also for the static pages
location ^~ /data/ { deny all; return 404; }
add_header X-Frame-Options "DENY" always;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff" always;
add_header Referrer-Policy "same-origin" always;
add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000" always;   # only with HTTPS

Public demo

For a public demo, run a separate installation (e.g. on demo.example.com) and set 'sandbox' => true in its config.php. Every visitor then automatically gets:

• their own empty project with its own database and images – visitors never see each other's data,
• direct login as admin, with the login shown in the Demo bar at the bottom (needed after logging out or to test roles),
• Load demo data fills the project with a complete 24-hour schedule; Start over deletes it and starts a new, empty one,
• working feeds for testing in VLC, TVHeadend etc.: the feed links contain the project ID (epg/?s=…&f=xml).

After sandbox_ttl (default 1 hour) the project and its images are deleted; the page then starts a new, empty one. Limits against abuse, all in config.php:

• Projects are stored in data/sandbox/<id>/, images in uploads/sb-<id>/; shared demo images in uploads/_demo/. Cleanup runs automatically, no cron job needed.
• The demo uses its own login cookie, so it does not interfere with a real planner on the same domain. Keep demo.php in the demo installation; it is only reachable from within a project.
• The security checklist above applies to the demo too, especially HTTPS and a protected data/ folder.

12Troubleshooting