MPsteam (Starting "Valve Steam" in Big Picture mode) (3 Viewers)

Stéphane Lenclud

Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • April 29, 2013
    2,576
    1,294
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    Actually in StreamedMP Basic Home editor you need to select display xml files. Then look for MPSteam give it a name and you are done. Cool plugin guys.
     

    htpcler

    Portal Pro
    December 22, 2008
    63
    2
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    Hi, unfortunately this is not possible, yet.

    Suspending + resuming MP is planned for the next release. Suspending "could" help. If not, we should consider closing MP temporarily instead of "just" suspending.

    But no date yet and very little time...

    Thank you for the quick replay.
    Nice to hear, that there is something in the pipeline.
    For now i´d enhanced my mediaportal startup wrapper. It is a little python skript and it is checking for a process called mediaportal.exe. If the process is running there is nothing to do. If not, it is starting mediaportal. In earlier Version i had problems with the MP watchdog and this was my quick solution.
    This Wrapper skript now checks for a running steam process. If it is started and MP too, the wrapper kills mediaportal and after closing of steam it is starting MP up again. This is working nicely for me. But it is important that steam autostart is disabled ;)
    Hi, unfortunately this is not possible, yet.

    Suspending + resuming MP is planned for the next release. Suspending "could" help. If not, we should consider closing MP temporarily instead of "just" suspending.

    But no date yet and very little time...

    Thank you for the quick replay.
    Nice to hear, that there is something in the pipeline.
    For now i´d enhanced my mediaportal startup wrapper. It is a little python skript and it is checking for a process called mediaportal.exe. If the process is running there is nothing to do. If not, it is starting mediaportal. In earlier Version i had problems with the MP watchdog and this was my quick solution.
    This Wrapper skript now checks for a running steam process. If it is started and MP too, the wrapper kills mediaportal and after closing of steam it is starting MP up again. This is working nicely for me. But it is important that steam autostart is disabled ;)
    Hallo redpolo
    Nice Idee the Script.
    Can you give it me for download ?
    I have the same Problem.
    Thank's
     

    redpolo

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • January 3, 2006
    24
    2
    NRW
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    @htpcler
    No Problem. But you need python3 to execute it. After installation of python3 i start the script at windows startup with "call C:/"path"/mp_core.py"

    You will find python3 here:
    https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.4.1/python-3.4.1.msi

    The script is in the zip. It wants MP be installed to the default location under C:\Program Files.... . You can change it easily to your needs.

    It will restart MP if no mediaportal.exe process is found an it kills mediaportal.exe if steam is found. I use a extra user to administrate the htpc. for this reason there is no stop function in the script. if you need the script to be stopped, you has to kill the python process by yourself.


    kind regards
    redpolo
     

    Attachments

    • mp_core.zip
      664 bytes

    yahoodee

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • July 17, 2006
    64
    6
    Frankfurt am Main
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    Hi,

    [prologue] I am having a problem with my monitor-resolution. I was using 1080p all the time. My HTPC isn't powerfull enough to handle games in 1080p so i tried to switch to 720p by setting it up in the specific game. Most of the games don't like the resolution switch before they get started so it throughs me back to steam with the game running on in background and i am not able switch to it.
    so i want to change the desktop-resolution before starting steam and restore the previous one on exit. [/prologue]

    could you please make it possible to run a post-script (in addition to the pre-script) or give me the possibility to run a batch instead of the steam.exe? that would help me so much!

    thanks in advance
     

    exe222

    Portal Pro
    August 22, 2011
    71
    18
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    Hi,

    [prologue] I am having a problem with my monitor-resolution. I was using 1080p all the time. My HTPC isn't powerfull enough to handle games in 1080p so i tried to switch to 720p by setting it up in the specific game. Most of the games don't like the resolution switch before they get started so it throughs me back to steam with the game running on in background and i am not able switch to it.
    so i want to change the desktop-resolution before starting steam and restore the previous one on exit. [/prologue]

    could you please make it possible to run a post-script (in addition to the pre-script) or give me the possibility to run a batch instead of the steam.exe? that would help me so much!

    thanks in advance

    I know that issue. It is the same for games that do not support the native resolution (e.g. FEZ).
    Workaround: You can switch to any window in the background with "alt + tab" and enjoy the game. :)

    Unfortunately there is still very littly time and I don't expect any update soon.
    But I / we will keep it in mind.

    Although I would like to have valve/steam fixing this properly instead of us building a workaround for this since I get the same behaviour without MP running.
     

    Rick164

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • January 7, 2006
    1,335
    1,005
    Home Country
    Netherlands Netherlands
    Found a simple way of minimizing Mediaportal to the tray (or forcing it to close) by using EventGhost, if anyone finds it useful the instructions are below:

    - First in Eventghost create a named Event like this for example:

    mepo_eg_close.png


    which finds the mediaportal.exe proces and closes Mediaportal because in the Mediaportal configuration I've set it so that close minimizes to tray.

    - Next up we create a simple batch file with the following line:

    Filename: mediaportal_EG_close.bat

    Code:
    "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\EventGhost.exe" -e Mediaportal.Close

    where "Mediaportal.Close" is my event name from the first step, can name it anything you like and Eventghost supports a lot of different actions (minimize / maximize / restore etc..)

    - Now let MPsteam use the batch script before starting steam.

    mepo_steam.PNG

    - That's it

    Restoring Mediaportal can also be scripted with EventGhost the same way but would bind it to keyboard command or remote key.
     

    d0ne

    Portal Member
    December 24, 2008
    35
    18
    Restoring Mediaportal can also be scripted with EventGhost the same way but would bind it to keyboard command or remote key.

    There is actually another way without binding it to a keyboard command or a remote key.
    I did it exactly your way, but a added another event at Eventghost.

    Eventghost Steam Mediaportal.JPG


    It works like this:
    1) As you explained, by starting the MPSteam Plugin, the MedaPortal.exe is killed and Steam is starting in Big Picture Mode.
    2) If you exit the Big Picture Mode with the shutdown icon from steam and you are either exiting to your desktop OR killing steam, Eventghost detects this via the Task "Destroyed.Steam" and start MediaPortal.exe again.

    As I'm controlling both steam and MP with my remote, I can say that it works perfectly well with that solution.

    BTW: As you can see, I'm using the german translation for eventghost, but I think it's quite clear what commands to use in english ;)
     

    midknight

    Portal Member
    January 1, 2009
    39
    2
    Home Country
    Spain Spain
    View attachment 171502

    2) If you exit the Big Picture Mode with the shutdown icon from steam and you are either exiting to your desktop OR killing steam, Eventghost detects this via the Task "Destroyed.Steam" and start MediaPortal.exe again.

    I tried to replicate this, but can't get the Task.Destroyed.Steam even to fire... Anything else that has to be configured for this?
     

    midknight

    Portal Member
    January 1, 2009
    39
    2
    Home Country
    Spain Spain
    Nevermind, I found the plugin [emoji16] Thanks!
    I have scripted in eventghost on steam launch, find and close mepo, and on steam close, start mepo. Works great so far and I don't need the.bat
     

    Rick164

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • January 7, 2006
    1,335
    1,005
    Home Country
    Netherlands Netherlands
    @d0ne Thanks, normally multi-task the desktop so restore MP manually but it certainly is better for most users :)
    Didn't know Task.Destroyed also detected non app shutdowns (i.e. still running background) so that that is very nice, recently had to remove EventGhost altogether as it conflicted with Windows 10 (G key gets stuck):

    http://www.eventghost.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7752

    Affects all Windows 10 users which need the Keyboard plugin and not just those with the Xbox app as MS decided to make it always on (even when app is removed) in a update which has yet to be reverted, EventGhost developers are definitely not doing anything about it except a workaround which creates other issues.

    So created a new script that closes Mediaportal before starting Steam, it finds the correct window and since close is minimize to tray in my setup it moves to tray and then starts Steam in big picture mode.
    Doesn't rely on EventGhost and finds the window directly, no restore option though.

    Instructions

    Option 1 - Non-eventghost method (doesn't restore Mediaportal after steam closes)

    Create a batch file with parameter "CloseMediaportal" like this:

    SendWindowCMD.exe CloseMediaportal

    Now save the batch file to for instance "mediaportal_close.bat" and set that in MPsteam config:

    mepo_steam-png.170990.png


    Code

    https://gist.github.com/RickDB/aeff5cddc70bb181811b

    Option 2 - Eventghost method (restores Mediaportal from tray after steam closes)

    Import the attached config (mpsteam-eventghost.xml) into Eventghost, enable the Eventghost plugin "Task Create/Switch Event" if needed,
    Next up we create a simple batch file with the following line and name it mediaportal_EG_close.bat

    Code:
    "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\EventGhost.exe" -e Mediaportal.Close

    - Now let MPsteam use the batch script before starting steam.

    257011_mepo_steam.png


    - That's it
     

    Attachments

    • SendWindowCMD.zip
      13.2 KB
    • mpsteam-eventghost.xml
      1.1 KB
    Last edited:

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom