LCD plugin supporting more than 70 display types (now with full graphics support!!!) (1 Viewer)

[JoeDalton]

Hi, is it possible to show double line characters on a 2 x 16 display? (imon vfd). Thus, the charachers would be bouble height and you would have only one effective line?

Is this something that is supported by the iMon hardware?
If not that this will not be possible, as I don't think the iMon can display graphics.

If it is supported than I need more info on how to switch the display in that mode...

Joe

 

[JoeDalton]

New version in SVN

I've committed a new version to SVN.

This version contains the support for text in graphics mode I announced earlier.
This option is automatically used for displays that don't support text mode and is disabled by default for displays that support text mode, because text mode is much faster. To override this behaviour, check the "Force Graphical Text" checkbox in the plugin configuration.

The text in graphics mode uses a number of new config options:

• Font: the font to use to for drawing text
• FontSize: the fontsize (in points) to use
• ScrollDelay: the number of milliseconds to wait between screen updates
• Pixels to scroll: the number of pixels to scroll text that is too wide to fit the display

These options should give you a lot of tweaking power
For example, if you want smooth scrolling (100% CPU!!), set ScrollDelay to 0 and Pixels to scroll to 1.
If you want very little CPU overhead, set the ScrollDelay to 1000 and Pixels to scroll to the width of your display. You can also lower the font size to make room for more characters.
To disable scrolling, set pixels to scroll to 0.

I also added a #Chars to scroll option to the text mode to give you the same flexibility there.

Joe

 

[swifty]

Cool, thanks for your great work Joe.
Really looking forward to testing this out when I get back from work.

 

[tkortell]

I've committed a new version to SVN.

This SVN is not available yet is it? Cant vait to get my hands on it

Regards / Tomas

 

[JoeDalton]

Yes Tomas, it is
Get it here...

Joe

 

[swifty]

Hi Joe,
I just installed 11428 SVN and the KS0108 driver still shows (disabled) - Is there something I am missing ? When I hover over the exclamation it says it can't load the driver...


Cheers
Neil

 

[JoeDalton]

Did you install the Driverlinx Port I/O Driver? Many display drivers depend on it to communicate with the display. You can download it here.

The plugin disables all drivers that throw an exception while loading.
To check why a certain driver is disabled, check the mediaportal.log file in the log folder.

Joe

Update: The DriverLinx website seems to be down atm.
Personally I use an alternative driver: InpOut32.
I need that one, because I run XP X64 and the driverlinx driver is not compatible with X64. The InpOut32 driver is. You can download it here.

Although it has a different name, it is (limited) compatible with the driverlinx driver.
To use it, extract the dll from the Win32 folder in the zip file to the MP home folder (where MediaPortal.exe is located). Then rename it to DLPortIO.dll.

Then restart the configuration program, and it should work ok.

 

[tkortell]

Yes Tomas, it is
Get it here...

Joe

Well, a new SVN has apeard since I downloaded so maybe I will have more luck with that one now I just need to wait for my girlfriend to get of the computer I use the display with...

R / tk

 

[tkortell]

I'm so happy right now Marc, I do not regret sending you the displey Thank you very muche! The new features works great!

Regards / Tomas

 

[swifty]

Hi Joe,
Thanks for the pointer the plugin is now working great

One minor oversight on my part though - I LCD is installed in the case upside down (due to space limitations - cables and that...) which wasn't a problem with LCDStudio as I could rotate so I forgot all about it, but now all the text is upside down using your plugin.
Any chance of getting 180 degree rotate for people in my situation ?

Thanks for the great plugin!