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

[Johan]

thanatos, are you possibly running Windows Vista?

It's confirmed that iMON latest driver is not working correctly with MCE when running on Vista. If the MCE support is broken I assume also the MP support is broken!?

See this topic http://www.soundgraph.com/Eng_/Foru...TB=T&CurrentPage=1&fcStateId=1&writingLevel=8

 

[thanatos]

Johan,

you are quite active!
No, I'm not running Vista. I'v got Win XP SP2 and all the latest patches installed on my PC.
Like you said, Imon is a software which controls the display and also takes the ir commands - but its not the driver itself. The driver comes along with the installation of imon but can also be installed separately.

As I understand it, when I put imon in Plugin Mode, it should receive commands, content, etc via some kind of interface - the point i suppose the "External Display" Plugin to jump in - and show it on the display. If it is like that, obviously imon does not "unterstand" what the External Display Plugin is "saying"...

There is also the possibility, to put imon in the "3rd party Applikation" mode - I'm not sure what that exactly means, but most likely this allows other applications directly to communicate with the display.
This leads me to the question if it has the same effect not to start imon at all?
Questions, questions, questions...

Hopefully we both together can figure this out - you should receive your case quite soon, shouldn't you?

 

[Johan]

Yeah a bit active. Since I am bit worried that the display will not work. I really don't feel like start running MCE instead of MP. However if the display will not work at all it feels a bit of wasted money for nothing if I dont use it.

Anyhow, if imon is a "standard" then the "listening" port of imon driver should not have changed between gd01 display and older imon displays. Specially not since the imon software seems to be the same no matter which imon display you have. I guess the driver is slightly different depending on which model of display you have but the commands should be the same.

I see this imon standard a bit like DirectX. A software interpeter between the hardware and the application who wants to use it with standard commands to do different things. I might be totally wrong, specially since I have never played around with imon.

I get the case next week. Delivery date is scheduled for monday but it can be delayed again. Always when you wait for something a lot it always get stuck somewhere. But if I can test the display depends if I get it running from my current computer since I will not put my HTPC fully together yet.

 

[thanatos]

Well, lets see if we can figure out how to make it work...
It would be great, if one of the developers could help us - lets see what happens!

I think you are right about the Imon Software but about the driver I'm not sure. At least the "old" model was VFD and the "new" is LCD.

Maybe I'm just blind and the solution for the problem is already there.
I'm holding my thumbs for you and the scheduled arrive of your case

 

[JoeDalton]

Sorry for not being very active in this thread
I am still working hard on MP, but now on other parts. More news on this will follow later...

Now, about those iMon problems...

Can anyone provide more information on this? I don't own an iMon display myself. In fact, I have even never seen one in real life, so I can't help much without more information....

Questions that I would like to have answered are:
- Do the older iMon displays still work with the latest SVN versions?
- Do the newer displays have newer drivers/software than the older ones?
- Has anyone gotten these newer displays to work? Are these reported problems isolated cases (pun intended ), or is there more going on here...
- Do the error logs (turn on extensive logging in the plugin configuration) have something useful to say?

Post your replies here.
Together we will be able to find a solution....

Joe

 

[tomtom21000]

Questions that I would like to have answered are:
- Do the older iMon displays still work with the latest SVN versions?
Joe

My imon vfd still works fine with a svn from some days ago (14001).
I also recently updated my imon driver/software (maybe a month ago). Don´t know if the driver is universal for old and new displays, but mine is still working fine.

tomtom

 

[dm15644]

I can confirm that my (older?) iMON works with an SVN from the weekend.

tomtom21000, do the new drivers give any benefit?

/jayrock

 

[SpiffBB]

Also confirm that my IMON vfd works with SVN from 2 days ago. I havent instaled the imon software, just the driver for the vfd (then I tried the software seamed to mes up the system a bit).
Regards
Oscar

 

[thanatos]

JoeDalton, good to have you back!!

Considering the last posts, it seems not to be an incompatibility between the latest cvs builds and the imon software / driver.

About the drivers for the new LCD display I'm not sure.
I suppose Imon itself does not care much about the display but at least the drivers have to be different, as the LCD display has a lot of little "icons" placed around the grafical area in the center. (Look here)
So to say, the driver for the new model must "support" those icons...

I will turn the extensive logging on and have a look at the logs - if I should find something of interest, I will post it here.

Robert

 

[andreavb]

OK, now that I have my PID(0x7000) and VID(0x0547) and I have installed USB Monitor how can I try to write APIs for my VFD? I have some programming knowledge of VB6 and C++, what are the steps involved in programming my display? how can I help you to support FIC Spectra Futaba display?

in the first page of this thread it says that some drivers need the PORT95NT driver, is this still true? there is already a Futaba 2.0 display type in the combo list but I never get it to work...

Hi Andrea, I'm sorry, but currently I don't have time to write an API for your display. However, I suggest you to take a look at this page:
http://www.mce-community.de/forum/in...howtopic=15834

This is the original code of API that I have based my current API for Scaleo EV on. First you will have to change the findTheHID method for your PID and VID. Also, you will most probably need to change the initialization, write and clear methods to byte codes that are expected by your controller.

If you are able to capture these codes by the USB monitor, you should be able to modify this API to any USB display, not only Futaba.

If you keep the method names as they are and modify just the API dll (VFD_control.dll), you can use my modified ProcessPlugins.dll as it is.

I sent my code to Joe and once he is back from vacation I hope we will find more systematic way of including these displays to the official release of the plug-in.

David

ok...is there any chance to have my Futaba VFD to work with Display plugin? is there some work in progress about this kind of display?...anyway it is something I can live without but it would be great to see it working