LCDSmartie plugin (3 Viewers)

[AllenConquest]

On my 3ghz (intel with hyperthreading) cpu at work lcdsmartie uses about 6% cpu when media portal is turned off and 33% when it is running. Media portal uses about 2% when smartie is turned off and 16% with smartie is turned on. This definetly has to do with my config using $dll(LCDMediaPortal.dll,5,#id,) to change screens. Because when i remove all the 18 referenses to this function the cpu consumption returns to normal.

For some reason I didn't read this properly the first time round. I've had a look at your config.ini file now, and I hadn't realised that you had so many actions setup. This is definitely the problem as LCDSmartie will check all the actions every 250ms. I'm going to try and improve this.

 

[lugiber]

For some reason I didn't read this properly the first time round. I've had a look at your config.ini file now, and I hadn't realised that you had so many actions setup. This is definitely the problem as LCDSmartie will check all the actions every 250ms. I'm going to try and improve this.

That would be great. I really like the feature that you can have so many custom screens for the different parts of media portal. Is there a way to let your plugin tell lcd smartie which screen to select instead of smartie having to "ask" all the time? I don't know if it is possible but perhaps you could do it like this:

If $dll(LCDMediaPortal.dll,9,#SwitchScreen,) = 1 Then dll(LCDMediaPortal.dll,9,#GotoScreen,,)

That way your plugin would be in total control over when you switch screens. Which screens to switch to could be configured via an ini/xml file.

Just a suggestion, i don't know if this is doable.

/Peter

 

[AllenConquest]

Is there a way to let your plugin tell lcd smartie which screen to select instead of smartie having to "ask" all the time? I don't know if it is possible but perhaps you could do it like this:

If $dll(LCDMediaPortal.dll,9,#SwitchScreen,) = 1 Then dll(LCDMediaPortal.dll,9,#GotoScreen,,)

In LCDSmartie the DLL can only return a string. It can't control anything But I wanted to do this at the start of this project, so I searched around. jaLCD can do this. I had thought about using that program, but more people seemed to be using LCDSmartie, and someone said it used less CPU. But I could try making my plugin compatible with jaLCD as well.

 

[lugiber]

In LCDSmartie the DLL can only return a string. It can't control anything But I wanted to do this at the start of this project, so I searched around. jaLCD can do this. I had thought about using that program, but more people seemed to be using LCDSmartie, and someone said it used less CPU. But I could try making my plugin compatible with jaLCD as well.

That is typical! In my case jalcd support wouldn't make any difference since it doesn't support matrix orbital displays. Nevertheless it is a great peice of software! If you think of any way on how to do this more effectivly with smartie please let me know.

I just received the undelivered email with the scripts for the matrix orbital buttons. I have re-sent it to you so you should have them by now. If you still haven't gotten the email please let me know and i'll try to send it again.

/Peter

 

[AllenConquest]

Re: Questions from a future user

I see a lot of requests for LCD/VFD navigation, but I can't see if it has been implemented?

Not yet !

Since music playback is one of the primary uses for my HTPC I really "need" to be able to navigate the music module without having to turn on the TV - I don't think I need menu-navigation, because I guess I can program a button on my remote to jump to the music-module. Is this possible?

I don't think it's possible to jump directly yet, but people are working on it. Out of interest how would you envisage this working for you. If you don't need menu navigation, what would you like ?

Another concern is the languages. Is the character conversion hard-coded or is it a table/file that can be edited by the user? - The reason I'm asking is that the conversions I've seen in the thread are not "standard" for danish, even though some of the letters are. Denmark uses the following special characters and conversion:
æ-->ae
ø-->oe
å-->aa
Æ-->Ae
Ø-->Oe
Å-->Aa
Can the plugin be set up to handle them correctly?

I'm working on putting the character mapping into an external XML file. So you'll be able to change it in whatever way you like.

And what i the display can actually handle those characters - wil lthey still be converted? My display (Noritake 32*140 graphical) does have european character sets, so if I ever get around to making a LCDSmartie plugin for it I hope it can display the characters correctly

It will convert any characters that are in the mapping. Once this is made into an external file you can control which ones you want to be converted.

 

[ThomP]

Re: Questions from a future user

I don't think it's possible to jump directly yet, but people are working on it. Out of interest how would you envisage this working for you. If you don't need menu navigation, what would you like ?

As I said I'm not a Mediaportal user yet, so please forgive my ignorance! I was assuming/hoping it was possible to jump directly to a specific module without having to navigate through the menu - I'm currently using Meedio which has this great feature (but lacks a few other critical features like TV :wink: ).

When I said I don't need menu navigation it was based on the assumption that it was possible to jump directly to a module. Of course, when I'm in the music module, I also need to browse the contents using only a remote and the VFD.

I'm not sure if Mediaportal organizes music by tags or folders - if its by folders I guess what I want would be something like this (always having the center line "current" (highlighted/inverted) unless "BOF" or "EOF"):

Opening screen:
--- Music ---
Folder 1
Folder 2
Folder 3 >

The arrow next to Folder 3 indicates that there are more choices and should of course be right aligned and point down in this case

Pressing up/down would highlight the different options and OK/Enter would select. Browsing to Folder 1 would then show:
--- Folder 1 ---
Subfolder 2 <
Subfolder 3
Subfolder 4 >

Selecting a last-level subfolder should just queu all the songs in that folder. Of course, using a two-line display would only allow the header and the highlighted option to be visible.

If Mediaportal browses by tags I would imagine a structure like this:
"Compilations"-->Album1-->[Play]
"Artist"-->Artist1-->Album1-->[Play]

For my use I would rather not have to browse to single tracks, since I always listen to a whole album and don't want to have to manually queue all the tracks. The compilations option is relevant because compilations generate too much "noise" in the artist view (like entries with only one or two items). Of course this requires some sort of filtering option or ability to combine folders and tags.

I'm working on putting the character mapping into an external XML file. So you'll be able to change it in whatever way you like.

Great

 

[cedriclocqueneux]

I have installed the Webinterface plugin, and now, with the LCDSmartie plugin, my VFD is crazy ! I think it's because the two plugins use ECP2Assembly.dll . Is it possible ti make a ECP2Assembly.dll file with all the functions needed by the two plugins ?

 

[samuel337]

I have installed the Webinterface plugin, and now, with the LCDSmartie plugin, my VFD is crazy ! I think it's because the two plugins use ECP2Assembly.dll . Is it possible ti make a ECP2Assembly.dll file with all the functions needed by the two plugins ?

Hi there. I'm the developer of ECP2Assembly, and I know that that problem exists. I'm working on a seperate installation routine for this so that it will sort of solve this problem, but in the mean time, simply re-install the LCDSmartie plugin. The version of ECP2Assembly.dll included with the LCDSmartie plugin is newer than the web interface one, and therefore should work with both plugins.

Sam

 

[cedriclocqueneux]

Ok, i'll test it this afternoon, and i'll give you a feedback.

 

[lugiber]

In LCDSmartie the DLL can only return a string. It can't control anything

I think i may have cracked this nut

I tried this with with a plugin called "maxim" which basically reads an .ini file and display the text on the screen. I put the text GotoScreen(10) in the file and set it up like this:

If $Winamppos = 10 Then $dll(maxim,1,quotes,C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Skrivbord\lcdsmartie\lines.ini)

What this action does is to switch to screen 10 when winamp has played 10 seconds. I started playing a song and after 10 seconds smartie switched to screen 10!

So if we would use your plugin to output GotoScreen(**) when a screen is changed i think this is doable.

Basic setup would be something like this:


If $dll(LCDMediaPortal.dll,9,#SwitchScreen,) = 1 Then $dll(LCDMediaPortal.dll,9,#GotoScreen,)

Or in clear text when media portal switches screen the SwitchScreen flag outputs a "1" and the GotoScreen outputs which screen to switch to. Like this:

If SwitchScreen=1 Then GotoScreen(**)

What do you think? I have uploaded a demo of my setup on my ftp so you can try it out.

###Edit

Since the new and improved smartie plugin damatically reduses the stress on the cpu perhaps this is no longer nessesary.
I still think it could make a difference though.

###Edit
/Peter