Running MP as a part-time HTPC (1 Viewer)

[venger]

As the devteam as stated a few times in the forum MP is intended to be a fulltime HTPC. IMHO, this is reasonable and helps focus delivery.

However, there are some of us (myself included) who only have a single machine and cannot afford to run it as a fulltime HTPC only.

After scratching my head a bit and doing some searching, I have located external freeware tools to achieve the same effect.

An example is the 4t Tray Minimizer Freeware edition.
(at http://www.4t-niagara.com/default.html)

Basically, this tool will:
(1) hide MP in the taskbar and place it instead in system tray
(2) MP can be restored by remote or double-clicking on the MP tray icon
(3) MP can be automatically placed in system tray whenever the window loses focus

The cool thing is (1) - (3) are all configurable.

The result:
You now have a HTPC that can seamlessly slips into the system tray when you want to do normal PC stuff. And your recordings will continue to quietly happen.

PS: I do not work for 4t-niagara. I have found at least 3-4 similar tools so there are definitely alternatives.

 

[Anonymous]

hello Venger,

Does this "solve" the sluggish issue:
going from fullscreen to windowed, and then press the minimize icon and back?

I think this might not being too difficult to add something to MP like:
-add extra button <minimize>
-add extra feature "start minimized or not"

Greetings,

 

[fpouels]

Thanks Venger for this tip ! As a new part-time MP user this was one of the things I was missing, now I can go from fullscreen to tray and back with one key press. So yes iafilius, this solves your issue.

 

[venger]

*sigh*... i knew it was too good to be true.. just rebooted my machine and found that the 4t Tray Minimizer Freeware edition does not store options !! :evil:

oh well.. nothin for nothin i suppose :wink:
In any case, I will continue searching for a freeware alternative that will do the job.

But for those who never turn off their machines, this should not be a problem