Zalman HD135 VFD (VlSys Mplay) (2 Viewers)

[Herr R aus B]

Just a short reply this time -I am off for some hours...

Fan control still doesn't work - if I set manual fan speed to 100% and check the "use as shutdown..." box all I gt is silence, when I switch off MP. Are you maybe first setting the fan speeds and then sending a init fans sequence which swithes them off?

The new config features are great, but the config screen is a little bit too small now and the enabling/disabling of the controls is a little bit buggy - yet another state machine Means, at least for the second fan you have to disable automatic fan control and then enable it again to be able to use the slider as the check box for using this as shut down speed is enabled... See attached pictures.

As for the repeats. Setting the reapeat freq to default results in having no repeats at all. There also are no accoustic repeats (I mean this tic sound you usually get). Setting the repeat freq to 200ms then results in a behavior where the tic sound and the action on screen and the scrolling are not sanchronous. Means, you hear a steady tic sound in even intervals, but the pictogram showing the currently selected menu item doesn't change synchronously and the scrolling is somewhat unsteady. I also attached a screenshot of my skin so that you know what I am talking about.

Furthermore find attached several logs regarding the repeat behaviour.

As for the splash screen - sorry, obviously it is like that, that during your initialization of the VFD the last user defined characters or messages that have been sent to the display are being shown. I exectly got that display content I once set up to show the MP logo characters... I wonder where that came up from NOW, because that was last year, I think

Laters!

 

[cybrmage]

Fan control still doesn't work

fixed

little bit too small now

What??? I'm not sure what you mean... The setup screen is just fine (regarding size) on my systems.

enabling/disabling of the controls is a little bit buggy

fixed.

Setting the reapeat freq to default results in having no repeats at all.

fixed.

Setting the repeat freq to 200ms then results in a behavior where the tic sound and the action on screen and the scrolling are not sanchronous.

Nothing I can do about that.... I fire the remote event... Mediaport is responsible for determining if a sound is attached to the event, playing the sound, and performing the desired action...

As for the splash screen[/QUOTE}
I don't know what you are talking about... a splash screen????

The new version is attached.


Regards,
CybrMage

Update: Fixed problem where the "cancel" button on the remote setup screen was not functional.

 

[-Manfred-]

This is really good now. Thank you and have a pleasant year 2008!

/m


P.S. Source or no source... that is the question ;-)

 

[Herr R aus B]

Fan control still doesn't work

fixed

Yo! (As in at least I can set the shutdown fan speed... Dunno about the rest, as my case is cool

little bit too small now

What??? I'm not sure what you mean... The setup screen is just fine (regarding size) on my systems.

If you look at the screenshot I sent you'll see, that the lowest text line in the dialogue was cut off at the lower edge. But that's because I enlarged the system font size as I am an old fart and cant see anything, when sitting on the couch And as there are no valid layout managers in windows and everything is in absolutemetrics your dialogue got busted

enabling/disabling of the controls is a little bit buggy

fixed.

Yo!

Setting the reapeat freq to default results in having no repeats at all.

fixed.

Yo!

Now it's something... Did you by any mean experiment with any splash screen now? Because now I am getting a strange and unpredictable behaviour when starting MP. As it is a little bit compliated to describe, here is a little movie, which makes us enter the next communicational dimension of test reports I think you should add a video showing you while fighting 0x7Es...

Anyway - if you are not expermienting with any splash screen, then this VFD must have a buffer and maybe even several memory banks for different sets of user defined characters... And somehow the driver is recalling them while initialisizing. The problem is, that the behaviour is different in all three ases - but I like that error message saying: "ERROR: UINT CRAPPY"

If you get a format error opening that file - its a *.wmf file - had to rename it, as I may only upload AVIs...

==============

GRRR! I forgot the logs - and looking into the old logs again showed these 0x3F - the actual running instance of MP gets again zero readings... here are some logs...

 

[Herr R aus B]

Terve!

This is really good now. Thank you and have a pleasant year 2008!

/m


P.S. Source or no source... that is the question ;-)

Judging from the nick I thought you were German - now I understand why you didn't reply the other day as you have that soumen flag now

 

[cybrmage]

As in at least I can set the shutdown fan speed... Dunno about the rest, as my case is cool

Have you don't a restart lately??? I'm beginning to think that your device may be malfunctioning.... (at least with the fan speed reports). I've tried every possible combination of startup commands that have appeared in the startup logs... (including the 0x00 0x00 0x00 sequence)....

the lowest text line in the dialogue

That should be fixed...

Did you by any mean experiment with any splash screen now?

Me, experimenting???? Now why would I be experimenting?????

AT least your display isn't lying to you!! 8-}

looking into the old logs again showed these 0x3F

At least that confirms that I'm not imagining it 8-}



This new version is basicly a code cleanup, and minor bug fixes....

Regards,
CybrMage

 

[Herr R aus B]

As in at least I can set the shutdown fan speed... Dunno about the rest, as my case is cool

Have you don't a restart lately??? I'm beginning to think that your device may be malfunctioning.... (at least with the fan speed reports). I've tried every possible combination of startup commands that have appeared in the startup logs... (including the 0x00 0x00 0x00 sequence)....

Yes! Blame it on the silicium! This theory is easily falsified tho - the MHC gets the proper readings Let's simply defer that maybe - I am about programming a rudimentary control application now myself. Maybe I can at least find out something about the proper sequences - therefore it'd be great if we had a summary of all the functions we've found out so far... Of ourse I can crawl the entire thread - but maybe you made such a summary already?

Did you by any mean experiment with any splash screen now?

Me, experimenting???? Now why would I be experimenting?????

Becauuuuuuuuuuuuse... the whole project is some experiment?

AT least your display isn't lying to you!! 8-}

No... Which again falsifies your theory from above (uhm - is a theory being falsified twice a true theory then?)

looking into the old logs again showed these 0x3F

At least that confirms that I'm not imagining it 8-}

Which nobody ever suspected you of

This new version is basicly a code cleanup, and minor bug fixes....

Cleaning woman????

I will be doing some coding now - maybe i have results this night or tomorrow... Depends on how fast I mange the COM port handlling itself...

Regards back!

============================================

Just tested it again. The strange initalizing behaviour disappeared, you are still reading zero temperatures... Should be reading about 40°C from sensor 1 which is placed underneath the mainboard where the CPU sits. Sensor 2 which is placed above the hard disks should read an avarage of 32°C.

The rest is OK as far as I can judge. Setting the shutdown temp works as well. See logs attached.

 

[cml11]

M.PLay Control

On my computer it doesn't work still. Version 01_04_2008e simply did't close M.play. Some MP controls work, some not. VFD still displays M.Play information. At close it does nothing. Version 01_04_2008f does something like run next copy of M.Play at MP startup which is closed at end. Other is same like at e version. What can be wrong? THX

I get correct function one times only (f version).

 

[cybrmage]

the MHC gets the proper readings

I didn't know that... nobody mentioned that recently.

it'd be great if we had a summary of all the functions we've found out so far...

This thread, Page 8, post #71.

is a theory being falsified twice a true theory then?)

Well... A double negative is a positive.

Cleaning woman????

Careful!! you can be demoted from tester to mushroom... 8-}

The strange initalizing behaviour disappeared

There was NEVER any strange initializing behaviour... I just didn't announce the changes... I get better logging information if people think there is something wrong... 8-}

you are still reading zero temperatures...

The logs show that there is NO temperature information returned...



The new version is more bug fixes... Fixed a bug where the remote settings dialog would crash is the user selected to "reset" the remote mapping to defaults.

Also... changed the logging so that it is only performed during initialization, shutdown and error situations unless "extensive logging" is selected in the ExternalDisplay configuration page.

 

[Herr R aus B]

the MHC gets the proper readings

I didn't know that... nobody mentioned that recently.

I thought that was implicit

it'd be great if we had a summary of all the functions we've found out so far...

This thread, Page 8, post #71.

Thanks for updating the list! Where did you get these identification codes from?



For the lazy ones: List of functions regarded as being known

is a theory being falsified twice a true theory then?)

Well... A double negative is a positive.

That was my point

Cleaning woman????

Careful!! you can be demoted from tester to mushroom... 8-}

Ha! The last movie quote you got (Life Of Brian) These here was a quote from "Dead never wear plaids" - Didn't see that? Then you've missed something No need for mushrooming old ambitioned testers

There was NEVER any strange initializing behaviour... I just didn't announce the changes... I get better logging information if people think there is something wrong... 8-}

You risk to lose your major fan and most valuable tester because of a serious heart attack due to strange behaving displays! Is it worth it? (SAY NO!!!)

The logs show that there is NO temperature information returned...

At least they are not getting there where they are supposed to show up. Darn - I wanted to keep on coding to get any results - but last night I had a major crash and hat to reinstall MP after installing that external control plugin which required IIS and .NET framework 3.0 - afterwards my tv tuners where not accessible any longer....

was a nice night tho especially as I didn't realize it in time which killed three rcordings... darn... and I just wanted to have a way to control the recording scheduler externally. as far as I found out, placing schedules into the databse of MP results in proper displaying the new schedules but never starting them - I guess there must be any trigger or whatever... if at least they would offer the entire functionality as web service or through an API... or did I miss something? but that's off topic...

Anyway - I am still doing this coding stuff here and maybe I find out about how to do this temperature reading properly... reviewing the entire thing - did you ever get proper readings? and if yes, can you determine, when the problems started?

whatsoever: a huge for all the stuff so far...

btw - did you find out anything about that umlaut stuff? comaring logs I saw, that up to a certain point the driver recieved the wrong strings where the umlauts already were replaced by '?' - in some later logs I think i saw, that you recieved proper umlauts. never saw them on the display tho whereas I definately can set them manually using the MHC software... unfortunately I still can't look at the COM port directly to find out, whether the MHC maybe changes the character codes to get the umlauts displayed...

furthermore I found this in the general external display definition in ..\MediaPortal\ExternalDisplay.xml:

[FONT="Courier New"][SIZE="2"]<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Settings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" Type="VLSYS_Mplay" ShowPropertyBrowser="false" Port="COM3" TextWidth="20" TextHeight="2" GraphicWidth="320" GraphicHeight="240" TextComDelay="1" GraphicComDelay="1" BackLight="false" Contrast="255" ScrollDelay="300" CharsToScroll="1" PrefixChar="" ExtensiveLogging="false" Font="Arial Black" FontSize="10" ForceGraphicText="false" PixelsToScroll="10">

------------- 8< ------------- 

  <CustomCharacters>
    <CustomCharacter>
      <int>12</int>
      <int>30</int>
      <int>30</int>
      <int>30</int>
      <int>30</int>
      <int>30</int>
      <int>30</int>
      <int>12</int>
    </CustomCharacter>
    <CustomCharacter>
      <int>102</int>
      <int>255</int>
      <int>255</int>
      <int>246</int>
      <int>240</int>
      <int>240</int>
      <int>240</int>
      <int>96</int>
    </CustomCharacter>
  </CustomCharacters>
</Settings>[/SIZE][/FONT]

Is setting external characters a general feature of the external display driver? ANd if yes, how would it be apllied in the case of the VL system displays?

Regards

Axel