Win - XBMC on iMON Display (LCD / VFD) for Windows

Win XBMC on iMON Display (LCD / VFD) for Windows - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Win XBMC on iMON Display (LCD / VFD) for Windows (/showthread.php?tid=84166)

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- mika91 - 2011-02-15

Thanks for the reply !
Your software seems very good. I'll test it as soon as possible Smile

- klisko - 2011-02-19

First, thanks for the program!

I am running Win7 64 bit, XBMC Dharma RC1 r35325 with Transparency! v3.11.1, iMon 7.95.1223, XbmcOniMon 0.1.4.0 and using Thermaltake branded VFD made by Soundgraph (just the display, without volume knob).
Main reason for trying your program was the control mode so I can listen to music without turning my TV on. And that part works great! Nod

But I seem to have problem while things are playing: the text is not scrolling. Sad

From soundgraph forums, it appears that iMon API does the scrolling automatically only for LCDs, not for VFDs (link)
I am hoping I am wrong and you can fix that Smile

One more thing: VFD has two lines of display (again, unlike LCD) and currently, only first line of the display is utilised (most of the time). Since VFD does not have progress bars, I would like to see the time elapsed/total playing time of the currently playing item in the second line. I don't see that option within %% variables, would you consider adding it?
One note regarding second line of display: your program does use the second line with messages like XBMC shutdown and Playback stopped (words shutdown/stopped go to second line). From the debug log, I see:

Code:
19.2.2011 12:25:36 [XBMC] JSON RPC Announcement received: {

   "jsonrpc" : "2.0",

   "method" : "Announcement",

   "params" : {

      "message" : "PlaybackStopped",

      "sender" : "xbmc"

   }

}

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [XBMC Handler] Playback stopped

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [XBMC Handler] Update

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [XBMC Handler] Updating icons

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [Display Handler] Setting text to "STOP"

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [Display Handler] VFD.SetText: Playback; stopped

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [iMON] IMON_Display_SetVfdText(Playback, stopped)

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [Display Handler] Showing text for 2000ms

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [XBMC Handler] Update

19.2.2011 12:25:36 [XBMC Handler] Updating icons

For few minutes, I was hoping that comma ( , ) or semicolon ( ; ) had meaning "newline" so I tried using those to split the output into two lines but without luck.

In any case, thanks for your great work, if there is anything I can do to help, I'd be happy to.

- Montellese - 2011-02-19

klisko Wrote:But I seem to have problem while things are playing: the text is not scrolling. From soundgraph forums, it appears that iMon API does the scrolling automatically only for LCDs, not for VFDs (link)
I am hoping I am wrong and you can fix that

Unfortunately that is true. There is no way to scroll text on the VFD.

klisko Wrote:One more thing: VFD has two lines of display (again, unlike LCD) and currently, only first line of the display is utilised (most of the time).

You are the first person reporting here using the VFD with two lines. As I don't have one myself it was impossible for me to test the output. What would be great is if you could put together a list of strings that you see on your VFD and how they would be best split up into two lines.

klisko Wrote:Since VFD does not have progress bars, I would like to see the time elapsed/total playing time of the currently playing item in the second line. I don't see that option within %% variables, would you consider adding it?

Yeah I should be able to add them as options.

- klisko - 2011-02-22

Montellese Wrote:Unfortunately that is true. There is no way to scroll text on the VFD.

Montellese Wrote:What would be great is if you could put together a list of strings that you see on your VFD and how they would be best split up into two lines.

I don't see anything special, it's just the stuff configured to show:
- current menu item when in choosing what to play (Video, Movies, name of the movie currently highlighted...)
- whatever is configured in your program to be displayed while playing video/music (show name, episode/season number...)

With the exception of the two messages I mentioned in previous post, all others are just in one line and displayed with first 16 characters only. I tried with messages consisting of 20 letters "i" and 20 letters "w" as well as "12345678901234567890" and every time exactly 16 characters were displayed with no scrolling.

Also, VFD does not display any icons (nothing changes regardless of what is selected)

From my point of view, there may be two ways of proceeding:

1. every time your program displays something, it should calculate the length and first 16 characters display in row #1, and remaining characters in row #2. Further refinement would be to split text at word boundary and not in the middle (or at the beginning) of the word.

2. allow user to decide what will go where (personally, I prefer this option). You may include special <newline> delimiter so user can signal that (for example) title should go to first line and episode number to the second. Alternatively, you may change the interface of your program to have two lines for each of:
Playing a movie
Playing a tv show
Playing a song
Playing a music video

In this case, I could write %title% in first line and %artist% in second to achieve the same thing.

Ideally, you may want to take approach 1 while in control mode and approach 2 in "while playing" mode (but it is a lot more work, I guess).

Montellese Wrote:Yeah I should be able to add them as options.

That would be great, thanks in advance! Nod

Keep up the good work!

- Montellese - 2011-02-22

klisko Wrote:Also, VFD does not display any icons (nothing changes regardless of what is selected)

The VFD has icons? I didn't know that and the API from Soundgraph only allows icon control for LCDs Shocked

klisko Wrote:1. every time your program displays something, it should calculate the length and first 16 characters display in row #1, and remaining characters in row #2. Further refinement would be to split text at word boundary and not in the middle (or at the beginning) of the word.

If someone volunteers to count the number of pixels every character takes up I can do that. Is the VFD english only or is it able to handle special characters from other languages (like äöü in german or some chinese characters)? If it's english only it could be "pretty straight forward" to put together a list containing the width in pixel for every printable ASCII character and then do the counting.

klisko Wrote:2. allow user to decide what will go where (personally, I prefer this option). You may include special <newline> delimiter so user can signal that (for example) title should go to first line and episode number to the second. Alternatively, you may change the interface of your program to have two lines for each of:
Playing a movie
Playing a tv show
Playing a song
Playing a music video

In this case, I could write %title% in first line and %artist% in second to achieve the same thing.

Ideally, you may want to take approach 1 while in control mode and approach 2 in "while playing" mode (but it is a lot more work, I guess).

Yeah that sounds like the non-plus-ultra for the VFD but it will also be a lot of work. I'll put your ideas on my TODO/ideas list.

- klisko - 2011-02-22

Montellese Wrote:The VFD has icons? I didn't know that and the API from Soundgraph only allows icon control for LCDs

Sorry, that was misunderstanding, there are no icons.

Montellese Wrote:If someone volunteers to count the number of pixels every character takes up I can do that. Is the VFD english only or is it able to handle special characters from other languages (like äöü in german or some chinese characters)? If it's english only it could be "pretty straight forward" to put together a list containing the width in pixel for every printable ASCII character and then do the counting.

VFD is english only. When I put the letters you provided, it does not show the message containg them. In fact, it gets stuck at previous display. I tried Serbian Latin characters šđžčć as well as Serbian Cyrilic and it is the same. When I think of it, I think there was another minor glitch when my XBMC was in Serbian but cannot remember it. I'll test and let you know if I find it.
As far as counting pixels, I see no need for it on VFD (maybe it is needed for LCD?). There is always exactly 16 characters in one line. I tested with "i" and "w" and digits - always exactly 16 chars in one line.

Montellese Wrote:Yeah that sounds like the non-plus-ultra for the VFD but it will also be a lot of work. I'll put your ideas on my TODO/ideas list.

Thanks.

edit: When I change XBMC interface to Serbian, with control mode enabled, while going through menus, any item containing non-English characters is just not displayed (display keeps the last item which has English-only characters). When I move the cursor to English characters menu item, VFD picks up and displays it.

- Montellese - 2011-02-22

klisko Wrote:As far as counting pixels, I see no need for it on VFD (maybe it is needed for LCD?). There is always exactly 16 characters in one line. I tested with "i" and "w" and digits - always exactly 16 chars in one line.

Ah that would make things much easier. But obviously if there would be more then 32 characters it could still happen that you don't get to see all of them.

- klisko - 2011-02-22

I understand that, but 32 is twice as much as 16 Smile

- njumlin - 2011-02-23

Wow, sounds like a great app! Gonna try this when I get home.

- eskro - 2011-02-25

Hi guys quick question on getting the LCD screen to work with XBMC...

Since i've read that the latest iMON software works with XBMC
MON/iMEDIAN HD 7.90.0702 Official Version (Jul. 5, 2010, Installation File)

shall we anyways use this XBMC on iMON application kindly made by Montellese? Smile

thanks!

- Horst - 2011-02-27

_

- Horst - 2011-03-01

PatOso Wrote:When booting from hibernation mode,
the program does not communicate with XBMC.
Only works from the total shutdown.

This happens to someone?

Greetings.

Yes, I've got the same problem. Any solution for that?

Greetings
Horst

- eskro - 2011-03-10

hi guys!
im trying XBMC on IMON but, uhm,
it doesnt work for me...

Ok i installed iMON Manager, no problem there,
LCD is working, i can make it display the time and
other stuff but XBMC wont show up on it...

Now i tried XBMC-on-IMON,
but when i try to connect it says its unable to...
XBMC service port is 9090
so is XBMC-on-IMON' port...

is there a tutorial on how to make this work?

im sorry, but its really confusing for me Sad

anyone wanna help?

thanks alot guys, Smile

- GeneRALF - 2011-03-10

eskro Wrote:hi guys!

Now i tried XBMC-on-IMON,
but when i try to connect it says its unable to...
XBMC service port is 9090
so is XBMC-on-IMON' port...

thanks alot guys,

I entered 8085 as port which I am using in/with XBMC anyway and it is workingfine. However i am experiencing sam eissue when starting from hibernation

- Montellese - 2011-03-10

eskro Wrote:Now i tried XBMC-on-IMON,
but when i try to connect it says its unable to...
XBMC service port is 9090
so is XBMC-on-IMON' port...

Please read this post I wrote earlier in this thread: http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=712196&postcount=162

You MUST NOT use port 9090 for XBMC's webserver because XBMC uses that port (hardcoded) for the TCP side of json rpc. Set any other port in the XBMC Network settings (e.g. 8080 or 8181 or whatever is available in your network) and then put the same number into the XBMC settings of XBMC on iMON.