[MrC]

just upped patch 1153884 which allows you to preview the screen savers from the screen saver settings menu. unfortunately it currently goes back to the "look and feel" menu when the screen saver deactivates, not sure how to fix that just yet, but its still better than having to wait 1 minute or monkey around with the debugger to get the screen saver to activate.

good luck to everyone who entered, vey nice work all round. :thumbsup:

[jme]

talk about adding requested features quickly. 3 minutes after i ask about the feature its in. good work mrc! :d

[pike]

thats sure sound like a cool edition! i thought of something similar earlier, but not as advanced as your idea

i think it's how the settings is designed, it doesnt remember where it was when you return to it. maybe jonathan can clarify it better

[jme]

there is one thing that have been in the back of my mind for quite some time now. that is if xbmc resets the whole state for you after you quit the screensaver or if you have to store all values you change and restore them when then screensaver quits?

right now none of my screensavers restore anything so if xbmc assumes the state is unthouched when the screensaver returns then i need to update them all.

this hit me now when it looks like my planestate screensaver is a bit diffrent after running my asteroids screensaver (that activates line/polygon edge aa but doesn't restore those states)

[MrC]

yeah, i was just wondering about this myself, you're planestate looked nuts after i ran the blob saver.

i don't think any of the screensavers are restoring state (mine included). rather than relying on each screensaver to restore all states it might be an idea to use state blocks to capture the current state before the screensavers run, then the state can be restored when they exit.

i'll have a quick go at this now and see if i can get a patch sorted.

*edit*

ok, patch 1153934 now stores the current render states before starting a screen saver and restores them when the screen saver exits. i have also added this to the visualisation stuff.

[pike]

nice work mrc, i think this *may* fix an existing issue with one of our vizes.

jme, got a small idea for ping pong ssaver

*) analog sticks movement get cancelled as triggers to deactivate ping pong screensaver
*) first controller that moves analog stick (suggest left stick) starts controlling the left player, ai is player2
*) second controller that activates disables ai and becomes 2nd player
*) any other click on controller or remote deactivates ssaver

note 1st and 2nd controller doesnt necessarily mean controller in port1 or port 2. which ever controller is activated 1st becomes controller 1

:o

[jme]

nice idea, however i can't control the wake up from the screensaver. that's handled deep inside xbmc so it's a bit of a problem to add.

[pike]

left thumbstick movement doesnt cancel screensaver. possibly a bug, but fact remains...

[Dinomight]

my suggestion (that i think i suggested a while ago) would be to pass the controller device object to the viz/screensaver, and require the screensaver/viz to send a stop message back to xbmc (you would likely emulate the functions like the directx functions are emulated.) this would be so that screensavers/viz could have active controlls for setting chages, games, or whatever.

annother suggestion that i don't mind implementing my self is to have the xbmc use the getinfo function to see a list of variables that are set in the xml file so that individual settings for each viz/screensaver could be configured from xbmc without editing the xml file (it might be nice to have specific types of variables defined, such as int, float, string, file, color, so that xbmc could have proper controls elements in the settings page. (just a few ideas i had)

[jmarshall]

sounds like a good plan, dinomight. i especially like the idea that you are willing to work on it

you may find that constructing suitable settings page for screensavers might involve a little bit of hacking up of the guiwindowsettingscategory class though - should be doable though i think.

cheers,
jonathan

[Dinomight]

ok i will tackle the passing/saving of settings through xbmc settings pages, (i probably won't be able to finish it tell this weekend though (and i will make sure it is available for both viz and screensavers.

-dylan

[jme]

dinomight, if you add so the screensaver settings can be configured from inside xbmc i might just take an extra look and see if i can't export some extra configuration options from my screensavers. however i doubt we can fully configure the planestate screensaver from inside xbmc. configure 210 diffrent values for a single screensaver will probably be a bit much.

[Dinomight]

jme, your right 210 settings might be a few to many, i think thats why we should use that getinfo method that is already in the viz/screensaver template, and allow the viz/screensaver developer decide which settings to allow xbmc configure (so instead ot 210 settings just the most inportant ones or all if its you pleasure(i will try to make the setting page hold a lot off settings (and scroll through then ).

btw, does any one know if because there were only 5 people who entered the contest if we all win 1 of the 5 prizes or if since he put so much work into it and made 4 screensavers , joaeri can win more than one of the prizes. (i'm just curious, i'm not trying to grub for prizes) (if xbmc says joaeri wins more than one thats good enough for me(i can tell he put in a lot of work on his (i did too, i'm just not the best c++ programmer.) well i must say good work to everyone who participated.

[jme]

i think that it would be better that each one of us five got an adapter regardless of any position in an eventuall ranking. if for no other reason so that we all feel more inspired to continue working on xbmc.

[Gamester17]

xbmc screensaver competition winners!

the contest is now over. we would like to thank all who contributed in one way or another. the standard was very high, and we are really impressed with what you guys came up with. the 5 winners were easy to choose since 5 people entered the contest. each of the winners receive an x2vga-adapter each, (winners will be contacted shortly in regards to shipping). in no particular order, congratulations to:

siw (for "cpblobs")
dinomight (for "greynetic")
sylfan (for "stars")
jme (for "planestate")
mrc (for "shade worm")

thanks again to neoya for sponsoring the competition!

ps! we would also like to thank jme for his other screensavers "matrix trails (revised)", "ping pong" and "asteroids", and mrc for his screensaver interface improvements.