[Alexpoet]

new release!

there's a new version of xmonitor up on my website, including a details page dedicated to it, to provide more information. the rar now includes a readme.txt to help with setup, and a security risk warning (which i encourage everyone to read).

i have not necessarily resolved any of the issues that have been keeping xmonitor from working for you. rather, i've rewritten the code to better reflect my recent experience with xbox python, cleaning it up significantly and likely resolving some bugs.

my main purpose for the rewrite, though, was to get the code clean enough that i can resume development, and hopefully actually improve the functionality to resolve the bug reports i've been getting.

if you're interested in helping out, please get the new version, follow the installation instructions carefully, and post your results here.

thanks,
alexpoet

[twinvipers]

need a little help here to get it to work..... i have installed everything as per your inst. on the web site. on the pc i have python opening a new window with it saying "recording". but when i try to run the script on the xbox all i get is the word (running) flashing for a second? any ideas? i don't even get the default loading screen that is part of the script. i have it running on the default comm and have tried others and made that change in the xmonitor & pcmonitor to match. the port is being forwarded and the ip is correct for my local machine. any help would be great i think this will grow to be one of the great scripts out there :o

[Alexpoet]

nah, it's not fast enough to be one of the great scripts out there, and i'm having trouble coming up with any good ways to make it faster.

as for your problem, when you run it and it flashes "(running)", press the white button on your controller to bring up the debug screen and let me know what it says.

alexpoet

[twinvipers]

alexpoet here in the debug screen info

python initialized
traceback (most recent call last):
file "q:\script\xmonitor\xmonitor,py". line1, in?
import comm os, thread, time. xbmc.gui
system error: null result without error in py object_call.

help would be great.....
:thumbsup:

[Alexpoet]

is that exactly what it says? i'm not familiar with the error, but if your script somehow looks like that, then i'm not surprised it's having trouble. open up xmonitor.py (in a text editor), and make sure the first line looks like this:

import comm, os, thread, time, xbmcgui

those are the same words as what you typed, and that's probably what it says, but what you typed was missing some commas and had some periods where they don't belong. if that's just a mistake typing, it's understandable (i'm not being at all critical), but if the script is actually missing commas or has a period in "xbmc.gui" (instead of "xbmcgui") then that would explain your problem.

also, make sure that you do have the file "comm.py" in either your xmonitor folder or the /python/lib folder, as mentioned in the readme. i imagine you do, but i just wanted to double-check.

and it suddenly occurs to me i may not be including comm.py with the rar. i'll have to double-check that.

alexpoet

[twinvipers]

sorry i was in a hurry at the time and did forget the comma's and added a period. here is the first line in xmonitor.py "import comm, os, thread, time, xbmcgui"

the comm.py file is in the xmonitor folder and i have also tried it in the script folder same error.

any other ideas

[twinvipers]

ok i instaled the most recent xbmc build 11/15/04 and it all seems to work.....

now that its working can i change the speed that it captures at? it tends to flip back and forth from the desktop and the xmontor default start up screen, maybe ever 15 to 20 sec.

thanks for all the help the script looks great...

:thumbsup:

[Alexpoet]

actually, there is no delay at all in the script, meaning there's no way to speed it up. you could slow it down, if it was taking up too much processor or something, but i haven't really seen that.

basically, given the tools available, it's going about as fast as it can.

the flipping back and forth thing is annoying, though, and i do have a pretty easy way to fix it. i just need to get it written in. expect that patch in the next couple of days. thing is, i've got a stable enough network that i never saw that happen in all my testing, but my first three beta testers all mentioned it, and i immediately knew why it was happening.

yeah, that'll get fixed. but i don't really see much hope in speeding it up. i have one or two ideas that i'll test out, but i'm not very optimistic.

[Hullebulle]

btw i found somone working on a python vnc client maybe its worth asking about the status of his project

[Alexpoet]

i'll check on that. i'd be very interested in how he handles it.

by the way, there's a new issue i just discovered (reading through the documentation of the modules i'm using, just now... :-). xmonitor won't work with a linux computer, at the moment. or, it's not supposed to. i haven't gotten any specific complaints about that yet, but it might be the undiscussed reason for some of the problems people have had.

i'm using a simple, convenient screenshot function that, i just learned, only works on windows systems.

what i've decided to do is keep xmonitor mostly as-is, for non-hd, windows users (i'm going to add some error handling to keep it from flashing the splash screen too often, though). then i'm also going to develop an "xmonitor hd" variant which will capture higher-resolution screen shots (whatever res your pc's display is set to) and send them, instead. and, of course, while i'm at it i'll build proper background images for the different resolution screens.

and, totally unrelated to hd, the type of screenshot utility i'll use there should work for linux. it'll take me a while to be sure, because i don't have a linux box to test on, but from what i've read that should be pretty easy to get working. so linux users or hd users can make use of "xmonitor hd" once it's out.

of course, higher-res screenshots will take longer to transfer, so it will be a slower refresh rate and longer lag than the normal script, but at much higher image quality. maybe it'll be worth it. we'll see.

[Billy]

check the date of the last post to the site. it's been nearly a year without any updates so i doubt it's making much progress

[bdash]

the author of the "python vnc client" speaks ;-)

for what it's worth, although i've not really touched my python vnc client in a long long time, the last time i played with it, it was capable of taking remote screenshots and saving them to disk as pngs.  as you can imagine, full screenshots like that can take a few seconds to transfer and save.

since then the only changes i've made relate to rendering the vnc stream to a window, but those are os x-specific and likely of little interest to anyone here.

if anyone's interested in the code, i'll see if i can locate a working version.