[gibxxi]

Hi herrnst, Thanks for making this. Just managed to get it working on OpenELEC after a lot of head-scratching.

Couple of questions / observations:

Spinning disk seems to "judder" a bit on screen update. Despite notes on alignment in the changelog the text with the "Marquee" setting in XBMC still defaults to left justified. Is this requiring an LCD.xml to be centralized for the first row (scrolling second row)?

Also on the iMON LCD displays, the dual top/bottom bars are of differing thickness (inners thinner than outers) and I would like to set the outer bars as "progress" and the inners as "always on" like occurs in Windows with iMon Manager. could the add-on be extended to allow for this? Currently as soon as something starts playing the "menu" bars are turned off.

[herrnst]

Hi,

Spinning disk seems to "judder" a bit on screen update.

Yep, seems to be a problem in the imonlcd driver. You may have also noticed that at some times it spins faster, sometime slower. When spinning slower, it doesn't show the juddering.

Despite notes on alignment in the changelog the text with the "Marquee" setting in XBMC still defaults to left justified. Is this requiring an LCD.xml to be centralized for the first row (scrolling second row)?

You need to put the (pseudo-)label "$INFO[LCD.AlignCenter]" somewhere inside the <line>-tag you want to display centered. The marquee setting just changes the way text is scrolled (if it is scrolled) from "running-through" to "bounce left-right".

Also on the iMON LCD displays, the dual top/bottom bars are of differing thickness (inners thinner than outers) and I would like to set the outer bars as "progress" and the inners as "always on" like occurs in Windows with iMon Manager. could the add-on be extended to allow for this? Currently as soon as something starts playing the "menu" bars are turned off.

That's currently not possible but really easy to implement as another extrabar-option. Have a look at GIT master the next days/weeks or wait for 1.3.0/2.3.0 to appear in the official repo

Regards,
nst

[billyx]

While playing videos or music the backlight or display is turnd on and off every 5 seconds. It happens only while playing, not while pause or during navigation in xbmc.

Somebody knows how to stop this?

[herrnst]

Also on the iMON LCD displays, the dual top/bottom bars are of differing thickness (inners thinner than outers) and I would like to set the outer bars as "progress" and the inners as "always on" like occurs in Windows with iMon Manager. could the add-on be extended to allow for this? Currently as soon as something starts playing the "menu" bars are turned off.

Please update the addon to latest GIT master (new option committed at c1402f1), or if you prefer to keep the stable version e.g. installed via the addon repository, wait for 1.3/2.3 to appear. Both ways (will) have a new possible value "alwayson" which you can set for the extrabars. In case of the imonlcd and your requirement, assign the value to extrabar3 and 4.

While playing videos or music the backlight or display is turnd on and off every 5 seconds. It happens only while playing, not while pause or during navigation in xbmc.

Somebody knows how to stop this?

Have a look at this posting, especially the paragraphs about the "ServerScreen" LCDd configuration option, that should fix your problem.

Regards,
nst

[billyx]

While playing videos or music the backlight or display is turnd on and off every 5 seconds. It happens only while playing, not while pause or during navigation in xbmc.

Somebody knows how to stop this?

Have a look at this posting, especially the paragraphs about the "ServerScreen" LCDd configuration option, that should fix your problem.
[/quote]

Thank you, <disableonplay></disableonplay> solved it!

[aircooler]

Hi,

Thank you for great addon!

All working good other than screensaver. When using LCD.time all i am getting is artefacts. I have checked LCD.xml and all looks good. My display is Imon vfd.

Thank you

[herrnst]

All working good other than screensaver. When using LCD.time all i am getting is artefacts. I have checked LCD.xml and all looks good. My display is Imon vfd.

From my understanding on how the IMON VFDs work (and looking in server/drivers/imon.lcd in the LCDproc sources), big numbers should be displayed using ASCII chars as the display seems to be unable to handle custom chars, so any artifacts (random/garbage chars) should not happen at all.

Please make sure you have XBMC's internal LCD/VFD support disabled (set "Settings - System - Video output - Enable LCD/VFD" to off). Also, please use this exact config block in your LCD.xml (take special care of exact wording and upper/lower case letters of the $INFO tag!):

Code:

<screensaver>
  <line>$INFO[LCD.TimeWide21]</line>
</screensaver>

That should get it going.

Regards,
nst

[aircooler]

Thank you for reply!

Internal support for LCD has beed disabled so that is no issue.

I have put LCD.TimeWide21 to LCD.xml and the result i am getting is something like:
I ]. I ]
I [ . I [

Same results with LCD.Time21


Thank you

[herrnst]

Internal support for LCD has beed disabled so that is no issue.

I have put LCD.TimeWide21 to LCD.xml and the result i am getting is something like:
I ]. I ]
I [ . I [

Same results with LCD.Time21

That's the expected result (I also get this when developing using the xosd-driver). As written, the imon vfd driver plus hardware has no means of defining custom chars for this, so unfortunately this is the most you will get out of this - there's nothing the addon can do to make the result better.

Greetings,
nst

[aircooler]

Thank you for explaining issue.

Regards
Andrzej

[Poncho]

Hi, thank you for the great addon, working pretty good.

I only have one question, I seem to have a blank screen inbetween the "normal" ones.
It switches, if no action during navigation or movie / video player is given in this order:

General Screen
Server Screen (not switched of so far for testing)
Blank Screen

it seems to be a normal Screen, cause the blank one also stays for the setup time periode like all other screens.
How can I find out which screen that is, and switch it off?

thanks for any help.

[herrnst]

Hi, thank you for the great addon, working pretty good.

Thanks

I only have one question, I seem to have a blank screen inbetween the "normal" ones.
It switches, if no action during navigation or movie / video player is given in this order:

General Screen
Server Screen (not switched of so far for testing)
Blank Screen

it seems to be a normal Screen, cause the blank one also stays for the setup time periode like all other screens.
How can I find out which screen that is, and switch it off?

This pretty much sounds like the ServerScreen option in LCDd.conf, or the disableonplay config var in LCD.xml - please check this post for more information.

Regards,
nst

[aircooler]

Would like to ask one more question about imon vfd.

Often getting some kind of errors on the screen. It always happen on the top line.

line 1: Home HOME
line 2: Programs

In that example capital "HOME" appear from time to time. Sometimes its every 20 seconds,
sometimes few times per second. Home is just a example, any other screen can have this issue.
Its something like mirror of the beginning line. Issue is always from start, but another restart make it
appear less often.

Thank you for help.

[herrnst]

Often getting some kind of errors on the screen. It always happen on the top line.

line 1: Home HOME
line 2: Programs

In that example capital "HOME" appear from time to time. Sometimes its every 20 seconds,
sometimes few times per second. Home is just a example, any other screen can have this issue.
Its something like mirror of the beginning line. Issue is always from start, but another restart make it
appear less often.

Strange. Never heard of such an issue until now, even from other imonvfd users, and I cannot think of any reason (caused by the addon) that would cause that. What exact version are you using? If you're installing from the addon repo, can you try the current version from GIT master?

@all: Did anyone else notice such behavior yet, even with any other display hardware?

[Poncho]

This pretty much sounds like the ServerScreen option in LCDd.conf, or the disableonplay config var in LCD.xml - please check this post for more information.

Hi Nst,

my LCD.xml looks like following:

Code:

<lcd>
   <!-- set this to video,music to disable the LCD on playback of music and video-->
   <disableonplay>navigation</disableonplay>
   <navigation>
      <line>$INFO[System.CurrentWindow]</line>
      <line>$INFO[System.CurrentControl]</line>
   </navigation>
   <music>
      <line>$INFO[MusicPlayer.Title]</line>
      <line>$INFO[MusicPlayer.Artist]</line>
   </music>
   <video>
      <line>$INFO[VideoPlayer.Title]</line>
      <line>$INFO[LCD.PlayIcon] $INFO[Player.Time]/$INFO[Player.Duration]</line>
   </video>
   <General>
      <line>_____XBMC_____</line>
      <line>$INFO[System.Time(hh:mm:ss)]</line>
   </General>
   <screensaver>
      <line>--SAVER--</line>
      <line></line>
   </screensaver>
   <xbelaunch>
      <line>--XBE--</line>
      <line></line>
   </xbelaunch>
</lcd>

my LCDd.conf looks like following (some long comments removed to shorten it):
The Heartbeat I switched on to see, if its a communication problem, but also in the blank screen the Heartbeat is shown.
As you can see, meanwhile I switched off the Server screen as long as a client is connected, so it is not shown anymore.

Code:

# LCDd.conf -- configuration file for the LCDproc server daemon LCDd
## Server section with all kinds of settings for the LCDd server ##
.
.
.
[server]

DriverPath=/usr/lib/lcdproc/

Driver=imon

# Tells the driver to bind to the given interface
Bind=127.0.0.1

# Listen on this specified port; defaults to 13666.
Port=13666

# Sets the reporting level; defaults to 2 (warnings and errors only).
#ReportLevel=3

# Should we report to syslog instead of stderr ? [default: no; legal: yes, no]
#ReportToSyslog=yes

# User to run as.  LCDd will drop its root privileges, if any,
# and run as this user instead.
User=nobody

# The server will stay in the foreground if set to true.
#Foreground=no

# Hello message: each entry represents a display line; default: builtin
#Hello="  Welcome to"
#Hello="   LCDproc!"

# GoodBye message: each entry represents a display line; default: builtin
GoodBye=""
#GoodBye="   LCDproc!"

# Sets the default time in seconds to displays a screen.
WaitTime=5

#AutoRotate=no

ServerScreen=no

#Backlight=open

Heartbeat=on

#TitleSpeed=10

# The "...Key=" lines define what the server does with keypresses that
# don't go to any client. The ToggleRotateKey stops rotation of screens, while
# the PrevScreenKey and NextScreenKey go back / forward one screen (even if
# rotation is disabled.
# Assign the key string returned by the driver to the ...Key setting. These
# are the defaults:
#ToggleRotateKey=Enter
#PrevScreenKey=Left
NextScreenKey=Right
#ScrollUpKey=Up
#ScrollDownKey=Down


## The menu section. The menu is an internal LCDproc client. ##
#[menu]
# You can configure what keys the menu should use. Note that the MenuKey
# will be reserved exclusively, the others work in shared mode.

# Up to six keys are supported. The MenuKey (to enter and exit the menu), the
# EnterKey (to select values) and at least one movement keys are required.
# These are the default key assignments:
#MenuKey=Escape
#EnterKey=Enter
#UpKey=Up
#DownKey=Down
#LeftKey=Left
#RightKey=Right


### Driver sections are below this line, in alphabetical order  ###

## Soundgraph/Ahanix/Silverstone/Uneed/Accent iMON driver ##
[imon]

# select the device to use
Device=/dev/lcd3

# display dimensions
Size=16x2

# Character map to to map ISO-8859-1 to the displays character set.
# [default: none; legal: none, hd44780_euro, upd16314, hd44780_koi8_r,
# hd44780_cp1251, hd44780_8859_5 ] (upd16314, hd44780_koi8_r,
# hd44780_cp1251, hd44780_8859_5 are possible if compiled with additional
# charmaps)
CharMap=hd44780_euro

If you need any log, or debug just tell me how (I'm a pretty noob at Linux but willing to learn )

Danke