[SwedishGojira]

Anyone else running a pre-frodo build of XBMC for Linux?

I seem to have lost my audio on anything but XBMC and think that it has to do with the new audio engine of XBMC not releasing the audio to other apps.

I'm using a launcher script similar to the one here that should be stopping XBMC before launching the app but after updating to XBMC with the new audio engine I don't have any sound at all from any apps except for xbmc. I'm not actually sure that XBMC is even stopped the way it used to as before I saw it stopping before I launched an app but not anymore.

[voyagerxp]

.exe).

For PC games it is always more simple to use .lnk files :

• WIKI Page : http://www.gwenael.org/xbmc/index.php?ti..._shortcuts
  
• Youtube Tutorial : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyfRa7gygEc
  

I've tried the ink wany but walking dead still won't play through xbmc and advanced launcher. All i get is

could not initialize direct 3. Make sure you have the current video drivers and close any other applications that might be running. You will need a video card that supports pixel shader version 1.2.

I have the latest video card driver and directx but don't understand as the game plays from desktop shortcut.

[Angelscry]

Anyone else running a pre-frodo build of XBMC for Linux?

I seem to have lost my audio on anything but XBMC and think that it has to do with the new audio engine of XBMC not releasing the audio to other apps.

I'm using a launcher script similar to the one here that should be stopping XBMC before launching the app but after updating to XBMC with the new audio engine I don't have any sound at all from any apps except for xbmc. I'm not actually sure that XBMC is even stopped the way it used to as before I saw it stopping before I launched an app but not anymore.

XBMC use now a new audio engine. So you just need to modify/adjust your XBMC audio settings to be able to have again sound for external applications.

---

.exe).

For PC games it is always more simple to use .lnk files :

• WIKI Page : http://www.gwenael.org/xbmc/index.php?ti..._shortcuts
  
• Youtube Tutorial : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyfRa7gygEc
  

I've tried the ink wany but walking dead still won't play through xbmc and advanced launcher. All i get is

could not initialize direct 3. Make sure you have the current video drivers and close any other applications that might be running. You will need a video card that supports pixel shader version 1.2.

I have the latest video card driver and directx but don't understand as the game plays from desktop shortcut.

You have this error message because Walking Dead and XBMC use the same graphical resource.

First thing you can try is to activate the Use a fullscreen window rather than true fullscreen option that is present into XBMC system settings as mentioned into the user guide : http://www.gwenael.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3

If it still not working, your only solution is to use a script that will automatically close XBMC before starting Walking Dead. You will found such script example here : http://www.gwenael.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6

[SwedishGojira]

XBMC use now a new audio engine. So you just need to modify/adjust your XBMC audio settings to be able to have again sound for external applications.

What settings would I change in XBMC to get audio for my emulators? I have full 5.1 sound when watching movies, menu sounds and everything, but as soon as I launch any emulators or other apps using Advanced Launcher i have no audio from them.

[Angelscry]

XBMC use now a new audio engine. So you just need to modify/adjust your XBMC audio settings to be able to have again sound for external applications.

What settings would I change in XBMC to get audio for my emulators? I have full 5.1 sound when watching movies, menu sounds and everything, but as soon as I launch any emulators or other apps using Advanced Launcher i have no audio from them.

There is not specific settings. They mostly depend of your system (5.1 sound, audio card, operating system, etc...). It is chard to give your the right settings like this. Just play with XBMC audio settings and try to found the right parameters that allow you to use sound with external application. BTW Advanced Launcher do not have any control on this. It is actually specifically an XBMC problem. If you have problem, ask to XBMC developers

[chris295]

Hey, quick question. Is it possible to set one global fanart for an item list? For example, if I wanted all of my windows games to automatically use a the same fanart and then all my dos games to use a different fanart image file and I set them up in two separate lists, is this possible? I know you can just populate the fanart directory with duplicates of the same fanart with different names, but that's kind of redundant if all you need is one background, plus doing that causes the fanart image to fade for a brief second each time you switch an item in the list where as using the same fanart doesn't. The only way I have been able to do this so far is to manually select a local image for each item in the list, which is time consuming. If not, it might be a cool thing to add to advanced launcher in the future if it wouldn't be too difficult.

Another nice thing to add would be to allow us to have a background image separate from fanart so that the image that displays in the fanart box is not the same as the fanart background. Maybe this particular issue is related to the skin rather than Advanced Launcher though, but could possibly be easier to solve globally by making the background image option different from the fanart rather than asking each skin provider to change the skins.

Like I said though, I know almost nothing about programming so if it's a difficult task I can see why you wouldn't add it.

[Angelscry]

Hey, quick question. Is it possible to set one global fanart for an item list? For example, if I wanted all of my windows games to automatically use a the same fanart and then all my dos games to use a different fanart image file and I set them up in two separate lists, is this possible? I know you can just populate the fanart directory with duplicates of the same fanart with different names, but that's kind of redundant if all you need is one background, plus doing that causes the fanart image to fade for a brief second each time you switch an item in the list where as using the same fanart doesn't. The only way I have been able to do this so far is to manually select a local image for each item in the list, which is time consuming. If not, it might be a cool thing to add to advanced launcher in the future if it wouldn't be too difficult.

Another nice thing to add would be to allow us to have a background image separate from fanart so that the image that displays in the fanart box is not the same as the fanart background. Maybe this particular issue is related to the skin rather than Advanced Launcher though, but could possibly be easier to solve globally by making the background image option different from the fanart rather than asking each skin provider to change the skins.

Like I said though, I know almost nothing about programming so if it's a difficult task I can see why you wouldn't add it.

That's strictly skin features and advanced Launcher already provides all the necessary stuff to do such things. You want a global fanart for an items list : just ask the skin makers to have the possibility to display the corresponding launcher fanart instead. You want a background image different from the fanart image : just ask skin makers to have the possibility to display the corresponding launcher fanart as background. Or better, just ask skin makers to have the possibility to display the fanart as background and the extrafanarts as fanart images.

[chris295]

I see... thanks for the reply. I figured as much but wanted to ask just to be sure.

[Angelscry]

Advanced Launcher provide a lot of features that are not actually available due to skins limitation for programs : Extra fanarts display, Trailers display, Possibility to mark an item as viewed or not, etc...

[chris295]

Yeah, I noticed that. For example, trailers and extrathumbs work in Cirrus but don't seem to work with Aeon. Really a shame since not everyone likes the same skins.

[chris295]

Hey, I got two quick questions about AutoIt.

1. Is there some sort of command to hide the mouse cursor upon application launch and then unhide it when I close the application that I could include in my scripts? For whatever reason some programs periodically show the mouse cursor in the center of the screen for no apparent reason, even when it isn't being moved at all. It's supposed to auto hide but doesn't seem to work properly with all applications.

2. Is there a way to make the screen go black or something while the application is launching instead of going to the desktop and showing the dos prompt from the autoit/bat scripts? I know autohotkey has the ability to display a loading image with fade transition and close the image after the program has launched but I'm not sure if it's possible to do this with autoIt or what the command should look like.

Thanks again

[gfur732]

Yeah, I noticed that. For example, trailers and extrathumbs work in Cirrus but don't seem to work with Aeon. Really a shame since not everyone likes the same skins.

Sorry I can't help with your two most recent questions, but I just want to point out that Aeon Nox actually does handle trailers. Aeon Nox uses the trailers as defined within Advanced Launcher (it looks for an mp4 with the same name filename as the game, or the same filename as disc 1 if it's a multi-disc game).

Unless something has changed in the last week or two, Cirrus Extendedv2 on the other hand still uses a method from before trailer support was added into Advanced Launcher, where you define the extrafanart folders based on the item name within Advanced Launcher and put a trailer.mp4 within that folder. You can modify Cirrus Extended pretty easily if you'd rather it use the trailers as defined within Advanced Launcher (in case you like to go back in forth between skins). I imagine the reverse, adding the Cirrus Extendedv2 method to Aeon Nox, would be pretty difficult though.

I'm also not sure about extrathumbs for either, but if Aeon Nox supports it, it would probably be again handled differently than Cirrus Extendedv2.

[chris295]

I was referring to Aeon MQ3 (sorry, I should've been more specific) but it's nice to know how trailers work in Nox since Nox 3.5 is looking good. Anyways, it was just an example, there's countless different skins that have little to no support for advanced launcher or very limited view types, sadly. Luckily, I found the Fusion skin, which currently fits my needs perfectly. There's a few minor issues with it but nothing that can't be worked out, and I can see myself sticking with it.

[Angelscry]

Hey, I got two quick questions about AutoIt.

1. Is there some sort of command to hide the mouse cursor upon application launch and then unhide it when I close the application that I could include in my scripts? For whatever reason some programs periodically show the mouse cursor in the center of the screen for no apparent reason, even when it isn't being moved at all. It's supposed to auto hide but doesn't seem to work properly with all applications.

2. Is there a way to make the screen go black or something while the application is launching instead of going to the desktop and showing the dos prompt from the autoit/bat scripts? I know autohotkey has the ability to display a loading image with fade transition and close the image after the program has launched but I'm not sure if it's possible to do this with autoIt or what the command should look like.

Thanks again

1. You can use the _MouseTrap AutoIt function to force to hide the mouse cursor on the bottom right of the screen. Here is an autoit script sample : http://www.gwenael.org/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=115#p115

2. Autoit script do not have prompt windows. Bat script windows are already automatically hidden by Advanced Launcher. If you mean prompt windows for application start by an autoit script, is it possible to hide them using @SW_HIDE parameter or the autoit Run function (http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs...ns/Run.htm). Now concerning the display of black or transition screens there is no built-in function into autoit for this. But here is an example how proceed (http://autoitscript.com/forum/topic/5755...ntry441861). BTW, display a black screen is not the main problem here. The main problem is to determine when you will have to swich from black screen to fullscreen application. The problem is do detect when an application is into fullscreen and not only started or focused. For this is depend of the started application, the power of your system (time if will take to render the application into fullscreen) and the way the application is started (main process, launcher application, multi-windows application... in these cases which window we hae to monitor?). There is no universal way to proceed. If Autohotkey allows you to simply do this, so use Autohotkey with Advanced Launcher for this. My personnal solution is to use a clean desktop (no icon and a hidden taskbar) with a black image or or simulated transition image as wallpaper. It do perfectly the job.

[chris295]

I'm using a slightly modified version of john.doe's script and it is a huge improvement over what I had. With the SW_Hide parameter and the _MouseTrap parameter, the cursor is no longer randomly appearing and launching feels overall more responsive because of the WinSetOnTop parameter. The prompt windows no longer show as well, which accomplishes most of what I wanted.

The only thing I would like to change is after I launch for about 1-2 seconds you can still see the XBMC window in the center of the desktop. I would prefer to show a black screen to make launching feel more seemless. Since the XBMC window is in front of the desktop, changing the wallpaper would only fix part of the problem. It's not really a huge problem, just a minor thing and if it's not easily fixed it's not a must. In any case, it's way better than the 3-4 windows it cycled through before during the launching process.

Here is my script for Snes9x. I wasn't sure if I needed to leave the <Misc.au3> tag in the include since I don't actually have a Misc.au3 but I don't really know how includes work. Maybe you could clean it up a little bit for me and take out the redundancies if any exist? Either way, the script is doing what it's supposed to.

Code:

#include <Misc.au3>
HotKeySet("{ESC}", "Terminate")
Opt("WinTitleMatchMode", 2)
$app = "G:\xbmc\games\snes\snes9x-x64.exe"
$winname = "snes9x"

If $CmdLine[0] == 1 Then
    WinSetOnTop("XBMC", "", 1)
    Run("pssuspend XBMC.exe", "", @SW_HIDE)
    Run($app & ' "' & $CmdLine[1] & '"',"",@SW_HIDE)
    WinWait($winname,"")
    WinActivate($winname,"")
    WinSetOnTop($winname, "", 1)
    WinWaitActive($winname,"")
    SendKeepActive($winname,"")
    _MouseTrap(@DesktopWidth, @DesktopHeight, @DesktopWidth, @DesktopHeight)
While 1
        Sleep(100)
    WEnd
EndIf
Func Terminate()
ProcessClose( "snes9x-x64.exe" )
ProcessWaitClose( "snes9x-x64.exe" )
Run("pssuspend -r XBMC.exe", "", @SW_HIDE)
WinSetOnTop("XBMC", "", 0)
Exit 0
EndFunc

I can see where using the Monitor script could work perfectly for what I want. It seems complicated for me but I will toy with it later and let you know. But how does this script turn the monitor off/on? Does it actually turn the monitor off or just use some sort of function to simulate turning it off? It seems like if it actually turns the display off, that would put hardware strain when used over a long period of time. Is it safe to use? I was thinking more along the lines of using the Splash command, but I guess AutoIt doesn't have as mature of a Splash command as AutoHotKey. As for using AutoHotKey to do this, I wouldn't even know how to begin and it seems like more trouble than it's worth to use multiple scripts and the AutoIt script is working too well for me to convert to AHK now.

Again, thanks for all the help, sorry for making things complicated.