The WAF killer, getting myHTPC to go in fron when sage sleeps

[AJ Bertelson]

This the WAF killer for me. The three main components on my HTPC are

-Zoomplayer for media playback
-myHTPC for all front end utilities
-Sage for TV viewing purposes

Girder runs all of these components.


The problem is that when I put sage into sleep it minimizes to the system tray and myHTPC is no longer onto so I have lost the navigation control buttons on my remote. I have to left click and I get the the control back of myHTPC.

Some one once fixed this problem before here but I was wondering if anyone else knew how to fix this problem with girder?

[stanger89]

Check out the GML I'm attaching. It's a little messy but there are a couple things that might help you. (Don't even ask about the placement).

The first thing I'd look at is way at the bottom in the Winamp group I have two commands "myHTPC Exists" that is learned to the "On Taskswitch" event (change All to Girder Events I think). The next is "Set Focus" which is called from "myHTPC Exists" whenever there is a taskswitch. This may (probably will) require closing myHTPC when not using it.

[falchulk]

I do exactly that as well. The diffrence is that I use the irremote application in conjuction with girder. When I hit the power button while in any application, it runs the exit routine (ctrl + x, Ctrl + w, alt + f4, etc..) and then does an alt + tab. Works great for me.

[salsbst]

If SetFocus doens't seem to do the trick, try inserting a delay prior to doing SetFocus.

[andrewswright]

My alternative method is to have a multigroup that puts SageTV to sleep, then moves the mouse to coordinates 0,0, then left clicks the mouse. This brings myHTPC to the foreground.

I can attach my gml file when I get home if you are interested.

Andrew

[AJ Bertelson]

Originally posted by andrewswright
My alternative method is to have a multigroup that puts SageTV to sleep, then moves the mouse to coordinates 0,0, then left clicks the mouse. This brings myHTPC to the foreground.

I can attach my gml file when I get home if you are interested.

Andrew

I finally found some time this weekend to work on it could you please attach this file?

[andrewswright]

It's admittedly ugly, but the gml works well for me, controlling Sage, myHTPC, and Zoomplayer. Not all commands are represented, as the Windows MCE rmote controls some things out of the box.

Andrew

[AJ Bertelson]

whoa, thats going to take awhile to figure out unless you can point me to the instance where girder registers Ctrl-Z then moves the mouse to (0,0)

[tangfj]

I don't think this topic has been posted to since the release of .15, but I have had problems getting Girder to play nice with SageTV since the release of .15.

I don't have any problems getting myHTPC regaining focus with a button press on the remote as I simply add a command to a multigroup to set focus to myHTPC when the exit button is pressed, the problem comes when I use the Sleep button from the main menu of Sage. Does anyone have a workaround for this?

I have tried using 'is foreground' for this and then saying that if SageTV is not the foreground app to 'set focus' to myHTPC, but when I do this Girder gets stuck in a loop and always sets focus to myHTPC no matter what. I've tried almost everything that I can think of in Girder to work around this, so if anyone has successfully regained focus to myHTPC after pressing the sleep button from the main menu of Sage I would really like to know how you did it!! Thanks.

[salsbst]

Most Girder users may not have dealt with the new Sleep button (it's new in this build) yet.

I'll probably ignore it and continue to cause sleep by a command that originates in Girder. The problem you mention is symptomatic of the general fact that Sage cannot yet provide any feedback to Girder as to button presses and the like.

The Girder window exists / is foreground functions work ok in some cases and not in others. [EDIT: it's mostly about timing and slow windows... I'm not trying to state that Girder is unreliable.] I've found it best to (when possible) start things in Girder so that Girder has a specific spot in its GML to go from, rather than having to do too much detecting of (foreground) windows.

That's one reason while I'll probably avoid the sleep button in the Sage GUI. The other is that I have a bunch of button on my remote which all cause immediate Sage sleepage, so it would be silly for me to bother navigating to a button to accomplish this.

[stanger89]

Yeah, that's probably the first thing I'll do with Studio, get rid of the Sleep button and put the Play DVD button back. I have to be careful not to hit the sleep button since thats where the Setup button used to be.

tangfj,
You might want to take a look at the GML I have linked in my sig, it contains Sendmessages for every command in Sage (except the few added in .15).

edit.
I updated the GML in my sig to include all .15 commands

[Opus4]

I'll make it unanimous & say not to use the new sleep men ubutton... and I don't even use Girder! If whatever program you are using to handle your remote's input is tracking the status of whatever is active at the moment, using the new sleep menu button will throw it all out of sync.

- Andy

[stanger89]

I am glad it's there so hopefully we won't see all the "How do you put Sage to sleep?" posts. I'll just be happy when I can get rid of it.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by stanger89
I am glad it's there so hopefully we won't see all the "How do you put Sage to sleep?" posts.

Yup... and that's probably one reason it was put back -- the fact that too many people didn't know about sleep or how to start sleeping. Of course, it will start this whole new topic, as we've seen here... so, now we'll start saying to ignore the button!

Hey... at least it is easy to stop LiveTV w/o going to sleep now!

- Andy

[jominor]

Originally posted by AJ Bertelson
This the WAF killer for me. The three main components on my HTPC are

-Zoomplayer for media playback
-myHTPC for all front end utilities
-Sage for TV viewing purposes

Girder runs all of these components.
girder?

Do you have myHTPC invoking Sage? If so, how?

[tangfj]

jominor, the way I have myHTPC launching Sage is by creating a new group in myHTPC and then creating a program within that group which launches the exe for Sage with the parameter -awake in the parameters field. Of course, you could just create a program from the main menu of myHTPC.

I just did it this way in case I didn't really want to run Sage I could still back out of the Sage group I created in myHTPC. If you want I can try to make some screenshots of my setup.

[falchulk]

To tell you the truth, you have not needed the awake switch for a long time. Just calling the app works fine with a program entry in Myhtpc.

[Opus4]

Yup... the last time I tested the "-awake" parameter, all it accomplished was to not start the program if it wasn't already running. If it was already running, using it made no difference regarding waking SageTV, as far as I could tell.

Running SageTV.exe again, when not sleeping, is a good way to have it regain focus, btw.

- Andy

[tangfj]

FWIW, it seems like with the client version, you have to use the -awake parameter. Otherwise it will actually start another instance of SageTVClient. Let me know if there is a way around this.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by tangfj
FWIW, it seems like with the client version, you have to use the -awake parameter. Otherwise it will actually start another instance of SageTVClient.

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention that... the client has a known problem where it will actually run multiple instances. And, if you use -awake & it isn't already running, it won't start, if I remember correctly. I've reported this as a bug in the past, but I suppose it is still there. It should be an easy fix for them. If this is happening with beta 15, why don't you submit it again? Bug Submission Form

- Andy