New iMon Display API available!

[Barsk]

There is a new API available for iMON (the VFD/LCD display) that many HTPC cases are equipped with.
I am a bad boy to cross-post info about it here so noone misses it. I think it is that important!
The original post with more info is here: [URL="http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?48176-New-iMon-Display-API-available%21&p=390932#post390932"]http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?48176-New-iMon-Display-API-available!&p=390932#post390932
[/URL]
I guess we need some sort of support in NPVR to fully support this. I am thinking some kind of event API from NPVR that a plugin dev can hook into and "subscribe" to the kind of events he is interested in. That "code pattern" is common in Java for getting events for a GUI for instance. You just become a listener of a type, register yourself and recieve event of the type you want. For NPVR that could be "new music file started: name mysong.mp3, etc etc". The listener interface has it´s strength in that it is not polling. Polling is bad and takes resources when not needed. The listener interface would be more "interrupt" driven. Then of course we would neeed to get the standard stuff like pending recordings, currently playing etc. And those would have to come from standard API methods.
I haven't looked into how to develop plugins but this would be something I would want...
The support for external displays has been medioker in gb-pvr and only been possible via clumsy external hooks. Is the time here to change that?

P.S I might be persuaded to look into Windows programming again if there was enough demand on a plugion of this sort D.S

EDIT: I tried installing this and it went without issues on my win 7 x64. The USB iMON device got it's driver. However the program refuse to start, saying my HW is ANTEC VFD and not iMON VDF. So for some it might work, but not for me as it seems. :mad:

[BigMoose]

I've never got my iMON display to work in GBPVR. Once in a blue moon it suddenly decides to give info but I think that was always related to the iMON software settings and not GBPVR. No idea if I've been using the wrong drivers or what, but I gave up a long time ago! Would be nice if it worked though. I wonder if my display is just bust though since it's not predictable with the native software.

[Barsk]

Well, I had the iMON working fine with the standard software. It was not possible to get any input from GB-PVR into it though.
The last working thing I had was with LCDSmartie + Ggpvrslimm. Mr Slim had som scripts that could extract things that lcdsmartie could display on my iMON VFD. I would not say it worked perfectly though...

[b00sfuk]

I've had GBPVR (and now NPVR) working great with iMON & LCDSmartie for some time. Details are in my post http://forums.gbpvr.com//showthread.php?...post253379.
It takes a little setting up but is just about 100% reliable when right.

Not tired the API but will have a look when work is a little quieter.

[Barsk]

Yep, it can be done that way.
However going the API way would be much much cleaner and easier to use for all.

As of now. I haven't ben able to run the iMON manager from Soundgraph. It installs Ok, but complains when started that the wrong hardware is installed. Is there any way to counter this? Patching the excutables etc. I have tried to tweak the setup.ini, changing some parameters to ANTEC VFD from SOUNDGRAPH iMON. However it did no difference. Found nothing in the registry either.
It seems the installer cab-files are hardcoded to use a specific hardware. Any ideas...
I find it strange that they lock out the generic drivers. Its like I buy an Asus NVIDIA graphic card and would forever be bound to get drivers from Asus. I always go for the drivers from NVidia in that case. With Soundgraph that option is locked out.
One could only hope that Antec makes an Antec version of these new drivers available.