What LCD Plugin or Utility to use these days?

[Snooze]

Thats is an older pic on newegg showing it green as I understand. Thats according to the newegg forums... they come in blue now. Maybe can find them green somewhere else but I am not interested in getting one.

Gotcha! Yeah, mine dont stay on in standby then. As a matter of fact, now when I turn off smartie, reboot, the MCE indicator message does not show up anymore(?) Wonder why? Regardless, it is powered with faint blue, I send it into standby and it still turns off, so it sounds like i am out of luck.

[pBS]

no, gotta let that message stay on screen, if you start smartie, it'll kill it when it exits...
so boot with that mce msg on screen whole time, and when go to sleep that msg has to still be on there before going to sleep....
that msg is generated by bios inside lcd, so it should come on as soon as lcd has power, regardless of whether pc is on or not..
running any other lcd control program clears display before exit...
so if you can get it to go to sleep with that mce startup msg onscreen still,[take smartie out of startup] you'll know if it's working..

oh yea, you have to have motherboard set to give usb power even in s3, tho most already are..[usb wake in cmos power section usually]
if you have mce remote, if it wakes computer from sleep then usb wake is already set..

oh yea, in smartie on startup tab, put something in those 2 lines and it'll show that when smartie exits...[easiest way]
problem is, it only reads those lines on startup...any changes and smartie has to be reloaded..
hmmm,tho it does change if changed inside ui on the fly, so maybe i can work something there..
[force a reload of ini when data needs changing..]

[Snooze]

There is no default "MCE Indicator" message after taking smartie out of startup. I have LCD Smartie located in C:\LCDSmart folder and it is now using COM5 because I tried to reinstall the driver a couple of times. I must have other problems now...

EDIT: I wonder if the USB Bus on the Mobo is killing the power? I looked in BIOS and didn't see any settings to leave it on or stop it. Hmmm

[pBS]

actually you have to kill all power to see that mce message again...[unplug power cord in back while cpu off]

but easier to just set smartie's shutdown message...[bottom of startup/shutdown tab] [only in smartie 5.4+]
that should always work if lcd stays on after...close smartie and you'll see it...if you still see it when smartie closed, then run smartie again and try sleeping computer..

[Snooze]

"but easier to just set smartie's shutdown message...[bottom of startup/shutdown tab]"

Ok, I did that, and its a no go. I think the mobo is killing the power.

EDIT: Hey wait a minute... This gets its power from a 2 of the 4 pins on a molex connector... I need to find out which ones might stay hot maybe... hmmm

Its this one http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product....ct_id=2726

N/M I am being dumb... it has to have power anyways. It has to be related to the USB header on the mobo

[pBS]

hmmm, mine shows that mce indicator msg when i just power on the power supply...machine still off...[switch on back of power supply, turn off then back on with computer being off..] that's the only time i ever see that msg, when i completely pull power cord or turn off ps switch..

it has nothing to do with usb power, as you can actually leave that disconnected IIRC..

yea, just checked, mine stays on even when powering machine off completely..[short of pulling power cord]
only my 2x24 vl-systems vfd works, imon doesn't cuz it's an older one..
vl makes some nice displays, some can even power on machine from dead off and have built-in mce remote eye...

you know you can make it green by placing a yellow film in front of screen, or purple with red filter..my vfd is kinda green so i have a pink filter that makes it blue like yours... [cut from an old vcr]
i believe those are lit by a simple led so just changin that can make any color..

[Snooze]

Must be a different animal than yours.

[pBS]

i bet it could be wired to stay on...all mine use 5v so they just need a decent 5vsb source...like say, a second usb port...
the lcd should take wayyy less than the 1amp a usb has to put out, so it should run fine from motherboard usb header and give full off msg capability
shoot, my 2x24 vfd runs that way so i can't see how a lcd with led backlight would take more than my vfd, or a usb can put out..
i'll see if i can't find specs to confirm power usage..cuz i'm gonna convert my imon to do it..
[i confirmed it runs when using always on power, it's just a matter of giving it one..]

[Snooze]

i bet it could be wired to stay on...all mine use 5v so they just need a decent 5vsb source...like say, a second usb port...
the lcd should take wayyy less than the 1amp a usb has to put out, so it should run fine from motherboard usb header and give full off msg capability

Thats an idea... I just need to get a header connector.

you know you can make it green by placing a yellow film in front of screen, or purple with red filter..my vfd is kinda green so i have a pink filter that makes it blue like yours... [cut from an old vcr]
i believe those are lit by a simple led so just changin that can make any color..

Any suggestions for a filter to make it look like a crisp sharp VFD like you got so I can read it from across the room??? HA

oh yea, you have to have motherboard set to give usb power even in s3, tho most already are..[usb wake in cmos power section usually]
if you have mce remote, if it wakes computer from sleep then usb wake is already set..

problem is, it only reads those lines on startup...any changes and smartie has to be reloaded..
hmmm,tho it does change if changed inside ui on the fly, so maybe i can work something there..
[force a reload of ini when data needs changing..]

Yeah, my USB's have power in S3, that was the easy part!! HAHA

Even though I cant see it in standby right now, I was wondering that too about the INI file and if a BAT file or something that could write to the INI and kill smartie before standby. I use MCE Standby Tool and I could run a standby event like that.

My other issue right now is getting dependable info from GBPVRCLI and the b00sfuk solution of writing the text files (using parallel and post processing bats) and having smartie read them. The problem appears to be that I have recordings saved from late 2009 in my "available" recordings directory. I hoped it would show the latest ones, but it doesnt. It looks like the newer ones fight with the older ones since it looks like it outputs the text file with no regard to the year, so it is not accurate. Also the "upcoming" recordings are not accurate as it shows recordings for this coming Thursday and Monday, where there are recordings in between it ignored.

I am going to try the EWA RSS/LCD Smartie Plugin Method to try to get the proper order, and see how that goes. If this fails as well I think I need to archive my old recordings to the Video Library and keep trying both methods.

I am using the IMON VFD PLUGIN too to display what is being played with it creating text files. It does a fairly good job. I just wish it would display more info for live TV. Right now it shows Channel Number and Call sign. I wish it would show the program name too like in GBPVRTray Tuner Status.

I might tinker with the /tunerstatus switch in GBPVRCLI to see what that looks like. If I can get it to work, I guess it would show duplicate info for "Live TV" and "Now Recording" if I keep the IMON plugin though. I want to keep the IMON plugin because it displays things played from the video and music libraries. Never too much info, right?!?!?

[pBS]

will upload my status helper app to see if it works or you...it does the lookups and usses registry so no fragmenting...
[i even made it client aware..lol]
will have to take out few customizations made just for my machine first..

so far looks ok...maybe try this setup and let me know what doesn't work.
i'll include my plugin, status2 translator,and smartie lines...