AutoIT for plugins

[aescalante]

Has anybody thought of the possibility of making some sort of autoit development wrapper? autoit is a scripting language with a huge user base. if this was somehow made and worked well i myself could make a ton of cool plugins.

I am just looking for some sort of system that will tie into the nice GUI that is already available

[K.S.]

hmmm, call me uninspired, but what do you want to achieve with that? some others (me too) also use autoit (search for StartGBPVR on the wiki & forum), it's great as a invisible helper in the background (as watchdog for app & service & remote & etc...) or as a start up wrapper in a client/server setup or as a wrapper around DVDShrink (all examples as used here around with GBPVR). otherwise: dunno if autoit apps with GUI would be of much help (GBPVR in FSE mode might be a hindrance). if you just want some menu entry in the gui to start a specific autoit script: no need for a wrapper, define a custom task in config & point it to your script

if this was somehow made and worked well i myself could make a ton of cool plugins.

that sounds great, share you ideas & we'll see if you'll still need anything else or if it's something not so easy to integrate

[idkpmiller]

GameZone will allow you to launch any batch file or exe file (see "XtraEmulators" tab in config) it can can also provide a filename which is selected by the user as part of the commandline offered to the application. I could add multiple selection if it was required.

Take a look if it sounds like it will help, see the link in my siganture

Cheers

[Dava]

I also string my system together with Autoit and I also currently use Slimms gbpvrcli to extract data from gbpvr.

I would like it if I could do this directly with the app to get more data, without the extra dependency.

Specifically, I write to a graphical display and would like to display the name of currently playing programme, position and possibly a small representation of the currently selected menu item so that net radio etc is controllable with the plasma off. These are not available via gbpvrcli.

My guess is that there is a DLL or COM object that would be useable and would like to go into this further once I have the core system back up and running.

[K.S.]

I also string my system together with Autoit and I also currently use Slimms gbpvrcli to extract data from gbpvr.
I would like it if I could do this directly with the app to get more data, without the extra dependency.

more data is too inaccurate in regard of gbpvr. do you want data from the DB? no problem, it's sqlite nobody will hinder you to read directly from the DB, you'll only have to do all the math (currently recording/pending recording/etc...) yourself.

Specifically, I write to a graphical display and would like to display the name of currently playing programme, position and possibly a small representation of the currently selected menu item so that net radio etc is controllable with the plasma off. These are not available via gbpvrcli.

you may want to take a look at http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Utility/IMONVFD it's a plugin to write data to an specific LCD but it's also capable of writing that data to a text file for other usages. it also has the source code for your viewing pleasure

My guess is that there is a DLL or COM object that would be useable and would like to go into this further once I have the core system back up and running.

that's the point: when i took a look around & poked inside the dll's for one plugin i changed to my needs i learned of one limitation: the app itself (gbpvr/pvrx2) won't communicate anything about the current status. it won't tell other apps via COM if it's playing back a video or whatever. you can't directly access the dll from outside of the app (at least if sub did not change that meanwhile). if you want an external app to have direct access to the gbpvr.exe/pvrx2.exe to query status or whatever, you'll have to do so on your own, there are enough examples around (bleepbloop/IMONVFD) to get you started about status/navigation, no need to reinvent the wheel, you'll only have to get the COM part going

[Dava]

take a look at http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Utility/IMONVFD

Having a quick look at the source, it seems that extracting current position and DVD Title etc is possible. Thanks for the pointer.

[aescalante]

as some of you ahve mentioned autoit helps with some of the backend scripting and functionality.

example.. in autoit its pretty easy to invoke a remote desktop object. i wanted to be able to have a few of the servers that i administer within gbpvr (i know this sounds stupid but for the most part the servers that i work with are set to 800x600 for easy use on my winmo phone) just an RDP window within the cool blue interface of gbpvr. it would just be great to fire up some music (already in gbpvr) and do some quick work for a client all from my bed. this is just an example. C# and vb.net seems like a monumental undertaking to learn but if the GUI was accessible somehow for autoit (i wouldnt know how to do this... im a script guy) then i think we would have a lot more plugin possibilities.

please dont rip me apart for the rdp example... just an example.

[K.S.]

example.. in autoit its pretty easy to invoke a remote desktop object. i wanted to be able to have a few of the servers that i administer within gbpvr (i know this sounds stupid but for the most part the servers that i work with are set to 800x600 for easy use on my winmo phone) just an RDP window within the cool blue interface of gbpvr. it would just be great to fire up some music (already in gbpvr) and do some quick work for a client all from my bed. this is just an example. C# and vb.net seems like a monumental undertaking to learn but if the GUI was accessible somehow for autoit (i wouldnt know how to do this... im a script guy)

ok, lets see if i understand what you do (or want to do). you have a gbpvr client (laptop/whatever?) where you listen to music & meanwhile you start up some rdp sessions through autoit on other machines to do some work, right? now you want the rdp sessions (obviuosly not full screen mode ) to be integrated into the gbpvr gui...
hmmm, what benefit would you gain from that? you will still need mouse&kb for your rdp chores...
if i would really want something like that i would rather do it the following way: custom task in gbpvr to start the script, first part in the script would switch gbpvr to windowed mode & take care to manipulate the window size of gbpvr & position it somewhere on the right side of the desktop (lets assume you have some nasty toy with a 1920x1200resolution, that would give you plenty space to fire up 3 rdp sessions & still have the gbpvr client in 800x600), start up the rdp sessions & scatter them over the desktop. voila, you're ready to work via rdp & have gbpvr where you could even watch tv meanwhile.

you obviously miss something in gbpvr, although i don't understand what... if you have more examples, please post them. i would be surprised if there would not be some way or another to get it working

[aescalante]

my entire GBPVR system is connected to my in house phone system and my cell phones. (pick up a wireless house phone and make a call from the house or from my cell or my girlfriends cell) ---> i could make an autoit based plugin to make and receive phone calls with callerid support. add csv input functionlity and you can keep your outlook/anycontact app phone numbers readily available to dial out.

pictures ---> i could make a gbpvr plugin that will write to sqlite. this plugin will allow people viewing pictures to tag photos from a preselected list of tags. later you can search and view based off of tag information (easy menu system so you dont need a keyboard).

[K.S.]

my entire GBPVR system is connected to my in house phone system and my cell phones. (pick up a wireless house phone and make a call from the house or from my cell or my girlfriends cell) ---> i could make an autoit based plugin to make and receive phone calls with callerid support. add csv input functionlity and you can keep your outlook/anycontact app phone numbers readily available to dial out.

not sure if it has all the features you want, but why reinvent the wheel? => http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Plugin/CallerId

pictures ---> i could make a gbpvr plugin that will write to sqlite. this plugin will allow people viewing pictures to tag photos from a preselected list of tags. later you can search and view based off of tag information (easy menu system so you dont need a keyboard).

nice idea. you want to somehow integrate that in the GUI:
- post it on the wish list (i doubt sub will have the time to integrate the requested features anytime soon into the existing photo library)
- if you still want to go the autoit way, custom task to start your script (already posible but will not work with full screen exclusive mode), the rest would have to come from you (UI in autoit, navigation, tagging etc...)
- take a look at that plugin here http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Plugin/Files & ask McBainUK if it would be possible to add some custom action (that would be the part where you could call whatever you want with the current file, i.e. call your script with some parameters, one of them the file, the other the tag?)