HouseBot

Instead of only using the Blank remote option, I created a complete black XGA panel to blank my remote. In a dual head environment, both heads are blanked when Blank is selected and I want to remain the secondary head for watching video.

Another thing is that my monitor goes into sleep mode. Not only does it take longer to wake up from a Blank (Sleep) situation than just switching panels, but it also kills the onboard monitor speakers which I sometimes use as a background music player. I like the monitor to be completely Blacked out when watching a movie, but I need full speed control when wanting to adjust the volume real quick. Changing Panels is a better option for this.

Only bad thing about a Black XGA panel is that the monitor backlight is still on and so it produces more light in a dark cinema room, but that is acceptable. Another issue is the mouse pointer. It remains visible on the spot the Black Out Panel change button is pressed. It would be very nice if HouseBot could control the mousepointers shape. A simple system property could blank the pointer and restore it. I tried this though script code, but the pointer blanks on the HB Server window that is running the script, but not on the SWRemote.

If the mouse pointers shape can be controlled through some kind of (system) property for the applicable SWRemote, I could also set the sleep pointer during heavy alphalist query selections using script.

Just a thought. I am not sure if this can be done since the script is run from a different Window then the SWRemote is running from.

Now that I am thinking of a Black Out, it would also be nice if a Panel could have transparancy to the Panel below it. Something like a mask. My light colored panels could be faded dark with such an option. This takes away the light of the monitor, but in dark rooms still enables you to navigate through the panel. That is a total different feature request btw.

Richard,

Can you use a blank screen-saver?

Well, that's a thought I didn't think of yet. Although I like things to be native. I dont know what screen savers do to secondary heads. I will give it a try. Shouldn't be hard to externally control a screensaver.

Feature request still stands though because of the the sleeppointer functions etc,

I fixed this by using AutoItX3.dll. It gives you control over many stuff which cannot be called from vbscript directly. MouseX and MouseY can be set, but one can also read the X and Y values as well as PixelColor etc etc. With this I wrote a simple screensaver which only works when my swremote is maximized since then the pixelcolor of x = 1 and y = 1 is always the same and thus different from when the remote is not maximized. After 5 minutes of no mouse pointer changes while the swremote is on top, it reverts back to a simple start panel displaying only a large clock. This will keep my remote from getting slow over time during the day. (Another issue I am having).

Now I can also move the mousepointer to a coordinate outside of view when I virtually blank the screen using an all black panel. This keeps the highly lit up mouse pointer from producing light in a dark cinema room while the remote is blanked.

If anybody is interested in more of this AutoItX3.dll and it's function, let me know and I will post it in the general section.