Persistent PPC connection suggestion

[Vince_B]

When stopping the server and restarting it the ppc errors or drops out to the win CE screen. I found a few posts where it's mentioned and it might be fairly simple to address. It would also tie in well with using wake on lan sleep mode for the htpc that is the server.

When the PPC fails to see the server, instead of the error window that is now used, display a screen that is saved on the client (maybe just one skin page that is downloaded and saved in the directory on the ppc where xlobby lives). The screen would have a button to exit and one to wake up the htpc, which would be a simple ping command directed at the server address - I guess doing it this way you could define whatever buttons and have a field in XL that chooses the 'offline ppc skin'.

Of course any other communication issues that might cause the client to be unhappy prior to talking to the server (if any) would have to be addressed.

There's some discussion of it starting with sdumas's post almost halfway down...
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9035&highlight=colby+ppc#9035

[jowaldo]

that would be nice, but it would only be able to show a static image... not necessarily a screen since the ppc is just bascially recieving screenshots from the server, not loading the screens themself..

definitley would be a nice addition tho!

[Vince_B]

Thanks for the second Jowaldo! Somehow there should be a way the software can 'heal' the connection. I was thinking the skin for that screen could exist on the ppc as a file. At first I thought make a setting where you define the offline screen like you do the startup screen, but it occured to me that you could just have the software look for a certain file, like 'offline.xml' and use that when offline. You could just have the user copy that skin file to the ppc. I was just thinking it needs to be a file so that it will persist when the ppc is turned off, and it doesn't need to be a fancy feature. You put the file, the ppc uses it, if not, it won't. I'm sure some code would have to be added to the sd file, but maybe it's not too bad? I don't know

[Vince_B]

Oh, almost forgot, magic packet support in here would be great too. Lets you wake up the target pc with a specific type of network traffic, not just any packet.

from this page....
http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/wakeonlan/mini-howto/wol-mini-howto-2.html#ss2.1

A Wake-up frame is a special data packet containing the Ethernet address of the remote network card. Somewhere in this frame should exist a byte stream (magic sequence) composed by, at the least, 16 times the repetition of the Ethernet address and preceded by a synchronization stream of 6 bytes of FFh.

Magic sequence
If the Ethernet address of a target computer is 01:02:03:04:05:06 (6 bytes), then the LAN controller of that machine should be looking for the following sequence

FFFFFFFFFFFF010203040506010203040506010203040506010203040506
010203040506010203040506010203040506010203040506010203040506
010203040506010203040506010203040506010203040506010203040506
010203040506010203040506

inside the frame.

[Roscoe62]

Vince B, I'm with you on incorporating a "magic packet" into the XLobby PPC client. At the moment, I have to launch a separate app on the PPC to fire up my server (which in turn fires up my HTPC with XLobby on it). Having the static screen built in would mean that I could start up my system from the PPC AND within XLobby which would be great.

[rhinoman]

This would be a cool feature....

[jowaldo]

yeah that would be awesome!

[Vince_B]

Roscoe62, what app are you using to wake up the pc? Is it command-line capable so it can be put in a batch?

[Naylia]

I would love to see more work done to make it more ppc friendly. This is a fantastic idea. Being able to wake up my hibernating computer would be sweet.

[Roscoe62]

Vince_B,

Sorry, I forgot to check which app I use on the PPC, but I remember that it is a whole suite of apps - not really what I wanted. I also don't believe it supports command lines.

However, if the magic packet is as simple as you say then it shouldn't be too difficult to incorporate it into xlobby's ppc client.

I'd also like the ability to cancel out of the app if that's your preference. It's happened a couple of times where the XLobby server has shut down but my wife forgot to close the ppc client first and then you're stuck.

Maybe as you said earlier having a static screen which allows you to fire up your HTPC (via the magic packet) OR to just quit. In fact, I wonder how smart it could be made?

Say, if the computer XLobby's server is running on is currently not switched on, could the ppc client be made smart enough to recognise this and offer the option of turning it on (via magic packet)?

Next, if the XLobby server computer is running, but the XLobby server app isn't running, could the client be made to offer the option to turn it on remotely?

Finally, if everything is A-OK (HTPC running, AND XLobby app running) it would switch to it's normal ppcmenu screen - ready to resume normal operation.

Just some thoughts, but imagine having that kind of capability on your ppc. I don't know of anything else out there that could do that.

[lar282]

I second a persistent connection.


//Lasse

[Vince_B]

Hey, take a minute and email the Brian at

http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/

who said he would put the command line
version of his wake on lan software on the list
to work on. very cool, and it might help if
others expressed interest.

[Roscoe62]

Email sent!

[Roscoe62]

This is a BUMP, but also wanted to say that I got an email reply from Brian to say the command line support is coming soon.

In the meantime it'd be great if we could get at least some of these PPC ideas implemented.

Any chance Steven?

[Vince_B]

This and the volume buttons (slow repeat on the hard buttons causing non-real time volume control) are my current stuck points. It would be nice if the app was knew what was wrong and had events that could react to various scenarios as you detailed, so you could wake the pc if it's off, display an 'no comms - please wait' if the wifi was not live yet, run XL if it wasn't running, etc. That all seemed like alot to ask so I came up with the other idea....

the offline skin screen because it seemed a simple way to handle the 'offline' state. Instead of (ever) bombing the xlobby2sd app, show this screen that you could configure to be whatever with the skin editor that already exists. Add the ability to send a magic packet, and the behavior such that if/when communications was available the offline screen would automatically go away. Then you could just fire a macro that tried to wake up the pc, start XL (probably doens't hurt to run it if it's already running - haven't tried that). You could make a big key that said 'Fix Me' and it would try everything that might be responsible for the problem in a kind of brute-force method.

Ultimately this is a good discussion and maybe some of it will appeal to Steven to implement in the future (esp that volume repeat thing )