Adding controls to Xlobby for Sony DVP-CX777ES

[SMH]

I currently have Xlobby running well with the CX777ES plug-in (creating bat files to control movie play). I am very pleased with this setup. The last aspect of this setup is to assigned bat files to the control buttons already included in the skin so that I can stop, pause, power-on, etc. the DVD player. How do you assign such actions to a skin button?
Thank you for any assistance or direction.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

I currently have Xlobby running well with the CX777ES plug-in (creating bat files to control movie play). I am very pleased with this setup. The last aspect of this setup is to assigned bat files to the control buttons already included in the skin so that I can stop, pause, power-on, etc. the DVD player. How do you assign such actions to a skin button?
Thank you for any assistance or direction.

u use "os:execute file" command for button with path and filename of 777es utility and parameters needed for that button command or u can make a bat file for commands and launch these batch files from button with "os:execute file" very similarly as we launch movies. If i remember right im using latter method... but first one should work too and its simpler since there no need for batch files.

Just in case u r really new in xl, u enter setup by F2, there u setup commands described above in event page. After those events are ready u "tie" them to buttons enterin skin editor by "pause/break" and set button events corresponding event u created in setup.

[sharp_1]

As promised, list of commands for 777:

PLAY:
d:\777\sony_cx777es COM1 18

Menu:
d:\777\sony_cx777es COM1 27

Power ON:
d:\777\sony_cx777es COM1 35 1

Power OFF
d:\777\sony_cx777es COM1 35 0

Top Menu:
d:\777\sony_cx777es COM1 26

Pause:
d:\777\sony_cx777es COM1 19

STOP:
d:\777\sony_cx777es COM1 20

Of course you need to replace "d:\777" with your path.

In order to use those from Xlobby, you need to create buttons and assign events. Or just make batch files and doble-click to execute.

Good luck.

1) Create all your .bat files (see above)
2) Create events to assign the .bat files too, press your F2 button ,select the events group.
3) Add an event named play777 under the movie group.
4) Under the play777 event you just created add the os:execute command from the XL command menu.
5) Add your .bat file, make sure you run a "hidden" window type.
6) Exit setup window
7) Enter skinning window by pressing pause/break.
8.) Assign the new event "play777" to the new or existing button that you are creating or modifying.
9) Exit skin mode
10) Press new button and the 777es should start to play.

Have fun!!!

[SMH]

Thanks for the help. Everything worked great.
One more question: The list that was provided for commands with the CX-777ES did not include the navigational arrows (up, down, left, right) used to navigate the DVD menus and the "enter" button to select a menu choice. Does anyone have those command languages to add to the control features?
Thanks in advance.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Thanks for the help. Everything worked great.
One more question: The list that was provided for commands with the CX-777ES did not include the navigational arrows (up, down, left, right) used to navigate the DVD menus and the "enter" button to select a menu choice. Does anyone have those command languages to add to the control features?
Thanks in advance.

U can look them up in usage of the 777es utility.

[sharp_1]

Thanks for the help. Everything worked great.
One more question: The list that was provided for commands with the CX-777ES did not include the navigational arrows (up, down, left, right) used to navigate the DVD menus and the "enter" button to select a menu choice. Does anyone have those command languages to add to the control features?
Thanks in advance.

Here you go!!
Down:
c:\777\sony_cx777es.exe COM1 25
Right:
c:\777\sony_cx777es.exe COM1 24
Left:
c:\777\sony_cx777es.exe COM1 22
Up:
c:\777\sony_cx777es.exe COM1 21
Enter:
c:\777\sony_cx777es.exe COM1 23

You will need to change to your own path in the .bat file.

If you want I can email you my bat files and you can go from there?? Let me know your email address and I will send them to you.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Sharp, youre doing favor of bear for newbs...

I say just throw them a bone, and let them use it as a club to hunt their own carcass.

[SMH]

Sharp, Thanks for the help. Greatly Appreciated!!!
I may be pushing my luck here, but I have one additional issue that I can not resolve. When assigning events to skin buttons, I am well aware that I can add "hidden" to the event so that the dos box does not appear on screen. This is a big deal for me as I dont want to see any evidence of windows in the display. When it comes to the "play movie" button, the event assigned is "movies:execute". I can not figure out how to "hide" the dos box on this event as it appears every time I launch a movie from the 777es player. Any ideas? Since this is one that was default in the skin and I did not assign, I am not sure how to accomplish this.
Again, any help is GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

u could try this hack:

http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4289&highlight=focus

and why no honey for bear at all, i might not be sharp but atleast im fast

[sharp_1]

Sharp, Thanks for the help. Greatly Appreciated!!!
I may be pushing my luck here, but I have one additional issue that I can not resolve. When assigning events to skin buttons, I am well aware that I can add "hidden" to the event so that the dos box does not appear on screen. This is a big deal for me as I dont want to see any evidence of windows in the display. When it comes to the "play movie" button, the event assigned is "movies:execute". I can not figure out how to "hide" the dos box on this event as it appears every time I launch a movie from the 777es player. Any ideas? Since this is one that was default in the skin and I did not assign, I am not sure how to accomplish this.
Again, any help is GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

This is what my event looks like...I do not get any window popping up when running a bat file. Make sure you have it set up correctly.

Good luck!!! runhidden.exe is an option too. See this post on how to set up: (works great)

If I understand your setup, your "movies" database has links to a batch files in the "parameter" tag, if so, I wrote this little prog a long time ago - it executes batch files without this command prompt window - so you could assign an event to your category "os:execute file" - in the "File" point to my prog and in the Arguments enter %movies>parameter% (providing "movies" is the name of your category) that should lounch your batch file without this window....

[SMH]

Sharp,

Thanks again for the reply. To follow up, it appears in your picture that your play movie command is an os: execute file in which you have a path designated to a batch file. In the skin that I am using, Baddabing's Home Theater Touchscreen Skin, the play movie command was default to an execute file command, and not an os:execute file. With that command, there is no place to input the "hidden" command as shown in your picture, there is just a category line. Therefore, I am not aware of a batch file that I can direct it to as you did in your example. Did you create the batch file click_event that is found in your example or did it come as a default in your skin? Is there a way to create this batch file to play the movie from the designated slot of the CX-777ES that I can create and then use your example listed above? I have been working on this for awhile, but can not figure out how to get this movie:play function to eliminate the window appearance like I am able to with the functions that I led to a batch file that I created based on the information provided in this post.
Thanks again for the help.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

yeah... i must have been drinking a potion of invisibility again...

check out the link i gave u.

[sharp_1]

SMH:

Are you using DVDProfiler to catalog your DVD's? If so DVDpro assigns each DVD a collection number.
This is what I use along with the Click_Event.bat (example: c:\777\sony_cx777es.exe COM1 36 %1 0 0 1) to have XL navigate to my DVD's in the 777es.

I would create a separate movie event that looks something like this "play_777" then add the os:execute file to it.
Here are some threads that may help you a bit more:
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... ight=777es
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... ight=777es

Now you could even go a step further like I do and "personalize" each DVD in DVDpro collection by assigning a location and slot number just in case you add another 777 to your rack in the future. Steven was nice enough to add these fields into XL a few months ago. With this you could add as many 777's as your little heart desires. The argument is that you will have to edit each DVD in DVDpro...but since you have to enter the DVD into the database in DVDpro manually anyway the extra step to modify the location and slot only takes about 30 seconds and insures that I will never have to touch the DVD again.

Bear: I can't wait until you are able to put some time into the 2-way automation of the RS232 for the 777es...it sure would be great to not have to manually add each and every DVD into DVDprofiler then export file to HD then import to XL movie DB. Ugh!!!

[SMH]

Sharp,

I followed your advise above, and there is one problem: I created a bat file named "play_777" with the following language: c:\777\sony_cx777es.exe COM1 36 %1 0 0 1. I then created an event named play 777 that is assigned an windows os:event (execute) with the path to the bat file included and the parameter of %movies_family>collectionNumber% and "hidden" typed into the window.
This works fine for one exception: Now when I select a movie, it views the collection number as the slot number. For example, if Movie A has a collection number of "1" and a slot number of "16", and I select that movie, it will play the movie in slot 1, not slot 16. I have input the information into DVDprofiler as noted before, with slot number input with each dvd selection. I tried using "slotnumber" instead of collection number in the parameter data, but that will not work. Any idea how to fix this? I am very close, but not quite there. I did not want to use the sendfocus.exe as I do not have any focus problems and think I can fix this with the right code, instead of an additional .exe file.
Thanks again for the help. I am getting anxious for this setup to be completely done.

[sharp_1]

Are you sure you have the "slotnumber" field in your movies database? (case sensitive) If not download new .exe from this thread.
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=27281
Steven has added many fields to the dvdpro import function.

I have yet to use the slot number data because I only have one 777es, I was planning in usung it when I get my second player. I have been using "collectionNumber" only till this point but I have been keeping my slot number and collection numbers the same so I don't have to go back and change anything in the future when I get the second player. All I will need to do I change the "locationNumber" and I can still keep the "collectionNumber" and the "slotNumber" the same...even on the second 777es.