Anyone running 2 copies of XL? Or using 2 displays?

[cioffij]

I have an HD TC and a touchscreen. Most of the time I use the touchscreen, but sometimes I want to have XL displayed on the TV instead of the touchscreen.

I tried running two copies, that didn't work. There appears to be some hardcoded values. I changed some, but still no luck. THere's also a registry entry.

Have any of you figured out an elegant way to run XL on two monitors at the same time or to quickly switch between them without reloading?

Jim

[Colby]

Have any of you figured out an elegant way to run XL on two monitors at the same time or to quickly switch between them without reloading?

Yeah dual monitor out on your videocard.

[PhilB]

You could also use a single head card and a video splitter externally. Both solutions are pretty cheap and easy.

[defrag]

The only trouble with running the one instance if XL is that you are then tied to the same resolution and skin for both screens. If that is not an issue then the above solutions are fine. Otherwise you will need 2 seperate copies of XL and a way of switching between the two. I wrote a .Net exe to do just this which I call with the remote that kills the running XL and winamp and zoomplayer then starts up the other XL. I run a touchscreen at 1024x768 and 32" LCD at 1366x768. Both require different skins.

[cioffij]

Defrag, you nailed it. That's the problem. I wasn't very clear.

The TV is running 720P (1280 x 720) and my touchscreen is 800 x 600. Different resolutions and different aspect ratios. The same skin can't be used, let alone the same copy of xlobby.

Would you be willing to share your program?

And now that I've explained the situation better, does anyone else have an elegant solution? It's just as Defrag says. Most of the time, for example when playing music, I just use the touchscreen. But in the evening, I want to kickback and use the remote on the big screen.

Also, Defrag, how did you get a second copy of XL to run? I copied my program directory and changed a few hardcoded paths I found. I also deleted the databases. But XL crashes whenever I start copy #2.

JC

[muzz]

I'm running an XLobby fat client via a Viewsonic Airpanel on a second login on my HTPC, just for playing music, browsing news stories, web access, using the weather plugin, browsing pictures and eventually controlling my x10 kit...

The main login runs TVedia, distributed across 2 XGA LCDs, and an XGA Projector in 3 different rooms around the house with the image cloned onto the S-Video TV out feeding my main LCD in my livingroom.

I've found TVedia is much better for browsing with my RF remote (Remote Wonder Plus) and is really good for playing back movies (can even access youtube and google video as well, which is hours of fun!! )

XLobby is superb on my touchpanel for what it does but I dont like using it as my main HTPC prog

I'm currently trying to enable NetRemote MediaBridge to control Winamp along side XLobby so I can have my PPC as a backup smaller touchpanel for playing music, but it keeps crashing my HTPC

[muzz]

...and to answer your question

I too had the same problem with different resolutions, I'm using:

Touchpanel (800x600)

XGA LCDs, Projector (1024x768)

Widescreen LCD TV (1366x768)

I found that using the thin client on the touchpanel was far far too slow, so I tried using the fat client and linking it to another fat client on the other login but off course you cant run two versions on the same PC

If you dont mind the lag on the thin client, you could always use that on your touchpanel, then keep the fat client running on your main display? The thin client could be set to shrink the main display res down to 800x600

[defrag]

all I did to get 2 xlobby's installed was put them in different directories, run setup on them individually making sure they were set up for the right screens and all worked fine. They do not share anything!!!!

All databases are picked up from an xlobby server on the network.

Happy to share my switching proggy - just need to host it somewhere or PM me and I'll email you it.

Must get round to releasing my 1366 skin too sometime....
Menu Page
Music Page

[muzz]

I like that skin! Reminds me of some of the AMX templates

You should release it so I can make a 800x600 version

[defrag]

I'm doing a 4:3 version at the moment for my touchscreen, as the big screen version is really remote/keyboard only. 800x600 is way too small, I'm working at 1024x768 and will probably release when that is done. The original inspiration came from a Teehan+Lax htpc mock-up which was mentioned on this very forum years ago.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Ok i really want to run two instances of xlobby on same machine simultaneously. Anybody managed to do that yet? Defrag? surely uve tried? Im having a problem (after renaming second exe and removing all plugins) while launching second instance, when it seemingly tries to create a socket (because of port clash), even if i strip network functions out of both instances...

Any ideas guys, is there some low level software which would allow me to map socket to other port mayby? or can i somehow change "preferential" interface of dual homed host between runs so other instance will be lured to reserve its port on other interface? Does it mayby work with some older freelobby exe? Is there a way to remove browser (allthough cause of collision should be a server rather than client)?

[scottw]

I could never get 2 copies running on the same machine but I am running a copy of XL and a thin client on the same machine. One on my TV and one displayed on my touchscreen. If you can get it to work that would be great, much more effective that my TC approach.
There was an app floating around here somewhere that someone wrote to have 2 copies running on the same machine but not at the same time, not really what I was looking for.

[sdumas]

What about running them in VMWare?

You could have multiple instances and one would not bother the other.

[S Pittaway]

You are all making it sound very complicated

Try making a copy of xlobby2.exe (call it XLobbyInstance2.exe ?) and then simply run up both exes and see what happens

If you want differnt skins you can either toggle the skin in the config file and then start it up or just copy the whole xlobby directory and run the second exe from there (it still needs a diff name tho).

[scottw]

You are all making it sound very complicated

Try making a copy of xlobby2.exe (call it XLobbyInstance2.exe ?) and then simply run up both exes and see what happens

If you want differnt skins you can either toggle the skin in the config file and then start it up or just copy the whole xlobby directory and run the second exe from there (it still needs a diff name tho).

I don't think that works but will try. I think I tried something like that before and it did not work. Have you done this??