What is the proper way to link properties bewteen 2 devices

Circe640 · Post by **Circe640** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 12:36 am

In the help it talks about using %% xxxxx %% for substituting values and this works quite well. There is also a line that talks about using "DeviceName.PropertyName" as the value for another property but there is no explanation about how to do it. Does this definition get placed in the property value because when I try this it gets wiped out or does it have to be set using property manager? Can someone please explain the correct way of doing this so that I can document what I am building properly.

Thanks

PS: JukeBot Plugin is almost ready to send to Scott for testing. I am adding a few more features to the Crawler program to handle different playlist location situations and have added an internal playlist manger to the JukeBot plugin to address variations I found in the way different rippers create .M3U files. I have also acquired Winamp 5 so I will be able to certify that the plugin will work properly with the HouseBot Winamp Plugin and Winamp 5.

Post by **ScottBot** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 8:45 am

Substitution replacement can only be done in two different places.

Used in a Task, insert the substitution string as the ‘Value’ for a ‘Change Property’ type of action.
Used in a Theme, it can be used in place of the value of a Property Change type of control.

I'm looking forward to the new plugin!

Circe640 · Post by **Circe640** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:42 pm

Task reads as follows

If ('JukeBot.JK Play List 1' is NOT Equal """) Then

Change 'WinAmp Player.Currently Active Play List' to %%JukeBot1.JK Play List 1%%'

Value field in if statement was "" ie Nul

JK Play List 1 is a two column list as per your PlayManager list

Tried using Not Equal 0 but stll have the same problem of the value not being changed.

Post by **ScottBot** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 11:37 pm

I think the heart of the problem is that the Task action Value does not really allow you to enter a Null. If you leave the Value field empty, it complains that you left it empty. So if you enter double-quotes, it is truly looking for double quotes.

However, since I would think that the playlist truly is not equal to double quotes, the Not Equal option should work ok. Make sure that the Task is set to When Conditions Are Met.

Circe640 · Post by **Circe640** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 1:39 am

Changed the value of Not Equal to 0 since this should be as valid as Null for a test. Result was the value %%JukeBot1.JK Play List%% in the value field for WinAmp Player Play List 1 instead of an actual playlist.

This did not cause this playlist to show as the active playlist in WinAmp

Post by **ScottBot** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 10:56 am

I think I'm not quite understanding the configuration. Can you export a small sample configuration that demonstrates the problem? That way I can debug it here.

Circe640 · Post by **Circe640** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 4:29 pm

Think in terms of the Playlist Manager device.

If a point the property Playlist File Name to a playlist file then the Playlist Manager Device creates a playlist in the Playlist Manager Play List property.

However, I now have to mirror that playlist into the Winamp 'Currently Active Playlist' or 'Play List 1' property. To do this, there needs to be a task that triggers on a value change of any kind in the Playlist Manager Play list property and changes the value of the Winamp Current Active Playlist to match the new value of the Playlist Manager Play List.

What is the exact code for this task?

IF xxxxxxxxxxxx then xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The only difference from this example is that I need to mirror a playlist in the JukeBot device rather than the Playlist Manager Device so I will change the IF statement to use the JukeBot Playlist property rather than the PlayList Manager Property

Post by **ScottBot** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 10:52 pm

When using the WinAmp Device with the Playlist Manager Device, there is no need to use a task to handle the Playlist changes. By setting the Currently Active Playlist Property of the WinAmp Device to the name of the Playlist manager Playlist (e.g. PLM.Play List), WinAmp will automatically load the playlist "Play List" managed by the "PLM" Device. Since the "Play List" Property of the Playlist Manager Device is a "dynamic" Property, WinAmp will receive updates to it whenever the list changes.

If you are wanting WinAmp to read a Playlist property from your JukeBox Device instead of the Playlist Manager, you should be able to simply set the WinAmp.Currently Active Play List value to your JukeBox Playlist using the same Device.Property notation.

Am I getting close?

Circe640 · Post by **Circe640** » Fri Jan 16, 2004 12:45 am

I have a property JukeBot1.Play List 1.

It follows what I believe to be the format used by the PLM Playlist i.e.

Two columns column #1 is the numeric sequence # for the song and column #2 is the full path and filename of the song.

I have successfully set the value in the Wimamp.Active Play List to JukeBot1.JK Play List 1

If I put the cursor into the Value field for Winamp.Active Play List after the last character in JukeBot.Jk PLay List 1 and press enter, Winamp will start but there is no playlist showing to play in Winamp.

Gen_winAmpProxy is in the Winamp Plugins directory

I also have the path and playlistfile name in a property JukeBot1.JK Current Album Playlist and tried to set the PLM.Playlist File Name to this property but it will not stick as a value.

Circe640 · Post by **Circe640** » Fri Jan 16, 2004 11:10 pm

I am at the point where I can see the song list being sent to Winamp5. I can see the songs showing on the display one by one as the playlist is being sent by housebot but each one is replaced by the next one and only one song finally ends up showing in the playlist editor

Post by **ScottBot** » Fri Jan 16, 2004 11:21 pm

I'll try and look into this over the weekend sometime. Hopefully I can reproduce it with what you just sent. For some reason I can't seem to get it clear in my head what the situation is. It probably has to do with using the word "playlist" so many times when trying to explain the problem.

Sorry I haven't been as responsive as usual. I've been heads-down on v2.0.

Circe640 · Post by **Circe640** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 12:47 am

I will send a neater version of the test theme that uses the standard CEB Blue controls tomorrow aong with a quick guide to set up each panel with the right property pointers. Examples now with 640x480 and 200x320 standard backgrounds and 1 with a large 1024x768 background (no textures) Have been testing extensively tonight and other than the playlist issue everything seems to be working clean so far. Time for you to break or give me some pointers on what to add.

HouseBot

What is the proper way to link properties bewteen 2 devices

What is the proper way to link properties bewteen 2 devices

Problem with Task

Tried change the not Equal

Problem Same as using Playlist Manager

I amclose but no banana - could it be related to Winamp5

The problem is now visible

Cleaner version of test theme to send