Christopher,

That one's going to be tough as there are quite a few factors that have to be considered.

1) Which SNL Layout you are using
2) Which Font Size you use for text of Buttons/Strips
3) Actual pixel sizes for each character.

Also, please keep in mind that padding spaces will cause data in SNL to be padded. For example, if you use Tracks, padding a Disc Name will also pad the string used to display the Header on the Tracks panel.

This can get very, very nasty.

I have experimented with this option in SNL but have not actually put it into production simply because padding with a space (1 or 2 pixels in the 8 point font) causes many bytes to be added to the CCF. On a very small CCF (less than 30 discs), I saw an 80,000 byte increase with space padding. This is exactly the reason I have not exposed the left padding.

Since the same string is used for buttons/headers, what you are attempting will never give you the visual look you want (too many issues). However, I attempted to tackle the problem inside SNL. The memory increase required for padding basically overrode any benefit it provided.

Lyndel

Lyndel, I hear you. Of the things you mention above (except for the memory use) I guess the challenge lies in 3. I don't use Tracks for my DVDs, so that shouldn't matter.

Now, if I decide not to go this way, how do I change the standard full width button? Cannot work out what images to add to my COLOR_Override_Large folder, even though I read the documentation several times. I am sure it's in there, there just too much info for my limited brain capacity.

Chris

PS Lyndel, I think I saw somewhere that you have a Sony DVP-CX860? Could you look at

[Link: remotecentral.com]

and

[Link: remotecentral.com]

Thanks a lot!

Christopher,

I have a picture disc but never use it because the only thing on there are movies released by Sony Entertainment. IMHO, you are not missing a thing by not having it.


I've had the player for 3 years and the disc is way outdated. It's only good for loading in images in certain cases. For example. If there's not an acceptable Genre in the player for a movie (ie. you don't like the picture) you can load up a new default picture from the disc. At one time, I experimented with burning a new disc and replacing some of the pictures. However, I abandoned the effort simply because the Folder Folder explorer on the 860 totally sucks and is absolutely, positively never used unless I add a disc, hookup a keyboard, and name it.

I don't even have buttons on my RC9200 programmed to access Folder Explorer. Once again, SuperNudelist handles everything for me.


With regard to the Autoplay, you can't disable it for DVDs. However, I put a picture disc of vacation pics in slot #1 so that I don't have any FBI warnings that prevent me from stopping the player or selecting a disc (Remember "Operation Prohibited by Disc"?).

I've never experience the player "turning off" after 30 minutes. I guess I might have seen that if I'd disable the screen saver on the player.

Lyndel

Lyndel, are you saying your player doesn't shut down automatically at all, even when no disc is playing? (I have to leave a disc in menu mode or playing, otherwise it will shut off after 30 minutes. Don't want to do that because I think it wears out the mechanics of the player, but would otherwise leave it on to avoid the start-up delay).

My player has never shut down automatically.

However, I'm not sure if I've ever left the screen saver active for 30 minutes or more to see.

Lyndel

Hello all:

I have two sony 300 disc changers. I have them full of discs and I have the disc names programmed into my SNL Device.

I want to get an slink-e to control both changers. I also understand that I can have the slink-e download all the track names into its database.

My question:
how does slink-e work with SNL? I've searched around a bit and have seen some people using them together, but its not clear if they're downloading the slink-e database into a text file and then importaing that into SNL, or if they're using SNL to control the slink-e box.

Ideally, I'd like to have the slink-e box download the names of the disc as well as the track names into a format I can use with SNL. Is this possible?

Mike,

If you have Access, you can open up the CDJ database and dig around. The option you have is to export from the CDJ database to a CSV file and then import into SNL. I'm sure others have done this. Did you check to see if Bruce Hartley's tools can be retrofitted to CDJ.

[Link: seahunt.co.uk]

Lyndel

I order my Slink-e and it should be here by the end of this week.

Anyway, it appears that you were right, I can just go into the access file and export the proper fields into a file readable by SNL.

This should work great. SNL will have all my discs and all the track titles too...and no more hand enterting titles into my Sony player or SNL!

My tools are actually based on CDJ.
It is the CDJ database and import tools that I wrote it around.

Gettin kinda lonely on page 2. Bump

We were on Page 4. Can't have that now can we?

Bump!!!!

Lyndel, ref your reply to me above:

"Also, please keep in mind that padding spaces will cause data in SNL to be padded. For example, if you use Tracks, padding a Disc Name will also pad the string used to display the Header on the Tracks panel.

This can get very, very nasty.

I have experimented with this option in SNL but have not actually put it into production simply because padding with a space (1 or 2 pixels in the 8 point font) causes many bytes to be added to the CCF. On a very small CCF (less than 30 discs), I saw an 80,000 byte increase with space padding. This is exactly the reason I have not exposed the left padding.

Since the same string is used for buttons/headers, what you are attempting will never give you the visual look you want (too many issues). However, I attempted to tackle the problem inside SNL. The memory increase required for padding basically overrode any benefit it provided"


I have now sort of solved my left alignment issue, and whilst this may not be something anyone else would be interested in I can report that although I have now "padded" more than 600 disc entries, there was no noticable effect on memory use. I have 68 % free memory both in "padded" and "unpadded" modes on my RC 9200.

I have also made some changes to Andy's software, so I can automatically import data from DVD Profiler and export these to SNL for anyone who might be interested.

Christopher

Christopher,

Please understand that my reply below is not chastizing you. Just adding a note for others who may use your approach.


I did not say it could not be done, just that it was somewhat complicated. For the 9200, the overall impact is smaller.

However, for the 1000, 2000, 5000i, the impact is somewhat larger (around 100KB) in my average tests. For the 2MB 5000i remote, the usable memory is 1406 KB. 100KB is 7% of the memory. I thought that this memory could be better used to add more discs, etc...

Now that you've left-justified in the CSV, flip the font for the center strips from 8pt to 10pt and vice-versa. Notice that your spacing most likely no longer works. You are bound to the font size you used when you added spaces to the CSV.

I'm glad you got left-alignment working on the 9200. Now that that's done, are you considering moving to the 3000/7000?

Lyndel :)

Lyndel,

I understand what you're saying, and although its far from perfect, for my use it works.

Why would I switch to 3000/7000? Seriously, as I am not upto date on this....

I am thinking of switching to a HTM MX-3000 when it comes out, finally enough memory to achieve my goal of using cover art as buttons, once you've added that possibility to SLN......

Sorry for this; but which Pronto models support SNL as of this date? Thanks...