Fish Tank-Reloading Media Player

[JeffB]

Well...I am finally getting everything all dialed in with my HTPC, plasma, etc and I am starting to get some time to experiment a little bit.

I started integrating other programs into sage via the menu customization. I've managed to get Active Home going for my X10 setup. For reference, I am using the system more as a PC than a conventional "TV".

I decided it would be nice to have a menu item called "Fish Tank". So I added an external command "fish.scr" with the "-test" command line argument. Works like a charm and pops the tank right up. However my problem is I then have to reload the media player. Its kind of a pain as this menu item is a little bit burried.

Is there a external command/message or something I can sent to sage to do this? I tried to search the foum, didnt see anything. I also admit I haven't made it through the entire manual.

Hopefully one of the hard core guys knows this off the top of his head. If I figure something out, I'll post it. I dont even care if it is a menu item on the same screen, although it would be nice if it was automatic as I am running into this with some other stuff I am testing out.

I'd also like to thank everyone on here and their hard work. This is a truey amazing convergence of technology. As someone with a pretty strong computer/programming background all I can say is please pass a napkin. This is going to be fun!

Take care,
Jeff

[JeffB]

Well after looking around a bit, I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, but I found a work around.

It appears that SageTV reloads the media player after sleeping.

By editting my cayars.xml file and adding the following code, it works fairly well. I personally added it to the information/other section, but it could be added elsewhere.

<actionMenuItem
title="Fish Tank">
<actionList>
<extCommand
window="normal"
command="F:\fish.scr"
arguments="-test"
waitforexit="1"
/>
<sageCommand command="Power Off"/>
<sageCommand command="Power On"/>
</actionList>
</actionMenuItem>

The command="F:\fish.scr" may need to be modified to the location of the screen saver on your particular machine.

Depending on the speed of your machine/display, you may see a flicker of window's background. If it is black, no big deal. Unfortunately it will not return you back to media that was being played before. I can live with this for now.

Until someone comes up with a better way, this will do for me and gives me that wow capability to make friends and family drool! heh.

Hope it helps.

Take care,
Jeff