attract mode

[jukejohn]

does attract mode work on 2nd screen or just the user screen 

[Norman Marshall]

I had a mess about with this feature and i think its only the user screen, unless i missed something

[Barcrest]

There is no attract mode for the second screen. This would be pointless, the reason for the second screen is uninterupted display of either video or vis. You could set a wall paper rotator to achieve the same thing on the second screen for when nothing is playing.

Windows 7 even has this feature built in.

[jukejohn]

yes forgot about that 

[hiii98]

Only around 40% of of all people statistically use windows 7.  In other words this solution for using wallpaper as the second monitor attract is terrible.  So the other 60% of us without windows 7 are just have no options for the second monitor regarding attract mode??  Why not build in that feature.  It seems silly with a dual monitor setup to cover up the main display with anything, its the SECOND MONITOR when playing that absolutely needs something displayed on it.  We have a total of 8 televisions being used as our second monitor and etouch is running on windows xp.  The moment the song/video ends all 8 monitors go dead.  Super dissapointing regarding what has been such a innovative piece of jukebox software thus far.

[Barcrest]

There are pleny of other ways to cycle the wallpaper and if you google you will find out how to do this. You can make the second monitor revert back tot he desktop display when nothing is playing and it will show the wallpaper thus showing anything that you have set for the wallpaper. The built in attract mode stuff is only for the main monitor. I suggested the windows 7 wall paper roation for jukejohn as he has windows 7, for XP you will have to get a 3rd party app to do it.

Saying that this is super dissapointing when I added the USB bill acceptor for you for no additional charge after you had brought the software without fully trying the demo was a fair bit of work that I doubt many other jukebox apps would have undertaken. This sounds like you are hinting that I am being unhelpful in adding another bespoke feature for you and is more than a little un-fair.

All future coding efforts will be focused on changing the graphics handling over to support PNG which should lead to better looking skins. I will not be working on anything else aside from bug fixes until that is complete.

[hiii98]

it is super dissapointing becuase your failing to meet the potential of what this software can do.  Where  did i say i'm dissapointed in you or that i'm not grateful for the bill collect unique code?  I'm helping you via recommendations build the industrys best software and raising the bar so high all compedative programs will have to follow your lead.  Displaying videos on the second monitor is definatly what sets you apart, unfortunately it is not practical in a club scene or in a commercial sense other than literally playing a video on the top monitor above the jukebox.  Anyone who wishes to display it multiple monitors will obviously be "dissapointed" (which i am entitled to say without being "ungrateful" ..too seperate words) as once the video is over the audience now can stare at a blank screen, with no supportive updates from the company, thus basically making what could be a innovative piece of entertainment (MUSIC VIDEOS ON ALL TVs PLUS ATTRACT MODE ANIMATIONS IN THE INTURN) a useless novality that will only work on a additional screen attached to the jukebox (afterall who cares if the second monitor on the jukebox is blank vs 8 tvs through the venue).  Thus... dissapointing.

also as a result of your new bill acceptor code, your the only piece of commercial jukebox software where the end user can literally plug and play a bill acceptor into the machine without any thirdparty hardware or programming needed by the end user.  Again, setting the trend, and raising the bar for all other compeditors.

[Barcrest]

The issue is how you have this set up not the software itself. You don't have to have blank screens you have 2 options which i have explained.

1st Option is to set the jukebox to play random songs/videos when nothing is playing. this would then display the VIS or Videos on the second screens. The random play features are quite robust and offer quite a few options to taylor this pretty much as you would want, this would not leave you with blank screens.

2nd option you have is to set the jukebox to only show the videos on the second screen. This will show the windows wallpaper when nothing is playing allowing you to use a 3rd party app to manipulate the wall paper either by cycling images or even showing video advertisments. You will need to google some 3rd party software to do this but there are plenty.

There is no reason for me to add anything to the jukebox if i am essentially trying to do something more featured 3rd pary apps will already do perfectly well. You also stated a screen saver you are using causes the jukebox to drop out of fullscreen, this must be an issue with the screen saver as not all screen savers do this.

The main reason i might seem a little peeved is because with little work you could solve this yourself by googling up a solution however you seem to want me to provide this.

Here is how to have video as wallpaper:
http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?/topic/11991-play-video-as-a-wallpaper-on-vista-basic-premium-or-windows-xp/

Here is how to point to a folder of images and have the wallpaper change:
http://download.cnet.com/Random-Wallpaper-Changer/3000-2193_4-77670.html

These were in the top 5 google searches for "Show video as wallpaper" and "Random Wallpaper Change". There are also several threds on here covering a screensaver that will show album covers and seems to work fine without minimizing the jukebox.

Hope this helps solve your problems.

EDIT: Fixed up some typos.

[coffee]

@hiii98

I use EvJOWallChange for adds on the second screen and it works very well. It's a freeware app, you can just Google it. You can add JPG's from a folder and set it up so it will look for new JPG's everytime the Jukebox start's up. This way you can easily add and remove adds without running the software again.

On a different note, please look for 3rd party applications first before requesting a new feature as there is a lot of freeware apps out there to handle some things you want to add. Sometimes it's not worth adding a new feature because the developer like to keep the software as stable as possible.

Also please keep in mind that there are people here that do not get anything for there efforts in trying to make this as you said "raising the bar for all other compeditors" and we all want this to be the best out there.

I really hope this info help you out.

Regards
Coffee


Edit: Sorry, but this was posted before seeing Barry's post.

[Norman Marshall]

@hiii98


Also please keep in mind that there are people here that do not get anything for there efforts in trying to make this as you said "raising the bar for all other compeditors" and we all want this to be the best out there.

I agree, all this software needs is a facelift which is what some of us are working on now

[hiii98]

i as well want this to be the best as i'm now invested financially, invested ALOT of my time, and my end product is displaying the etouch software to both all my patrons as well as other compeditors in the entertainment industry.  I'm somewhat "setting the trend" here in my city as other vendors are beginning to ask how this software works...

i did spend quite a bit of time researching 3rd party apps to solve this problem before dropping it back in Barry's lap.  Everything I tested failed, and we do not want to rotate simple pictures, we wanted an animation to be displayed when not playing a video, and could not find a single app that would handle this on just the second monitor.    the problem with Barry's links is they all work on the first monitor but NOT the second.  I dont want to advertise drink specials, i want to generate the energy of a random animiaton, can you imagine the winamp visulization vs just swapping pictures?  Two very very different vibes to the end user ... one is energetic the other...boring.  I don t want to bore everyone in my club with my lattest drink specials on all monitors, i need either a video or a random visualization (I have some perfect solutions but none will play on JUST the second monitor and "attract mode" is not versatile enough to select unique file types to play on just monitor 2.  Also the option to have random play is also a poor choice for several reasons.  the first being that i do NOT want random music played in my club, Pandora plays exactly the  the theme of music we are looking for when a DJ is not spinning.

[coffee]

@ hiii98

Now I understand what you need. I have to say this is a valid request.
What I've done is to create a new genre called "VideoAdds" and I have build my libraries to include my video adds.
Then go to "random play settings" in the Options menu and setup random play for that genre only by using the genre part at the top of the page. Here you can set the volume to be lower than the normal play volume.
The only drawback is that it is part of the library and you need to blacklist this genre.

Barry should be able to add this function easily as most of the code is already there to do this.
In order to do this I would suggest adding a "VideoAdds" folder to E-Touch and a tickbox to the "random play settings" page in the Options Menu to play ramdom videos from that folder.
The only big coding issue I see is to build in a feature where you can set the amount of time before the next one plays. For example, "Play a video add every 5 mimutes"
This way you can add your videos to this folder to be displayed on the second screen.

You have to make an official request to Barry for this and it will help to convince him if you throw a few $$$ his way.

[Barcrest]

I was going to suggest exactly what coffee is doing, I suppose it could also be done making the change coffee suggested but as it can be done already using the method coffee outline I am not sure the change is vital or really required.

You could have the VIS playing by setting it to play random music and set the random play volume to 0 but then you wouldn't have the line in enabled however you could set the random play to play the songs you wanted either by genre or by using a playlist if you want specific songs played.

I always thought the whole point of random play was to fill the gap when people are not selecting songs, the whole point of a jukebox is to get people to put money in. If you are playing songs they want to listen too then there is no point them selecting a song and thus reducing your revenue stream.

[jukejohn]

enable video jingles might help 

[coffee]

@Barry

I suppose it could also be done making the change coffee suggested

The big problem with this is if you blacklist the VideoAdds genre you can't use it for random play and if you don't blacklist this genre it shows up in album view.
What I do with the video adds is to show new album previews as you would see on TV at a lower volume than the normal play volume. These adds are normally about 30 seconds long so you don't want a paying customer to play this.
I would also throw a few $$$ your way if you can add this as I think it's a very usefull function.