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Emulate MatrixLCD for Windows Mobile devices

Posted: April 7th, 2009, 7:16 am
by VVit1
MatrixLCD for Windows Mobile

Now you can use your Windows Mobile or PocketPC device as 4x20 characters display in Smartie :)


To install:

Place "RemoteDisplay.dll" to display subfolder of your LCD Smartie installation.
Open LCDSmartie settings, in "Display settings" Select 4x20 resolution and RemoteDisplay.dll as display plugin.


Copy MatrixLCD.exe to any folder of your Windows Mobile device.
Start it and press connect. If your device is not connected in Active Sync, you can open "Connection" options and enter the IP or Host name.
Also you can ajust the "Matrix" colors via "LSD Colors".

Landscape screen mode on PPC device is strong recommended!
----------------------------------------------------------

Warning: RemoteDisplay.dll opens the TCP/IP port 11002 to lisn.
You can block it in firewall for outer WAN interface
(Is it nice to see small LCD_Smartie information display of you home computer anywhere over internet with you PDA? :)
but leave it opened for ActiveSync input connections.


If you have any comments or questions please mailto: vvitaliy@mail.ru

2009-04-07
VVit.

Posted: April 7th, 2009, 11:57 pm
by caesar
Nice and thanks!
Will try it soon.

Any chance to make it support more rows/columns?
Or maybe source code?

Posted: April 8th, 2009, 4:49 am
by VVit1
There is some limitations from Smartie on rows, in other side 20 columns is a maximum for 320x240 WM screen devices.

I think to add some buttons, cause on watching the computer state over internet (how there my torr... ups:) would be nice to have a possibility for some actions (like shut it down).

Posted: April 8th, 2009, 7:11 am
by limbo
Nice implementation!

Can it display custom characters as well?

Posted: April 8th, 2009, 10:42 am
by VVit1
limbo wrote:Nice implementation!
Thank you :)
limbo wrote:Can it display custom characters as well?
That is the characters map.
If you extend the map I release the version with dynamic resource loading.

Posted: April 8th, 2009, 11:50 am
by limbo
VVit1 wrote:If you extend the map I release the version with dynamic resource loading.
Actually I can't provide character list for custom characters because the display creates them in memory dynamically.
Some links about it can be found here: http://forums.lcdsmartie.org/viewtopic.php?p=2838#2838

In addition you can download a good custom character creation program by using this link http://forums.lcdsmartie.org/download.php?id=20

Finally more info about custom character are available on www.LCDSmartie.org

Adapted from program site:
"this works by using $CustomChar(1,31,31,31,31,31,31,31,31)
in this example we change customchar 1 (first number). there are 8 custom chars, so you can use 1 to 8.
the following 8 numbers are the rows of a character. This is how you can look at your character:
16 8 4 2 1
16 8 4 2 1
16 8 4 2 1
16 8 4 2 1
16 8 4 2 1
16 8 4 2 1
16 8 4 2 1
16 8 4 2 1
Lets say you wan't the letter 'S'. the sum of the fields that are collored is the number you should place in the $CustomChar field
Here you get: $CustomChar(1,0,15,16,16,14,1,1,30)"

Posted: April 8th, 2009, 5:05 pm
by VVit1
I got what it is. Manage to do this stuff.
limbo wrote: In addition you can download a good custom character creation program
I do not need it. I see in my mind all of bits up to the word :roll:

Posted: April 11th, 2009, 4:56 pm
by VVit1
LCDMatrix for Windows Mobile v1.1 released!

Now with full custom characters support!
Get more fun on the same screen :lol:

Posted: April 12th, 2009, 9:51 pm
by limbo
Thats great news!

Thanks

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 8:17 am
by limbo
limbo wrote:Thats great news!
Thanks
I think there is a bug on custom characters color.

If you change the LCD color by using the emulator menu teh custom characters are still displayed in blue color...
:smt031

Is there any tweak to resolve this?

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 9:10 am
by VVit1
limbo wrote: I think there is a bug on custom characters color.
Oh. I forgot about this. For custom characters I create new bitmap but colors are still recalculated only for main bitmap.

Check for the new version soon.

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 12:38 pm
by caesar
While at it, here is another idea:

make the characters 6x8 and stick them together without spaces, that way custom characters and bar graphs will look nicer and have that solid feel.
font will still be 5x8(7) and readable because of the gap ;)

look here for a no space, 6x8 dots screen to get what i mean:
http://www.youtube.com/v/ItTTrkSBKHk

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 3:10 pm
by VVit1
Just set the LED_off and background the same color and you will get it. What's the deal?

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 6:10 pm
by VVit1
Well, It's not so easy.

GDI+ on Windows Mobile does not support Color Table remapping so I need manually recalculate texture colors from image with _known_ colors.
There is no such image for custom characters.

After color edition, old colors in custom characters will stay till the next character change only.

So, I intended to think about it as some kind of 'feature' :roll:

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 7:42 pm
by caesar
Well, only if you can, it was just an idea to get great bars showing.


There is some limitations from Smartie on rows, in other side 20 columns is a maximum for 320x240 WM screen devices.
If you still want to make it with more rows than 4, you can use this Smartie build to display them: http://czi.uni.cc/LCDSmartie/LCDSmartie_6.0.0-b.rar to display 8 rows or even 16.
(just use the first 20 Chars on each row and Smartie won't send more)

Posted: April 14th, 2009, 8:26 am
by VVit1
caesar wrote: If you still want to make it with more rows than 4, you can use this Smartie build to display them
That is it!
Version supporting that will be gone soon ^)

Oh... Is there smartie build with multiple display plugin support? Will be very useful for those gadget freaks like me 8)

Re: Emulate MatrixLCD for Windows Mobile devices

Posted: November 3rd, 2010, 11:36 pm
by Andrew
It's working very nice ;)

But you're using some controls that are not avalible in WM Std so I can't run the Connection menu (it throws a NotSupportedException).

Could you made a support for WM Std?

EDIT:
or just place the source code in a SVN repository so I can fix it :)