Re: Newbie to xPL, downloaded all files, how to test?

[John B]

Hi Gary,

> I am using above, but have no idea what to do next?
>
> I have searched but nothing seems to explain, how you actually
> control Winamp, for example, from xplhalmgr ?

First things first...

Make sure you have xPLHal running at all times - otherwise the below won't
work.
I'll suggest to Tony that an option is added to allow xPLHal to run as a
systray
icon - we are still at an early stage of testing on Windows 98, and we
still
need to add some refinements, like a proper installer as TOny says.

Have you installed the WInamp plugin?
This is detailed in the readme that comes with the xPL WInamp plug-in.
Basically you copy the DLL and INI file to your WInamp plugins directory.
Fire up winamp, and in the preferences window, under general purpose
plug-ins,
you should see the xPL plug-in listed.
Select it and click Configure.
The settings should probably be OK left as their defaults, though you may
want
to change the name from WInamp1 to something more meaningful.
Just make sure the "Use hub" tick box is selected, and the
address is set to
255.255.255.255.

Leave Winamp running, and fire up xPLHal Manager.

Expand "xPL Devices" in the left hand window, and click
"Awaiting
Configuration".
If you see something like xpl-xplhal.xxxxx listed in the right-hand list
view,
this means you haven't configured xPLHal yet.
Just double-click on the xpl-xplhal.xxxxx (where xxxxx will probably be
your
computer name) to bring up the configuration dialog.
In the list of configurable items, select "newconf", and change
the name to
something meaningful to you (you can leave it unchanged if you wish).
Click OK.

You should now be ready to go.

A nice way to test out whether things work is to use the plug-ins that are
available for xPLHal manager that allow you to control xPL devices directly
by
right-clicking on them.
To download all the latest plugins (they are only small XML files), go to
Help
-> Update Plug-in Library.
(you will need to be connected to the Internet at this point)
A window will appear listing all available plugins (I think there are about
4 at
the moment).
Select them all and click OK.
Once downloaded, restart the xplhal Manager.

Now, you should be able to select xPL devices, and see Winamp listed in the
right-hand window.
Right-clicking on WInamp should bring up a list of actions that you can use
to
control it, like Play, Stop, Pause etc.

As for running applications like notepad, xPLHal has a function that can
run
executable files called sys.execute.

You could put the following line in a script:

sys.execute("c:\windows\notepad.exe","",False)

to launch notepad.
(assuming Notepad is in c:\windows - I don't have a WIndows 98 PC to hand)

Note though, that if you were using the service version of xPLHal on
WIndows
2000 or XP, you wouldn't be able to see Notepad, as it would be launched by
the
service, and therefore wouldn't be visible to the currently logged on user.

HTH,

John