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Development Discussion - Bargraphs
http://forum.lcdinfo.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1040		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  Syridian [ Tue Feb 08, 2005 2:49 ]
Post subject:  Development Discussion - Bargraphs
OK... Here starts the thread on the bargraph development.

Firstly, I'll let you all in on a little secret. Henri's actually been working on bargraphs in the LCDinfo core... so they are currently under alpha testing.

Currently the bargraphs work like so:

Code:
   <item type="bar" x="100" y="2">
      <varid>SysInfo.AvailableMemory</varid>
      <direction>vertical</direction>
      <frame>yes</frame>
      <width>15</width>
      <height>60</height>
      <minvalue>0</minvalue>
      <maxvalue>1048000</maxvalue>
      <refresh>500</refresh>
   </item>

   <item type="bar" x="80" y="2">
      <varid>SysInfo.UsedMemory</varid>
      <direction>vertical</direction>
      <width>15</width>
      <height>60</height>
      <minvalue>0</minvalue>
      <maxvalue>1048000</maxvalue>
      <refresh>500</refresh>
   </item>


Other discussions have developed this further, to the point that the bargraph could display a bitmap a bit at a time, this would make bargraphs very versatile, in the sence that you could make them look differant for differant data. It would be nice with this option to also have a background bitmap, which would indicate the full lenth of the empty bargraph.

Further to this, it was discussed that we could add a <steps> tag so that the bargraph could step through the bitmap, making segmented bargraphs like the battery indicators on your mobile phone.

Look forward to hearing some more of eveyones idea's. :)
Author:  Syridian [ Tue Feb 08, 2005 2:52 ]
Post subject:  Character display bargraphs
Oh.. A question for you Henri...

Will the bargraphs work on a Character display also? or will they only work on a graphical display?
Author:  mingingbollock [ Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:03 ]
Post subject: 
Privy to secrets now eh? :twisted: lucky bugger,I am looking forward to the next build should be some nice new toys to play with.
A circular bar graph be cool, stats in the middle bar surrounding, does that work at all? or even make sense to anyone else lol.
Author:  Syridian [ Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:27 ]
Post subject: 
Well... Secret would be a bit of an exaggeration, concidering he's mentioned them in a few few posts around the forums. ;) But I have chatted with him, and he's told me that there is stuff being alpha tested at the moment. ;)
Author:  Syridian [ Wed Feb 09, 2005 4:07 ]
Post subject: 
I've just tested the bargraphs breifly last night... I like them lots. :) Minningbollock made a good suggestion also... How about a Pie graph as well? It could just be the type, as in Horizontal, Vertical, or Pie.

With that in place... then all we would have to do is make some of the plugins just return a numerical value back to the core when it asks, and you could have some nice functionality with alot of plugins, while also simplifying the ones that output graphics. Some of the plugins do return text data such as the drive space ones. (really need to sit down with the sources and work out how it all works...)

Also, while we are heading down that same path of usability of plugin data... Would it be fairly easy to add a <scale> tag to scale any data returned from a plugin? ie; <scale>/1024</scale> which would divide the returned number by 1024, or <scale>*8</scale> which could multiply it by 8. If the scale tag could also take more than just one function it would also be good, such as <scale>/1024+300</scale> which would divide the returned value by 1024 and then offset it by 300 so effectively it would be ("val"/1024) + 300.

Anyway more to think about. ;)

I'm great at suggesting stuff... Now I just need to learn how to program so that I can sit down and actually help with this stuff.
Author:  Henri [ Wed Feb 09, 2005 21:18 ]
Post subject:  Re: Character display bargraphs
Syridian wrote:
Will the bargraphs work on a Character display also? or will they only work on a graphical display?

Not these bargraphs as they are made fully in graphics. Character displays could show some stuff with the custom characters but as LCDInfo was originally designed for graphics lcd's it doesn't really support that at this time.

mingingbollock wrote:
A circular bar graph be cool, stats in the middle bar surrounding, does that work at all? or even make sense to anyone else lol.

Yes should be possible just like any other kinds of bars. There's already functionality to draw circles and lines in angles. Just needs some maths to calculate and put them in place.

Syridian wrote:
How about a Pie graph as well? It could just be the type, as in Horizontal, Vertical, or Pie.

Pie graph possible too. Just draw a circle and line to break it in parts and fill the wanted parts.

Yes, I noticed the same thing about the sysinfo plugin returning just text. I haven't looked into it as this part of the sysinfo plugin was not made by me but it shouldn't be difficult to get also numerical values out of it. At least numerical values were already available in the older LCDInfo versions.

Scaling is also something that has been missing so it shoudl be added.


And if someone would like to test the bar stuff you can get some debug version here: http://www.skippari.net/lcd/alpha/lcdinfo_bars_test.rar

If you find any bugs or strange things going on with the bars just let me know. It's not that much tested yet.

There is also the bitmap bar functionality now added with the step setting. But I'm not sure how well it works as it has got minimal testing (as you can see I'm leaving all the testing for innocent users ;) ). I didn't yet even make a proper bitmap that should work with it. If anyone makes some screens / bars using any of these bar functions would be nice to see them.

Code:
   <item type="bar" x="100" y="2">
      <varid>Winamp2.TrackPosPercent</varid>
      <barbitmap>screens\128x64\images\batt8x47.bmp</barbitmap>
      <stepsize>2</stepsize>
      <direction>vertical</direction>
      <minvalue>0</minvalue>
      <maxvalue>100</maxvalue>
      <refresh>500</refresh>
   </item>


I also started making a "slider" screen item that works somewhat like a bar but it has a background bitmap and then another "button" bitmap that moves based on the value assigned to the item.
Author:  Syridian [ Thu Feb 10, 2005 0:45 ]
Post subject: 
Sounds like you have been having some fun. :)

I also have been madly learning C++, and I'm at the stage now where I might start to tinker with the sources for some of the plugins to fix a few of the issues... And to make more of the plug-ins compatable with the new bargraphs function. :)

I'll post any changes to this thread as test plugins. :)
Author:  mingingbollock [ Thu Feb 10, 2005 0:53 ]
Post subject: 
Syridian mate :D
Start with the Temp outputs from motherboard monitor, just had a quick play and i may be wrong but the graphs dont want to work, the fan rpms work nice :D but i will play some more just to make sure.
Henry , Thankyou again LcdInfo just keeps getting better.
Author:  Syridian [ Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:38 ]
Post subject: 
Hahaha.. How about I concider them added to the list... I want to start with the sysinfo plugin and get the HDD sizes first.
Author:  mingingbollock [ Tue Feb 15, 2005 23:35 ]
Post subject: 
Finally found time to play with this :D few bugs left to squash , but is really looking BRILL :twisted:
Found that in MBM , fans speed graphs report no probs in a certain order , differ and it crashes , has to be same as in MBM, my order cpu.mobo then aux.
Temps wont give me a graph in any order , and cpu%load works for a bit then info bugs out, that probably got something to do with mbm screwing up the cpu%load anyways , i regularly have to reset the reg. HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PerfOS\Performance to 0 or mbm refuses to give me cpu%load
System info plugin seems to work fine, all the mem bargraphs work, mem%load reports no probs
Mediaplayer , again no read out within the graph for this one.
The frame function needs a tweak too, if you have a frame you cannot have a background image for the bargraph ,also framed graphs are a 2 pixels longer than unframed, but even at 100% the unframed background is missing those last couple of pixels.
Have to say i really like the background image use for the bars, means you are able to really personalize every different graph if you are so inclined, does mean you have to draw a new bitmap for every new size though :( all good fun lol.
It would be great if the bars could run both left to right and downwards, they only run left to right and upwards at the mo.
Stepsize ? what is this for ? had a quick play couldn't see an effect.
Bound to have forgotten something , :D and a quick piccy. click for bigger pic. Off to play with the new system info toys now :D
Image

TRUE TYPE TEXT next please Henry :D :D :D
Author:  Syridian [ Tue Feb 15, 2005 23:46 ]
Post subject: 
OK.. Just a hint for all of you trying to display bargraphs..

If you take a peek in the log.txt at all of the plugin variables, only the variables with "Type 1" will work with Bargraphs. "Type 0" variables are Text strings, and are just ascii representations of numbers.

Anyway, have fun playing.

Oh and Minging... Those bars using bitmaps are AWESOME mate!!! Care to zip some of them up and email them to Henri, Coorz and myself? ;)
Author:  mingingbollock [ Tue Feb 15, 2005 23:51 ]
Post subject: 
Cool thanks for that , loads left i haven't tryed yet 8O lol, what about type 2 MBM ?
Author:  Henri [ Wed Feb 16, 2005 0:07 ]
Post subject: 
Ah, the bugs are coming up now. Good. You might understand now why I said there is problems to expect but I put the bargraph stuff up for testing so that you can help me finding them. ;)

Those crashes you mentioned, you get any error messages ? This is a debug build so it might report something more usable than the normal release build.

Type 2 in MBM would be a floating point value, they are included in the code but as I said I have only did minimal testing until now...

Stepsize tells LCDInfo how many pixels would have to change until the next step in the image bar graph is done. So this way you can do for example a battery meter like in many mobile phones.

Leaving out the frame with bitmap bar was intentional, you think it should be allowed ? I thought if the frame was preferred it could be drawn in the background but I can now see that it could be useful option with bitmap bars too.

I will look into the issues you mentioned and also if you notice anything new let us know.

Very happy to see your picture of the bar graphs in action, I like that :D

Hmm, wonder what I forgot to answer here...
Author:  Syridian [ Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:05 ]
Post subject: 
Ok, a bit of wishful thinking here... But would the screen item below actually work?

Code:
   <item type="bar" x="100" y="2">
      <varid>SysInfo.AvailableMemory</varid>
      <direction>vertical</direction>
      <frame>yes</frame>
      <width>15</width>
      <height>60</height>
      <minvalue>0</minvalue>
      <maxvalue>SysInfo.TotalMemory</maxvalue>
      <refresh>500</refresh>
   </item>
Author:  mingingbollock [ Thu Feb 17, 2005 13:18 ]
Post subject: 
Nope don't work here either Syridan ,mine looks like this


<item type="bar" x="137" y="50">
<varid>SysInfo.AvailableMemory</varid>
<frame>yes</frame>
<width>100</width>
<height>05</height>
<minvalue>0</minvalue>
<maxvalue>1000000</maxvalue>
<refresh>200</refresh>
</item>

:D
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