Automatising tasks on an HTPC: displays manager

alexmestral · Post by **alexmestral** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:13 am

Hi!

I'm currently building a HTPC (Home Theatre PC), and I downloaded MS for trial because I'm looking for a specific feature I couldn't find anywhere. I hope you can tell me whether MS will be able to help me or not.

Just to give you a picture: my HTPC will be connected to both my TV and a small touchscreen. Normally, main desktop will be on the touchscreen, accessible from the sofa, where I would like to have some icons for automatising tasks and configurations. I would use this touchscreen as a control device, in order to open applications and send them to the TV.

Depending on what I want to do, I'll require different configurations and processes, which I would like to automatise. For example

if I want to watch TV (through my PC), I would like to set up the TV at max resolution as an extended desktop, open my TV viewer on the touchscreen and send the full window image to TV

if instead I want to work on documents on my TV, then main desktop would be the TV and resolution should change to a lower one

Ideally, I would have some icons on my main desktop (normally on the small touchscreen), like "Watch TV" and "Work on TV" for the previous examples, which should run scripts in order to reach different configurations and launch different programs.

My knowledge in programming and scripts is nil, so what I am looking for is an automatisation software like MS that allows me to easily create scripts for these functions. Initially, controlling Windows related things (displays resolution and config, launching applications, etc...) would be enough. I would dig into particular applications scripting, should I require to automatise these applications, but so far it's not my main interest.

Even sticking to Windows, I'm not able to find the scripts I am looking for (Desktop manager and multidisplay), and I can't find in built scripts on MS in order to achieve my purpose. Could somebody please tell me whether I am looking in the right direction, or whether MS is not able to help me with this? Tutorials, manuals, script lists, etc... would be very much appreciated.

Thanks a lot

Alex

Post by **Marcus Tettmar** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:29 am

Hi,

Macro Scheduler can definitely help you.

Here are a couple of tips on how to have it change screen resolution:

http://www.mjtnet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1507
http://www.mjtnet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=934

To run programs look at the "Run Program" command in the help file.

Feel free to ask specific questions here and you will get some helpful replies.

alexmestral · Post by **alexmestral** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:00 am

Hey!

Thanks a lot! Reschanger is just what I was looking for. I made my first macro (actually I typed my very first command ever) for testing and it works. I'll do some more tests as soon as I'v got my HTPC working!

Cheers

Alex

alexmestral · Post by **alexmestral** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:11 am

Actually, I just noticed one "missing" thing to this nice prog

: reschanger doesn't allow you to change which of the displays needs to be used as main desktop, or whether you want an extended or cloned desktop...

Any tip?

Cheers

Post by **Marcus Tettmar** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:21 am

Use the -monitor= switch. See:

http://www.12noon.com/reschange.htm

alexmestral · Post by **alexmestral** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 12:54 pm

Hey Mtettmar!

Thanks for your reply. As far as I understood, the -monitor= switch allows to select resolution for each connected display, but doesn't allow neither to set the main desktop to one or the other, nor to choose between extended desktop or clone... does it?

Cheers

Alex