Posted: December 06 2002 at 09:44 | IP Logged

Dave,

Maybe in the future, you could add support for serial LCD screens like those from Matrix Orbital. (Maybe even added keypad support ? )

Very usefull for entry displays or MP3 distribution in the house.

Thnx

didi

Posted: December 06 2002 at 16:47 | IP Logged

Didi,

I'll take a look and see what would be required.

Dave.

Posted: December 06 2002 at 21:13 | IP Logged

Seems like it should be easy to do with a "helper app". Maybe a small program that accepts a string via the command line (like the system volume app that Dave did) and sends it on to a serial port... Oh, man, more stuff on serial ports!

Tony

Posted: December 09 2002 at 22:32 | IP Logged

Well, I've written a small proof-of-concept program that seems to work for sending data to the serial port, if you're interested...

Tony

Posted: December 10 2002 at 20:29 | IP Logged

I would agree with Tony and would probably investigate this as a "plug-in" type of app.

Tony, go ahead and post what you've got.  Im sure it would help a great many of users and I would be interested in seeing how PowerHome is being utilized.  Im not really a VB programmer so I might learn something new myself.

Dave.

Posted: December 10 2002 at 21:02 | IP Logged

Well, I'm not proud, but, it should work. Start with a blank form, add an MSCOMM object, set your baud rate and such, and paste in this code...

Private Sub Form_Load()

' serout.exe
' Usage: serout [/n] [string to send to serial port]
' n is comm port (2 is default)

' Ex. serout /3 Hello world!
' Sends "Hello world!" to com3

' Get command line arguments
args = Command()

' Start out on COM2 (my modem for testing)
Port = 2

' Look for a different comm port switch (i.e. /1 for comm1)
If InStr(args, "/") <> 0 Then
    arglen = Len(args)                          ' Get string length
    slashpos = InStr(args, "/")                 ' Find the slash
    Port = Mid$(args, slashpos + 1, 1)          ' Pull out the port number
    args = Mid$(args, slashpos + 3, arglen - 3) '  from the arguments
End If

MSComm1.CommPort = Port                         ' Select the port
MSComm1.PortOpen = True                         ' Open it
MSComm1.Output = args                           ' Send the string

MSComm1.PortOpen = False                        ' Close the port

End                                             ' All done!

End Sub

Let me know if you meant for me to post the exe!

Tony