AlienFX Pidgin + Winamp plugin

Good News,
together with Lord_Zath I figured out how to talk to the the new alienfx device. Luckly they didn't change the protocoll. You simply need a other way of sending the data to the device using the winapi. Found that on google (the other way, not the solution ;-) )
Again big thanks to Lord_Zath for his help so far. If this works I can soon provide all my alienfx apps for the new m17x too.

Regards Ingrater

 

yay i want the keyboard going


+ rep from me

 

yes very exciting!

 

Wow, this is amazing. No rush guys, will be willing to test your program if you would like.

 

If you get this going...I guarantee that you will get repped from everyone on this forum!

 

I've updated the leds tester it should now also work on the newer alienfx devices. I still need someone with a ailenfx keyboard and a "old" m15x to execute my programm and everyone else with a alienfx device (m17x, pc etc)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5350660&postcount=11

 

Ingrater, I tried the program but none of the LED's went off. At first it complained about a missing DLL file so I installed it into the old LED tester's directory, overwriting the original .exe file. During the test, no lights went off, so I said no. It continued to ask at each LED if it was off - the answer was always no...

Did the DLL change as well? If so, could you please re-upload the .zip file w/the new dll in it?

 

The DLL didn't change as it is a standard dll which comes with my compiler. It's difficult to get it working as I can not test it myself. I changed the leds tester again and reuploaded it. Please retry.

But it is a progress that the program runs and does not crash at disabeling the leds.

Regards Ingrater

 

Good news, recieved the first log file with the results for a new m17x.

 

The LEDs are all white and controled by your script except the power button. The power button remains the color set by the user and is unchanged during the process.

results.log

Code:

New Alienfx Device
Model description: M17x
Led 0x1: Keyboard is 0=off 1=on #/#/#/# are sections  0/0/0/1 is current
Led 0x2: 0/0/1/1
Led 0x4: 0/1/1/1
Led 0x8: 1/1/1/1
Led 0x20: Right Speaker
Led 0x40: Left Speaker
Led 0x80: Alien head on back of monitor lit
Led 0x100: Alienware word on front of monitor lit
Led 0x200: Touchpad
Led 0x400: Touchbar above keyboard

 

subscribing

 

yup got the same thing. Here's mine:

New Alienfx Device
Model description: Lord_Zath's M17x
Led 0x1: Keyboard 4 and color to white
Led 0x2: keyboard 3 and color to white
Led 0x4: keyboard 2 and color to white
Led 0x8: keyboard 1 and color to white
Led 0x40: speaker grill and color to white
Led 0x80: alienhead and color to white
Led 0x100: alienware logo and color to white
Led 0x200: touchpad and color to white
Led 0x400: media buttons and color to white

 

Tried updating to newest commandcenter and running the program. Worked!

New Alienfx Device
Model description: Lord_Zath's m17x post update to latest CC
Leds still on: power button
Led 0x1: keyboard zone 4
Led 0x2: keyboard zone 3
Led 0x4: keyboard zone 2
Led 0x8: keyboard zone 1
Led 0x40: Speakers
Led 0x80: alienhead
Led 0x100: alienware logo
Led 0x200: touchpad
Led 0x400: media buttons

 

Sent my log file as well.

Old Alienfx Device
Model description: Alienware m15x
Led 0x1: touchpad turned white
Led 0x20: lid rim turned white
Led 0x80: alienware name turned white
Led 0x100: alienhead on lid turned white
Led 0x400: keyboard turned white
Led 0x10000: quicktouch buttons turned white

 

Thanks for all your help. I will keep you posted as soon as I have something new.

Regards Ingrater

 

I have two unkown led-ids for the new m17x. They most likle are used for the power button. To test this I wrote a small test app which basically sets all leds to white and sets the color of the 2 unkown ids to red and green. Most likly those colors are only used when your laptop runs on ac power. If it runs on battery or charges a battery other colors will be used. (which where not set by me) so please make shure that your laptop runs on ac-power and does not charche any battery when running this app.

So I need someone with the new m17x to run this app and report to me where the red and where the green color appears.
http://stuff.benjamin-thaut.de/power-button-test.zip

Edit:Already got a result by E-Mail no need to do this any more.
Working already on the next test.

Regards Ingrater

 

I have the next test app. This time all possible power states are tested. Each power state gets a diferent color. I know that there are 6 power states but I only can think of 5.

charching Battery
ac power
battery power
standby on battery
standby on ac power

hibernate does not make much sense as the laptop shoulnd't use any power on hibernate.

If you run the program it will set a different color for each known power state. The following colors are used:
red,green,blue,yellow,cyan,pink

It would be nice if you could test on which power state which color is displayed for the power button and report the results to me.

http://stuff.benjamin-thaut.de/power-states-test.zip

Edit: Maybe the 6. state is low battery?

Regards Ingrater

 

Plugged in - goes green.

unplugged - looks like both blue and green are lighting up.

Charging - blue

 

standby a/c power - blue

standby battery - looks orange/yellow/green. I said orange, but wife said those 3.

Note that I am colorblind, so I asked for her input as well.

 

This is only for the m17x?

 

No those are the ones for my (old) m15x because I can only test on this platform. It can be that these are different on the m17x.

 

It would seem that they are different...

 

Ingrater, I will be online in a few hours. If you need me to do anything, send me a PM or reply here.

 

So here's my next test request, no I'm not dead yet ;-). I've been busy the past days, but I found some time today to complete my version of the "alienfx editor"

It is tested and should be fully working for the area-51 m15x without a alienfx keyboard. For the m17x I need some people to find out for me what the different power states are. Simply toy around with them set different colors / effects. Change the powerstate of your laptop and watch what happens. I know of the following power states:

Standby on battery
Standby on ac power
charching battery
running on ac power
running on battery

If you found out what one or multiple states are post it please here.

Why should you use this and not the CC? Because you can set a different effect for each power state which is not possible in the CC. For example I set my laptop to blink red when in standby on battery so I don't forget it is on standby. If it is in standby on ac power it simply glows green.
Further it might be possible for the m17x to set different colors for the power button and the power button eyes. But for that to work I have to do more testing, meaning I need more testers. But for now the power states are the most important thing.

How to use it?
From the dropdown in the top left you can select the power state you want to change. If you click on the "+" you can add a led effect. If you click on a existing led effect you can change or delete it.
Under Menu "File" you can save and load settings. If you click on the apply button in the bottom right everything gets written to the device.

Download:
alienfx-setter.zip

 

I'll do this when I get home in one hour.

 

Power state 2 = Runnin on AC power
Power state 4 = Standby On battery
Power state 5 = Running on battery
Power state 6 = standby On AC power

Charging battery - could not tell which one. Looked like a mix of blue and green which were states 4 and 6 for me.

 

Set one power state you don't know to red blinking and everything else to black. So if you find the correct state you can see it right away and have not to identify it by color.

Edit:
I just have updated the app. It now supports the area-51 m15x with alienfx keyboard too.
alienfx-setter.zip

 

No keyboard option in the updated one.

 

I actually forgett to upload to new zip file ^^
Now it should work.

 

You've got a "Löschen" in it, I think it means remove?

 

Yes it does. Didn't notice I wrote it in german. If you find other german parts please also notifiy me about these.

A new version is online:
I fixed a bug which cause led effects not to be editable after loading a xml file.
I added the speed select to be able to set the speed for the effects (it's more percise that the one in the CC)

Download (still the same link)
alienfx-setter.zip

 

Whats better....MSN or Pidgin?

*EDIT* Just downloaded it. Not a big fan of pidgin.

 

Pidgin is a opensource messager which includes the basic functionalty for all common protocols. It also includes msn but only writing basic messages no voice and no video. I like it because its light and not overloaded with unneccessary features and advertisments. It is easy to write plugins for it because it is open source and there are open source plugin examples.

If you would like to have the notifiy feature for msn you have to look around if there is a possibility to execute a exe by a script or something else when you have a unread message. If there is I could provide a small exe which sets the leds to a notify state on execution.

Regards Ingrater

 

ok power state 3 is charging.

 

Thanks, I uploaded a new version with the correct names for the power states. Please check if everything works as expected.

Download:
alienfx-setter.zip

 

ok some interesting things to note:

1. When going to charged state, it seems it loads BOTH the AC power state color and the charging state color.

2. The same thing is happening when I am on AC power and going to standby.

3. This behavior also occurs when going to standby on battery power.

Everything else seems to be working as expected however.

 

So I updated to Windows 7 and your Alienware fx setter program works! I haven't tested the power states just yet though. I'm uploading a .xml file I used to create a blue and green theme.

BTW, I currently have 2 M17x's - one's going back to Alienware soon. So if you want me to do more stuff for Vista 64, let me know soon

 

Just that you know, I'm still alive. I worked on the winamp plugin but somehow the wave data which is passed to me by winamp is not suitable for beatdetection. Or I'm doing something totaly wrong...
I just thougt about writing a stand alone program which reads the sound data from the windows mixer and makes the beat detection out of this data. The advantage would be that it would work with any music player, not just with winamp.

 

Keep the updates coming . can't wait for it to work.

 

That sounds even better. Can't wait to see it in action.

 

yep. Feel free to use me as a guinea pig again

 

sounds very good please keep it up

 

Bumpedy bump, how's it going? Please don't give up on the project )

 

yea, pls dont give up, cuz it is a very cool project....

 

Keep up the good work. It would be awesome to have my LEDs dance to the music while I'm DJing....

 

Today I had some time for some work. I updated my pidgin plugin so it also can work with the all powerfull m17x. Unfortunately I can not test it, so I need you to test it for me:

Download: alienfx-pidgin-m17x-edition.zip (29kb)

 

crap I don't have pigdin!

I might just have to get it though.

Any news on the winamp plugin?

 

I worked the whole day on it, I found a few logic errors in the code and now it works better. I plan to add a xml file so you one can influence the beat detection options. (First the very basic ones, later maybe more, much later mabye a gui ;-) ). Also I have to add support for the all powerfull models. But for today I have enough, more will follow tomorrow. But you can look forward to a alpha release very soon.

 

Ingrater, I am unable to extract the zip file. Can you try re-uploading it?

 

I've reuploaded id. Should work now. (tested it)