AutoHotkey Community

[Blahman]

This is my first released AHK script. It's just something I put together for my own use and thought others out there might find it helpful, or as a starting place to make their own. Right now it's just a script, no GUI, and is only meant for use with one or two monitors. It was developed on a 16:9 monitor and I'm not sure how it will handle on monitors with other aspect ratios, but if you find anything wonky please let me know.

Background:
I wanted to use Vista's Windows Media Center to watch TV while I'm doing other things with my computer including playing full-screen games. I have a 37" 1080p HDTV that has multiple inputs which I've hooked up so I can essentially use its PIP function as a second monitor. Windows Media Center has a very slick interface but there are some huge holes in its usability from a practical standpoint. It does not play nicely in full-screen mode, locking your mouse to its window if you have multiple monitors for example, and there's a lengthy delay whenever you try to Alt-Tab to escape its grasp. Also, Windows in general won't let you view two full-screen applications at the same time even if you have multiple monitors. One has to be windowed, and since games tend to run better when they're full-screen, that's another reason to run Media Center in a window. But how to make it at least look like it's full-screen on the second monitor? Well it's possible with AHK to remove the window borders and titlebar, as well as set its size and position.

I also wanted to be able to mute only Media Center, leaving my other programs and games unmuted. This is also possible in Vista, using the Volume Mixer and AHK to control it.

Finally there were a few issues with running Media Center in a window that I had to work around in order to have as seamless an experience as possible. First of all what happens to the window on the secondary monitor when the resolution on the primary monitor changes (e.g. when launching a full-screen game that is set at a lower resolution for performance reasons)? It shifts, rather annoyingly, and gets split between the two monitors. The other problem was how the cursor never goes away when it's hovering over a Media Center window. The normal behavior in full-screen is that the cursor disappears after ~5 seconds. Well I was able to work around both of these issues, at least to the best of my limited AHK scripting abilities.

Features:
- Virtual full-screen modes provide seamless mouse movement across screens and allows full-screen Media Center usage on second monitor while playing full-screen games on primary monitor
- Causes the Mute button to only affect Windows Media Center as long as it's running. Works without stealing focus from active application/game window, using a minimized Volume Mixer window. Automatically launches and closes the Volume Mixer when Media Center is launched/closed.
- Uses a context-specific hotkey (default: Shift-3) to cycle between 3 different windowed modes, 4 if you have a secondary monitor:

- Virtual full-screen on primary monitor (full-size window without borders)
- Small window in the bottom-right corner (windowed with borders)
- Small window in the bottom-right corner (windowed without borders)
- Virtual full-screen on secondary monitor (full-size window without borders)

- Listens for resolution changes on the primary monitor and automatically adjusts the positioning of the Media Center window to fit properly when using the virtual full-screen mode on secondary monitor.
- Hides the cursor when it hovers over the Media Center window for 5 seconds.

To do/wishlist:
- Create a GUI for customization and ease of use
- More/different windowing modes/placements
- Ability to intercept remote control keys and pass them to Media Center without stealing focus from active window.
- Ability to adjust mixer volumes and muting with hotkeys (master, active window, and Media Center)
- Compatibility with 3+ monitors

If anyone has any ideas or code samples on how to do any of the above, I would really be interested!

And if you have feedback/questions/problems regarding this script just post, PM or email!

Finally of course, here is the code so far. Feel free to customize it or use it any way you wish. I only ask that you please post your improvements/tweaks to the code here for all to see and use.

[PeterPE]

Thanks.

One question. It would be great if the mute button would only work if Media Center is active. If not active the mute button should work as usual.

Peter

[PeterPE]

Thanks.

One question. It would be great if the mute button would only work if Media Center is active. If not active the mute button should work as usual.

Something like
; Mutes Windows Media Center independently using Vista's Volume Mixer
#IfWinExist, ahk_class eHome Render Window
sc120:: ; scancode for the Mute key
IfWinActive, ahk_class eHome Render Window
{
Process, Exist, SndVol.exe
SndVolPID = %ErrorLevel%
If SndVolPID = 0
{
Run, SndVol.exe, , Min, SndVolPID
Sleep, 120
}
ControlSend, Mute for Windows Media Center, {Space}, ahk_pid %SndVolPID% ; Toggles the mute control for Media Center
}
return



Peter

[Blahman]

Yeah that's more of a user preference. I definitely prefer being able to mute it regardless of whether it's the active window. That'd definitely be an option's I'd put in the GUI/config though.

I'm glad someone out there is taking an interest in it!

And actually you can just change the line

[PeterPE]

Thanks for the hint. I am still learning AHK.

One more question. Is it possible to run SndVol "hidden"?

Peter

[Blahman]

If you run it with the "Hide" option instead of "Min", the ControlSend command doesn't work. Regardless of DetectHiddenWindows. So no, unless I am missing something else.

[PeterPE]

Well, I understand.

I guess Chris should update The SoundSet function to reflect the changes in Vista

Peter

[Blahman]

That would be cool with me

[bidomo]

Looks very useful to me!!!

I'm actually using something called The Maxifier to get virtual full screen, and I'm gonna try your script, and keep it as I'm getting very attached to Ahk.


Thanks!


BTW, ControlSend seems to be very useful to get the remote to send commands to VMC even if it doesn't have the focus (IfWinexist instead of IfwinActive, if media center window or process doesn't exist, you can still send the normal remote commands).

[Blahman]

Hey there, thanks for checking it out. I actually used The Maxifier at first as well which is what gave me the idea but it had some problems, the biggest being that it caused crashes.

Anyways I've found that this doesn't work so well in Windows 7. Apparently some of the SysGet stuff this script does is broken in Win7 as well as ControlSend not working on minimized windows.

On the upside, full-screen Windows 7 Media Center on one monitor works alongside full-screen games on the other, out of the box.

[bidomo]

That's great!!

I'm thinking about checking win 7, but I would really like to add more RAM before that, and is good to know that problem has been solved.


I know this isn't a chat, but, which version are you trying? I would like to check x64, as I'm using vista x64 and I like it much more than XP x64

[samhnky]

For 1.5 years now one of my biggest complaints about my Vista machine was the way the full screen mode on the Media center was so poorly implemented for a dual screen system... This AHK script has now completely fixed that problem. I would like to put on the board though for other noobies, and or users trying it out for the first time after midnight that the command for changing the modes:

Change Display modes: "Shift"+"3"

[Blahman]

Glad you like it!

You can easily change the hotkey if you'd like. I just used that because that was the last free button on my remote

Look for the line "+3::"

and change it to your liking. Read the AHK help for hotkey syntax.

[Blahman]

By the way, here's a version for Windows 7. There are a couple slight quirks compared to the Vista version in that the Volume Mixer window cannot be minimized, and the borderless window mode doesn't align with the task bar correctly (overlaps it a little).

[samhnky]

Is there a way to add code that disables the screen saver while the media center is open... My computer is my TV, so I have run into a problem with this code in that the virtual full screen does not disable the screen saver like the true full screen did...