Add idle and blank animations about dmd-extensions

[freezy]

I think I'll start with something static along those lines:

--idle-screen    Image displayed when no game is running. Either 
                 path to image file or "blank". Default: "blank".

This isn't trivial since I'll need to implement an "idle" event for every source.

[freezy]

Yeah, why not. I got animated GIFs working now. Looking into using them as idle source now.

[coding-horror]

Thank you very much!

It would be nice to be able to capture DMD animations as animated GIFs as well, but this is not critical for my use case ;)

[coding-horror]

If this is something you like I can sponsor it for $50 to you or the charity of your choice.

[coding-horror]

Would still love to have an idle event, since when we switch tables in TPA, the DMD stays on the last frame of the previous game which is .. not wanted.

I can up my donation to $100 to the charity of your choice if that helps!

[freezy]

I'll see if I can maybe detect the end of a game in TPA directly but I wanted to fix some other issues first. Of course, you're always welcome to have a go at it yourself!

[coding-horror]

I think a generic idle is better; certainly when a DMD capable TPA game is active it is CONSTANTLY pinging and updating the DMD.. there are no exceptions I can think of?

[freezy]

Okay, turned out to be fairly easy. For now it just clears the screen. There is a new option:

  --idle-after             Wait for number of milliseconds until clearing the
                           screen. Disable with 0. Default: 0.

I've tested it like this: dmdext mirror -s pinballarcade --idle-after 3000

Have a try with a test build and let me know if it works.

I'll add the idle-screen afterwards.

[coding-horror]

Hey awesome! Let me try it out. I suggest adding an idle picture before we go to the animation, as it is a logical 1st step.

[freezy]

Well, don't hold you breath for animations. I've fiddled with some video formats before and basically unless you fully integrate ffmpeg or another decoding library it's really difficult to play animations with the correct timing.

[coding-horror]

I was thinking more along the lines of animated GIF, where there are X frames displayed at a constant interval ;) So basically "here are these (x) bitmaps, display them in order every (y) ms"

…

On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 4:05 PM, freezy ***@***.***> wrote: Well, don't hold you breath for animations. I've fiddled with some video formats before and basically unless you fully integrate ffmpeg or another decoding library it's really difficult to play animations with the correct timing. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#36 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABc7VY96cK_tZQoEzB969GqzNVm8E9Hlks5sUQDUgaJpZM4MM4bN> .

[freezy]

Okay, the options are now these:

  --idle-after             Wait for number of milliseconds until clearing the
                           screen. Disable with 0. Default: 0.

  --idle-play              Play this file while idleing instead of blank
                           screen. Supported formats: JPG, PNG, GIF. Animated
                           GIFs are supported.

dmdext-47.2.zip

Have a try! If it works I'll merge the PR.

[coding-horror]

This looks really good and works perfectly in my testing!! Tell me where you'd like the $100 donated to ;)

[freezy]

Glad to hear!

You can donate the $100 to the EFF. Cheers!