turning on/off the monitor with girder

[flexi]

Hi

is it possible to turn on/off a computers monitor using power saving features?
If so, how?

Many thanks!

Flexi

[Ron]

yep. Enable the Monitor APM Extension then find the actions in the "Monitor" action folder on the main interface.

[quixote]

Do you think it would be possible to offer more control over displays in the future? I have an automatic video switcher for my TV and I'm having a little bit of trouble controlling the switching. The TV is a little old, but it's big so I use it for my living room, but it only has one video input so I use the switcher. I have a VCR hooked up to it to feed the TV audio/video through RCA from the cable, a DVD player, and my computer's second display hooked up to it. The problem is that when I am watching TV, in certain instances the monitor goes off and I turn it on again and the video switches automatically to the computer input. Since there is no way to turn off the video output to the switcher from the computer, I need to turn off the VCR and then back on immediately after to get the video back to the VCR. It's alittle annoying. It would be great if we had a way to choose which display to turn off/on.
What are the chances of seeing this in a later release?

[flexi]

@Ron

Thank you very much!

Unforunately neiter "Low Power" nor "Off" does work all the times. Sometimes the monitor goes off correctly, but sometimes the monitor goes black and a few seconds later comes back on. What could that be? Does this depend on the power saving scheme of winxp?

I have the same behaviour with an easy test-script:

monitor.SetMonitorPower(false)
win.Sleep(10000)
monitor.SetMonitorPower(true)

Even if it works, other Girder Events turn the monitor back on. How can I prevent this?

Have a nice day
Flexi

[flexi]

Any ideas?

I am having the same issues when using screensaver. I can start teh scrennsaver, but other girder events terminate the screensaver. Is there any way to prevent this?

Thanks!

[Ron]

Are you using the keyboard to trigger that action? Or are you touching the mouse or keyboard after the power off action?

[flexi]

i am using network events (socket library) and popup windows (e.g. Microsoft Office Communicator's inocmming call window) to trigger actions.

[Rob H]

I've not used Communicator, but does it perhaps turn the screensaver off by itself?

[flexi]

I don't know yet but if so, would this affect the power saving state of the monitor as well?

EDIT:

I have tested if Communicator is turning off the screensaver. The answer is no it doesn't.

[Ron]

can you try triggering the screen apm action from something else (not the keyboard/mouse) just to see if it's girder that is not shutting down the screen correctly?

[flexi]

I am already triggering from within a script and not from mouse or keyboard

could it be a problem if there are pop-up windows while the monitor is off?

[Ron]

Sorry I have no idea why it might be. Girder's APM routines should work just fine. Something else must be interfering.

[flexi]

I will further investigate by creating a totally new gml to test my script and the APM routins out of context.

If I find the problem and maybe a solution I will post it here...

Thank you anyway for your patience and your great support!
Flexi

[flexi]

Problem found and solved.

A gir.SendKeys statement triggered in an other thread interrupted the screensaver and the monitor power saving state. ;-)

[Rob H]

Ah, well done.