Re: [ddccontrol-devel] *** PROBABLY SPAM *** Re: [ddccontrol-users] Could the xml files be auto-generated?

[Nicolas B. <ni...@bo...>]

Hi David,

Please don't forget to cc the devel list .-)

David R Mulligan wrote:
> Nicolas,
>
> Seems the mistake came from Philips.  When looking at your recent cvs
> changes I just assumed the missing < and ) characters were were human
> error on your part rather than manufacturer.  Forgive me if this is
> absurd for you due to attention to detail or testing :)  
>   
I just forgot to run "make check-db" before committing the files (this
does some integrity check)... Anyway, running this command is in my
checklist before releasing a new version of the database, so I couldn't
release the db with this mistake.
> Another absurd question...  Has anyone contacted Samsung and the others
> about the DDC/CI capabilities of all of their monitors?  I doubt it but
> they might be happy to provide specs and command lists.
>   
I contacted many manufacturers, and I have (very) good contacts at
NEC-Mitsubishi and Fujitsu-Siemens. I've been unable to contact the
right person at Samsung.
> I should look at the ddccontrol code.  I want to work on something
> outside of work and maybe even try to remember c/c++.  Its embarrassing
> but I've been writing in java for so long that I cannot remember a lot.
> It took me a while to remember what the -> operator did!! :( 
That's something I fully understand, I constantly switch between these 3
languages, sometimes I write printf in Java .-)
>  As I
> mentioned in the past I would love to get ddccontrol and synergy talking
> to each other.
>   
Whatever you can do will always be greatly appreciated .-)

Thanks,

Best regards,

Nicolas
> On Tue, 2006-20-06 at 22:44 +0200, Nicolas Boichat wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> David R Mulligan wrote:
>>     
>>> I was wondering if these files could be auto-generated, tweaked and then
>>> submitted. It seems that the output of the ddccontrol util is taken at
>>> face value for the first version so why can't it be used to generate a
>>> test xml file? Perhaps it could be done with some interaction from the
>>> user?
>>>       
>> That's something I thought about, but unfortunately I think it is too
>> complicated to do. xml files are not very complicated to create, but it
>> needs some intelligence and experience about how DDC/CI works (or
>> doesn't work), which a computer program cannot provide. For example,
>> these are things I've done to create the database:
>> - Google, ask if the monitor is a LCD or a CRT (so I don't define absurd
>> controls like "pincushion" for LCDs)
>> - see that there is a missing parenthesis in monitor caps (Philips)
>> - see that a monitor reports strange values for some controls, so ask
>> the user if the controls really works (like the Samsung 215tw)
>> - create CAPS manually for an old monitor only supporting DDC/CI
>> partially (Samsung 173s)
>> - see that some controls are useful, but not in CAPS (very common for
>> Samsung)
>> - ask NEC-Mitsubishi / Fujistu-Siemens about the missing controls (I
>> have contact with these two manufacturer)
>> - etc...
>>
>> xml-file creation has also been really simplified with the introduction
>> of generic profiles, it is also less important to have full support for
>> monitor as the user, without having a specific file for his monitor,
>> already has basic support (like brightness, which is probably the most
>> wanted control .-)).
>>
>>     
>>> Part of why I am asking is the because of the mistakes made in some of
>>> the recent xml files
>>>       
>> What mistakes ? Please tell me and I would be happy to fix these.
>>
>>     
>>> as well as the fact that I am sure Nicolas would
>>> like some of his time back to do more interesting things than to parse
>>> the monitor capability output text to generate xml definition files :)
>>>       
>> Of course I would like to do something else, but unfortunately, nothing
>> is simple with the monitors: controls are far from standard, and even
>> for a specific manufacturer, the same control sometimes behaves
>> differently (look at SAMlcd.xml for example), and a lot of monitors are
>> buggy.
>>
>> If I had time, I would like to do some work on gddccontrol (add more
>> full screen patterns for example), add support for read-only controls in
>> the database (to support rotation for example), allow better integration
>> with scripts, etc... I will post a topic about the future of the project
>> in a few weeks, as I probably won't work on it until June 2007. The only
>> thing I will do during the next 12 months is the creation of XML files.
>>
>> Of course, if you want to create a tool to generate xml files, feel free
>> .-), as long as it doesn't require more work to fix mistakes introduced
>> by an automatic program that it would with manual xml file creation.
>> (but I think that if you have time there are more interesting work to do
>> on ddccontrol .-))
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Nicolas
>>
>>     
>
>