Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

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pokeefe0001
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Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

We usually move the Now Playing panel to an external monitor. We do not have that monitor for a while. When using a single monitor the bottom of the Now Playing display is visible but the title bar is not so we cannot reposition the panel. We can undock it and place it somewhere on our monitor but we would like to re-dock it in the primary MM window. The position and size of this panel remains between executions of MM so I assume this information is saved somewhere - probably in the MM database. And if it is saved, it can probably be changed. How do I do this?
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by Lowlander »

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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

Before I blunder too far down that path, ... I should have mentioned that this is a portable installation of MM.

I see that there is a MediaMonkey\Portable\MediaMonkey.registry. I assume that dynamically sets the registry entries when MM starts. I have multiple copies of this portable installation and only one has the stuck Now Playing display. Can I just copy the MediaMonkey.registry from a good clone to the misbehaving clone?

Update:
I tried it and it worked - Now Playing is back to being docked in the main MM window.. Am I likely to run into problems because of what I've done?
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

I need to re-address this topic again because it is happening repeatedly.

The problem: We have a portable "installation" of MM on a USB flash drive. It is often used on a PC with an external monitor. The Now Playing panel is moved to the external monitor and is not moved back when MM is shut down. When the portable MM is then brought up on a computer with no external drive the Now Playing panel is either not displayed or - depending on the screen size - only partially displayed. In either case the title bar is off screen so Now Playing cannot be re-positioned.

Is there a way to return the Now Playing panel to its default docked position? If there is no built in way to do this, can it be done from a script? (If it's a simple task and there is a sample script to cannibalize, I can probably put a script together.)
  • I know there are two unsatisfactory ways to correct or circumvent or undo the problem:
    I have discovered that I can right click on the panel, select "View", and uncheck "Dock the window", but most of our users would not feel comfortable doing that.
  • I know that I can copy a saved copy of the /Portable/MediaMonkey.registry file onto the flash drive and restart MM, but that is not something I would want our average user to do.
I would appreciate suggested solutions to this problem.
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

When comparing /Portable/MediaMonkey.registry file of the MM with the off-screen Now Playing panel with the /Portable/MediaMonkey.registry file of a well behaved MM I see lots of differences, but the important different is in the [TBXPlaylistDock] block. The "bad" MM has

Code: Select all

[TBXPlaylistDock]
Rev=2000
Visible=1
DockedTo=+
LastDock=DockRight
DockRow=0
DockPos=0
FloatLeft=27
FloatTop=-613
DPDockedWidth=350
DPDockedHeight=100
DPFloatingWidth=1167
DPFloatingHeight=972
DPSplitWidth=0
DPSplitHeight=179
I suspect that "FloatTop=-613" is what makes the top of the panel off-screen, but the only really important setting is "DockedTo=+". If I change it to "DockedTo=DockRight" the Now Playing display goes back to its docked position in the main panel. That's good for a "last resort" solution, but I'd really like to set that in an Auto script. Is there any way to set this in a script?
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

I've made a bit of progress. I've found the "DockRight" value is the integer 2, and I've seen multiple samples of setting that for newly created panels. I have not seen how to reference the objects for MM-defined panels such as Now Playing.
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

I need to address this problem again but I'll take it from a different angle.

How do I get the Now Playing panel (or frame, or whatever it is) to be docked to the right side of the main MM panel at startup regardless of where it was when MM was last shut down? Is there something in MediaMonkey.ini that will force this to happen?

This is a portable installation. I know could keep a copy of a "good" version of MediaMonkey.registry and have a script copy it to \MediaMonkey\Portable\MediaMonkey.registry and then start MM but I'm not sure I want to loose everything set in MediaMonkey.registry at shutdown.
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by Lowlander »

No, MediaMonkey remembers where you left things. This is stored in the registry on exit.
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

Lowlander wrote: Mon Oct 04, 2021 9:36 am No, MediaMonkey remembers where you left things. This is stored in the registry on exit.
Oh. That's frustrating. So I guess I'm back to my initial question. Is there any way to perform this docking in an Auto script?
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by Peke »

pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Oct 04, 2021 10:33 am Oh. That's frustrating. So I guess I'm back to my initial question. Is there any way to perform this docking in an Auto script?
In Theory yes, but I am not sure that some others use it. Maybe MonkeyRok/Lyricator, but that is maybe.
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

I didn't see anything in Lyricator, but I just searched for "dock" and found no fits. Maybe I'll look more closely. However, I don't think any script that creates it's own panel (adding it to a menu, etc.) is going to do me any good. I think I need to point to the Now Playing panel's object and set DockedTo. I don't know how to reference on of MM's default windows (as opposed to creating a new one).
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by Peke »

Hi,
Hmmmm, you maybe right. Think That MonkeyFlow Docked itself and that it created docked sub-window.

Maybe check that and salvage the code?
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

The MonkeyFlow script is a great sample for may things, but as near as I can see, every object it manipulates is one it has created. I can see I need something like 'Set Panel = SDB.Objects("???")' where ??? is the name of MM's Now Playing panel but I cannot find anything that gives the names of MM's built-in objects such as the Now Playing panel object. The name in MediaMonkey.registry is TBXPlaylistDock but I have no idea if that is the object's actual name.
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by Peke »

Hi,
Now you confused me. Of you can salvage Dock code part from MonkeyFlow and use container object to show/store your data then I do not see problem. Re Now Playing it is easy to fetch list and clone it for your needs, that is why it controls what it creates.

What you want to archive, from what I see you want clone of Now playing that can be docked or undocked to other screen?

If I am corerct you create your own Now Playing object and in View menu hide real now playing.
Best regards,
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Re: Need help moving off-screen Now Playing display

Post by pokeefe0001 »

Peke wrote: Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:26 pm ...
What you want to archive, from what I see you want clone of Now playing that can be docked or undocked to other screen?
...
No. I want to move the existing Now Playing panel off of a monitor that does not exist on the computer running MM.

We often run a portable MM on a computer with an external monitor. We move the Now Playing panel to that monitor. But people often forget to move Now Playing back to the primary display when they are shutting down. If that portable MM is then run on a computer with no external monitor the Now Playing panel is either missing altogether or just the bottom right part is displayed. In either case the title bar is not available so the panel cannot be dragged back to the primary display.

I want a script that changes the DockedTo property of Now Playing - the real Now Playing, not a clone - to DockRight. An alternative would be to start MM from a bat file that first overlays the MediaMonkey.registry file with a saved copy that has DockedTo=DockRight. That works, but it wipes out other parameters saved at shutdown, and it would do no good ig someone starts MM directly rather than using the .bat file.

I know we could right click in the Now Playing panel, select View, and uncheck "Dock to Window" but having it in its own window is inconvenient for drag-and-drop adding to the Now Playing list. Also, documenting the undocked behavior for people who don't know MediaMonkey - most of those in our group that run it - would be difficult. And there are only one or two of us that even know about the Dock to Window attribute.
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