Baddabing’s Guide to Xlobby & KISS (Keep It Simple Skin)

http://www.xlobby.com/

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INTRODUCTION TO BADDABING’S GUIDE ...............................................................................................................3 Preparing Your Media Libraries – Important! ............................................................................................................4 SETTING UP YOUR MEDIA .....................................................................................................................................4 AUDIO MEDIA......................................................................................................................................................4 AUDIO MEDIA FILE AND DIRECTORY STRUCTURE........................................................................................5 VIDEO MEDIA ......................................................................................................................................................6 VIDEO MEDIA FILES AND DIRECTORY STRUCTURE......................................................................................7 HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS ...........................................................................................................8 HARDWARE .............................................................................................................................................................8 SOFTWARE..............................................................................................................................................................8 Xlobby Foundation Applications - Required Software .............................................................................................9 Installing the Software Foundations......................................................................................................................9 .NET .....................................................................................................................................................................9 AUDIO PLAYERS.................................................................................................................................................9 VISUALIZATIONS ..............................................................................................................................................10 VIDEO PLAYER .................................................................................................................................................11 DVD PROFILER .................................................................................................................................................12 Installing the Xlobby Software ............................................................................................................................13 Installing KISS .......................................................................................................................................................14 Installing XoapWeather Plugin............................................................................................................................14 Xlobby Setup Screens ..........................................................................................................................................18 General Tab........................................................................................................................................................18 Basic Tab............................................................................................................................................................19 ADDING MOVIE MEDIA LIBRARIES .................................................................................................................22 File Types Tab....................................................................................................................................................27 Skins Tab............................................................................................................................................................28 The Main Menu Screen .........................................................................................................................................29 The Music Screens................................................................................................................................................30 The Music Screens................................................................................................................................................30 The Net Radio Screen ...........................................................................................................................................36 The Movie Screens................................................................................................................................................38 The Pictures Screens............................................................................................................................................41 The Weather Screens............................................................................................................................................42 Configuring the XoapWeather Plug-In ................................................................................................................42 The Exit Screen .....................................................................................................................................................47

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INTRODUCTION TO BADDABING’S GUIDE This guide is designed to walk you through configuring the software for the Xlobby HTPC front end. As with everything in life there is always more than one way to do something and this applies to installing and setting up Xlobby. I am not here to argue the merits of one application, programming technique or skin interface over another but simply to walk you through the applications and steps required to duplicate my results. And lastly, the methods I have selected in setting up and configuring Xlobby are by no means the only - or possibly even the best - ways to accomplish these tasks. But I have verified that they work, and if you follow the instructions, you should be successful in recreating them as well.

With that said, let’s get started on setting up Xlobby.

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Preparing Your Media Libraries – Important! SETTING UP YOUR MEDIA Xlobby allows you to manage your video and audio media libraries. And while Xlobby can manage an offline media library (i.e. all music and movies stored on CDs and DVDs) to really leverage the power of Xlobby you should (at a minimum) have your audio CD library saved to disk. If you have enough drive space for you DVD collection as well, that's great - but not required, as Xlobby can prompt you to load a DVD into the player. Xlobby has the ability to scan your hard drives for media and catalog the results in an XML database. How easily this database is created will depend on how you have you have organized your media directory and file structures. But before Xlobby can manage your media it needs to understand how your video and audio files are stored. What follows is a quick overview on how to store you music and video media on line in a format that Xlobby will understand.

AUDIO MEDIA There are a variety of supported formats but I would recommend that you store your music in either .ape or .mp3. There are supporters for both formats and either will work, the choice is strictly a personal one. APE is a lossless compression algorithm; the files are made smaller without any data loss. A CD ripped to the APE format can be burned back to CD with no loss of fidelity. http://www.monkeysaudio.com MP3 is a 'lossy' compression algorithm it that it both compresses as well as removes data from the music in order to create a smaller file size. MP3 offers variable compression settings from 80 kbps (most compression and loss - lowest fidelity) to 320 kbps (least compression and loss - highest fidelity). For playback through a PC sound system I would recommend 128 kbps as the minimum setting in order to provide acceptable quality. If your PC will be sending the audio signal to a stereo system for playback then I would recommend a minimum of 190 kbps ( 256 kbps or greater recommend) as the effects of high compression settings are much more audible through a quality audio system. TAGGING is a process that allows you to append additional information to a music file. The name of the artist, CD title, song title, track number, release year, genre, and comments are just a few of the possible pieces of data that can be added. Xlobby can leverage this information for sorting and searching your music so at a minimum you should include: artist, CD title, song title, and genre. While there are many free ripping utilities you may want to look at software packages like J. River Media Center, Nero or MusicMatch that offer high ease of use as well as automated tagging. NOTE: When ripping to the APE format make sure to configure the ripping software to use the ID3 tag format so that the tagging information can be read by Xlobby

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AUDIO MEDIA FILE AND DIRECTORY STRUCTURE The recommended file structure for music media is as follows: Create a root directory called MUSIC For each ARTIST create a subdirectory in the MUSIC directory using the ARTIST name. For each CD by that Artist create a subdirectory under the ARTIST name subdirectory Copy the MP3 or APE music files for that CD into the corresponding directory. Please refer to the illustration below for an example of how your directory structure should appear. If you want Xlobby to display the CD cover for each CD you will need to place a copy of the image you want displayed in the CD directory as well. You can obtain these images by scanning your CD covers or from web sites. A Google search for “CD COVERS” will return hundreds of sites. The images do not need to be full size. A 300x300 pixel image is sufficient in size to provide a good quality picture even on a large screen. Xlobby also provides a built in function to help you obtain cover art for your libraries. DIRECTORY STRUCTURE

EXAMPLE

MUSIC - root directory ARTIST NAME 01 CD TITLE 01 SONG TITLE 01 SONG TITLE 02 SONG TITLE 03 SONG TITLE 04 ... etc. CD TITLE 02 SONG TITLE 01 SONG TITLE 02 SONG TITLE 03 SONG TITLE 04 ... etc. ARTIST NAME 02 CD TITLE 01 SONG TITLE 01 SONG TITLE 02 SONG TITLE 03 SONG TITLE 04 ... etc. CD TITLE 02 SONG TITLE 01 SONG TITLE 02 SONG TITLE 03 SONG TITLE 04 ... etc.

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VIDEO MEDIA Piracy and Copyright - The author does not condone or endorse video piracy in any way. This information is provided to inform people on how to backup their own purchased DVDs to VCD/SVCD/DVD±R/W/DivX/MPEG-4 for archival purposes. In most countries copyright laws allow the original purchaser/owner to legally make one personal backup/copy for their own personal use. The author would like to stress that it is illegal to backup/copy a movie that you do not own (i.e. personally purchased). It is also illegal to backup/copy your own movie and give copies away. The legality of copying a movie for a friend (if he owns that particular movie) may also depend on your country's' legislation concerning that matter. Xlobby handles both online as well as offline DVDs. If you want to store your movies on your hard drive here is my recommended procedure: In order to get your DVDs off the disk and onto your drive you will need the following software packages, both products are free. DVD Decrypter: http://www.dvddecrypter.com/ DVD Shrink: http://www.dvdshrink.org/ Both products do essentially the same thing, both allow you to copy a movie from a DVD to your hard drive and both allow you to strip unwanted material from the DVD. DVD Shrink has the additional capability of being able to compress a DVD to make the file size smaller. (Keep in mind that the more you compress a movie lower the overall visual quality the movie will have on playback.) So which should you use? If you simply want to copy a complete DVD to your hard drive then either product will work. If you want to save only the movie portion of a DVD to a hard drive then I recommend using both. DVD Shrink is supposed to be able to do this in a single step but I have seen it fail to correctly rip DVDs with certain copy protection schemes. The best way to extract the ‘movie only’ portion of a DVD is to use DVD Decrypter to rip the ENTIRE DVD to a file and then use DVD Shrink to extract the ‘movie only’ portion. This method has the highest rate of success. For more information on using both products go to: http://www.doom9.org/

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VIDEO MEDIA FILES AND DIRECTORY STRUCTURE The recommended file structure for Video media is as follows: DIRECTORY STRUCTURE

EXAMPLE

MOVIES - root directory MOVIE TITLE 01 VIDEO_TS (must be in caps!) VIDEO_TS.BUP (DVD files) VIDEO_TS.IFO VIDEO_TS.VOB VTS_01_0.IFO VTS_01_0.VOB VTS_02_2.VOB VTS_03_3.VOB VTS_04_4.VOB MOVIE TITLE 02 VIDEO_TS (must be in caps!) VIDEO_TS.BUP (DVD files) VIDEO_TS.IFO VIDEO_TS.VOB VTS_01_0.IFO VTS_01_0.VOB VTS_02_2.VOB VTS_03_3.VOB VTS_04_4.VOB

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HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS- At a minimum you will need a functional PC with sufficient power to playback video and audio streams without stuttering - a 1ghz PIII or equivalent processor with 256 meg of RAM, and of course, video and audio outs should meet the basic requirement - as always, more is better. If you plan on recording and/or playback of HD video then a 3 ghz or greater P4 or AMD 64 processor, a gig of RAM and an extremely good video card. The recommended operating systems is Win2K or XP. How much hard drive space you will need will depend more on how large your online music and video library are. Xlobby and the associated HTPC application software will be negligible in size.

SOFTWARE MINIMUM SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS- Below is a list of the software you will need to set up all the components in this project. Download all of the following files to a temporary directory: Software

Xlobby

.NET framework

KISS Skin

Price

Use

URL

free

HTPC Front End

Current Release: http://www.xlobby.com/xlobby2pre14.zip Current updates: http://www.xlobby.com/xlobby2main.zip Latest updates: http://www.xlobby.com/xlobby2.zip

free

Required for Xlobby to function

http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/technologyinfo/howto get/default.aspx

free

Customized front end for Xlobby

: http://www.xlobby.com/files/badabing/files/HeavyMetal.zip

http://www.winamp.com/player/

WinAmp 5.x free

Music playback

free

Required to display weather info

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/xoapweather/xoapweather1. 1.zip?download

MilkDrop

free

Visualization effects

http://www.nullsoft.com/free/milkdrop/

DVD Profiler

free

DVD Cataloging

http://www.intervocative.com/Downloads.aspx

XoapWeather Plugin

ZoomPlayer Pro*

http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml $19.95

*ZoomPlayer standard is a free windows media player (mp3, wav, dvx, etc.) If you want to play DVDs you need the Pro version.

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Xlobby Foundation Applications - Required Software Installing the Software Foundations Xlobby relies on several third party applications for many of its functions. Before Xlobby can be used these applications and infrastructure components must be installed. The following software packages need to be installed. The installation order is not important

.NET Install the Microsoft .NET framework. Accept all the default settings.

IMPORTANT! - Xlobby will not run if .NET is not installed.

AUDIO PLAYERS Xlobby has native support for two popular free media players; WinAmp and Foobar2000. Both work well and both have their supporters. This document is based on a WinAmp installation. Other players have been configured to work with Xlobby as well but these custom installations are not covered in this document.

WINAMP

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VISUALIZATIONS Xlobby has built in support for visualizations. Visualizations are the colorful pulses and pattern of light that move in rhythm to the music. MilkDrop is a visualization plug-in that works with both WinAmp and Foobar2000. MILKDROP

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VIDEO PLAYER Xlobby has built in support for two popular video players; Zoom Player and TheaterTek. As with the audio players, both have proponents and both will work with Xlobby. The deciding factor for many people is often the price. Zoom Player professional is under US $20.00 while TheaterTek starts at US $69.95. This document covers configuring Zoom Player.

ZOOM PLAYER

THEATER TEK

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DVD PROFILER

DVD Profiler is not required in order for Xlobby to function. It does, however, make configuring your DVD libraries in Xlobby much easier. Xlobby has the ability to not only list your DVDs by title and it can also display the DVD cover art as well information about each DVD including genre, directory, actors, year released and story line. (As seen in the example below) This information is first created in DVD Profiler then imported into Xlobby – saving you from hours of tedious data input and typing.

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Installing the Xlobby Software In order to get all the functions covered in this guide to work you will need to have the latest versions of Xlobby installed. Also, many of the features in the KISS skin will not function if you do not have the proper versions of Xlobby. To install Xlobby you will need the following files:

1] xlobby2pre14.zip - from the Xlobby download page 2] xlobby2main.zip - from the Xlobby download page 3] xlobby2.exe - from the Xlobby download page There is currently no automated installation routine for Xlobby. The downloaded files are simply extracted to a directory. To UNINSTALL Xlobby, simply delete the directory to which Xlobby was installed, Xlobby makes no registry or OS changes.

Install Xlobby by extracting the downloaded zip files to the Xlobby directory in the following order

1. xlobby2pre14.zip – Unzip the contents of this file to C:\XLOBBY

2. xlobby2main.zip - Unzip the contents of this file to C:\XLOBBY. If you are prompted to overwrite files answer – YES.

3. xlobby2.zip - Unzip the contents of this file to C:\XLOBBY. If you are prompted to overwrite files answer – YES.

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Installing KISS After you extract the KISS zip file you will have the following files and directories: •

KISS directory

•

Fonts directory

•

xClock.dll file

Copy the above file to the following directories: •

Fonts - Copy the CONTENTS of the 'FONTS' directory to your windows 'fonts' directory

•

KISS - Copy the KISS Skin directory to your C:/xlobby/skins directory

•

xClock.dll – Copy the xClock.dll file into your C:/xlobby/plugins directory

Installing XoapWeather Plugin Unzip the xoapweather1.1.zip file to C:\XLOBBY. If asked to overwrite click yes.

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HAVING FOLLOWED THE PRECEEDING DIRECTIONS YOUR XLOBBY DIRECTORY STRUCTURE SHOULD NOW LOOK LIKE THE EXAMPLES BELOW: C:\xlobby\plugins directory should look like this:

C:\xlobby\plugins\xoapweather directory should look like this:

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C:\xlobby\plugins\XoapWeather\images directory should look like this:

C:\xlobby\skins directory should look like this:

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C:\xlobby\skins\KISS directory should look like this:

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CONFIGURING XLOBBY To begin setting up Xlobby launch the application, wait for it to load the main menu screen, and then press “F2” on your keyboard to bring up the Setup window. Note that only the tabs required to configure the KISS skin for proper operation are covered. Please refer to the Xlobby forum for details on the other tabs.

Xlobby Setup Screens General Tab

The GENERAL tab tells Xlobby which audio player to use and where it is located. To configure Xlobby to use WinAmp click on the “ADD” button and navigate to the directory where you have WinAmp installed. Locate and highlight the winamp.exe file. Click the OPEN pushbutton The path to your WinAmp executable should now appear in the Foobar/WinAmp Zones list box.

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Basic Tab

The BASIC tab tells Xlobby where the Music, Movie and Picture libraries are located. Follow these steps to configure the BASIC tab.

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ADDING MUSIC MEDIA LIBRARIES The following directions illustrate how to add your music files to Xlobby. The steps for adding Pictures are the same. Click the ADD button under the Music Paths list box. Navigate to the directory where your music files are stored and highlight the directory

Click the OK button If your music is stored in more than one location add those directories as well. Once you have added all your music storage locations click the IMPORT pushbutton You will see the following window appear.

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Depending on the size of your music library the scanning process will take a few seconds to a few minutes. As you can see in the example below, the 16,000+ tracks were imported in approximately 11 minutes.

Click the CLOSE button to complete.

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ADDING MOVIE MEDIA LIBRARIES

Click the ADD button under the Movie Paths list box. Navigate to the directory where your movie files are stored and highlight the directory

Click the OK button If your movies are stored in more than one location add those directories as well. Once you have added all your movie storage locations click the IMPORT pushbutton You will see the following window appear. Once it shows completed, as in the example below, click the CLOSE button to complete the import process.

The next step is to add the information stored in DVD Profiler to the Xlobby database. These instructions assume that you have already entered your DVD library into DVD Profiler. If you need help in using DVD Profiler, please refer to the DVD Profiler website and/or forum. IMPORTING DVD PROFILER DATA

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Launch DVD Profiler Click the FILE menus and select EXPORT PROFILE DATABASE

When the ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY window appears click ‘ACCEPT’

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When the EXPORT PROFILE DATABASE window appears configure at shown below:

Click the OK button and close the DVD Profiler application. Bring up Xlobby Setup window and click on the DATABASES tab. Highlight the MOVIES entry in the DATABASES list box

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Click the IMPORT tab and configure the screen as shown in the example below:

1. Select ‘MOVIES’ in the IMPORT TO DB combo box 2. The PATHS window will automatically be populated by Xlobby 3. In the DVD Profiler Setting section click the browse buttons and set FOLDER to the directory where DVD Profiler is installed 4. In the DVD Profiler Setting section click the browse buttons and set XML to the directory where the DVD Profiler database was extracted to 5. Click the IMPORT button. 6. The following window will appear:

Even though the STATUS lists the imports as 0 the import is complete. Close the STATUS window and the Setup window.

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Navigate to the MOVIES page in XLOBBY to verify that the DVD Profiler data was added.

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File Types Tab

The FILES tab tells Xlobby what software to use to play you movies. Configure you screen to match the above settings, with the exception of the path which should be to the location where you installed Zoom Player Xlobby has the ability to prompt you to load a DVD when you select a movie that is not ripped to one of your directories. To enable this function click the Offline Event Assign button. When the Select Event window appears select the ‘Show Offline Message’ event as illustrated, then click the Select button to complete.

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Skins Tab

The SKINS Setup page identifies the interface that will be used by Xlobby. To configure to use the KISS Skin set up the SKINS tab as shown and click the RESTART button

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The Main Menu Screen

The MENU screen is also the HOME screen. You can access each of Xlobby’s main functions from this screen. Clicking on any of the navigation bars will cause the associated screen to open. The bottom of every screen provides information on the CD song track currently playing (or last played), music navigation controls and a clock. Clicking on the CLOCK on the menu screen will open the help screen shown below:

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The Music Screens

This is the main MUSIC screen. It provides a graphic view of your music library. When you cursor over a CD cover the name of the CD is shown. In the example above we see that the Aerosmith CD, BIG ONES is currently in focus. Clicking on a CD will automatically take you to the MUSIC DETAILS view. (see below)

This is the MUSIC DETAILS screen. It provides a larger view of the CD artwork as well as a list of the tracks.

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When you cursor over the CD cover note how the image of the cover is dimmed. This is to make the tracks easier to read, especially when the cover art may make the text hard to see. Note the icons that follow each track name. They indicate the current playing status of the track

This icon indicates that the track is not currently playing or in queue

This icon indicates that the track is queued to play on the playlist

This icon indicates that the track is currently playing

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This is the screen that appears when you click on a track. You are given the choice of: PLAY TRACK

Clicking this button results in the selected track being played immediately. If another song is currently playing, that song stops and the selected track begins to play.

ADD TRACK TO PLAYLIST

Clicking this button results in the selected track being added to the playlist.

PLAY CD

Clicking this button results in the entire CD being added to the playlist and the CD begins to play

ADD CD TO PLAYLIST

Clicking this button results in all the tracks on the CD being added to the playlist.

CANCEL

Closes the window

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Clicking on the SEARCH button opens this window. It allows you to search your music library by ARTIST, TITLE, TRACK NAME or MUSIC GENRE.

As the name implies, it contains controls for MUTING, VOLUME UP, VOLUME DOWN and VISUALIZATIONS. The LIGHTS ON/OFF buttons do not have events associated. They are provided as placeholders for customizing the screen. Xlobby can be configured to support multiple audio zones, each playing independently or in a synchronized manner. If you have configured Xlobby for zone then the ZONE controls on the right side of the screen allow you to control these zones.

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Clicking on the PLAYLIST button opens this window. When a track is queued to play it appears in the CURRENT PLAYLIST list. Playlists can also be saved. When you save a playlist Xlobby will name the playlist “PLAYLIST#”. To rename with a more meaningful title you need to rename the file itself in the Xlobby/playlist directory. SHUFFLE

Clicking this button results in the tracks in the current playlist being played in random order. The order of the displayed tracks does not change.

SNAP TO TRACK

SETTINGS

Clicking this button results in the track currently being played to be highlighted in the Music Details screen. Xlobby will display the CD information of the currently playing track. Clicking this button opens the Settings screen

CLEAR PLAYLIST

Clears the CURRENT PLAYLIST

SAVE PLAYLIST

Saves the tracks in the CURRENT PLAYLIST window to a playlist file.

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The Now Playing Screen Clicking on the album cover in the lower left corner of any screen will display the “NOW PLAYING” shown below:

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The Net Radio Screen

The NET RADIO screens allow you to listen to web based streaming radio stations. When you first open the screen you will see the radio stations grouped by genre. To see the station in a genre click on a genre title

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Clicking on a genre title in the NET RADIO screen will refresh open that genre and display the stations available. Clicking on a station will trigger the selected web stream to begin playing. You can not modify the radio stations from within Xlobby. To modify the radio stations in the list you will need to edit the radio database.

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The Movie Screens

The movie screens present your movie library in a graphical format. The main Movie page, shown above, allows you to browse you movie library as well as to search for a particular title. Clicking on a movie will open the MOVIE DETAILS page.

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The MOVIE DETAILS screen, shown above, provides detailed information about the movie. The ALL MOVIES button will return you to the MAIN MOVIE screen. The setting button can be used if you have integrated X10 controls into xlobby and wish to manually dim/turn off the lights in your theater. You can launch the movie by clicking the PLAY button.

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If you are running Xlobby in a dual screen mode (i.e. movies are shown via a projector or TV set and Xlobby interface is seen on the PC monitor) then you will see this screen when you hit PLAY. It provides transport controls for the Zoom Player application, as well as dimming the rest of the screen to reduce glare from the PC monitor while the movie is playing.

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The Pictures Screens

The PICTURES screen provides you with any easy way to navigate through you on-line photos as well as the ability to show your pictures in the form of a full screen slide show.

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The Weather Screens Configuring the XoapWeather Plug-In The XoapWeather plug-in was developed by Jonathan Bradshaw. The discussion forum for the XoapWeather plugin is: http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1894 To begin setting up the XoapWeather Plug-In press F2 to bring up the Setup window. Click on XoapWeather to highlight it, then click the 'CONFIGURE' button.

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Click on the 'Type the name..." field to set focus

Enter the city name and state/country and click the 'SEARCH' button

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Results will be returned in the 'SEARCH RESULTS' window - highlight your choice and click the 'ADD LOCATION' button

Optionally, repeat the above steps to add more weather locations

Click 'SAVE" button to store your selections and close the window. Close the SetUp window.

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The Exit Screen

The EXIT screen gives you to option to: • Close Xlobby • Shut down the PC • Cancel and return to Xlobby

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