lcd panel scripts quotation

This guide will give you full insight into how to use all the features of Automatic LCDs 2. You will find out what are the commands, what are the arguments of the commands and how to use them. It also contains full list of all commands with detailed description along with examples of use.

What is block?Block is every machine, button, cockpit, everything on your ship that is accessible through control panel. Armors are not blocks. Script only works with blocks.

Programmable blocks and in-game scripts are now in "Experimental mode" in game that you need to turn on in game options. Also don"t forget to enable in-game scripts in advanced world settings.

I highly recommend touching the programmable block now and then to update the script if there were any new features added or bugs fixed. Look at "How to update" section to learn how to update scripts in your programmable blocks.

Open your programmable block, click Edit, click Browse Workshop, select Automatic LCDs 2, click OK, Check code, Click Ok. Done. Your script is now updated.

This is very useful if you connect ships to your station or ship and you don"t want to see blocks of the connected ships on station LCDs. You can also use this script on multiple ships that connect together without worries that they will conflict once connected.

Script now only updates LCDs which are part of the same grid as programmable block. If you would like to change this please take look at What is LCD_TAG? section to learn how to change LCD_TAG.

LCDs that are connected using rotors, pistons or connectors are not updating?By default the script only updates LCDs that are part of the same grid as programmable block.

LCD_TAG is used to tell the script which LCDs are managed by the script. As all of you know the script looks for LCDs that have [LCD] in their name by default.

You can however change this to whatever you like. You can tell the script to manage LCDs in certain group or even tell it to manage all LCDs regardless of name.

How to change the LCD_TAG?You can change the LCD_TAG by editing the Custom Data of programmable block that runs the script. Let"s explain it by example:

How to tell the script to manage all LCDs regardless of name?LCD_TAG follows the same name filtering rules as commands. So you can set the Custom Data to:

You also can"t change the LCD_TAG during run. You need to recompile the script every time you change the LCD_TAG otherwise the script will still look for old tag.

It is now possible to join multiple LCDs together so they will look and work like single panel. Because of the limitations of text alignment it is only possible to join LCDs up and down. Not left to right. So the widest LCD you can have is Wide LCD. But you can have many of them under each other to form single big one.

NUMBER is position of LCD in array of LCDs. It doesn"t matter what number you choose. They just need to go one after another. So the topmost LCD will have the lowest number. For example 1. LCD under it will have 2, etc.

You can use this script on cockpit screens as well as screens of other blocks. In order to do that you have to mark the cockpit (or other block) with the LCD_TAG as you did with LCDs. So by default you add [LCD] to the name of the cockpit in order for the cockpit to be recognized by the script.

As soon as you do that the first screen on the cockpit will be controlled by the Automatic LCDs 2 and should display the usual message that you should write commands to custom data of the panel. If you need only this screen, you can write commands to Custom Data of the cockpit just as you do with LCDs.

Where is the index of the screen you want to write to. 0 is the first screen, 1 is the second screen, etc. The "AutoLCD" part just needs to be there.

Easy way to know the index of the screen is when you look at the control panel of the cockpit, find the list of the LCD panels and pick one. For example "Keyboard" screen is 4th in the list of the LCD panels which means its index is 3 (because first one is 0). So if you would want to write only to the Keyboard screen your custom data would look like this:

You can use this on any block that has LCD panel screens. Script will not touch screens that you haven"t specified so you can use this with other scripts too. Read "Compatibility with other scripts" if you want to know how Automatic LCDs can share Custom Data with other scripts.

Script now only updates LCDs which are part of the same gridThis means that LCDs which are connected using connectors, pistons or rotors will not be updated to prevent conflicts between docked ships. This does not apply when ships are connected using merge block because in that case they behave like single ship in game.

LCDs are updating much slower when more ships are docked using merge blockIf there are more ships using this script docked together using merge block then the programmable blocks will not split the work efficently automatically.

I recommend using different LCD_TAG for each ship and station. Look at Tips and Tricks section of this guide to learn how to do that. This will ensure that programmable blocks always update only LCDs on the ship/station they are intended for.

LCDs are showing items, power, cargo, etc of all docked shipsThis will happen if you use no arguments to commands or if you use * or if you use same names for groups / blocks on both ships. Make sure you read Same ship blocks filtering section to learn how to filter only blocks of the same ship.

Automatically separates reactors, engines, solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. Works with modded blocks. It shows maximum achievable power output for solar panels. That means that if there is no sun shining on solar panels then the maximum is 0 W.

NOTE: in-game scripts have very limitted access to things which are needed to estimate power time. I"ve done everything I could think of to estimate the time with as much precision as possible, but it is not perfect. It is just an estimation. On the other side, during my testing I found it to be more precise than the Fuel Time displayed on game HUD in some situations.

Displays damaged and partially built ship/station blocks. Script only has access to blocks which are visible in control panel so no armor blocks, conveyor tubes, etc are considered.

Due to game limitations some blocks do NOT automatically update the details text until you look at them in control panel. This is VERY important as you always need to look at the block in control panel if you want the LCD to show updated text. This does not apply to all blocks!

Note: If you would like to display only leaking air vents you can use Working command and filter only LCDs that show LEAK using filtering described in Working command.

This is very useful when using different mods / scripts that write something to Custom Data of block and you would like to append it to your Automatic LCDs displays.

This is very useful when using different mods / scripts that type something on LCD and you would like to append it to your Automatic LCDs displays. This way you can have one LCD hidden that will be used by your mod / script and use TextLCD command to read that text and write it to one of the Automatic LCDs. Example: TextLCD {Other LCD} will append contents of first LCD named Other LCD.

You can also add this to button panel and setup action on button to Run the programmable block with argument. It needs to be the same programmable block that runs the script that shows the text on the screen on that particular LCD.

LCD clear functionWhen you Run the programmable block with argument "clear" (without quotes) it will clear all LCDs. You can use this to turn off your LCDs without having to actually turn them off where they would say "OFFLINE".

LCDs boot screensUnfortunately there is no easy way to find out that you turned off/on your ship so the script doesn"t automatically display boot screens after turn the power sources off and on. You can however use the LCD clear function to reset the LCDs when you turn on your ship/station. There is also special "boot" argument to start the boot sequence whenever you need it. Just Run the programmable block with "boot" (without quotes) as argument.

Automatic LCDs 2 is not a mod so you don"t need to do anything in dedicated server setup to use it except for having enabled in-game scripts in your world.

How to use LCDs that are connected using rotors, pistons or connectors?By default the script only updates LCDs that are part of the same grid as programmable block. First, I do recommend reading about "Same grid filtering" in separate section of this guide.

How to stop the script from changing Content Type of the panels?You can add line "SKIP_CONTENT_TYPE = true" (without quotes) to Custom Data of the programmable block to disable automatic panel content type change.

Keen has added MyIni format that scripters can use to parse Custom Data. This was added explicitly to make life easier for scripters when they need to use Custom Data and share it with other scripts. This was written by Malware (the creator of MDK framework for Space Engineers in-game scripting and father of Programmable Block) and I"ve been discussing with him how to make it compatible with Automatic LCDs without people having to learn new syntax so he came up with great solution.

If people also want to write Automatic LCDs commands to the same block where the Custom Data is already used by script that uses MyIni format then they can simply add 3 dashes on its own line and continue with Automatic LCDs commands like this:

Anything under the --- is ignored by the MyIni parser that other scripts use. Anything before the --- is completely ignored by the Automatic LCDs so this way Automatic LCDs can share Custom Data with other scripts and coexist peacefully :)

NOTE: Some scripts overwrite the Custom Data and if you already have some Automatic LCDs commands there they will remove them. If those scripts support the MyIni format then you can write your commands like this to make them not remove the commands (or set them up first and then use the format like explained above):

This script doesn"t work like other scripts on the workshop. Script updates dynamically as it needs and time between updates of most of the commands is several seconds depending on complexity of the command. There is not a single update time you can modify because the script doesn"t work that way. The script automatically limits itself and spreads the calculations over time to have minimal impact on the game performance. That"s why the more commands you use the longer it will take to update all of them. Unfortunately even if I figured out some way to let you configure update rates, I just can"t leave the update rates configurable for people, because the script would have very bad impact on game with high refresh rates and many people would not realize that - trust me, we"ve been there.

You can have 100 scripts running on your server with 1.0 sim speed. If you would like to see the performance test it starts at 1:56 of the showcase video which is the first one in the screenshots on the main script page or here:

Programmable Block Edit button is greyed out. What should I do?You need to enable in-game scripts in Advanced World settings. You can find them on Load screen, when you select your save and click Edit Settings button, then Advanced button and scroll down you will find lots of check boxes, one of them says In-game scripts - make sure it is enabled.

READ THIS: Programmable blocks and in-game scripts are now in "Experimental mode" in game that you need to turn on in game options. Also don"t forget to enable in-game scripts in advanced world settings.

*** Check your ownership ***Always make sure that the programmable block and LCDs have the same ownership as the blocks you want to show on the LCDs. I highly recommend you own all the blocks unless you know how ownership works. Just open the control panel, select one of the blocks on your ship, press CTRL+A and change the ownership on the right side to "Me".

Script limiter is unreliable and dependent on things outside of the game (like other processes eating the CPU etc). Admins use it because its the only way to stop scripts from slowing down the server unfortunately in the process it kills even innocent scripts when the server is overloaded.

Technical details: Script limiter counts real time it took script to execute. Because of how computers and operating systems work the real time it takes to execute some code is dependent on other things running on the computer. So if one thing is using a lot of CPU then other things will take longer to complete. This is why even scripts that do almost nothing can take a lot of time to complete if the computer is overloaded by for example doing backups, scanning for viruses, calculating the answer to ultimate question, etc. Because the scripts get less CPU time it takes much longer to complete even simple tasks. This is why its almost impossible to make the script survive script limiter actions if the server is overloaded from doing other stuff many times even outside of the SE game itself.

1. If your LCDs are on separate grid (behind rotor, piston, connector) they will not be updated. Read LCDs that are connected using rotors, pistons or connectors are not updating? section of Troubleshooting section of the guide.

Programmable block reports "Exception".If programmable block control panel shows "Exception" please report it in he "BUG REPORTS" discussion on main script page.

LCDs that are connected using rotors, pistons or connectors are not updating?By default the script only updates LCDs that are part of the same grid as programmable block. First, I do recommend reading about "Same grid filtering" in separate section of this guide.

If some of your LCDs are sometimes offline:it"s probably a game bug and it"s happening to more people. Someone said that loading game, returning to main menu and loading again helps.

Does your LCD just say ONLINE instead of showing things?Make sure that you named your LCD so it contains [LCD] . If you did, you are most probably using german client which has problems with [] characters that you type in game. You can use copy-paste to overcome it or simply use alternate built-in tag I made for you !LCD!

It"s just blank screen?Your command is wrong or there is simply nothing to show. Check your command syntax in full guide, try examples. Make sure that there is nothing in front of the command in LCD Public Title (game sometimes likes to hide the "Public title" text). Always press Home before entering command to make sure there is no text at the beginning of LCD Public Title that you don"t want to have there.

Programmable block reports "Index out of bounds".Make sure that you updated the script to latest version with all the fixes. Check that script has permissions to write to LCDs!

I need to see what assembler/refinery is producing like on your screenshotIt is not possible to find out what assembler or refinery is doing from the script. What you see on screenshot are names of assemblers and refineries. I use scripts Crafting Component Quotas and Selective Refining. Crafting Components Quotas can rename your assemblers like you see on screenshot.

For anyone curious following this. You can still use traditional LCD panels and the WriteText() method for your updating displays in dedicated servers.

For anyone curious following this. You can still use traditional LCD panels and the WriteText() method for your updating displays in dedicated servers.

Joined my friend"s game hosted by him. Non-dedicated server. I made a blueprint with a couple scripts loaded in, tested that everything worked in single player, but when we used it in multiplayer only the host could see the scripts update. The text doesn"t get sent to clients. It updates every detail of a panel but not the text. All LCDs, cockpit LCDs, programmable block LCDs, etc don"t update. Opening the panel shows there is no text but the host confirmed the panel is not blank and is updating for him.

Joined my friend"s game hosted by him. Non-dedicated server. I made a blueprint with a couple scripts loaded in, tested that everything worked in single player, but when we used it in multiplayer only the host could see the scripts update. The text doesn"t get sent to clients. It updates every detail of a panel but not the text. All LCDs, cockpit LCDs, programmable block LCDs, etc don"t update. Opening the panel shows there is no text but the host confirmed the panel is not blank and is updating for him.

It"s still not working for any of my scripts. Locally I can update the text on a cockpit display fine, but doing so on a dedicated server does not actually update the visible text. Am I doing this wrong, or was it marked as Solved when not actually Solved?

It"s still not working for any of my scripts. Locally I can update the text on a cockpit display fine, but doing so on a dedicated server does not actually update the visible text. Am I doing this wrong, or was it marked as Solved when not actually Solved?

Liquid crystal display (LCD) is a flat panel display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals. Liquid crystals do not produce light directly, instead using a backlight or reflector to produce images in colour or monochrome.

Starting a new build, I decided to add an LCD for all the obvious reasons: bling (natch), plus the fact that they can be useful at a glance. Got the display, installed drivers (almost failed right then and there), and started it up. It"s a graphical, USB-connected LCD. Great, it starts up, and shows a bitmap of the company"s logo! And that"s it. But I knew that; some software is required to display different things. There are a few choices out there...

LCD Studio - Only designed to work with parallel-connected displays, or at least that"s all it has drivers for. The USB drivers it does have are not universal, and only work with the device they are intended for, like the G15. Couldn"t get the program to recognize driver files copied into its folder for use in the display setup wizard. Too bad, looked like LCDSt could do alot with a graphical display.

LCD Smartie - Only 4 lines of text. With an 8-line capable display, the fields get very convoluted with strings, commands, DLL functions, etc. all stacked end-to-end into 1 field. Not only that, LCDSm insists on writing "ghost characters" for LCD commands, even though they are not shown on the display (they are interpreted as a command), erasing whatever was on the screen previously, like a bitmap. There is a way around it, but doing so effectively cuts the maximum number of screens possible from 20 to 10. Also, it is designed with character displays in mind, using custom fonts for fun things like a Winamp sound spectrum display. Doesn"t work (at least not as much as it could) with a straight-up graphical LCD.

One benefit of it being AHK is that it should be very lightweight on the system to drive an LCD, and could be even more so with longer Sleep"s. I currently use around 200ms for most of the timing Sleep"s, and they could be made even longer without any real impact on the function. As it stands, the program is about 25% what it could be. Right now it is merely a framework to get started, and it works. Ideas:

One of the most common questions I am asked, now that LCDs are in wide use, is how to clean one.  Every manufacturer has their recommended method.  What Envision recommends will ruin an NEC LCD and void your warranty.  As you will be able to tell, every LCD needs to be cleaned in a different way.

Another thing I learned from finding all this information is that every manufacturer has the same warning: Never touch or press on the LCD screen with your fingers – NEVER!!!  Doing so can cause the pixels to short out and die.  Then you will have blank spots on your LCD.

I called CTX tech support and was told the way to clean their LCDs was in the Technical Glossary and General FAQ.  I asked the guy to check that out and he said he couldn’t find it either.  He said to use very mild soap, tepid or lukewarm water, and a just slightly moist lint-free cloth.  This is supposed to be added to their General FAQ.

Discussion: A common cause for marks on the LCD is oil and dirt deposited on the keys of the keyboard that can get pressed against the LCD when carried in a carrying case or when pressure is applied to the lid.

There are many cleaners sold specifically as LCD cleaners. These are perfectly acceptable for cleaning LCDs on Dell notebooks.  If you do not wish to purchase one of these products designated specifically as an LCD cleanser, the following is a list of what is and is not acceptable for cleaning your LCD.

These cleaners might cause permanent damage to the LCD due to a chemical reaction. Some commercial window cleaners contain ammonia and are generally unacceptable.

Clean the computer’s built-in LCD display with a soft, clean cloth and one of the cleaners listed above or a commercial window cleaner that does not contain ammonia, wax, or abrasives. Apply the cleaner to the cloth, and then stroke the cloth across the display in one direction, moving from the top of the display to the bottom. If the display contains grease or some other contaminant, use a cloth with an acceptable cleaner listed above instead of a commercial window cleaner.

Shut down and unplug the computer and clean the LCD screen with a soft cloth moistened only with water. Wet the cloth, wipe the display, and then dry the screen with another soft cloth.

Gently dust the screen with a dry, soft, lint-free cloth. If the screen is still dirty, you can dampen the cloth with several drops of distilled water.  Make sure the LCD panel is completely dry before you turn the display back on.[/box]

CAUTION: Never use pure water to clean the LCD screen. Do not use cleaning solutions containing fluoride, acids, or alkalis. Do not use ketone substances such as acetone or solvents such as xylene or toluene to clean the monitor. Do not use benzene, thinner, ammonia, or any volatile substance to clean the monitor’s screen or cabinet. These chemicals may damage the monitor.

This is the strangest one ever.  On March 21, 2003, I e-mailed every e-mail address I could find on Hyundai’s web sites.  I guess I threw them for a loop because I received a phone call from a Peter at AVC Tech USA.  That must be Hyundai’s USA distributor.  Peter told me that Hyundai has NO written instructions for cleaning their LCDs.  Quoting Peter this is what he told me to do: “use alcohol and soft cotton cloth and don’t run too hard”.

The display area is highly prone to scratching.  Do not use ketone-type cleaners (i.e. acetone), ethyl alcohol, toluene, ethyl acid or methyl chloride to clean the panel.  Doing so may result in permanent damage.

A: We recommend that you use a cleaner specifically designed for electronic equipment to clean the case and, if necessary, a separate cleaner specifically designed for cleaning LCD Panels. This should be used in conjunction with a soft, lint-free cloth.

A: In general, the answer to this question is yes. Most cleaners that are satisfactory for cleaning the case of your WinBook are not satisfactory for cleaning the LCD panel. You should look for a cleaner that is specifically designed and labeled for cleaning LCD screens.

you can find it in programs\script_demos\VT100Emu.cvt .script_demos\popup1.cvt : Custom menu (pop-up, pull-down)This example shows a custom popup menu (with items filled during run-time), using the simulated "text screen" (text panel).

2021-05-05Removed some tags to improve the conversion from HTML to PDF; added references to the CAN simulator.2020-10-12Added the file.delete command.2019-12-17New commands and data types for text panels .2019-02-22New data types (e.g. bool, tColor) and improved automatic type conversions .