[slinkelist] Help - Can't get 3rd party stuff to talk to CDJ

[Jim Glidewell]

Hi all,

I've had a slink-e for a while, but only recently started
using CDJ. One of the things that I _really_ want out of
a jukebox system like this is a "now playing" option.

It appears that there are a couple of 3rd party add-ons
(2 screensavers & Party GUI) which will do this sort
of thing. But... I can't seem to get any of them to
work.

Configuration: Dell Pentium 100, Windows 95, CDJ 10/13/00,
current versions of the screensavers and PartyGUI. CDJ
installed in the standard place.

It appears that none of these tools "see" the CDJ application.
They can see the files (at least Party GUI can) but there
doesn't see to be any communication (status or control)
between the "helper" apps and CDJ.

What I see:

Party GUI - runs, sees my CD database, also sees my playlists.
None of the buttons do anything except change the Party GUI
screen itself. No playlists created/modified either, near as
I can tell.

Slinkysaver - sits waiting on the opening screen for CDJ to
start (it's already running)

CDSaver - Black screen, regardless of the colors set in the
settings window. Kinda hard to tell what is going on... :-)

I did a pretty generic CDJ installation. And I tried to
follow the README's for the three helper apps.

Here are some issues I'm not clear on (I don't know how
Windows inter-app communication works at all):

Do these tools require cdjserver, or CDJ, or either?

Do I need to install something "extra" besides a standard
Win95 install to make the IAC stuff work? Special COM/DCOM
install or sumptin'? (I recall that the CDJ installer did
some extra MS install...)

Does the registry come into play here? (shudder)

Does anybody have any debugging suggestions?

Finally:

How does one force the screensaver to run? 

I set my "idle" time down to a minute and it never blanks
(while running CDJ) My screensaver testing has all been
through the "Preview" option in the properties window.
Are there options in CDJ which prevent the screensaver
from activating (animated icon, for example)?

I'm really hoping I've missed something pretty obvious, or
skipped a simple but essential step. I plan on going back
and rereading the READMEs, etc. this evening, but I thought
that somebody might be able to point me to my "Doh!" mistake.

Thanks for your help...

Jim
-- 
Jim Glidewell
jim_glidewell@yahoo.com