A Beginners Guide to Setting up Xlobby
By Jowaldo

Overview
General
Basic
Skins and Resolution
File Types
Misc

Overview

This guide is intended for setting up the basic and most commonly used portions of Xlobby, and does not cover things that change drastically by skin or user.

There are various steps required for a fully functional Xlobby.  You may be able to skip some steps depending on the features you want to use.  For example if you do not use music, you can skip the winamp section of this guide.

There is one required step however that must be done before xlobby is ran.

• Install the Microsoft .NET framework.  It can be downloaded for free here:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/technologyinfo/howtoget/default.aspx

Download Xlobby:

• Official Xlobby builds/versions can be downloaded here http://www.xlobby.com/Downloads/Xlobby
• The Xlobby forum often has newer versions updated much more frequently, usually in Announcements section http://www.xlobby.com/forum/

Run Xlobby:

• Unzip the copy of Xlobby (there is no official installer at this time) you just downloaded, to a folder of your choice and then run xlobby2.exe
• After it loads hit F2 on your keyboard to bring up the Setup window to the "General" tab

General
 

• Winamp
  • Under "Foobar/Winamp Zones:" click add, then browse to where Winamp is installed, usually C:\Program Files\Winamp\winamp.exe
     
• Daemon Tools
  • If you plan on playing movies stored in iso/cue format, and have daemon tools installed already to mount those files, choose the location where Daemon Tools in installed, usually C:\Program Files\D-Tools\daemon.exe
  • Under "Daemon Drives:" type in the virtual drive letter that Daemon Tools is configured to use.

When you are done you should see something like this:

Basic

Importing Music, Pictures, and Movies

Before you can view any of your media you must "import" them into xlobby.  Doing this and how you do this creates a database which is a key part of how Xlobby operates.  There are many ways to do this, but in this guide we will cover just the basic way of doing this.

• First, click the "Basic" tab at the top of the screen
   
• Music
  • Under "Music Paths" click "add" and browse to the folder where your music is stored.  If your music is stored in multiple locations, click "add" again and choose all the folders where it may be at.
  • After your folder(s) have been picked, click import under that section.  You will see a progress bar as the files are imported.  When it has finished, click close.
  • Hint - The preferred default naming format your music should be saved in is something like this:
    C:\Media\My Music\
    C:\Media\My Music\Band - Album 1\
    C:\Media\My Music\Band - Album 2\
    C:\Media\My Music\Band2 - Album 1\
    
    If you were to have your music saved like this, the "Music Path" you should choose is C:\Media\My Music
    
    If your music is saved differently than this, it should be imported a different way for optimal results. To keep this guide as short as possible, instructions for the other ways of doing this are not here.  For help please check the xlobby forums http://www.xlobby.com/forum
     
• Pictures
  • Under "Picture Paths" click "add" and browse to the folder where your pictures are stored.  If your pictures are stored in multiple locations, click "add" again and choose all the folders where it may be at.
  • After your folder(s) have been picked, click import under that section.  You will see a progress bar as the files are imported.  This may take a while depending on the amount of pictures, because Xlobby automatically creates thumbnails for the pictures as it is importing them.  When it has finished, click close.
     
• Movies
  • Under "Movie Paths" click "add" and browse to the folder where your movies/videos are stored.  If your movies are stored in multiple locations, click "add" again and choose all the folders where it may be at.
  • After your folder(s) have been picked, click import under that section.  You will see a progress bar as the files are imported.  When it has finished, click close.
  • Hint - By default Xlobby will import videos in these formats, video_ts, ifo, iso, avi, vob, and mpg.  A recommended naming format for movies would be something like this:
    C:\Media\My Movies\Movie1\Movie1.avi
    C:\Media\My Movies\Movie2\Movie2.iso
    C:\Media\My Movies\Movie3\Movie3\video_ts
    
    If you were to have your movies saved like this, the "Movie Path" you should choose is C:\Media\My Movies
    
    If your movies are saved differently, please check the forums for help.

  When you are done importing the "Basic" screen will look something like this:

  

Skins and Resolution

• Click the "Skins" tab at the top
• "Available Themes" lists different font/color schemes for the current skin if there is any available
• Under "Select Skin" you can choose any skin you may have downloaded.
  • Note - Downloaded skins must be placed in the skins subfolder where xlobby is running, and each skin must be in its own subfolder under that.
• Click "Restart" to change to the new skin
   
• Resolution
  • Under "X:" and "Y:" enter the coordinates of where you want Xlobby to be.
  • Xlobby automatically fills the screen no matter what resolution it is.  If you want it to be a specific size, under "Width" and "Height" put in whatever you want, or choose one under "Presets"
  • Click "Sizeable" if you want xlobby to be in a typical windows style window that can be moved around and quickly resized.

File Types

Setting up File Types can be very simple or very complex depending on your needs.  This section of Xlobby overrides any associations set in Windows.  Due to the wide variety of programs that can be used, this guide will cover how to set up Zoomplayer for playing movies.

• Click the "File Types" tab at the top
• Note anything in the box at the top.  Any lines highlighted yellow are disabled and will not run anything.
• Choose anything listed at the top if there is one already and click "Add"  This will create a new entry, make sure it is highlighted.
• Now look under the "Details" section:
  • "Program" - Browse to the location where Zoomplayer is installed, usually C:\Program Files\Zoom Player\zplayer.exe
  • "Extensions" - Enter whatever extensions you want associated with this program, and separate each one by a comma.  For movies (DVD, Divx, etc) it is usually, ifo, avi, iso, mpg, mpeg, wmv
  • "Command Line Switches" - Enter any switches your application may take that you require.
    For Zoomplayer it usually is:
    /MOUSEOFF /F /Q %playlist%
    
    Note the %playlist% portion is not a zoomplayer command, but a variable in xlobby, that passes along the selected file(s) locations when the command is run.  If you require that it sends a specific file or path to your external program, simply replace %playlist% with %file% or %path%
  • "Enabled" checkbox - Make sure this checked for any associations you want to run.  You would only want to uncheck it, if you want to disable the association without actually deleting it.
  • "Category" - Enter the category you want this association be launched from.  If you specify one, this association will only work in that category.  If you do not specify one, it will work globally in Xlobby.  For this example we will choose "movies" as the category
  • "Offline Event" - Assign an event that you want to run if try to run something that is "Offline"  Usually this is setup to trigger an overlay to prompt the user to insert the media.
    Please check here if you want more info on offline events.
  • "Start Event" - Here you can assign an event that will run as soon as the file is launched.  For example, most people playing movies using zoomplayer will have an event that automatically takes you to a page that can fully control zoomplayer like a remote.
  • "End Event" - Assign an event that you want to run when the external app closes.  In this scenario, when zoomplayer closes, you could run an event that automatically takes you back to the main movies page.
     
• After all this has been set up the screen should look something like this:
  
  
   
• You should now be able to launch movies in zoomplayer.

Misc

• Click the "Misc" tab at the top
• "Load HTTP images on startup" - Checking this will cause xlobby to download any images on any screen not stored on the local machine but on the internet, during its startup.  If you do not check this, when you go to a screen that has a http image, you will need to manually refresh the image or have an event automatically run a refresh, so it will show up.
• "Play Button Sounds" - All button clicks in Xlobby can have sounds associated with them.  This must be checked however to hear any.  If you check this and still do not hear a sound when you click a button, a sound needs to be associated with that button.
• "Hide Audioplayer" - Check this if winamp is showing on top of xlobby.
• "AutoPlay" - Here you can set up how Xlobby handles inserted media, we will cover how to set up autoplay for Audio Cd's and DVD's. 
  PLEASE NOTE!!!  Xlobby will disable any autoplay settings in Windows while it is loaded
  • Audio CD autoplay:
  • Under "Name" type, audio cd
  • Under "Extensions" type, cda
  • Click "Assign/Remove Event" then choose an event to run when a Audio CD is inserted.  Usually an event is ran that shows a menu of options like play, copy, etc.
     
  • DVD autoplay:
  • Under "Name" type, dvd
  • Under "Extensions" type, video_ts
  • Click "Assign/Remove Event" then choose an event to run when a DVD is inserted.  Usually an event is ran that shows a menu of options like play, copy, etc.
     
• "Server Mode"  This is only if you are going to use a client machine to connect to the computer running Xlobby.
  • "IP of this machine" - Choose an IP that this computer will respond to the clients on
  • "Start Server" Starts the server mode of xlobby, when you click this, you should see a message under "Status" that it has started, and on what IP.
  • "Start in server mode" - Check this to make xlobby always start in server mode when it loads.
     
• "Multi Monitor" - If you have multiple monitors on your computer you can choose which one xlobby will load on here.
• "Slide Show" - Set the speed of image transitions here for when you are using the slideshow command
• "Delete Picture Cache" - If you create a picture database, xlobby automatically created cached thumbnails of the images for faster browsing of them.  Click this if you wish to delete the thumbnails.

That's it for this guide... Remember to check the documentation page and the forums for anything not covered here.