How do these features work?

[ToonGal]

NOTE: Since my questions didn't get answered in the past week in the DirMon2 thread, I figured I'd create a new topic and ask the questions in the main forum.

Thanks for the help!

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I couple of things I can't figure out from the program or the forum. Figured here is as good a place as any to ask.

--JOB MANAGEMENT:

- How/Timeout: No clue as to what this means, nor how/when to use. Good example and values of great help, I think.

- Queue Priority Boost: Think I understand the concept, but not sure of what the values mean. 0=n/a? 1=ranking, true/false, or other?

- When/resources required: 100 sounds as good as any. What does it mean? 100 potential processes running simultaneously? 100 files processed at a batch max? Other?

- When/wait: target file finished/idle. I thought these would mean the file had to complete recording before it started processing. It didn't seem to work for me, so I set blackout times that ensured completion before processing.


-- GLOBAL SETTINGS:

- Total resources: Same as above, as I assume resources same in Job page.

- Polling time: The duration in seconds between iterations of DirMon2 processing?

- Service: It's working fine for me, but not sure of the difference between Start/Stop and Install/Uninstall. If it is installed as a service, it can be temporarily stopped?


-- CURRENT STATUS:

- Refresh: Refresh what, exactly?

- Might be nice to have an optional countdown timer if polling means what I think it does (i.e. 600 -> 0, for each iteration of processing).


I have so many manual scripts, batch files, programs, and other things to maintain what you have automated here. Starting to tear down my own programs and replace with yours, as I'm helping friends get their own HTPC's set up. Nice to have one stop shopping like DirMon2 which does so much.

Great program Jere. Thanks for all the effort!

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by ToonGal

--JOB MANAGEMENT:

- How/Timeout: No clue as to what this means, nor how/when to use. Good example and values of great help, I think.

Image that you have a job that should only take 5 minutes to run, but every now and then it stalls or locks up. The timeout setting will let DirMon2 kill the process and move on to the next job. The setting is in seconds.

Originally Posted by ToonGal

- Queue Priority Boost: Think I understand the concept, but not sure of what the values mean. 0=n/a? 1=ranking, true/false, or other?

DirMon first searches all the directories of all the jobs and ends up with a list of files it needs to run through jobs. The question is: what job runs on what file first? That is what the queue priority boost is for. If all of the priority boosts were set to 0 then the jobs and files would run in a completely random order.
If Job A has a "This Job" priority boost of 2 and Job B has a "This Job" priority boost of 1 and Job C has a "This Job" priority boost of 0 then all the Job A files will run first, followed by Job B, followed by Job C.
"Older targets" lets you run files by age. Putting 1 in older targets will process the oldest file first. Putting a -1 will process the newer files first. The same thing with alphabetical.

All these settings work together. For example: you have two jobs. Job A has a "This Job" boost of 1 and an "Older Files" boost of 1. Job B has a "This Job" boost of 0 and an "Older Files" boost of 1. The oldest file in Job A's queue would run and then the oldest file in Job B's queue, followed by the oldest file in Job A's queue, etc.

Did that make sense?

Originally Posted by ToonGal

- When/resources required: 100 sounds as good as any. What does it mean? 100 potential processes running simultaneously? 100 files processed at a batch max? Other?

This setting works together with the global available setting "Available Resources". The numbers are completely arbitrary. It could be 3 or 1000. The important part is the relation to the global setting. Imagine a counter that starts at the global number. Default is 100. Every job that runs subtracts from that global number. If a new job that would take the global number below 0 then that job has to wait until a currently running job finishes and the global number increases.

Originally Posted by ToonGal

- When/wait: target file finished/idle. I thought these would mean the file had to complete recording before it started processing. It didn't seem to work for me, so I set blackout times that ensured completion before processing.

You thought correctly. However it seems to be unreliable. I am investigating alternative methods.

Originally Posted by ToonGal

-- GLOBAL SETTINGS:

- Total resources: Same as above, as I assume resources same in Job page.

See above.

Originally Posted by ToonGal

- Polling time: The duration in seconds between iterations of DirMon2 processing?

Correct

Originally Posted by ToonGal

- Service: It's working fine for me, but not sure of the difference between Start/Stop and Install/Uninstall. If it is installed as a service, it can be temporarily stopped?

Services don't have to run all the time. Install/Uninstall are used when you change a service related setting, such as the username or password. Start/Stop are used when you change any other setting. DirMon only reads the settings file when it is started.

Originally Posted by ToonGal

-- CURRENT STATUS:

- Refresh: Refresh what, exactly?

Refresh the active jobs and queued list. (i.e. read the queues from disk.)

Originally Posted by ToonGal

- Might be nice to have an optional countdown timer if polling means what I think it does (i.e. 600 -> 0, for each iteration of processing).

While a good idea, this isn't really practical since the GUI isn't actually doing any work so it doesn't have access to that information.

I'm sorry I didn't see your previous questions. I'm currently in an SA coding phase so DirMon doesn't get a lot of attention.

Thanks for the kind words, too!

Jere