Sharpcap and Heliomaker

[CarlGreen]

Hello Everyone

Please can someone help.......
I am trying to run 2 different "Set Ups" (Instances?) of Sharpcap with a single Heliomaker desktop icon.

I have set up 2 Sharpcap shortcuts on my desktop, one named Lunt and another named Celestron.
The Lunt set up uses a completely different Mount and Telescope to the Celestron one.
I have set up hardware profiles/instances for each and when I click on the desktop Icon of either set up, it opens and has the correct settings......
I then close Sharpcap and open Heliomaker.
I click on the Heliomaker (Connect To Sharpcap) button, and it connects to Sharpcap (The Default (Lunt) set up))

I then go to the "Other Settings Profiles" and click Launch Celestron.......which then opens Sharpcap in another (Window) but Heliomaker is not connected to it (I have confirmed this by looking at the Show Console option under scripting and in the (Lunt - Sharpcap) It has the script showing that the Heliomaker Loader is running, But the Celestron Sharpcap does not.

What I am trying to do is Click on One Heliomaker Icon and an option come up that asks me which profile I want to use in Sharpcap, I can then select which one I want and Voila! Off and running on either Solar or Lunar.
(I don't mind even having 2 different Heliomaker Icons and clicking whichever one I want (But I have tried to copy the shortcut of Heliomaker and point it to different Sharpcap Profile/Instance, but am not technical enough to do this (I am a novice when it comes to computers and have only got this far by trial and error (and a lot of Vodka!) and even when I have managed to get my Duplicate shortcut to open Heliomaker, I am back to square one when I connect to Sharpcap!)

Anyone have any ideas how I can achieve what I am trying to do? or is it just not possible?
Have I just got to set up different Settings each time I use the Lunt or Celestron set up?

Thanks in advance.

Carl

[admin]

Hi Carl,

best to bring this request to the attention of Leo at Heliomaker - it sounds to me as though the Heliomaker software will require some changes to support this sort of scenario. Since using alternative SharpCap configurations is a bit of a niche feature, it's possible that Leo isn't even aware of the possibility of needing to deal with that.

cheers,

Robin

[CarlGreen]

Hi Carl,

best to bring this request to the attention of Leo at Heliomaker - it sounds to me as though the Heliomaker software will require some changes to support this sort of scenario. Since using alternative SharpCap configurations is a bit of a niche feature, it's possible that Leo isn't even aware of the possibility of needing to deal with that.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Robin

I have sent Leo an email

Carl

[CarlGreen]

I have received this from Leo.......
************************************************
Hi Carl,
Heliomaker needs to open Sharpcap Instance by itself so that it can communicate with Sharpcap for its normal operation. It is possible to enable what you are trying to achieve by adding optional command line arguments in the Sharpcap setup which can be opened inside Heliomaker (the gears button next to Sharpcap icon). You will need to find nore details in Sharpcap online help describing its command line arguments.
Hope this helps.
Leo
********************************************************
I am sure this will mean something to you computer wizards out there.....but to me it might as well be written in Double Dutch!

Can anyone explain in layman's terms what this means and how I would set this up (An Idiots Guide!!!)

Thanks

[CarlGreen]

I have received this from Leo.......
************************************************
Hi Carl,
Heliomaker needs to open Sharpcap Instance by itself so that it can communicate with Sharpcap for its normal operation. It is possible to enable what you are trying to achieve by adding optional command line arguments in the Sharpcap setup which can be opened inside Heliomaker (the gears button next to Sharpcap icon). You will need to find nore details in Sharpcap online help describing its command line arguments.
Hope this helps.
Leo

Hi Carl,

Here is my suggestion. Open Sharpcap settings in HelioMaker and edit optional command line arguments line by adding something like "/instance 1" or "/instance 2", depending on where exactly your specific profile is stored in Sharpcap. You may need to experiment with that or ask for additional help from Robin.

Regards,
Leo

********************************************************
I am sure this will mean something to you computer wizards out there.....but to me it might as well be written in Double Dutch!

Can anyone explain in layman's terms what this means and how I would set this up (An Idiots Guide!!!)

Thanks

[archer1960]

I've never used HelioMaker (never even heard of it before, in fact!), but what he's saying is that there is some place in HelioMaker where you tell it how to start SharpCap, and in there is a box where you give additional parameters to SharpCap. That is where you would put in your "/instance 1", etc. Then set up SharpCap with different profiles for different hardware configurations. I'm sure it will take some playing with to get them all set up, but it should work.

[CarlGreen]

I've never used HelioMaker (never even heard of it before, in fact!), but what he's saying is that there is some place in HelioMaker where you tell it how to start SharpCap, and in there is a box where you give additional parameters to SharpCap. That is where you would put in your "/instance 1", etc. Then set up SharpCap with different profiles for different hardware configurations. I'm sure it will take some playing with to get them all set up, but it should work.

Thanks
This is what I have done so far......
I set up 2 different Instances in Sharpcap, Instance 1 for a Lunt set up and Instance 2 for a Celestron set up.
I then go into Heliomaker and put Instance 2 into the appropriate command box
Then when I connect to Sharpcap from Within Heliomaker, it always opens Instance 1 ???
I then open Instance 2 from within Sharpcap, which opens the program again (So now I have 2 sets of Sharpcap running on top of each other) BUT Heliomaker is only connected to Instance 1 (The Default Instance)
I think I am asking too much, I don't think this is something either software is set up to do.
Thanks anyway

[admin]

Hi,

so, you have set up two separate sets of configuration for SharpCap and have separate desktop icons for them so you can run the one you want. The way that works behind the scenes is that at least one of those icons will be sending an extra command line option when it starts SharpCap to tell SharpCap to use a specific alternative configuration. Probably the original SharpCap link on the desktop doesn't have this as it is 'default'.

If you right click on each of the SharpCap icons on the desktop, choose 'Properties', then go to the 'Shortcut' tab and check what is in the target box, you will see something like

Code: Select all

"C:\Documents\Source Code\SharpCap\x64\Release\SharpCap.App.exe" /instance 2

this will be in the secondary shortcut anyway. That '/instance 2' at the end is what tells SharpCap to use the second configuration. That's what you need to find out and copy into the new box that Leo is adding in HelioMaker - that way it should launch SharpCap using the same extra options, which should get you the right version of SharpCap.

Hope this helps,

Robin

[CarlGreen]

Thanks Robin, that kinda works, not exactly what I was after but close enough.
Thanks again