HOWTO: Use TJC editor v0.55 for TJC panels in English

luma · February 1, 2019, 1:34am

TJC panels are available around the world from various eBay sellers, TaoBao reshippers, and occasionally on AliExpress. They are identical to Nextion panels except they cost half as much. This makes for a compelling reason to buy and use them!

Unfortunately, the official TJC editor is all in Chinese, making life difficult for English speaking users. Not to worry! Patching is easy and 100% legal!

Thanks to @hag, we can modify the editor to work in English. We’re not circumventing digital copy protection measures, so case law in several countries protects us here.

Process

Download the official TJC editor. Sadly, this thing fires up a bunch of Windows Defender warnings. I don’t think they’re legit, and neither does VirusTotal, but you’ll have to be the judge here and disable Defender to proceed with the download.
Run the installation
Download the patch and run as Administrator.
Launch the USART HMI editor version 0.55 and develop for your TJC panel in English!

zombu2 · February 1, 2019, 1:36am

Fantastic i give it a shot in a min

Works like a charm

hag · February 1, 2019, 3:59pm

Not to take anything away from @luma, but I also made my own patch tool.

Features:

Automatically locates the hmitype.dll
Checks file hashes do identify compatible version
Checks if the file is already patched
Verifies the patched file
More error handling
Backs up the original file as hmitype.dll.original

Compiled binary:

Source:

luma · February 1, 2019, 4:05pm

As @hag’s version is so much easier to use, the OP has been modified to reflect this new patch.

hag · February 13, 2019, 6:43pm

I updated the patch to work with the latest official download. TJC still calls it version 0.55, but they changed something, I don’t know what.

redcounty · February 20, 2019, 5:51pm

Hello guys, after install i can’t get update in english. When I run a program as administrator it says that “locate hmitype.dll or place in same folder”. Maybe someone knows where problem can occur?

luma · February 20, 2019, 6:03pm

Are you running it in the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\USART HMI? It needs to be run as Administrator in the same folder where hmitype.dll exists.

redcounty · February 20, 2019, 6:08pm

Yes, it’s running like this.

luma · February 20, 2019, 6:59pm

Well… looks like the new version of the TJC editor was released yesterday with a whole lot of code stripped out.

Almost as if they’re watching us…

Hi Patrick!
patrick

keith · February 20, 2019, 7:06pm

I just downloaded the TJC Editor from the link above. I also don’t have any hmitype.dll.

luma · February 21, 2019, 3:29am

As mentioned above, TJC has made some lame-ass attempts to obfuscate the code. It’s already been broken, but there is some work to do on how best to distribute the result in a legal manner, as we can’t just post the new extracted + modified hmitype.dll. Stay tuned…

BGERI95 · March 1, 2019, 9:51pm

So TJC has made some changes in the code and so the new v0.55 is not translatable with the patch. Is there any other way to translate it?

hag · March 4, 2019, 9:41am

Yes, as @luma posted above, but we can’t release anything yet.

edwinvarghesea1 · March 22, 2019, 2:39pm

Hi all,

Wonderful job you guys did here. I have been working on Nextion display project, but the messed up font visualization is a huge issue. While going through possible ways to change the font generator, I came across TJC’s V0.55 . I tried all the patches as you guys have mentioned here, but as all of you know it doesn’t work. It would be really great if you guys can help me with this one. does anyone have old setup files? without it I’m left with the only option to use monospace fonts in my UI at this moment Thank you all in advance

luma · March 22, 2019, 3:09pm

Do you have a TJC panel or a Nextion panel? The TJC editor will only work w/ TJC devices, Nextion w/ Nextion, and there has not been a Nextion 0.55 public release yet, for reasons explained elsewhere on the forums (tl;dr - Nextion is extorting you for their font service).

edwinvarghesea1 · March 22, 2019, 3:17pm

Thank you for your fast response. Yea, I kind of got the idea. It was too late. When I was about buy the display I actually thought TJC was a copy of nextion. should have did some more researches. I wont be buying nextion anymore.

Kirill · March 30, 2019, 4:40pm

Could someone share the version of editor 0.55 with the ability to apply a patch to it?

glhydro · March 30, 2019, 5:16pm

Yes please, I have been looking for this white buffalo for a couple of weeks now, still have had no luck.

amirul · April 8, 2019, 10:10am

Hi, I just mistakenly bought the TJC panel as I though it can be used similarly as the Nextion display.

May I ask, which Arduino library should I used for the TJC panel? I used the Nextion’s library but Arduino couldn’t received value from my panel. Thank you.

muggins · April 9, 2019, 4:04pm

I have posted a request on various Facebook groups that I am in to see if we can locate the old TJC editor just waiting for some responses.