AMP v1.0 Worklog

**aychamo** · 06-16-2006, 11:56 PM

I'm thinking about releasing the source, so that people can build off of it and we can start getting some interesting front ends out there for the Mac. The only problem is the source is a pitiful mess (lol), and goes against everything that Cocoa programming should be (it's really horrendous). I'd be embarassed for you all to see it!

Any luck with it working for radioSHARK? I was feeling really bad this afternoon when I pounded it out and had some weird issues with it. I'll go over it again soon and try to weed out some problems and make it look nice. I'm just curious if it works though!

**aychamo** · 06-17-2006, 12:58 AM

Here's what I got rolling now for radioSHARK:

I'm in PMs with a guy trying to sortout the radioSHARK functionality, since I don't have an actual unit its a bit hard to debug it! lol, I'm ordering one soon though.

Some things about this UI. The up/down arrows are to scan up & down the frequences (seek, etc). If you click on AM it switches to AM, click to FM it switches to FM. And the six pre-set are obviously clickable, and will be editable too.

It's interesting sometimes developing for a touch screen application because you have limited space, but also need things to be obviously clickable. The area around buttons wastes a lot of space, and sometimes would just look even more like ****.

So, to note, I am horrible at photoshop.. If anyone has suggestions/improvements, please share!

Hmm, I guess that's about it!

**aychamo** · 06-17-2006, 02:42 PM

This morning I added the capability of playing back VIDEO_TS folders, and also to play protected video files purchased from Apple's iTMS.

I'll upload this version later today, along with some other changes I want to make. I'm also cleaning up the source code so that I can release it at a later date.

For playing VIDEO_TS folders, just put the folder with your VIDEO_TS folder in the top level of ~/Movies. So if you have like "Wedding Crashers DVD" ripped to your harddrive, put it as:

~/Movies/Wedding Crashers DVD/VIDEO_TS

AMP will import it, and in the movie listings you will see "Wedding Crashers DVD". Just select that one to play, and the DVD will start up and play. Very simple.

With regards to Apple's protected video files (from iTMS): Apple has for some reason only allowed their own software (iTunes & QuickTime) to play back protected video files. Even though developers use the QuickTime frameworks, they can not access the protected video files. The only solution to this is quite inelegant. You have to make the movie play in QuickTime player. So that requires the loading of an external program (QuickTime). However, it works well and is more or less seamless. When a movie is playing in QuickTime player, if you want to exit the movie just click on the screen and drag the position slider to the end and it will exit out automatically. Not a bad implementation.

If anyone notices any bugs, please try your best to document exactly what the sequence of events was that lead up the bugs. Especially in the radioSHARK module, as I can't even test that. It's suprisingly difficult to implement something like that when you have no means by which to test it!

Ok, I have to study today guys. I have something nice i want to implement tonight, I hope I can get it in.

**eblend** · 06-18-2006, 11:43 AM

wow you work fast. I tested the radioshark part of the program and it works awesome!

Thanks

**Sharkbite86** · 06-18-2006, 11:58 AM

I can't play downloaded iTMS videos from the itunes section... Do i need to somehow import them to the movies section for them to work?

EDIT: you shoud add some kind of quit button so you can get out of the program and ito the finder if needed... just a thought.

**aychamo** · 06-18-2006, 02:49 PM

Hey there!

I haven't uploaded the version that plays iTMS videos yet. If it's in your iTunes database, it will appear under Music. Only things from ~/Movies will appear under movies.

lol, you're totally correct about the quit button. I don't know where I could put it though. I hate to mess-up the nice looking front screen. .. I could just make it an inivisble button. Maybe kinda lame, I don't know.

I'm glad to hear the RadioShark implementation is working properly. I'm talking here with someone getting some ideas to make it full featured (banks of favorites [like in a car, you have FM1 FM2, AM1, etc), seek/scan, and some other things).

I also just knocked out the majority of the work for really nice looking iPhoto style slideshows.

The only problem is I have a large neuroscience exam tomorrow so I have to study for that today. After the exam I'll get everything in that I have just about ready to go, which should include:

- The version that can play VIDEO_TS folders & iTMS protected videos
- iPhoto style slideshows when you look at the photo albums
- More features with radioSHARK (I really need to get a unit so I can play with it more, it's hard to do this without one)
- Visualizations for music

That version should be up tomorrow night

The main "problems" I'm having now is design issues. I want features, but I also want an uncluttered, clean UI. So obviously we need a quit button, but where should I put it? I really am tempted to put a transparent button in the top-right corner of the screen to quit the app. And maybe a more featured set of quit options in the config menu. (quit, shutdown, sleep, etc)

And like I want to do music visualizations, but I hate to add another button to the music screen. I guess one more wouldn't hurt, or something maybe more cleverly done.

I'm open to all ideas, guys

**Sharkbite86** · 06-18-2006, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by aychamo

Hey there!

I haven't uploaded the version that plays iTMS videos yet.

Sorry my bad i thought it was already uploaded

lol, you're totally correct about the quit button. I don't know where I could put it though. I hate to mess-up the nice looking front screen. .. I could just make it an inivisble button. Maybe kinda lame, I don't know.

why not put it where the shutdown button is now under the dashboard menu thing. When you click on it, it will ask what you want to do, shutdown the comp, restart, sleep, or quit.

I'm glad to hear the RadioShark implementation is working properly. I'm talking here with someone getting some ideas to make it full featured (banks of favorites [like in a car, you have FM1 FM2, AM1, etc), seek/scan, and some other things).

I really like the interface you have for the radio thing, I love how it shows you what station presets you have (shows the channel).

The only problem is I have a large neuroscience exam tomorrow so I have to study for that today. After the exam I'll get everything in that I have just about ready to go,

Good luck!

I finished all my finals about 3 weeks ago :P

And like I want to do music visualizations, but I hate to add another button to the music screen. I guess one more wouldn't hurt, or something maybe more cleverly done.

oooOOoooo I like the sound of that

you could put an image of the effect next to the volume button on the bottome of the window like the button i put on my itunes controler i did a while back: http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spa...595&topicPage=

**LightningMac** · 06-18-2006, 06:22 PM

awesome job, been playing with it on my home computer though the program has a nasty habit of crashing when I try to play a music file from the menu, it plays 2 seconds of the song and crashes. I agree with putting the shut down command in the sub menu as well. will you be making this a universal binary program as well?

thanks!

**aychamo** · 06-18-2006, 08:32 PM

Hey there!

It should already be a universal binary!

It crashes on you?? Try re-importing your music database with the newest version (from page 1). I've never had it crash on me, except for one weird CD I had, the entire collection of .mp3s would crash it. And I couldn't figure out why (so I deleted the music -- in retrospect I should have kept the music so I could figure out why). It uses a standard quicktime interface to play the audio.

I took a quick break from studying tonight and did the iPhoto style slideshows, and they work fine. So that'll be in for sure in the version I hope to finish tomorrow (along with the stuff I said up above)

Maybe you can email me the mp3 that crashes it and I can look at it and figure out what's going on? Is it all of your music or just a particular Artist/Album/Song?

**Sharkbite86** · 06-18-2006, 09:17 PM

Yeah it crashes on me i have noticed. It crashed on my when i played a song but then hit back while it was still playing... it will not do this every time (so far i can tell) but in general it is a tad unstable... perhaps it is due to the messiness of the code like you admitted (honestly i have no clue but im just throwing out stuff)?

Edit: i have reimported from the new version and it still chashed on me (even deleted the pref file, and the data file for AMP)