AMP v1.0 Worklog

**aychamo** · 07-13-2006, 02:45 PM

The display thing about 800x480 vs 800x600 is a difficult thing. If you just stretched the 480vertical lines to 600 vertical lines, it would look distorted (because you maintain the same width).

I still want to see a side-by-side comparison of a Xenarc/Lilliput showing some AMP screens in 800x480 mode, and then showing the same screens in 800x600 mode. I only fear the 800x600 mode because I've seen one screenshot (on MacVroom) that makes it look like the Xenarc distorts the graphics (ie, circles look like ovals) when put into 800x600 mode.

If 800x600 looks fine showing AMP on a 7" Xenarc, then I would have no problem migrating the entire program over to 800x600. I just need to see pictures first. It seems to be pretty difficult to get these pictures :-)

I know AMP looked good on the 800x600 on that 8" display, but that display's native resolution is 800x600. I need to see the 800x600 mode on a native 800x480 LCD.

I agree with iamgnat, that if we are going to support both displays, just try to have a clever looking, innocent tab type thing on the bottom to quickly jump around. It's "rigged", but I think thats not a bad idea.

But.. If AMP looks fine in 800x600 on a native 800x480, then I don't see any reason not to just make AMP straight 800x600 (it leaves a lot more options open, for a lot of things).

Hell, since I have to repurchase my LCD, I'm considering going with a native 800x600 screen. Just waiting on the screenshots requested above

Aychamo

**aychamo** · 07-13-2006, 02:46 PM

Re: iPod. That's actually do able.. Not any time soon, but at least I own an iPod and can test it out and see how that goes. It would essentially be you connect an ipod, and go to a certain screen and you can browse the contents of the ipod (songs) and play them from the ipod.

**iamgnat** · 07-13-2006, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by Sharkbite86

I dont see why there has to be a choice. Maybe have options where the person can choose if he is using 800x600 and that space on top will be filled up with tabs or whatever; or select 800x480 and have it like it is exactly now; or have a 800x480 w/menu bar, then the 480 people could have some kind of tabs bar either on the side or on top for the same functionality as the 800x600...

Sounds like we are actually talking about the same thing in different ways

If there some kind of something that i can use to listen to an ipod when i plug it into the comp? i dont want to copy anything over, it would be the same as using an aux port in your car lol only cooler.

I also want to look into an AUX function to let you use something external to play through the Mac. Too many things I want to play with

The trick to not have it go nuts when you plug up an iPod is to have the iPod set to NOT auto update. Otherwise, yeah it does that. I wish Apple was a bit smarter than that

I have wiped mine by mistake a few times because of that "feature" (when you turn that on, it should be specific to that computer in my mind, not EVERY Mac you plug it into).

There are programs out there that can work with the iPod music. The trick is finding one that is OSS and has cracked the database rather than just parsing the music files. When I find one (haven't looked), it should be easy to borrow their code and make it work. It's that cracking of the DB that is the pain

-dave

**macinsuck** · 07-13-2006, 03:29 PM

Aychamo?

I have the Mp3car MTSVO-SC Fully motorized VGA Touch Screen

I belive the native resolution is 800x480 and it is a 7" screen. But my mac does not run this native display so I use 800x600. I took some screen shots and posted them running this screen, but it did not seem to be what you were looking for.

Are you looking for actual pictures, ie. using a digital camera of the screen runing amp at 800x600?

If so I can do that and post them today. I can not do a comparison, cause as I mentioned before I can not run the dispaly at 800x480.

Please let me know what Pictures you would like to see exactly.

I am pushing for the program to run 800x600 and would like to do what I can to contribute.

Thanks again for your time and hardwork on this great program.

**Endon** · 07-13-2006, 03:35 PM

Just an FYI for everyone, I pulled my mini out of my car today, to run some updates a little more easily. I tunneled into the mini via Apple Remote Desktop, ran my updates, did what I needed to, and also grabbed the newest version of AMP.

I opened AMP up, only to find that, to my dismay, it crashed as soon as I opened it. After tinkering for about 30 minutes, I realized it was merely because I had no display plugged in. AMP started working fine as soon as I plugged one in.

Hope this bit of info helps someone else solve their problem a bit quicker. I imagine it would be the same for anyone running a regular VNC server on their box to work with it headless.

**iamgnat** · 07-13-2006, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by aychamo

Re: iPod. That's actually do able.. Not any time soon, but at least I own an iPod and can test it out and see how that goes. It would essentially be you connect an ipod, and go to a certain screen and you can browse the contents of the ipod (songs) and play them from the ipod.

Now what would be really nifty (and I actually have some of the code already written for one of my stillborn projects) is to look for a specific folder on an iPod/mounted disk when it is attached. Then you could load new Music from files there (I built the exporter that copies files and playlist info from iTunes to the target disk, but not from the disk onto the target machine). It could also be used to update AMP itself (then it would kill the running copy and start the new version) for certain lazy people that are still running old alpha versions

.

Actually my big problem (why I lost steam) with my AutoSync idea was how to effectively update iTunes. The idea was that it would:

1) Import new files onto the target Mac.
2) Update the Playlists.
3) Remove any Music that is not in any of the playlists.

Since you are using CoreData for your Music store, step 1 becomes simply copying the files, and step 2 and 3 are exceedingly simpler too.

I'll try to remember to post the App and code when I get home so others see what I mean.

-dave

**aychamo** · 07-13-2006, 04:12 PM

I'm not really sure I follow what you are talking about. The following may or may not be related. I suppose a couple of things to keep in mind is this.

Yes, it would be easy to have AMP copy files from a destination and add them to the music library. However, this wouldn't add it to the iTunes library, and the next time you imported the iTunes library it'd overwrite the database and you'd lose the ones you had manually imported. I can see a couple of ways around that, but it would never end up in the iTunes library itself.

I suppose that's the sucky thing about data from iTunes Music Library.xml.. (And you can't edit this file and expect any changes to stick, iTunes writes it out whenever you change data).

One possibility: is there any AppleScript code to add files to the iTunes library? If you had iTunes set up to consolidate your music library or whatever, you could have the AppleScript add the files to your iTunes library, and then run the importer..

That's actually probably the most efficienct way to do things.. So the question is: if anyone here knows AppleScript, is there a way to do this? (I hate AppleScript to death!)

**aychamo** · 07-13-2006, 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by macinsuck

Aychamo?

I have the Mp3car MTSVO-SC Fully motorized VGA Touch Screen

Are you looking for actual pictures, ie. using a digital camera of the screen runing amp at 800x600?

Hey there!

Yes, I would love exactly that: Digital camera pictures of AMP running at 800x600 on your screen. (I just looked up your screen, it seems to be native 800x400). I would love to see how AMP looks, and what you think of it. Does it look squished, or anything else, compared to what you see when you run it on your laptop/desktop Mac?

**iamgnat** · 07-13-2006, 04:53 PM

Originally Posted by aychamo

However, this wouldn't add it to the iTunes library, and the next time you imported the iTunes library it'd overwrite the database and you'd lose the ones you had manually imported.

That's the nice part of this solution, you don't have to manage it from iTunes on the Mac running AMP anymore. You simply use this method to get all your Music on there and imported. With a few tweaks it *could* even let you manage the library from multiple iTunes libraies (i.e. home & work).

I suppose that's the sucky thing about data from iTunes Music Library.xml.. (And you can't edit this file and expect any changes to stick, iTunes writes it out whenever you change data).

I'm surprised no one has cracked the binary version of the file yet.

One possibility: is there any AppleScript code to add files to the iTunes library? If you had iTunes set up to consolidate your music library or whatever, you could have the AppleScript add the files to your iTunes library, and then run the importer..

That's actually probably the most efficienct way to do things..

That's where I ran out of steam. There isn't a documented method that I found. You *could* use some tricks to simulate you clicking through the UI, but then iTunes has to be in front and I just think that is tacky.
It's also not the most efficient. If only one file/playlist is updated, you are importing all the data just to find the one bit of info that changed. If you are just importing directly to AMP, then it should be easier to only work with the items that have been updated.

To get around the "crap I just reloaded from iTunes by accident", the files could be left on the disk. That way the next time it is connected, it syncs everything back up again.

The idea is also to try to keep your Mac disk a bit cleaner than iTunes will let you. I have a ton of songs, but I only really listen to two playlists that have ~1000 songs between them. My idea for the syncing is that you would only end up with those files on your disk so there is no wasted space (my Mini is full of just Music because I don't want to walk through my whole Library and manually delete songs I don't care about in the car).

Then when you update the portable disk with the SyncManager, AMP with add/remove files as needed as well as updating it's DB.

-dave