AstraMac Frontend Progress Update

**FailedSenses** · 03-30-2005, 09:50 PM

I think this looks great. Keep up the good work on this bad boy. Like the guy above me said, much respect to you for the know-how!

**TheChiman** · 03-31-2005, 09:17 AM

First off, very nice. I like the slimplistic look to it. I thought I'd mention this since no one has yet; syncing playlists w/ iTunes would be a nice feature. Also searching by genere and album, composer, etc. would also be nice. Oh yes and also the GPS.

**iKenndac** · 03-31-2005, 12:15 PM

Eventually, AstraMac Companion will build the music database live from iTunes, rather from an exported text file (which is what it does now). That's iTunes syncing.

Searching by Artist and Album is already in there... as for Genre and Composer... where would I put the buttons?

Edit: Oh, and as for GPS... doing that would require a GPS program that doesn't suck. At the moment, that doesn't exist for the Mac, and would require programming one. Which takes time.

**TheChiman** · 03-31-2005, 12:50 PM

Well, it looks like you could fit in one more button so personally I would put in genre instead of composer, as I don't have that extensive of a classical music collection.

As for the GPS, is Route 66 that bad? I've heard it's decent. I mean I'd love to have a system which takes voice commands, tells you ahead of time of impending turns, automatically re-routes you when you miss a turn and whatnot (which actually has me considering Pioneer's new AVIC-D1, w/ iPod adapter instead of a Mac Mini install) but is there actually GPS software on the windows platforms which can do these things?

**Bugbyte** · 03-31-2005, 11:03 PM

Originally Posted by TheChiman

..I mean I'd love to have a system which takes voice commands, tells you ahead of time of impending turns, automatically re-routes you when you miss a turn and whatnot (which actually has me considering Pioneer's new AVIC-D1, w/ iPod adapter instead of a Mac Mini install) but is there actually GPS software on the windows platforms which can do these things?

Yes, there is. Several of them do it.

iKenndac - I really like your program. It's clean and a terrific start. Keep it up!

**TheChiman** · 04-01-2005, 08:03 AM

Yes, there is. Several of them do it.

For example?

**Bugbyte** · 04-01-2005, 09:22 AM

Delorme Street Atlas does it. I believe Destinator, IGuidance and Copilot do it.

**thecapitalizt** · 04-01-2005, 09:24 AM

cool... what did u use to code everything?

**iKenndac** · 04-01-2005, 09:39 AM

REALbasic

**C4M** · 04-01-2005, 09:04 PM

Originally Posted by Grimey

I don't see why everyone gets hyped up about this. The buttons on your current HU are probably a lot smaller then these, so in actuality it's safer. Not to mention you could always mod the skin later if you really wanted larger buttons.

Nice progress, looking great.

I agree looks great.

Grimey - the difference is that buttons can be used by touch, as they have a physical shape. That doesn't happen with a touchscreen.

I've been using the same skin for the past 5 months (Brushed metal - Frodoplayer), and I still need to look to adjust the volume and skip a track, and they are the most commonly used buttons.

Big clear buttons, close to the edge of the screen are important for those frequently used functions.

C!