NA3 officially under development

Ok just thought i would drop you guys a line and let you know that I have started working on version 3 of NAS. I am essentially starting from the ground up to rework the entire app to (hopefully) be more user friendly and more performant. I am using an updated set of tools to create this version, and these tools may lend to a more customizable app in the long run ( I say "may" because i haven't been able to fully test out the new feature set, but it looks promising). NA3 is still going to be flash/air based so that means it should retain its cross-platform perks.

ok enough babbling here are some screenshots of the comps that i have created for the new UI

so i mentioned in the first post the possibility of customization. From what I have seen so far, a "skin" can be made fairly easy and then added to the file externally through modules. I am going to try this out and if everything works like i think it should, you guys would be able to essentially draw up any skin style that you would like and submit it and have it as a option that could be chosen from within NA3. This could be pretty cool, because then i could focus more on the actual functionality of the app and let you guys come with awesome "look&feel" modules to be added in to completely customize NA3 to your liking. Hopefully this all works like i think it should and then this can become a reality.

Alright, I thought i would get on here and drop you guys an update on how the new project is going. I am pleased to say that production on this version of NAS is going very well, and very fast. The new architecture of the codebase is going to allow for much broader customization by the individual user. Also thanks to Adobe, i am going to be able to do much more with this version of NAS as far as hardware monitoring is concerned (unfortunately still no direct access to data streams from an actual hardware device such as a gps, so still no integrated gps sorry).

PLAYLIST SUPPORT
NAS now supports playlists! I know it should have been included in the first version, but the first version of the codebase was not setup well enough to allow for the flexibility that is required for playlists to work properly. At this point NAS only imports itunes exported playlists. If anybody wants the ability to import from another application, please just send me a sample playlist in xml format so that i can incorporate that style in. Outside of importing xml playlists, you can create/edit/delete playlist from within NAS.

AUTO UPDATES
Because of the new updates to Adobe Air, i have been able to update NAS to actually watch any folder that you pick so that if any file is added, NAS recognizes that and can automatically start adding those new files to your library. If you add playlist.xml files it will automatically add those as well. This is great for things like using dropbox to get new music to your carputer. For me this works really well, i tell it to watch a special folder inside of my dropbox folder, then i put my new music in that folder and plug my iphone into my carputer (to get access to the internet), NAS sees the new music (or playlist) copies that to your music folder and bam new music is done.

SKINS?
So the new architecture should be perfectly capable of handling user designed skins, but i just haven't had the time to fully implement that functionality. I have a couple of bonifide graphic designers working on some new UI comps to (hopefully) help add some customization right out of the box. As of right now the app is looking exactly like the comps above.

Let me know if there are any other features that you think would be awesome to have or that are desperately needed.

Sounds like it is going well! I like the new UI better and you'll always get more interest if you can customize the skin.

Is there any way to make it read something like gpsd? You don't have to read the string directly. You can call gpsd and it outputs stuff for you. Even if that doesn't work, you could maybe figure a way that NAS can read *something* and someone could write a script that transforms the info into something it can read.

you are right. One of the big intial motivations for writing my own FE was so that i could get the UI exactly as i want. But i would like to have everybody customize the crap out of the UI to fit their individual styles.

as far as reading gpsd files or something like that, there are solutions that could be done. I did some research this weekend and found a code library that has actually been mentioned here somewhere before, but seems to have matured a lot since then. The project is called merapi and you can check it out here. This essentially lets you write a java app to read the data from any physical piece of hardware and then pass it along to any adobe air application. So theoretically, integrated could be possible, but to be quite honest it kinda scares the crap out of me. Here is why:
1. The work load to get a fully functioning gps application is monstrous. If you think about it these types of app have full companies dedicated to them with several teams attacking it at different angles, and still it takes possibly years to turn out a usable product.
2. Open source gps apps (roadnav in particular) are just not quite up to par. I downloaded roadnav again this weekend, to try and see if has progressed. It was still just too difficult to use to make me feel comfortable integrating it into NAS. and even if it was up to par, integrating would still be a huge undertaking.
3. App bloat. I don't want NAS to get to bloated, trying to do everything. There is a principle that if you try to do everything, you end up doing nothing well. My point is that I really want NAS to excel at playing music and be the best music player it can be. I am not saying that i have written of gps altogether, there may be a much better option out there:
4. Google Navigator. If/when google releases google navigator to other systems other than android, it could provide a perfect solution for NAS. If they were to release an API for navigator, (and if it were anything like the api for google maps) then it would be relatively simple to integrate that into NAS. The only downside to this is needing an internet connection, but that seems to be less and less of an issue as time goes on. The google maps api let you easily integrate maps into flash anyway, so if navigator was just an add on to maps (which to me seems like a logical progression) then this could be a very simple, killer, way to get gps into NAS.

anyway, those are my ideas/fears. Please feel free to comment or give suggestions.

Oh, and part of the reason for this rewrite of NAS was so that i could get the codebase in order so that i can go completely open source and hopefully end the one man team hurdle.

Yeah, I wasn't thinking you would want to write a GPS app. That would be too difficult. I just thought you might want to use the GPS info for stuff like a speedometer, an altimeter, maybe a couple of eye-candy graphs of speed or distance or altitude.

One way to get quick GPS is to write the info out to a Google Earth kml file and put some of the parameter controls in NAS Air, then switch to it like you already do with the other GPS apps.