Thread: some more ideas/issues

Hi,

Thanks for your comments, they will be taken into account for the next release.

For specific items I'm sure the author of the different parts will provide some feedback.

I'll try to answer the ones I know.

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Other
- I know there is a BatterySupport Settings plugin that I am using. It might be nice to make a little graphic or percentage or something that indicates the battery level. It could be displayed left of the clock or somewhere else not used yet. Maybe make it an option in the actual plugin. This suggestion is here because as I am led to believe this plugin was made by the OM team?

Yes this plugin was created by the OM team. As of now it shows icons in the icon area (top right in the default skin) when a powerevent is detected (running on battery, low battery etc). When running on supply no icon whould be shown, but running on battery should show the battery icon.

Originally Posted by detlion1643

- I'm an avid vb.net hobbiest. I was coding my own front end (well, really just audio/video player), but realized I might be able to help with some plugins. I figured I wouldn't be able to figure out half the car stuff that has been discovered/developed so far... Anyways, I downloaded the vb.net example from the OM wiki site and started playing around some.

Good to hear that more people are playing around.

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Is it possible to get access to the sql tables that OM creates (to pull artist/album/other tag info that indexes)?

This is already available (not direct access but via framework methods), if you look at the code for the media browser in the default skin you'll see how to get access to this. The latest code for this plugin can be found here:
http://openmobile.svn.sourceforge.ne...Plugins/Media/
Basically what you're looking for is this:

Code:

theHost.getData(eGetData.GetMediaDatabase, dbname, out o);
IMediaDatabase db = (IMediaDatabase)o;
db.beginGetSongsByArtist(artist, true,eMediaField.Title);

Originally Posted by detlion1643

If I place my *.dll inside the OM\Plugins\*\*.dll how would I get OM to load the actual plugin so I can place a button on the main menu to show the plugin I'm developing?

Your plugin has to be created along the guidelines that you can find in the wiki (http://openmobile.sourceforge.net/wi....php/Main_Page).

It has to reference openmobile.framwork and be declared with the IHighLevel interface. Again if you look at the code in the link above it should show you this.

To make it a button on the main menu you have to have the plugin dll created in accordance with the guidelines and your dll to be located in either the plugins folder or any of the skins folders (if you'r making a skin specific plugin). Then when you long press any of the main menu buttons you should see your pluginname be listed in the list. If not its either not created correctly or it crashed while loading (which will unload it, if so it will be logged in the debug file).

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Videos
- The volume bar should drop down in front of the video, it appears behind it.

A limitation of modern multimedia frameworks but we have a workaround in 0.9

Originally Posted by detlion1643

- When using 2 monitors (testing on laptop with external) and only 1 zone set up, when playing a video, only one of the monitors displays the video. Is this is a limitation of hardware/software based on OS's and video displays?

Its a limitation of current hardware...graphics cards don't share buffers between screens which means you can't render to two screens at once. I'll add it to the known issues list though.

Originally Posted by detlion1643

- The timer for movies don't display correctly. Some do, some don't. I had some full length .avi files display as less than a minute. Length is correctly displayed by winamp/wmp/vlc/file properties.

Fixed in 0.9

Originally Posted by detlion1643

SQL
- When making changes to music folders/files/tags/anything, starting a new index should delete the previous table that holds that info (at least IMO). I have multiple artists/albums/songs/etc still listed media when the file location/artist/album/etc have been changed. Thus, the old listings I still see but they do nothing...

Borte covered this

Originally Posted by detlion1643

General
- The media bar that tracks lengths for music/movies/etc should be clickable as well as draggable. The media should jump to that location that has been clicked (same as dragging, but use click location instead of drag location).

Changed in 0.9

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Plugins
- I have 1 plugin that is listed twice in the plugin settings. OMMediaDBSettings. If I change anything in 1 of them, the other is changed as well...
- On my first monitor I am not able to change the crossfade settings for seconds in OMPlayer Settings, but I can change them on the second monitor (remember all same zone).

Fixed in 0.9

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Other
- I know there is a BatterySupport Settings plugin that I am using. It might be nice to make a little graphic or percentage or something that indicates the battery level. It could be displayed left of the clock or somewhere else not used yet. Maybe make it an option in the actual plugin. This suggestion is here because as I am led to believe this plugin was made by the OM team?
- I'm an avid vb.net hobbiest. I was coding my own front end (well, really just audio/video player), but realized I might be able to help with some plugins. I figured I wouldn't be able to figure out half the car stuff that has been discovered/developed so far... Anyways, I downloaded the vb.net example from the OM wiki site and started playing around some. Is it possible to get access to the sql tables that OM creates (to pull artist/album/other tag info that indexes)? If I place my *.dll inside the OM\Plugins\*\*.dll how would I get OM to load the actual plugin so I can place a button on the main menu to show the plugin I'm developing? I couldn't find these answers on the OM plugin docs, so if there, let me know an forgive my asking?

Borte covered this too


Thanks again for the feedback

Thanks for the replies. I know how important feedback is when developing, so happy to contribute that way.

Gestures
- When using the gesture "M" for media on the home screen, it opens 2 panels at the same time (looks like normal music panel and something else behind it).

Still trying to get a test plugin to show a button. I read, re-read, and re-read the guidelines again and following your advice tried all these setups and none showed a button (I cut the plugin down to nothing, just a blank panel with only the 4 openmoible imports)...
1. Class name TESTOMPLUGIN
2. .dll name TESTOMPLUGIN
3. Placed the .dll into the skin folder - nothing
4. Placed the .dll into the plugins folder - nothing
5. Placed the .dll into the plugins folder in seperate TESTOMPLUGIN folder (plugins\OMTESTOMPLUGIN\TESTOMPLUGIN.dll - nothing
6. Placed the openmobile framework .dll's into all places with TESTOMPLUGIN.dll - nothing

I tried figuring out how the skins\*.dll and plugins\*.dll correspond to each other with the plugins that came with OM and couldn't figure out a connection. Some are named differently, some the same, some have buttons, some don't...

Anyways, off to re-re-re-read the guidelines to see if anything pops out at me...

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Gestures
- When using the gesture "M" for media on the home screen, it opens 2 panels at the same time (looks like normal music panel and something else behind it).

Unable to reproduce this behavior on my setup.
Could you post your debug so that I can see what's being loaded?

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Still trying to get a test plugin to show a button. I read, re-read, and re-read the guidelines again and following your advice tried all these setups and none showed a button (I cut the plugin down to nothing, just a blank panel with only the 4 openmoible imports)...
1. Class name TESTOMPLUGIN
2. .dll name TESTOMPLUGIN
3. Placed the .dll into the skin folder - nothing
4. Placed the .dll into the plugins folder - nothing
5. Placed the .dll into the plugins folder in seperate TESTOMPLUGIN folder (plugins\OMTESTOMPLUGIN\TESTOMPLUGIN.dll - nothing
6. Placed the openmobile framework .dll's into all places with TESTOMPLUGIN.dll - nothing

You have to do more than that, the plugin has to be designed correctly internally.
I'll see if I can create a better sample plugin for you that you can play with. This will be in C# though, hope that's ok for you.

Originally Posted by detlion1643

I tried figuring out how the skins\*.dll and plugins\*.dll correspond to each other with the plugins that came with OM and couldn't figure out a connection. Some are named differently, some the same, some have buttons, some don't...

There is'nt any connection between the dll's located in the different folders.

Dll's located in the plugin's folder are usually dataproviders or other type of interface dll's that does not have any graphical interface other than maybe some settings.

Dll's located in the skin folder is the part that you actually see on the screen presenting the data from the data providers or some other sources.

But your plugin should come up on the list over available plugins regardless of which folder it's placed in if it's correctly designed.


The sample that I mentioned will be a skin type dll.


What kind of plugin are you trying to create?

Not sure where the debug is located at, but figured out what it loads... I set one button for Media (main menu displays as music) and another button as newMedia (main menu displays as music as well). They load different music panels, but when using the "M" gesture it loads both. This might help...



A C# example would do well for a sample. Not quite sure what I want to do yet for a plugin, but for now maybe just show the panel and a couple controls (button, listbox, etc). If I can at least get that showing in OM I will be good. Thanks!

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Not sure where the debug is located at, but figured out what it loads...

Debug is located under \users\your username\AppData\Roaming\openMobile\debug.txt

Originally Posted by detlion1643

I set one button for Media (main menu displays as music) and another button as newMedia (main menu displays as music as well). They load different music panels, but when using the "M" gesture it loads both. This might help...

You have two media plugins loaded at the same time.
You have Media.dll (version 1 media player) and you have NewMedia.dll (new advanced media player).
Remove the Media.dll file from whichever plugin folder it's located in. This should fix your problem.

Originally Posted by detlion1643

A C# example would do well for a sample. Not quite sure what I want to do yet for a plugin, but for now maybe just show the panel and a couple controls (button, listbox, etc). If I can at least get that showing in OM I will be good. Thanks!

The sample plugin displays a few buttons and labels as well shows how to expose a setting through the framework.
This sample plugin can be found here: http://openmobile.svn.sourceforge.ne...MPluginSample/
This sample plugin should compile if you download the full project. If you place the dll file in the skin folder it should be available in the list for the main menu buttons.

No need for a debug....you installed two music skins and they both respond to the M gesture. This is fixed in 0.9 (only the first skin will load) but in the future only install 1 music skin.

Here is what I found out...

The media skin stuff worked. Removing one of them from the skins folder resolves both loading (I never thought there were 2 different music skins for the default, sorry!).

I took the sample plugin (the .cs code), couldn't download the actual full project. Created a new C# class library and copied the code into add, added the references, and commented out a couple .font, .alignment properties for the buttons/labels since they errored (don't think .font/.alignment would cause issues). Compiled the release build for the .dll, copied it into the skins folder and no button appeared...

I also would like to note that there are 4 files in the openmobile folder under my roaming profile, but no debug.txt with the program closed or running. The 4 I have are follows:
OMData, OMMessages, OMMedia2, and OMSecure. There is a OMSecure-journal when running.

Not really sure what is going on, but if you need some more info let me know. Not trying to be a pest getting a button to show, but would like to contribute

Originally Posted by detlion1643

Here is what I found out...

The media skin stuff worked. Removing one of them from the skins folder resolves both loading (I never thought there were 2 different music skins for the default, sorry!).

I took the sample plugin (the .cs code), couldn't download the actual full project. Created a new C# class library and copied the code into add, added the references, and commented out a couple .font, .alignment properties for the buttons/labels since they errored (don't think .font/.alignment would cause issues). Compiled the release build for the .dll, copied it into the skins folder and no button appeared...

I also would like to note that there are 4 files in the openmobile folder under my roaming profile, but no debug.txt with the program closed or running. The 4 I have are follows:
OMData, OMMessages, OMMedia2, and OMSecure. There is a OMSecure-journal when running.

Not really sure what is going on, but if you need some more info let me know. Not trying to be a pest getting a button to show, but would like to contribute

That code definitely works-i made sure it was tested twice since it should be an example for everyone. If the code doesn't compile theres a problem-nothing should be commented out. My best guess at this point is that your linking to the wrong thing...what version of the framework are you compiling against (the actual OpenMobile.Framework.dll)?