Thread: Another (new) car front-end

@colin:

Ofcourse I couldn't resist to have a look.
Your work looks quite awesome. Impressive amount of features included.

You're still worried about the soundsystem?
May I suggest you have a look at BASS? Opensource project and
the API is easy to master. (although I'm still questioning myself if I
shouldn't use Winamp2, which is also lightweight and full featured)

Im paranoid about "clutter."

Ive finally implemented a decent sound system with VLC because it plays pretty much every format I can think of and it has some decent features. It also plays my videos and that made all the difference, one program to do it all without codecs (clutter).

I appreciate the compliments Im going to check out BASS right now actually, thanks.

It's very pretty, but IMO there are too many buttons on each screen. A while back I posted my thoughts on UI design for CarPC, in a nutshell I just want to be able to find all of the UI elements at a glance:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/1212301-post15.html

Not that I expect you to take my thoughts as gospel, but since you asked for feedback...

Ofcourse.. All suggestions are welcome.

The screenshots don't really tell something about the app.
I just had a look at centrafuse, and just let me inspire by
its interface.

BUT.. By no means this will be the final user interface. I just
had to use something to discover what kind of UI-elements I
need. It is fully skinnable, it's already being developed for that
purpose. So... Don't worry, you can have the interface the way
you want

I'm sure you have seen Road Runner, which is probably my favorite of them all... But its got a very good config/UI for setting the program up. My only compliant is that there are some things that you have to make work-arounds for. Some of the external nav programs will not always skin properly, and if they do, you lack some of the abilities of RR. But that could just be a skinning issue rather than an RR issue as well.
But will the interface be simplistic like RR, will it be easier, will it possibly auto detect some of the presets that you may have? I'll give you an example. Lets say you want to use VLC for your movies and music rather than WMP or winamp, and you want to use iguidance for your nav. You have these applications already installed... Will it be intelligent enough to detect that you have those and suggest/ask if you want them to integrate with the FE?
Reason I ask is for a matter of one click install that will run straight away with 0 configuration. Just makes it simple for lazy/noobs...
Oh, one last thing... Might not be possible... But maybe have an option in the config to make the FE as your shell? Just like a selectable option that will make it the shell and when you unselect it, explorer becomes the shell again. Just an idea

Originally Posted by executor485

Oh, one last thing... Might not be possible... But maybe have an option in the config to make the FE as your shell? Just like a selectable option that will make it the shell and when you unselect it, explorer becomes the shell again. Just an idea

yeah Centrafuse has this feature and I believe its an easy thing to add so it shouldnt be a problem. We are amassing a list of features to fiddle around with and I read through that thread you suggested in and added some of your ideas.

Hardest part is making everyone happy.
We appreciate your feedback mate.

I dont know about your idea about the auto-integrating preinstalled programs that you already have. Mainly because you would have to cover the entire spectrum and program them individually into the program.. and that's just too many programs. Hopefully though a good interface would entice you enough to uninstall WMP and winamp and only use it by itself.

We wanted to give you guys an little update on how progress is going so far. First, here are a few concept images. The home interface will be similar to that of iDrive's, but that's about it.

Home Screen


Entertainment Main Menu


Communications Main Menu


Alternate Colors. More will be available upon release.



We plan to implement all of the features available from other carpc media centers out there as well, but also include features not really seen yet, some of which are smooth animation, moving backgrounds, transparencies and ability to handle gigantic file libraries without skipping a beat. If you are really interested we are massing a wiki as we progress that will have all of the latest information available as we develop more.

http://carma.no-tec.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Oh yeah, the working name of the project is CarMa [like Karma...]

We hope you guys will enjoy it!

Glad to see another front end come about. My biggest gripe about the front ends available right now is that they're so full of clutter it's almost dangerous to operate in traffic. They also look bland and amatuerishly made. So far CaveLive is the best looking, fastest, and most stable FE I've used so far but being in Germany they don't have satnav, satradio, or hdradio controlls built in. I'd suggest taking a look at what they've done from an aesthetics/usability standpoint with their Live skin as they've hit the nail on the head IMO. A visual EQ like they have running on the main page would be nice too.

That looks great - I really like the idea of having only a few UI elements on each screen.

I completely agree with SuperJ's point about existing FE's being too cluttered.