Fading trust in RideRunner

**Sinobi** · 05-14-2010, 02:15 AM

Hi all.
And thank you for all the hard work in this front-end and surroundings.

Been using RoadRunner/RideRunner for four years now and so has a colleague of mine,
and for the most part we have been happy with it.
Along the way, updates has improved functionability of it.
From time to time bugs have been introduced, but have always been fixed over time.
But since the change to RideRunner, some issues have come up that make us wonder what the plan is with RideRunner.

The first was when the labels for GPS speed was changed.
Instead of adding a new label with the km/h or m/h displaying,
the original labels function got changed, and a new label was created with the old fuctionality.
That destroyed some of the flash speedometer/compas swf's as they don't accept the km/h extension.

Now the Radiator option has been removed during the export of radio modules from the core.
This has been decided on the basis of a poll: "What radio do you use?".
As many (including me) use Silabs, this radio gets a high score.
But many Silabs/ADS users don't use the native RideRunner Silabs DLL.
We use dual Silabs/ADS with Pete's DLL, that have extended functionality with a dual tuner setup.
To use his DLL we use the Radiator selection in RR ini.
Sadly it has been removed now....

Is the continued development of RideRunner continuing in this direction?
If yes, we will soon have a system that's been developed to far away from what made us use it in the first place, which is sad.
What are your thoughts?

Kind regards
Henrik (and his colleague)

**guino** · 05-14-2010, 11:12 AM

I understand your situation. In any case:
1-We always TRY to keep compatibility to existing plugins/skins -- this is not always possible as the code needs to be updated to fix issues and/or improve existing functionality so that newer/better plugins can be made. If we don't do this we'll just be stuck with the same features limiting the possibility for new/better features.

2-Radiator Support was not "removed" -- it was just not re-coded in the new plugin structure. This can still be done, in fact, we coded the new radio plugins based on demand, even the Blaumpunkt radio (which is self-made and has probably just about 2 users) got built just because we knew someone used it. Had we heard someone was using Radiator we'd certainly have done a module for it as well... please note that the main criteria here is NOT the fact that someone uses it, but the fact that we can TEST it somehow (i.e. by asking the user to try it, since we likely won't have anything that works with radiator). In any case, the Silabs module itself has been improved quite a bit in the new module, if there's ANYTHING at all that doesn't work as well or that has better function in Radiator (i.e. Dual Tuner), you should have said something right away, and we'd either implement dual tuner support in the silabs module OR coded a Radiator Module like before.

Having said the above, as hardware/technology evolves, we have to update the software and evolve with it... back in the days, Dlink DRB-100 was the coolest radio module around, today it's probably the worst thing (if you can even find one). In a couple of years, I'm sure Silabs will be obsolete, old and hard to find. RR has a 6 year old history now! For most computer systems 6 years is 3 lifetimes! Granted, I still own some computers that old, but I don't use anything that old regularly. So I'm not asking you to throw away your old computer+hardware and get new stuff (which seems to be what a lot of software companies do these days), I'm just asking you to take this fact into consideration... we will always try to support any hardware you already have, as long as you tell us you still use and ask support for it.

Just let me know what exactly changed in the GPSSPEED label (what it was and what it is now), we may just change it back and/or adjust it.

If you're willing to test the radiator support, we can probably work on that as well.

**Sinobi** · 05-15-2010, 06:46 AM

Hi Guino, and thank you for your answer.

Earlier on, GPSSPD returned only a number (the speed at which you were driving in either m/h or km/h in accordance to RR.ini)
Then GPSSPDN was introduced, doing exactly the same,
and GPDSPD was changed to return both a number AND m/h or km/h in accordance to RR.ini.
As the flash modules (swf) programmed before the change, expect only a number from RR when calling GPSSPD they now get confused and stay on zero.
To keep compatibility GPSSPD should have been left alone and a new function like GPSSPDE(xtended) should have been made, returning both a number and the extension.
Strangely the compass in the swf I'm using, has also stopped working at the same time. Have no idea why.

Over at http://www.digital-car.co.uk/forum/s...ead.php?t=8867 Pete and Beezer did a heck of a job on writing a dll for Silabs.
It gives stable RDS info and with dual tuners is able to scan the frequency band in the background so that the primary tuner switches frequency to the strongest station automaticly. It also switches station/pauses mp3 when a Traffic Announcement is broadcasted or when the news comes on.
Pete has made an RR Plugin for Silabs/ADS Tuner her:
http://www.digital-car.co.uk/forum/s...ead.php?t=9978
No other radio/dll has this versatile RDS ability, and we don't have HD radio over at this side of the pond yet...
http://code.google.com/p/silabsradiodll/

My car is at the moment equipped with a dead antenna but I was using RR.ini radio setting "none" before the antenna went dead (on RR from december 09 I think).
My colleague (with the same radios) was using RR.ini radio setting "radiator" and the other day when he updated to the latest RR, the radio stopped working. He has been trying "none" as well with no success. He is at the moment trying out different scenarios to see if he can find a way to make the Silabs work with Pete's dll.

Best regards
Henrik

**mitchjs** · 05-15-2010, 09:01 PM

all that radio work is 2 years old, if pete wanted to make a plugin for riderunner today using what ever dll he wanted, it could be done... just pete, (or someone) has to do it

the current RR silabs dll, has been cleaned up and improved alot
it supports SINGLE tuner of course...
and has TA, the tuner module will generate a ONTASTART and a ONTAEND events, if yoi want them to say pause mp3... you can do that..all up to the skin coder

"Radiator" is not any specific hw, and isnt currently supported
but now that radio's are modules, someone just needs to make a "Radiator" plugin
one thing "Radiator" doesnt even run on my system (Win7 x64) prob x64 since it uses some portio.dll that is 32bit and why i dont know, maybe for its lcd support
there has been 0 requests or mentions (till you) in the last year, since radios went modular

**mitchjs** · 05-15-2010, 09:07 PM

i dont know enough about flash, cant you just reprogram them to use "GPSSPDN"
can you post a swf as example?

**Sinobi** · 05-16-2010, 02:53 AM

Originally Posted by mitchjs

i dont know enough about flash, cant you just reprogram them to use "GPSSPDN"
can you post a swf as example?

I have no idea how to program in flash (and I don't have the source code).
I just used the swf's that was out there.
The idea of changing the existing functions and reprogram everything external on the market (including all skins), instead of keeping the function and making a new on the sideline, is the direct opposite of backwards compatibility, and should only be put into effect when you have a serious problem that just have to be taken care of that way.
This was not the case here.

Henrik

**Sinobi** · 05-16-2010, 03:38 AM

Originally Posted by mitchjs

all that radio work is 2 years old, if pete wanted to make a plugin for riderunner today using what ever dll he wanted, it could be done... just pete, (or someone) has to do it

Well, I think he did, and it's been working up on till the latest release(s) of RR (mind, it's an external plug-in) Here is his comment on your thread about "All plugins need updating" : http://www.digital-car.co.uk/forum/s...&postcount=107

Originally Posted by mitchjs

the current RR silabs dll, has been cleaned up and improved alot
it supports SINGLE tuner of course...
and has TA, the tuner module will generate a ONTASTART and a ONTAEND events, if you want them to say pause mp3... you can do that..all up to the skin coder

But TA's only work if you are on the same station as the announcement. In Denmark (and other countries in Europe) that means you manually have to seek a new station every 20 minutes to have TA's. That's why they invented EON TA so you could be tuned in to a national station that transmit both info about another station sending a TA, AND on what frequency they are doing that.
And to continuously stay on a national station, you need the radio to switch frequency when you drive into the next transmission area.
Non of this can be done by the current RR silabs dll, but works with Petes dll and external plug-in and dual tuners.
The code is out there on googlecode to use, and it's been working up on till the latest release(s) of RR

Originally Posted by mitchjs

"Radiator" is not any specific hw, and isnt currently supported
but now that radio's are modules, someone just needs to make a "Radiator" plugin
one thing "Radiator" doesnt even run on my system (Win7 x64) prob x64 since it uses some portio.dll that is 32bit and why i dont know, maybe for its lcd support
there has been 0 requests or mentions (till you) in the last year, since radios went modular

I'm not sure I understand this part, but if I am to use an external dll and plug-in dll for a radio, and the activation of that plug-in dll is done with "X, plug-in.dll" in the menu.skin and the plug-in has its own skin file with the plug-ins supported commands, should it matter what the radio setting is set to in RR.ini ?

Henrik

**Nomader** · 05-16-2010, 09:49 AM

GPSSPD Has been like that "xxx km/h" OR "xxx m/h" for almost 4-5 years!!!!!! i don't remember it ever changed..
if you have the sources of the flash gauges..send them over i can fix them for you

**Sinobi** · 05-16-2010, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Nomader

GPSSPD Has been like that "xxx km/h" OR "xxx m/h" for almost 4-5 years!!!!!! i don't remember it ever changed..
if you have the sources of the flash gauges..send them over i can fix them for you

Not true.
I have a version here in front of me that's only 2½ years old and making a "GPSSPD" label in it's skin only shows numbers.

Henrik

**mitchjs** · 05-16-2010, 12:59 PM

Well, I think he did, and it's been working up on till the latest release(s) of RR (mind, it's an external plug-in) Here is his comment on your thread about "All plugins need updating" : http://www.digital-car.co.uk/forum/s...&postcount=107

and hello, that post is years old...

then its not RR, no changes have been made to plugins or radio modules in some time
from the RR team there is no offical Radiator RADIO MODULE

im not sure where to begin...

the X command in menus, has long be depreciated, at least 2 years
it works. but not recomended

and yes.. if someone codes a radio as a "PLUGIN" internally RideRunner isnt going to manage it, and in RR.ini, i would set Radio= to blank
disabling radio... then one would have to manage it completly
it could be done, just not very easy... (im not even sure how one would do it)

the latest release is 5/1/2010, and the differences from 4/1/2010 to 5/1/2010 are subtle

what it sounds like you're doing is outside the "box"

as for the GPS stuff, i see no record of change in the last 2 years