Features in an ideal frontend?

**galvitron** · 10-12-2007, 07:02 PM

Hello all,

I am developing a front end in .NET for 2000/XP/Vista and was wondering what everyone thought were essential or ideal features of a frontend. I know I will miss something...

Here's my tentative list:

- GPS/Navigation
- DVD playback
- Music File Playback (MP3, etc)
- AM/FM radio support
- Sound Mixer
- Skin ability
- Plugin ability
- ???

**2k1Toaster** · 10-13-2007, 05:01 AM

Everything that RR does...

**galvitron** · 10-13-2007, 05:12 AM

Except not in VB6 ;-}

**ThunderStick** · 10-13-2007, 09:26 AM

I guess VB is a problem...?

Agreed with Toaster, RR Does it.
Dig a little more and Centrafuse comes close.
Oh Yeah lets not forget the commercial giant street deck.
For a few less features Pycar
Go one more forum up to front ends and guess what you will get a whole list of them that pretty much "Do It"

**ThunderStick** · 10-13-2007, 09:28 AM

Anyway here is a list of features requested from me anyway that would have to be present.

Embed external apps
Pull gas price data from web
Pull weather data from web
Skinnable OSK
I guess the list can go on and on, just look at a feature list for RR. I would need some pretty good reason to switch.

**galvitron** · 10-15-2007, 03:04 PM

Thanks, that is the kind of list I am looking for.

Is open source a good enough reason to switch? Once I get something up and running I plan on communitizing the app. But that is a ways off. I only have basics up and running now: music, menus, web browser, odb, settings interface. No nav yet...

**Crawdaddy** · 10-15-2007, 04:38 PM

I'd absolutely LOVE a frontend that could integrate with daemon tools or better yet, virtual clonedrive. A lot of my movies are in ISO format from a direct back up of my DVD collection, and that would eliminate the reencoding I'd have to do to bring my movies with me. I'd also like the standard features that centrafuse has...

**galvitron** · 10-15-2007, 04:49 PM

Can you point to any dev links for this Virtual Clonedrive? I will take a look...

Also, I know of daemon tools but do you have any good dev links for that too?

This is good. Keep listing features, people!

**Crawdaddy** · 10-16-2007, 01:13 PM

I'm not sure if there are any dev tools for it, but here's a link to the offical product listing at SlySoft's site for virtual clone drive http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

as for daemon tools, it looks like you can email locutus@daemon-tools.cc for SDK info

**Brycestro** · 10-22-2007, 06:10 AM

Something big that I believe most CarPC software seems to be lacking:
QUALITY DOCUMENTATION. The number of times I've spent hours on end trauling around forums looking for an answer to the simplest of questions... In Australia we occasionally get "national security" ads on television telling you to ring in if you see something suspicious so they can "piece together the puzzle" to protect our borders from terrorism and crime. I feel the same way about CarPC software, I'm out there trauling through a big bunch of fragmented answers and pieces of information to find a few gems of wisdom between a whole load of irrelevant material.

If configuration and the likes could be done using Xml i think this would be an advantage for extensibility/future proofing it for awhile.