New Linux Project (windows maybe)

**adamis** · 03-16-2004, 01:06 PM

The program being referenced here is mplayer which is a Linux application god_cpu. I mistook it for windows media player when I first started playing with Linux. They are completly different programs.

On the skin things I think you only have about three resolutions most people will be running at in their cars. If you target 800x600, 848x4??, and 1024x768 and make sure the skin scales without problems for those three resolutions you will probably have covered what most of us need. In otherwords you don't have to spend time tryng to get things to look right at 1600x1200 because nobody will be running a 20" monitor in their car.

**bigb** · 03-16-2004, 04:05 PM

Lol.. I have an 18" flat screen in my trunk.

And it actually does scale pretty well up to that. Depends on what it was "DesignedAt". It it's designed for 640x480, it's not so hot w/ the larger size, due to pixels being "stretched" to cover the space. Though if ALL skins were designed at say "1024x", there would'nt be any problems. Things scale down ALOT better than they scale up.

So maybe that should be the way it's done. I dunno. I have a few ghetto skins done now just to test things out, and so far it does seem to work pretty well. I'm using jpg images, and creating masks internally to have them "appear" transparent.

**s003apr** · 03-16-2004, 04:22 PM

For those who want to avoid messing with C (or C++), one thing that could be done is to work on a database or structure for the GIS and navigation information. I really do think this is the route to go if we want to eventually have a complete solution that can do routing and such. There is just no concievable way that I can think of to route without the shape information. We should probably use the Tiger/Line data because it is the only free source of information for the US as far as I know. We could just read from the Tiger Files but that poses two problems: A. It probably won't perform as well as using a standard database, and B. Would be worthless to non-US users because the US Census Bureau is the only place that uses Tiger/Line data.

Here are some links that may be of interest:
A GIS addon for PostgresSQL
http://postgis.refractions.net/home.php
A mapserver for helping to build map serving webpages
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/
An web app incorporating these two things
http://www.moximedia.com:8080/imf-ows/imf.jsp?site=gisi

**bigb** · 03-17-2004, 12:41 AM

A mapserver for helping to build map serving webpages
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/

IMHO this one seems most promising. If we could get a scheme going for how to store data, things would be easier to "visualize"..

**hijinks21** · 03-17-2004, 11:17 AM

bigb, are you doing this all with an ide like qtdesigner or kdevelop or all with just a text editor? I've been starting to learn qt and C so i'd just like yo get on the same development platform as you

**hijinks21** · 03-17-2004, 01:54 PM

here is an interesting idea. I saw this and it could be pulled off in any app. I think if we are going for a truely module based system this is a kickass way to do a menu. That way you can have a 100 plugins without ending up in static menu button hell

http://www.nokia.com/flash/homeproducts/navibars/

**bigb** · 03-17-2004, 02:24 PM

Kdevelop works. I really don't use much of an IDE now, but I started checking out Kdevelop a little bit. Seems ok in my book.

I'm not using QTDesigner at all on this one due to the fact that I'm not using any "static" forms. They are all being created on the fly, so it's kinda pointless to use QTDes.. The only thing I may use it for is a few setup dialogs, etc. For configuring directories, and things of that nature.

**bigb** · 03-17-2004, 02:53 PM

hijinks, while we're on that note. If you could check something out for me that'd be great. Apparently in QT3.3(new release) there is a "setWindowOpacity" inherited from QWidget.. Welp, it doesn't seem to work. haha.. I even compiled their "toptool" example(I beleive that's the name), and it just doesn't work. I wasn't able to find any information on what would be needed to get it to work, but as far as I know I have a pretty up to date system.

Any chance you could compile that example, and see if u can get it to work? It should be located in $QTDIR/examples/

Thanks

**hijinks21** · 03-17-2004, 04:09 PM

Here are some screenshots from bigb. It looks pretty damn good if you ask me

**kevlar** · 03-17-2004, 05:11 PM

I'd love to join in the development. I currently work on MythTV so I have some QT development experience. And in some ways, MythTV is very similar to this project.

My goals very closely match yours, and here is a hilight of some features I can't wait to see and develop:

1) GPS integration
2) Bluetooth phone support to manipulate the address book and calendar, make/receive phone calls through the computer to the phone, and route internet traffic through the phone to the GPRS.
3) Music and video metadata support and easy navigation of content. Categories, genres, etc.
4) Game emulator support, to allow playing games on trips, etc. (MAME, snes9x, etc)
5) Phone home support (update a server or home computers with the location of the vehicle)
6) ODB-II interfacing to get vehicle statistics and other real-time data.
7) Seperate multi-touchscreen support, and the ability to choose to broadcast a movie to all screens at once. The ability to hear music on three different screens using headphones would be nice too so that each person can choose what they are listening to.
8) 802.11abg support with a custom set of protocols on top supporting intra car messaging (broadcasting, car2car, etc), the ability to transfer files/music/video between vehicles, etc.
9) Voice prompting to respond to touchscreen events
10) Voice recognition, to avoid even having to touch the touchscreen while driving.

There's plenty more features I'd like to see, and even implement.

Let me know how I can start getting involved. I can host a website, etc too.

Kevin