Thread: New MP3 Car Software in VB6

I built a Flash frontend with a VB backend. The ultimate skin, I suppose. Anyone could have whatever skin they wanted by creating a new Flash frontend, as long as all the actions and FSCommands were still there.

Here's another tip. Don't use Windows Media Player. I used it first, but soon discovered that WMP distorts the sound of MP3s. Use Winamp or the DOS version of MPG123.

In the screenshot, the little globe spins and the spectrum analyzer moves. Much neater looking than anything I could create using VB controls. I'm getting a faceplate professionally made today, so hopefully I'll get pictures of it in action tonight.

That is fantastic - mind if I pinch your idea? How did you use fscommands to tell vb what to do? I have had a look and can't get it to work. Any help would be greatfully received - I am still a bit of a flash amateur...

FSCommands are the key to getting this to work. Not everything is Flash, though. My playlist is a standard VB listbox which hides or becomes visible depending on which scene the flash movie is in. A flash listbox was too slow and complicated to make. FSCommands keep my program updated as to where the frontend is currently at (playing mp3s, viewing the playlist, radio, etc.)

Here's a good page which will teach you just about everything you need to know:

http://www.northcode.com/studio/examples/index.html
http://www.creativeprogrammers.com/a...h-vb-16-1.html

And this will show you how to embed the movie in your project:

I've just upgraded to flash mx, and whenever I try and put an instance of the flash control on a form VB 6 Crashes! The file being used is flash.ocx and I can't see why this isn't working! Flash 5 worked without a problem, but now flash mx seems to not be working at all. I do have flu at the moment so might have missed something but I do think that since installing flash mx the active x control has been buggered This is strange as all flash on websites works fine!

Cheers

Andrew

You might have to bite the bullet and go back to Flash 5. Is MX really any different than Flash 5?

Sorted it and finally working out how fscommands work - cheers for all the info - it beats creating a huge skin.ini containing every possible tags.

flash mx is great - i far prefer the ui. When my flash demo runs out i will go back to flash 5 - it's not worth the upgrade fees

Andrew

Flash MX has a nice UI, but it isn't really worth the upgrade fees. When my trial runs out I will almost certainly go back to the previous version. Give it a try.

Gutter,

great find with that VB ---> Flash tute. Gonna havta give it a good read. I am about 70% through my new mp3car app for my TFT, its written in 100% VB6.

using ALOT of bitblt to achive animations/etc.... and making use of winamp visulisation plugins (the wicked packaged AVS to be exact) as my playback visulisation. bascailly my application shrinks to the top 1/3 of the screen and the visulisation then is enabled from winamp on the lower 2/3rds... looks rather good.


once I add DivX support and finally get it into my car with the TFT, I might look at getting some skills in flash programming.... and then give a VB/flash hybrid application a shot....


anyway to both of you (andrew/gutter) will be keen to see your final results, I will be sharing my masterpiece with the genreal mp3car public too when I have it at a 'releasable' state...

/me gets back to coding.....