mediate ice - new free DirectX based front end

**akberpaf** · 10-24-2007, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by The6

akberpaf, I don't know the official answer but I think you should be able to embed anything you like.

I've embedded an application called "My Mobiler", which gives me remote control of my PDA.

I currently use this to run TomTom software on the carpc and also give myself internet access via the PDA but displayed and controlled on the CarPC.

I've got some screen shot pics somewhere - I'll postthose when I can.

Hi thanks for the reply, what TomTom software are you using on you pc? i did not know about any software from them... anyway thanks for the reply I will try to use the plugin soon and let you know thanks again.

**Z_Rukia_Z** · 10-24-2007, 08:40 AM

MediateICE looks like a really nice front-end, great work and support!
I know people have said this before, but I will say it again due to the popularity of the software.
Please support IGUIDANCE!
In addition, other features could include (I apologize if these features are already being planned for implementation):
1) Phone support via Bluetooth
2) Back-up camera support

Keep up the good efforts!

**athomemedia** · 10-25-2007, 07:33 AM

Thanks for the comments so far.

taKuto:
In this build of mediate ice we added support for reading unicode filenames, but displaying unicode text on screen is much more tricky - internally we use a DirectX texture to cache all of the required characters, so to preserve memory we just hold 256 characters corresponding to the ANSI character set. So, for the time being any unicode characters will appear as squares. I haven't tried running it with Japanese windows regional settings, but I suspect this may be causing issues.

Equalizer presets and loading/saving settings are planned for a future release.

Z_Rukia_Z

There is already initial iGuidance support built in to the current version, although it does have a few issues. Feel free to experiment with it.

In the mediate advanced settings dialog, select the plugin page, highlight the navigation plugin and click configure. This then shows a dialog that allows you to select a navigation app - there are predefined settings for iGuidance and Directions PC Navigator, but you can also enter your own custom settings. If anyone has MapMonkey and is willing to give that a test that would be really useful to see how that works.

The embedding functionality is not completely bulletproof yet but works well enough with PC Navigator which is why that's the recommended navigation app at present, but we hope to strengthen that functionality soon.

Phone support via bluetooth is planned, as is radio support (initially Silabs USB tuner as we already have one of those!).

As for reversing camera support, this is possible but is perhaps easier with a hardware solution. Many touchscreens support multiple inputs and have a 12V switching line to select the camera video input. With a software solution you would need some video digitising hardware and drivers, plus DirectShow source filters to encode the video plus some additional front end code to display the video feed. It's doable, but to be honest its not a priority for us at present.

Thanks for all the feedback so far, keep it coming.

**The6** · 10-25-2007, 09:17 AM

Originally Posted by akberpaf

Hi thanks for the reply, what TomTom software are you using on you pc? i did not know about any software from them... anyway thanks for the reply I will try to use the plugin soon and let you know thanks again.

akberpaf, I'm using Tomtom Navigator 6 on the PDA. I use this for guided navigation as this is probably one of best peices of software for doing this.

I also have PC Navigator 6 installed and use this with the mediate application. This gives very good close up maps so is very handy for driving around areas in which you are not familiar with, as you can see all the street names around the road that you are currently on.

I have a Sony RM X4S steering wheel controller which I use to control the mediate application. One of the buttons on this I've configured to switch screens. With this I can switch screens very quickly within the mediate application making best use of both Sat Nav applications and also enjoying my music/videos.

The Sony RM X4S I have plugged into a K8055 Velleman USB experiment board, which is configurable from within medaite. Using the mediate config screens I can map which actions to assign to the buttons and whether the actions are repeated if the button is held.

All this means that I can use PC Navigator, TomTom (or what ever software I want on the PDA like Opera browser), also browse and play my music/videos very easily and seemless switch between the screens.

Can you tell I like this mediateIce application

**bl3nd3r** · 10-25-2007, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by The6

I've embedded an application called "My Mobiler", which gives me remote control of my PDA.

I currently use this to run TomTom software on the carpc and also give myself internet access via the PDA but displayed and controlled on the CarPC.

I've got some screen shot pics somewhere - I'll postthose when I can.

Hey The6,

I was just wondering if you could let me know how you embedded "My Mobiler" into Mediate Ice. I also am building a system and have a PDA with GPS and internet function and would love to be able to control it from the PC. Do you happen to know if you can use this system to actually make phone calls though? The PDA I have has a built in phone and it would be handy if this app could do it all. Thanks for your help.

**Machinehead** · 10-25-2007, 03:08 PM

athomemedia,

Any chance that Satellite and FM radio will get added?

**Nanner** · 10-25-2007, 03:27 PM

I would really like to see USB radio support added. I've completely replaced my head unit with my CarPC. I'm using the Silabs USB radio. Works great, nearly as good as the head unit I removed.

**The6** · 10-25-2007, 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by bl3nd3r

Hey The6,

I was just wondering if you could let me know how you embedded "My Mobiler" into Mediate Ice. I also am building a system and have a PDA with GPS and internet function and would love to be able to control it from the PC. Do you happen to know if you can use this system to actually make phone calls though? The PDA I have has a built in phone and it would be handy if this app could do it all. Thanks for your help.

Hi bl3nd3r,

To embed MyMobiler I created a plugin xml file and placed it in a plugin directory (I'll post the details of this later). I first tested this within the navigation screen that was already part of the default skin. Once I got this working I created a new screen in the skin and added it a menu item on the main screen.

The plugin file I have called mediateextapp.xml and contains the following the :-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<PluginDescriptor name="myextapp" description="mediate ext app plugin">

<Plugin type="external">

<Path>c:\LaunchMM.exe</Path>
<Parameters></Parameters>

<WindowClass>My Mobiler</WindowClass>

<WindowName>My Mobiler</WindowName>
</Plugin>
<Version>1.0</Version>
<Author>The6</Author>
<Documentation>This plugin embeds MyMobiler and provides remote control of a PDA.</Documentation>
</PluginDescriptor>

You'll notice that the app actually launches a program called LaunchMM.exe and not the MyMobiler.exe. Let me explain this. The MyMobiler.exe is probably running anyway in the try icon, what I needed to do was to actually maximise this. So I used Autohotkey to create and script to maximise it and then from this I created a .exe file which I called LaunchMM.exe. Make sense ?

@homemedia - would you have anywhere where I post my ammeded theme and plugin ?

**The6** · 10-25-2007, 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by bl3nd3r

Hey The6,

I was just wondering if you could let me know how you embedded "My Mobiler" into Mediate Ice. I also am building a system and have a PDA with GPS and internet function and would love to be able to control it from the PC. Do you happen to know if you can use this system to actually make phone calls though? The PDA I have has a built in phone and it would be handy if this app could do it all. Thanks for your help.

I forgot to answer your question as to whether the plugin can control the use of the PDA phone functionalily.... yeah sure it can - whatever you can do on the PDA you can do via MyMobiler and hence the plugin.

**The6** · 10-25-2007, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by Nanner

I would really like to see USB radio support added. I've completely replaced my head unit with my CarPC. I'm using the Silabs USB radio. Works great, nearly as good as the head unit I removed.

I think I have seen a post somewhere by @homemedia mentioning that they have plans to provide support for the Silabs USB radio in some future release.