It's finally here. CENTRAFUSE BETA 2 is ready for testing. Go to:
http://www.centrafuse.com
Click on Beta Testers and fill out the form. Make sure you have .NET framework 1.1 and DirectX9... I don't have a manual yet, but most everything should be easy to figure out. DO NOT try to delete your config.xml to reset CENTRAFUSE anymore, this will not work in 1.3... I will run through a couple of things.
The song time toggles between elapsed and remaining. You can now play data CDs by simply copying any audio/video files to a CD in any directory structure... It will be scanned and loaded into the playlist. The album art works with "folder.jpg" and "name of the file.jpg", the same setup as XP. There is an advanced manager option for the media manager. This makes the "+" add music to the "open" playlist. This can be queue, favorites, or any saved playlist. Going to playlists and going forward or double clicking any option on the list loads that playlist. For example if you clicked playlists, went into a saved playlist, hit library, selected an album, and hit "+"... That album would automatically be saved into that playlist. This is a little more confusing than the default. The default simply adds everything to your queue, which you can save to a playlist using the save icon. To clear the queue, simply highlight it in the list and hit the minus "-" symbol. The same goes for favorites. The radio presets function slightly different. Holding for 3 seconds set the preset, holding for 5 seconds allows you to edit the name of that preset.
To setup your external applications edit the "external.xml" file in the system folder. From here you can add apps with an executable path and a window name. There are also a few new features. All the main buttons actions are configurable. Edit "buttonactions.xml" and you have a list of actions to choose from. For example, you would edit "external.xml", add in the settings your GPS program in App1, rename it to GPS, edit "buttonactions.xml", set GLOBAL1's action to APP1, and then the first button on the main left nav would say GPS and load your GPS program. The main page looks empty right now, but the list of possible actions will grow because all plugins will be a possible action. The next release of CENTRAFUSE should come with multiple plugins by default...
There are other config files you can edit in system folder... "hotkeys.xml" will allow you to change your hotkeys, "speech.xml" will allow you to change your voice commands, and "vfd.xml" will allow you to edit the VFD output options... The other's are used by the system...
That is a basic run down of some of the less than obvious features, but there are loads more to discover.
David