AMP v1.0 Worklog - Page 12

elcapitan · 06-30-2006, 01:33 AM

I found one annoying problem with the mp3 player. When ever you look at a list of songs and lets say you start playing the first song. If you scroll down a new song gets highlighted. WHen the song that you started playing earlier finishes, it doesn't play the song that follows, it goes to where the highlighted song is and plays the song AFTER that one.

Hopefully i explained this well. Let me know if you need a better explanation.

raceer · 06-30-2006, 02:41 AM

Jakob,

Very nice graphics, slick !! A couple of quick comments which may be worth revisiting.

1. The presets, AM/FM/+ buttons currently draw your eye away from the important part which is whats playing etc. Perhaps darken the am/fm border
2. From above, Current channel requires more prominance. Perhaps use the white border treatement here ?
3. Control buttons also need to be more visible and consistent with other similar
4. presets need to look like buttons so users will want to click on it/be more intuitive. Also perhaps use the entire space so you add another 3 presets vertically ? This would mean the am/fm/+ would need to move higher.
5. Back button should be similar to current back button so its consistent, same for "top" radioshark info/white line

Phew, I only said a couple of comments, damn I should learn to count. Would I take advice from dude who cannot count to 5 ? hmmmm nope !

Don't mean this in ANY -ve way, just a few observations :-)

Trust I am not overtepping the mark...keep us the great work. Also remember this is being used in a automotive environment where it is even more critical when it comes to usability...

jdisenberg · 06-30-2006, 04:01 AM

Everything looks great... I am running at 800 x 600 When I play the visuals it doesn't use about an inch and a half from the top and it is just black. the menu is like that as well. My mac won;t even set to an 800 x 480, and when I switch from an 800 x 600 to a 640 x 480 it cuts off the right side of the screen. Is there anyway you coulad add the feature that allows you to change what resolution you want to run the program in..

Is anyone else having this problem?

aychamo · 06-30-2006, 06:36 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by jdisenberg

Everything looks great... I am running at 800 x 600 When I play the visuals it doesn't use about an inch and a half from the top and it is just black. the menu is like that as well. My mac won;t even set to an 800 x 480, and when I switch from an 800 x 600 to a 640 x 480 it cuts off the right side of the screen. Is there anyway you coulad add the feature that allows you to change what resolution you want to run the program in..

Is anyone else having this problem?

Are you running it at that resolution on a Xenarc?

The entire program is built for the 800x480 resolution, ie, all the graphics, layout, everything, is designed specifically for that resolution.

Have you read the article on MacVroom.com about setting your mac to 800x480?

Sharkbite86 · 06-30-2006, 12:42 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by jdisenberg

Everything looks great... I am running at 800 x 600 When I play the visuals it doesn't use about an inch and a half from the top and it is just black. the menu is like that as well. My mac won;t even set to an 800 x 480, and when I switch from an 800 x 600 to a 640 x 480 it cuts off the right side of the screen. Is there anyway you coulad add the feature that allows you to change what resolution you want to run the program in..

Is anyone else having this problem?

http://www.macvroom.com/node/36

minicoopS007 · 06-30-2006, 02:33 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by LightningMac

I know the guys working on Harmony have an XM palette working on their program, maybe you can ask them about it?

I have a XMPCR and would love to have that available in AMP as well, plus I know there is a mod out there to convert a normal XM receiver to work with USB...

Wouldn't that be nice...

XMPCR is discontinued but you could find some boxes on ebay. However you could send "magic codes" to the XM Direct tuner to make it act like an XMPCR. Thats what we've done with Harmony. Harmony interfaces with the XM Direct tuner through a stripped down-modified version of MacXM. I modified the core XM classes and created a cocoa/java application (HXM). Harmony talks to HXM through UI scripting. We can afford to do this since we always now what HXM will look like. I found Applescript support for a java app painful.
After all that blah,blah,blah... I am going to share my XM classes with aychamo and leave it to him to decide how he wants to implement it.

aychamo look for xm classes this weekend.

jdisenberg · 06-30-2006, 02:33 PM

hmmm.... I will try that tonight. Yeah, it is a xenarc but I haven't sen that stuff yet. I am excited again, because this program looks so promising in a car. Even with it in the strange resolution I drove around last night testing everything and I like it a lot. Great job and keep up the work...

What about a wardriving program to search for open networks?

aychamo · 06-30-2006, 04:41 PM

Hey Jdisenberg, take a picture of it in your car on the Xenarc (even it's in the ****ty resolution!) I'm dying to see it on a Xenarc! (4 days till I get mine!)

Here's an updated working screenshot of the working webbrowser with the current "skin" on it. It functions pretty well. I think there's enough space between the buttons so that you don't have too many problems with a touchscreen.

I swear to god I can't wait to try this out on a damn touchscreen

I'll upload this version the new webbrowser screen as soon as I finish the web browser favorites. Well, the favorites are finished, but I have one really small, but infuriating bug I can't figure out. Once I get that worked out I'll upload the version. I suppose it'll be a fully functional web browser.

As far as a war driving program, I have no current plans to do that myself. I'll add a screen off the main config where you can run external programs of your choosing, so that everyone can kinda configure it a bit more to their needs.

(lol I refuse to get rid of my round back buttons -- I want to keep some FrontRow feel to it!) - lol and if you find that video on youtube.. don't blame me for wasting 4 minutes

it's my buddies from back in high school - 7 or 8 years ago)

raceer · 06-30-2006, 09:44 PM

Very nice !! LIKE LIKE !! Good work u 2 !!

Bug ?
When u quit AMP, and the shark is running it crashes :-)

Screens attached showing an 800x600 screen. Note that the image sizes have been halved to save space but ratios remain the same. The slideshow users the entire 800x600 scrren btw. Hope this helps

raceer · 06-30-2006, 09:52 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by aychamo

As far as a war driving program, I have no current plans to do that myself. I'll add a screen off the main config where you can run external programs of your choosing, so that everyone can kinda configure it a bit more to their needs.

Perhaps the items in the users dock can be read by default to provide a list via the preferences with a tick box or the reverse of the visuals screen. ie. you click on ones you WANT to run (or allocate to a AMP button to run). This would mean that in order to run an external program all one would need to do is drag it to the dock and set it in preferences....this then configures (like a preset) a button in AMP to run the app.... convoluted ?

maybe even another option in preferences to preload at startup....

just a thought...

aychamo · 07-01-2006, 01:20 AM

Hey!

That's a reallly interesting idea!

It looks pretty neat wtih the orange scroll bar. AMP uses a certain system setting for calculating the gradient of the highlight bar. To change this, go to "System Preferences", and then "Appearance", and then "Highlight Color."

To be honest, I had never thought of changing the scroll bar color, it was just used as a reference. That's really clever of you to do that! And, to be honest, this is one of the aspects of software development that I think is absolutely fascinating. When users think of doing things in software that was never "intended." It's actually pretty damn amazing you can just change that color in system preferences and the scroll bar changes color immediately. (If anyone plays games online, it's amazing seeing the way people come up with to exploit the gaming engine,, it's truly fascinating)

Here's how I'm screwing around with it. Have AMP open, then Command-Tab to a different program and bring up system preferences -> appearance -> highlight bar. You can change it to whatever in the dropdown, or do "Other". Just have the system preferences window on top of the AMP window, and see it as you do it.

That's really damn clever man

Good find!

- It looks interesting on 800x600! Are you guys having problems getting your comp's into 800x480? I hope it's not a problem. I'll find out soon enough when my Xenarc gets here (days and counting!)

- re: radioSHARK crashing. Yeah, I have that problem too. It's sporadic though. All I do is send it a message to shut down, and it crashes. I'm not really sure why. I guess the good thing is it isn't crashing while it's running -- lol! Are you Command-Q'ing out of AMP, or through the Shutdown menu?

I just got back from Superman.. Great damn movie! I'm going to put a little work into the radioSHARK favorites.

I've got the browser favorites' finished. It's an interesting system. As you know, everything in a touch screen environment has to work differently, and use as few clicks as possible, and yet be intuitive. I'm not looking at any other front end, so I'm just trying to see what comes easiest for me.

Basically, if you are looking at a webpage and you wnat it in your favorites, you click on the favortites button. This pops up a list of your favorites. From here, you can either click on a favorite that is listed and it will go to that page, or you can click on a + button next to the favorite, and it puts your favorite in there. Short, simple, sweet, and works great. - Also, in this updated browser your "Home" page is your first link. (For now, I will probably change how this works later.)

Heres a screenshot.. Ahh, screw it, lol, here's the version to DL

http://www.aychamo.com/amp/AMP.zip