aychamo

Just a quick note of what will be in the next version (I have a test tomorrow, so I'm not doing anything else on it today, but I should release the new version tomorrow in the evening (at least in my time zone):

1. Clock Tastefully done
2. The "visuals" pop-up window, this lets you control music from the visual window, without breaking out back to the music list. Also, in this view, it's optional if you want the view to fade out after a few seconds (leaving you back at the visual), or to remain permanently on screen. If you choose permanent on screen, you can still click the album art to get rid of the screen.
3. iTunes visuals (note: it "works", but none of the visuals I have in iTunes show anything because iTunes isn't playing the music, but perhaps someone has visuals that aren't dependent on that)
4. Optional to stretch visuals, etc, to full screen (for whatever reason)

- The four above things are all "optional" from the new configuration menu.

- Also, you won't have to manually delete your AMP.plist file anymore, but in an upgrade it will wipe all of your changes (which means you'll have to spend that whole minute to reconfigure it!)

- Pending: Optional prevention of importing of certain playlists (ie, Library, Party Shuffle, Pod Casts, Purchased, Recently Added, Top 25 Most Played)
- Pending: Playlist item view (lol)
- Pending: radioSHARK favorites (lol, lol, lol)

- Also, I was sitting in a boring neurology lecture, thinking about the best way to do the clock, and it dawned on me that I had completely skipped over a better way to programatically implement a lot of stuff in AMP. I had a short lunch today and replaced a few chunks a code, which should reduce overhead in certain areas by 1/2 to 2/3. Also it allowed me to remove a bunch of crap, so it's less to keep organized, etc.

- And, as I'm typing this on AMP's web browser, I realize that it needs a way to pop-up the music controls, like the one in the visual view as mentioned above.

Keep your eyes out tomorrow,
Aychamo

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LightningMac

sounds good!

I'll be gone for 4 days, so won't be able to try it till saturday.. darn it!

aychamo

lol I've got some visitors coming tomorrow evening, so I probably wont do much, after tomorrow, until Saturday anyone. Have fun on your trip!

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mr2mac

Hey this is great work.

Ive been using it for a few days now and i am very impressed, thought i would have to wait a long for something like this to be produced.

Even though i dont like to critisize, you did ask for feed back. There are some small issues:

I run a 7" lilliput and when running at 800*600 its not full screen. I have a mac mini G4 and wont let me adjust to 800*480. The only other thing is that the volume control range is limited it seems the difference in volume between low and high isn't much.

Oh is it possible to intergrate an equaliser or even the presets, or even just treble and bass, as i like different settings for different music.

I think the work you have put into this is superb. A guy in a Golf Gti saw the visuals running on the screen while in traffic the other day, he was like "whoa!, what is that?", i then proceeded to show him the rest of AMP on the touchsreen and he said " where can i get one?" i said you cant buy them, you'll have to make it yourself, he was like oh and drove off. But everyone ive shown the carputer to wants one and they thimk AMP is very easy to use.

Keep up the good work, its pure quality.

Cheers
nick

aychamo

Hey Nick!

Thanks for the kind words. Volume control on Mac's seems somewhat limited. It really just adjusts the system volume. I'll see what I can do about amplifying it through the media interface Apple supplies to developers. I've only ever tested AMP on my PowerBook (and it's speakers suck!).

Regarding the resolution. AMP is designed specifically for 800x480, so I don't think the interface will ever stretch to fit on 800x600. *However*, I'm releasing a version of AMP later today that will stretch both visuals and movies to fit the full screen (of 800x600, all resolutions.) And, the new version has a "visuals music control" so that you can control your music from within the visual via a little pop-up screen. So, on your 800x600 system, you can have the visuals full screen and still control music, etc.

Have you looked at any of the articles on getting your Mac to show 800x480? I'm starting to get a little worried I won't be able to get mine into 800x480, lol!

Let me know how it works out with the new version, later today!

Thanks
Aychamo

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pepsibobby

cant wait for my screen to get back so i can play with it in the car and make real comments.

aychamo

AMP v0.9a release:
http://www.aychamo.com/amp/AMP.zip

- Bug fixes
- Small bug where it wouldn't save the config file when it should
- A few graphical things, just minor misalignments

- New features
- Clock
- "Visuals" pop-up window, this lets you control music from the visual window, without breaking out back to the music list. Also, in this view, it's optional if you want the view to fade out after a few seconds (leaving you back at the visual), or to remain permanently on screen. If you choose permanent on screen, you can still click the album art to get rid of the screen
- iTunes visuals (note: it "works", but none of the visuals I have in iTunes show anything because iTunes isn't playing the music, but perhaps someone has visuals that aren't dependent on that)
- Option to stretch visuals, & movies to full screen (for whatever reason) [note, AMP by default puts everything 800x480; if you are running 800x600, etc, this is the option you should select. The interface wont be in your resolution, but the visuals, movie, etc will be]
- Note:
- The four above things are all "optional" from the new configuration menu (to access it: from the main menu, click on "Utils" [Dashboard Icon], then "Configure", then "Misc"

- radioSHARK favorites (finally, lol)
- Partially: There is a "music" button in the web browser now, but it doesn't load any menu yet, it's still being worked on

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As always, please post any suggestions, bug reports, feedback, etc. Thank you!

- Aychamo

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pepsibobby

is saying I love you weird. cause i think that is the only way to describe how awsome you are. Holly crap, first acutal mac front end.

edit: I am playing with it now. but its got issues.
1) when you try and use the apple visualizations cant choose or edit what song you are listening to. However you can control back and forth with the keyboard.
2) when i try and go to a different webpage in the brower, nothing happens, the little icon spins and then nothing. the Mp3car site comes up with no probs.
3) Is there a way to have it show what song is playing while watching the pictures slide show. The show works great, but to have maybe in the corner somewhere the album art and what is playing. just in a partially transparent box?
4) finnaly. Is there a way or a place to have the clock on the main screen. I like the way it looks so i would keep it up as my main screen unless changing song or something.

besides that, perfect, i love the part of getting rid of individual visualizations.

edit: your about still says version .08a I dont know if that matters to you or not.

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aychamo

Hey man!

Ok, I gotta be quick.

1. I should have put that as a caveat. You'll have no control over music when using iTunes' visuals. I implemented it as a request, but to be 100% honest, I think it's a worthless feature. iTunes' visuals take over the screen, and there's nothing I can do. If anyone can make any nice visuals in Quarts Composer, we'll never have to worry about iTunes ever. - I wlil never use this feature.

2. You need to preface the web addresses with http:// (theres a button on the keyboard that makes this easier) - I should make a fix in the code to automatically add it in - Thank you

3. I may be able to do something like that. Or, a button to pop up some transparent music controls (like the visual control screen in the visualization view) - good idea, thank you. A problem with showing the info all the time is it takes up space, which interferes with the photo. I'm trying to give as much screen room as possible for the photos ------ oh, you mean the picture slide shows?? Like the Apple iPhoto style transitions? No, there really isn't a way. It uses a custom graphics view, and it's really not possible to use my components there.

4. Hmm. I can do that. I guess keep it in the same location (upper-right corner?) No problem there

Re: About screen - OOPS! lol! - I guess it fits in though, my versioning system is really just a big joke anyone, I guess sort-of mocking the whole development process. I suppose I should make this automatic.

Thank you for the input - sorry this is so short, I'm in a huge rush,

Aychamo

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aychamo

Just a note, I'm posting from within AMP's browser, and I've fixed your #2. It'll be in the next version. For now, just preface the URLs with http:// (via that little button) - in the future it will be "user proof" lol

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Endon

This is really a great app! And it's growing so frequently, it's wonderful!

Thanks so much for the hard work!

Sharkbite86

I think everyone is talking about this:
http://www.macvroom.com/node/36
They made an applescript that automatically configures the display everytime you startup the mac mini.

I dont remember if i already pointed out this link earlier and im too tired to look back (it's midnight right now).

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Car broken into... progress is basically zip...

avagadrox

Really great stuff. Thanks a lot. My only request would be to make everything centered on the screen. I know you've said its for 800x480, but when viewed in 800x600 everything is bottom left aligned. This leaves you with blank space at the top of the screen.

Anyway, thanks for the hard work.

sdashiki

Any word on ever implementing OBD-II?

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Trying to fit my 20" iMac into the dash... RF 600.5 amp, two 10" JLW0, 8 Infinity Components

iamgnat

Just played with it on my laptop. I'll try to get it on my Mini tomorrow.

Thank you But...
When the minutes (and presumably hours) are less than 10, they aren't padded with a zero. "11:8pm" just looks funny to me Any chance you could pull the format for the Menu Bar clock from ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist using the AppleICUTimeFormatStrings key? (Set via the International pref pane).

If you can do that, then everyone can tweak it to their own tastes (I prefer US 24 hour time with seconds myself ).


Nice touch.
I would still prefer something that just pops up over the list though (as an option?).

Also, the rotating CD case seems to hide the track name under the time scale. I remember you said that this wasn't yours before, but I don't recall it doing that and didn't know if you tweaked it.

Looking really good.

Thanks,
-dave

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