YOUR dream front end - Page 4

NeonDev · 03-03-2008, 10:06 PM

@iamgnat No NBB does not capture the screen, but actually it does do quite a bit of event chain management for its key bindings so that prolly isn't the reason that CFE wont play with spaces. Also there are ways around the focus problem as long as your application is key.

@bugbyte playlist support will be in release 6 I promise. release 6 should also be out quicker than 5 which I admit has taken alot longer to get out than I think it deserves, but it does sport a MUCH better music browser and has support for browsing by song yada yada yada.

Also if you weren't aware release 5 has key binding support. tho the music module's is lackluster at the moment, but I myself rather like the main screens handling of it. I hope it plays nice with your powermate.

ibmeruu · 03-04-2008, 05:42 PM

BugBite, You seriously need to go to the store and buy a wii controller.

Front Row is awsome with the wii controller.

Just hold down the trigger and it opens. Then its NES controlls all the way.

Use Remote Buddy and a strond LED or Candle to use the mouse function.

Will try it in the car soon. Makes it so I don't need a touch screen.

Bugbyte · 03-04-2008, 08:54 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by iamgnat

Technically you don't have to quit, you can hide it instead (standard cmd+H keys or the Hide button from the Menu screen).

I'd settle for the app becoming transparent so I can view the nav screen below, for now!

Quote: Originally Posted by iamgnat

As far as "doesn't work" with Spaces, I assume that you mean that your hot key commands to switch spaces doesn't work? I'm curious what NBB does (or doesn't do) that allows it to work. I have a couple ideas (i'm taking a rather heavy handed approach key bindings or maybe they aren't capturing the display (e.g. not a true full screen app)) that i'll look into.

EDIT: NBB must not be capturing the display. As soon as I stop capturing the display, Spaces works fine. The downside though is that when switching back to CFE's space it wasn't always getting focus (fine with a TS, but would suck without a mouse/pointing device of some sort). It would be nice if Apple gave us hooks into Spaces, but as far as I know they still haven't and no one has hacked it yet.

-dave

Sounds like you're figuring it out. All I know is it zips out of the way when you hit the hotkey, then zips back when you hit it again.

I'm not criticizing. I'm just glad we've got some development and options going on.

Bugbyte · 03-04-2008, 08:55 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by NeonDev

@bugbyte playlist support will be in release 6 I promise. release 6 should also be out quicker than 5 which I admit has taken alot longer to get out than I think it deserves, but it does sport a MUCH better music browser and has support for browsing by song yada yada yada.

Also if you weren't aware release 5 has key binding support. tho the music module's is lackluster at the moment, but I myself rather like the main screens handling of it. I hope it plays nice with your powermate.

Great to hear! And I must have forgotten about the key bindings in NBB. I'll read up on them and try them out on my return home Friday.

iamgnat · 03-04-2008, 09:22 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Bugbyte

I'd settle for the app becoming transparent so I can view the nav screen below, for now!

There is someone working on such a plugin for CFE, but last I heard from him he was tied up in Exams.

Quote:

Sounds like you're figuring it out. All I know is it zips out of the way when you hit the hotkey, then zips back when you hit it again.

Based on what I found last night and NeonDev's confirmation above, that i'm capturing the display is the "problem".

Quote:

I'm not criticizing.

I didn't see it as such. Without input like that we can't improve what we have

-dave

NeonDev · 03-04-2008, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Great to hear! And I must have forgotten about the key bindings in NBB. I'll read up on them and try them out on my return home Friday.

then I'll try my hardest to get the release up by friday! the coding has been done for some time its just some graphical issues holding it back at the moment both me and my partner have been busy with our real jobs so this one problem has been holding up a release for weeks. once its cleared development will pick up very rapidly as I won't have any more graphical things to wait on.

please post your thoughts on the key bindings in the tread in the neon boom box forum thread about them. always glad to see interest in the project.

smilr · 03-04-2008, 10:24 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by NeonDev

anyhow how far have you gotten on your playback engine? I have barely used any core audio myself largely because it doesn't seem nearly as programmer friendly as quicktime...

Not very far - every time I go to read through Apple's Dev pages about the topic I end up with a headache. They made big changes / additions to Coreaudio with the releases of 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 - so the docs are all over the map with different ways to do the same thing. Combine that with my needing to integrate it all with Cocoa and the learning curve gets STEEP.

I've convinced one of the demo tools to duplicate the audio play a stereo audio file to all 6 channels of my audio output device, but theres no real playback control, nor have I been able to wedge any fading / eq / volume control into that demo program.

Ideally I'd love to get the quicktime playback sound fed into CoreAudio for processing, as this would let me play iTMS Fairplay DRM files, but that's very unlikely to happen. I've stripped the DRM from my music so I can play it back directly with CA for the moment.

Back to the real topic of this thread: my 2008 Xenarc screen is TOO BRIGHT at night. So my dream FE HAS to have a night-vision friendly nighttime mode / theme. Red text / UI elements on a dark background is my goal. Ideally the FE should swap between the two based on dusk / dawn times entered by the user.

ibmeruu · 03-26-2008, 10:12 PM

I applied to the iFund for the apple iphone sdk release to run an iphone like interface for car computing and got declined. Bastards. But I still think its a good idea and so I share it with the world. Iphone emulator running on a 7inch in dash touch. Thats cool. Thats a dream front end.

Bugbyte · 03-27-2008, 09:49 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by smilr

Back to the real topic of this thread: my 2008 Xenarc screen is TOO BRIGHT at night. So my dream FE HAS to have a night-vision friendly nighttime mode / theme. Red text / UI elements on a dark background is my goal. Ideally the FE should swap between the two based on dusk / dawn times entered by the user.

Try Shades, for an interim solution. Unfortunately, it isn't Applescriptable so you can't command it to auto-dim, but it does the trick for night driving.

I agree that a software based auto-dim feature is a must-have.

reece146 · 03-27-2008, 10:17 AM

Apple would be smart to upsize an iPod touch to ~1.5 DIN size and get some real GPS software on there (port gpsdrive to cocoa, help finish implementing vector) and sell an add-on kit to mount into said 1.5-2.0 DIN slot.

I can dream, can't I?

reece146 · 03-27-2008, 10:21 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by smilr

Back to the real topic of this thread: my 2008 Xenarc screen is TOO BRIGHT at night. So my dream FE HAS to have a night-vision friendly nighttime mode / theme. Red text / UI elements on a dark background is my goal. Ideally the FE should swap between the two based on dusk / dawn times entered by the user.

I have a little "Navigon" device that is switchable between day and night modes. Pressing on the screen brings up a submenu and then the day/night button is presented. Hitting the button basically rotates the theme out from one high contrast theme to the inverse. Works well but I so want to hack it to get a better colour selection and make it match the interior of my 2007 Civic.

golfguy · 03-27-2008, 04:19 PM

Well, opinions are like ***holes, everybody's got one, so I might as well chime in. Like NBB, having the front end fit into my car is more important to me than keeping the Mac OS X look, no matter how much I like it on my desktop. That said, what makes me like Mac over Windows is what Apple throws out. Windows and most Windows apps are busy and usually ugly. I don't necessarily agree with crimsonaudio that the NeonBoomBox graphic design is unattractive. I appreciate its simplicity. The fact that I can match the color to my car's red/orange instrument color is VERY important to me. I also like Front Row's more monochrome approach as well. I tend to find AMP hard to navigate in places.

Music is first and most important. It should be as easy or easier to navigate than an iPod. It should work well both on a touchscreen and rotary controller. Every button on the screen should have a key mapping, but since most rotary controllers don't have a lot of buttons, the choices should be minimized. Dragging to scroll while driving is awkward and distracting to me. Combining rotary and touch is ideal for me. Rotary control is one reason the iPod took over the market, since it just made sense. You don't have to reposition your finger to continue to scroll. Perhaps you can experiment with simulating an iPod touch wheel?
Music control should resume from where your computer went to sleep when you turn the car off. Sounds easy, but it's probably not.
GPS for me would be next, but I have limited experience with that so far, so I don't have much to suggest there other than launching another app.
Movies/TV/Video next, and should be navigated the same way as Music. Have on-screen controls pop up like the current Apple DVD Player while the video is playing. Touch once to get the controller, control with touch on the screen. Next touch off the margin of the controller hides it again.
OBD with vehicle specific trip computer and monitoring would be cool, but not essential.
I don't particularly car for applications skins, but others might.

iamgnat · 03-27-2008, 08:17 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by golfguy

It should be as easy or easier to navigate than an iPod.

I understand what you are saying and agree on principle, but the iPod's interface is both a boon and a bane.

For small (few hundred tracks) playlists it works fine, but more than that and I just find it cumbersome. The "letter skip" they added a while ago is also a bit painful for me personally. It seems like it always goes into that mode just as I about get to the track i'm looking for. And if you have a full computer in your car, why wouldn't you want all your music at your finger tips as it were (I know there are reasons).

Also the move from the rotary controller in the 1G to the touch pad was a bad one IMHO. With my old 1G due to the tactile feedback and the limited number of possible tracks, I used to be able to get within one or two tracks of my target without ever looking at the display. That is really the type of interface you need in the car (e.g. requires the absolute least amount of attention).

Quote:

Perhaps you can experiment with simulating an iPod touch wheel?

There are devices (some PnP, but others would take some electrical work and programming of their own) that are essentially a touch wheel that could be used. Emulating the TW on a standard touch screen would be difficult though as the things just aren't that accurate (try dragging things around the desktop with one and you should get the idea pretty quickly).

Quote:

Music control should resume from where your computer went to sleep when you turn the car off. Sounds easy, but it's probably not.

Actually it is. If you aren't playing via iTunes (like NBB, AMP, and I believe QCar), then unless the app pauses the track it will pick right back up when the system wakes up. If the FE does use iTunes, a simple listen for the wake up message and a play message to iTunes will do it.

Honestly I was all for immediately playing after wake until I wrote CFE. It was always supposed to do it, but by the time I got the rest of the code stable I had gotten used to it not playing when it woke up. It's of course always implementation, but AMP used to annoy me that it would actually be playing before my Amps had powered on so I missed parts of songs.

I will agree that it should be an option though so the user can decide how they want it to behave.

-dave

onepuff · 03-27-2008, 10:45 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by ibmeruu

BugBite, You seriously need to go to the store and buy a wii controller.

Front Row is awsome with the wii controller.

Just hold down the trigger and it opens. Then its NES controlls all the way.

Use Remote Buddy and a strond LED or Candle to use the mouse function.

Will try it in the car soon. Makes it so I don't need a touch screen.

Yep everyone with a mac in the car should get one!

BiGGy · 03-28-2008, 02:14 AM

my dream front end is a completely voice controlled interface, no LCD needed.