Digital FX 2.0 Transparent Released - Page 42

kbreeden · 03-20-2007, 05:49 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by SangreDeThor

Some of us have to park hundreds of yards away from our place of living so most of my planning is on a desktop.

I was seeing this a little differently then. In addition to trip planning, I see it as a substitute for IG's crappy POI database. For example, If I was out and about and wanted to find a Walmart I could type "Walmart" in Google Maps, find the one I want and hit nav on John's plug to take me there.

Of course, a difficulty would be knowing which is the closest to where you are, especially if you're in an unfamiliar area. Google maps does accept zip codes, so if I were in the 21043 zip code area I could type "Walmart 21043" and it would produce a list of the closest Walmarts with the closest being at the top of the list. I could then use John's plug to navigate to the one of my choosing. I do believe that the gas plug displays current zip code based on GPS readings, so finding your current zip code should be doable. Maybe a button could be included somewhere either in John's plug or RR that says "Get Current Zip." Then you would just type in what you're looking for with the current zip and you would be able to easily navigate to it using John's plug.

Again, I'm not a coder so I don't know if any of this is possible. It does seem, though, that one of the biggest weaknesses of iGuidance is its POI database. Though not as elegant as a strong POI database, this might be a satisfactory workaround - plus Google maps will probably always be very current.

kbreeden · 03-20-2007, 06:30 PM

John (or anybody),

Pardon my ignorance, but I have been messing around with Google Maps and haven't been able to figure out how to get a URL for a specific location. The URL in the browser address bar doesn't change when I click on different locations. What am I missing?

JohnWPB · 03-20-2007, 07:35 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by kbreeden

John,

I'm a little surprised that you wouldn't be able to just do it on the carputer. The greatest utility would be to be able to bring up the address in the web browser and then hit a "nav" button that would have IG navigate to that location. Or maybe there would be a button that says "Save" and it would save the information to the ini file on the carputer. Your application could then give you the option to navigate to it, map it, or whatever.

Ummmm Thats exactly what it does right now. If you look at the screen capture a few posts back, and the description of it, the center button says "Navigate in iGuidance". This skips the external file all together, and sends the coordinates directly to iG.

As for the "WalMart analogy", Sonic is working on adding code to take advantage of the rest of the information that is already in the GPS gas database. This includes zip code, city, state & county. So, that information could be readily available. This being the case, it would not be to hard to put an extra button on the browser screen, that when you find a location, and it is showing in the browsers address bar, to copy that information, send it to the script to parse out the coordinates, and pass it on to iG to navigate to it, all with a single click.

As for getting the information from Google maps:

You have to search for what you want, and double click the map to center it on that area. Then you have to click the "Link to this page" link in the top right of the map. That changes the browsers address bar to show that exact location when loaded. It is from that URL that I am parsing out the coordinates.

I have, unfortunately, found a major snag in getting this to work 100% of the time

It's iGuidance itself. If there is no address close to the coordinates specified, iG will say "Unknown" for the coordinates entered. This is just PLAIN stupid! Using coordinates should take you ANYWHERE! So for instance, you enter coordinates that are a hundred yards or so off of a road in iG, iG will not recognize it! Just plain stupid, but there is nothing I can do about it unfortunately.

kbreeden · 03-20-2007, 07:46 PM

Thanks, John. This sounds great and will take RR to a whole new level if the obstacles can be overcome. I guess I got confused with your post about transferring the file to the carputer.

JohnWPB · 03-20-2007, 08:10 PM

Yea, I mentioned that way of doing things, as personally all of my planning is done right here on the desktop using a full sized computer screen, keyboard and monitor. For me it is easier than sitting in the car with a chicklet keyboard, and 7" screen

I simply take the thumbdrive to the car, plug it in and go.

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-21-2007, 08:57 AM

not that i need more on my plate but if u want i can work on a script that will give you the nearest address within a set radius. It might not give you the exact address you are looking for but it'd at least navigate you right into the area of the address (within say 5000 feet). This would mean it'd keep feeding addresses into iG until a known address is found. Could turn into quite the light show with all the screen flashing but it would work lol.

in the few times ive used coordinates in iG i believe i figured out it will let you save the location of the coordinates then navigate to it but not just navigate. I could be wrong though.

kbreeden · 03-21-2007, 09:19 AM

Sonic,

Thanks much for the offer, but please don't do it just for my benefit. I can easily use Google maps to get the street address and then manually input the address into iG. I thought if that process could be automated it would be great, but apparently the limitations of iG won't permit it.

One thing that would be nice would be an easy way to display the current zip code so it could be input to the Google map search request. I suppose, though, that it's easy enough to just go to the gas plugin to find it.

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-21-2007, 09:21 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by kbreeden

Sonic,

Thanks much for the offer, but please don't do it just for my benefit. I can easily use Google maps to get the street address and then manually input the address into iG. I thought if that process could be automated it would be great, but apparently the limitations of iG won't permit it.

One thing that would be nice would be an easy way to display the current zip code so it could be input to the Google map search request. I suppose, though, that it's easy enough to just go to the gas plugin to find it.

Well thats on the way.. along with city and state. They will be labels updated in rr by gps at set intervals.

kbreeden · 03-21-2007, 09:27 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

Well thats on the way.. along with city and state. They will be labels updated in rr by gps at set intervals.

You guys never cease to amaze me!

SangreDeThor · 03-21-2007, 11:28 AM

Nice sonic!

Mr_Civic · 03-21-2007, 11:43 AM

Only found one post on this subject In regards to Video art.

Is there a recommended size/specific size needed or does it resize itself? Also, the jpg file has to be named exactly as the video file is, correct?

JohnWPB · 03-21-2007, 03:30 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Mr_Civic

Only found one post on this subject In regards to Video art.

Is there a recommended size/specific size needed or does it resize itself? Also, the jpg file has to be named exactly as the video file is, correct?

The Image will be resized automatically to fit the area. You just need to keep the original image to the same aspect ratio of a DVD cover. In my case, I am using 500 x 714 images. This is a bit overkill for the car, but I also use the images multi purpose, for the car, and for the Media Center PC in the living room.

The actual size of the DVD Cover art on the skin is 275 x 393. If it's a few pixels off, it will not matter, as it will stretch the image to fill the display area on the skin.

As for the name, you can make it whatever you want. RR will just display the first image it finds in the folder. All of my images are simply named Folder.jpg so they show up on the icons as well in windows file explorer outside of RR.

Mr_Civic · 03-21-2007, 09:29 PM

Got it, thanks for the explanation.

kbreeden · 03-23-2007, 09:27 AM

John,

It looks like LostReception's QWERTY keyboard plug is just about ready for prime time. DigitalFX and the QWERTY plug both use modified versions of iGuidance.exe. Unfortunately, the iGuidance patch supplied with the Qwerty plug doesn't work on the iGuidance.exe file as modified to work with DigitalFX. I'm wondering if there's a way to use the QWERTY keyboard with the modified iGuidance.exe file used for DigitalFX so we can get the benefit of all modifications.

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-23-2007, 10:09 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by kbreeden

John,

It looks like LostReception's QWERTY keyboard plug is just about ready for prime time. DigitalFX and the QWERTY plug both use modified versions of iGuidance.exe. Unfortunately, the iGuidance patch supplied with the Qwerty plug doesn't work on the iGuidance.exe file as modified to work with DigitalFX. I'm wondering if there's a way to use the QWERTY keyboard with the modified iGuidance.exe file used for DigitalFX so we can get the benefit of all modifications.

i'm sure the reason for this is different title names witht he submenus of iguidance. We need to come up with standardized names so all hacked versions are compliant with upgrades and add-ons.

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