need help choosing a frontend: 640x480, keyboard control, visuals!

mattress · 09-21-2005, 06:09 PM

hey guys, i'm back from the grave. i pulled my car pc project out of the closet after almost a year of buying misc. parts to get this thing working.

lots of things have changed since then, and there is a vast list of different front ends to choose from! that's pretty amazing!

I have a list of requirements:
resolution: 640x480 ... for a custom LCD display i'm using. I don't know if all the different front ends will support this tiny resolution or not..

keyboard control: since unfortunatly I don't have a touchscreen, and don't have the funds for one at the moment, I'm limited to my input devices. I've decided on using a remote control, and a home-made infrared receiver, along with girder to translate ir codes (remote control button presses) into keyboard buttons.

very simple: i like the fact that the menus in meedio are completely customizable. I have 6 icons on the home screen, and nothing more. 1 button press takes me to the music player and plays music, with full screen visuals. another button press takes me back to the home screen. another button press takes me to the dvd player, etc. I find that most of the frontends I've browsed look VERY cluttered. they have been designed around touchscreens, and have a million buttons and options, etc. (i can't see how you guys fumble around with all those buttons while driving a car haha)

visualizations: gotta have full screen visuals that move with the music!

-----------------------------------------
i've been using meedio.
not bad, but not great. so far it has everything I need: I can navigate anywhere in the program using keyboard buttons (up down left right enter backspace, etc).
it can run at the small resolution I need.
I also have it setup to start full screen visuals. the visuals change on every new song (along with a brief information bar at the bottom of the screen displaying artist, songname, etc).
I found a plugin that embeds destinator3 into it ... but I can't control D3 using the keyboard... so I'm trying different frontends/gps programs until I find one suitable for my input method..

i'm sure this has been posted a thousand times, and I know I'm probably going to get reamed/flamed for making this post, but I'm hoping that someone can either provide the info, or point me somewhere I can find it.

//so far i've tried frodoplayer and centrafuse.
I like the interface of centrafuse, but couldn't find any full screen visuals, and couldn't navigate using keyboard.
frodoplayer can be setup to use a keyboard, but it's very very cluttered. after browsing the ini file it looks like the buttons can be turned off, and custom themes applied, etc. i didn't see any full screen visuals here either tho

thanks

MatrixPC · 09-22-2005, 11:08 AM

If you can do little graphic, any front end is okay to use. You skin the front end the way you want. I am not sure abou the Navigate by keyboard part, but I think all of them can do okay with the up-down arrow and enter key.
With a PSOne LCD, I can do most things with mouse and IR Remote+Girder. I don't run any FE although I installed them.

mattress · 09-22-2005, 03:49 PM

interesting. glad to see there are still fellow psone LCD users out there

how do you manage to use a mouse in a car?

MatrixPC · 09-23-2005, 02:10 AM

I use one of those thumb/finger mouse. Basically you hold in your hand move the ball with your thumb and click with the forth finger just like you holding a gun and pull a trigger.

The only time I use the mouse is entering address for GPS. Winamp is controll by remote. GPS and Music are the 2 program I use. Movie, I don't watch when I drive by myself.