OrbTS

From MP3Car.com Wiki

[edit] Overview

Orb Touchscreen (OrbTS) is a Road runner plug-in that is currently in the preliminary stages of development. The plug-in allows you to use the Orb functions embedded into RR skins. This wiki page is used as the documentation for the plug-in, request features, to record bugs, and to follow development progress.

[edit] Features

Orb is a service that runs on a host computer and allows you to share your music, video, picture and documents over the internet. Orb also allows you to stream television if you have a TV tuner card. The Orb service streams the media from your computer to a client and can re-encode the music or video to stream over slow connections, or to view on small screens. Orb clients can be a web browser, media center, PDA/PocketPC or cell phone. In this case, the client is OrbTS. OrbTS is a program that runs in the background, and messages are sent from the RR via the skin to OrbTS. There is a window that displays folders and files that is embedded into a skin. OrbTS allows you to view and stream many types of media on your remote computer:

• Audio - mp3s, wavs, wmas, etc
• Video - avis, wmv, mpgs, divx, etc
• Audio Playlists - m3us, pls, asx
• Television channels

When playing audio files, the files are placed into Road Runner's playlist and loads the audio skin. RR can be used to navigate through the playlist.

[edit] Versions

• version 0.1b - 11/05/2007 - download - Videos play in RR, added album cover icons to directory listings, removed winamp sdk dll (no longer needed)
• version 0.1a - 10/30/2007 - download - Initial alpha release

[edit] Requirements

OrbTS requires:

Car Computer

• .NET 2.0
• Road Runner
• Internet Connection (Orb will re-encode your streams depending on your connection speed, but a high-speed connection is recommended for quality content)

Home Computer

• Orb Client installed on your home computer (it is possible to be granted access to other people's content. This has not been test).
• TV tuner card if you want to view television

Other

• Orb account

[edit] Installation Instructions

To use OrbTS, you must install it. At the moment there is no installer. There are two parts to OrbTS: the program and the RR skin. Place the OrbTS.exe and dlls in a folder such as Program Files\OrbTS, then create or install a RR skin. I've included a SIMPLE orb skin that use can use with your own skin. This has all the necessary functions to make OrbTS work.

[edit] Settings

There is a settings.xml file with the settings to user OrbTS. The settings file must be in the same folder as the .exe file. The following settings are required:

• username - Orb account username
• password - Orb account password
• maxResults - Because OrbTS utilizes web services, a maximum number of results prevents the request from taking too long. Default: 200
• tempFolder - OrbTS downloads a playlist and stores it into a temp folder to load in RR. Default: c:\temp\

[edit] Skin Variables

To send to OrbTS:

• ORBCMD - This variable tells OrbTS what command in the skin is being activated. Acceptable values are "AUDIO", "VIDEO", "PLAYLIST", "TV", and "ORBPLAY". The commands will open the respective media types, and ORBPLAY will take the selected media item and play it. When the command has been executed in OrbTS, ORBCMD is reset so you can press the button again.

To receive from OrbTS:

• ORBUSERNAME - The username of the Orb user
• ORBUSERONLINE - The status of the Orb User (true or false)
• ORBPCONLINE - The status of the Orb Remote PC (true or false)
• ORBMEDIA - The current media type (Audio, Video, Playlist, TV)

To properly embed the OrbTS file list window, the orb skin must be named "orb.skin". OrbTS will only try to embed itself into the skin if orb.skin is active.

[edit] Limitations

These are some problems that I am aware of, and am working to resolve. They may require some updates to Orb or Road Runner or some research to figure out how to do them.

• - (fixed) Video current plays in Winamp. Needs to load into Road Runner built-in player or Media Player Classic

[edit] Bugs

Since this is very early in the development process, please EXPECT to run into bugs. I have not installed this in my car because it's just not ready. If you want to help, please report any bugs here:

[edit] Feature Requests

This program is made with the mp3car.com users in mind, so please feel free to request features:

• - Browse Orb pictures - matt
• - (completed, v0.1b) Add album covers icons to media list - matt