Quote:

Tony, if you were inclined to include Empire in emphatic, you have my full support and permission to take any and all code within Empire and re-use it. Both projects are open-source GPL, no worries.

Quote:

Quote:

Tony, if you were inclined to include Empire in emphatic, you have my full support and permission to take any and all code within Empire and re-use it. Both projects are open-source GPL, no worries.

Very interesting proposal. I will certainly consider it. BTW, (how) is the Windows CE version of Palantir coming along? I don't have a Palm, but I do have an old PocketPC.

Quote:
Yeah, that's a weakness in the current Hijack API design, for sure.

No "stack" of screen ownership exists.. kinda difficult to solve it without such, I suppose.

Quote:
what are the chances of getting GPSapp absorbed into emphatic?

Quote:

Now, the real question is if we had that, would GPSapp and emphatic play nicely together? For that to work, GPSApp would have to have a background thread that would be reading the GPS stuff and writing it to the pipe. If GPSapp ever needed to be brought to the foreground, there might be problems, as multiple apps accessing display/input is not handled very well.

Quote:
Is the serial port required in order to send commands to the player via hijack's /proc/whatever-it-is interface? Or am I wrong in remembering said interface?

Quote:

Secondly, there exist bluetooth GPSes. People have added bluetooth to their empegs. Neat-O.

• Added an integrated version of Mark Cushman's "Empire" server which allows you to queue up songs using a Palm PDA interface via IrDA. Thanks to Mark for suggesting this, and allowing me to use his code. To enable this, change the "use_empire" option to "true" in your XML, or add it if it's not present in the "settings" section. The default configuration (if no "use_empire" setting is specified) is to not launch the Empire server. This has been lightly tested, but seems to work.
• I received permission to redistribute the empeg fonts, so I'm doing so. Only two of the fonts are necessary, as the player always contains "small" and "medium." The fonts for "large" and "gimungous" will be installed to the same directory as the emphatic binaries, and will be read from that location. If you had problems using those fonts before, they should work now. Thanks to the empeg guys for allowing me to redistribute the fonts.
• Added a popup display of the mode name when display modes are changed. To turn this off, use the setting "show_mode=false".
  

Quote:
Rowitech did it by adding a serial -> Bluetooth dongle to his and kim did it by replacing the IrDA parts inside the empeg with a serial -> Bluetooth module. First option means you lose the serial port again and the second option would be a pain to do.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Installing emphatic...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Please enter the IP address of your empeg:

> 192.168.1.152





=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Please enter the directory to install emphatic to:

> /usr/local/bin





=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Perform an upgrade install of emphatic?  Selecting "no" here will allow you

to change advanced config options, and will install the default emphatic XML

configuration file.  If you select "yes", we will perform an upgrade install,

and your existing configuration will be unchanged.  If you upgrade, you will

have to add new config options to the XML by hand.

Upgrade an existing emphatic installation in /usr/local/bin (y/n)?

n



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Would you like me to modify your config.ini to launch emphatic

when your empeg boots?

If you choose 'n' here, you will have to launch emphatic manually,

or using a 3rd party launcher

Add ;@EXEC_ONCE entry to config.ini? (y/n)?

y





=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

emphatic allows you to rate your songs to provide a weighted shuffle mode

that favors your highest-rated songs.  Would you like to add this shuffle

mode to your config.ini?  If you have already done this before, select

'n' here.  You can always add/modify this shuffle mode in config.ini later

if you know what you're doing.

Add "Favorites" shuffle mode to config.ini? (y/n)?

y





=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

For optimum performance, you may want to reserve some player memory for

running emphatic and other 3rd party applications.  If you select 'y'

here, config.ini will be modified to reserve 10 cache blocks (about 300k).

If you select 'n', the ReserveCache entry in your config.ini will be left

as-is.

Reserve 10 cache blocks for 3rd party applications? (y/n)?

y





=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Alright, pay attention.  Song ratings in emphatic range from 1 to 10.

Prior to running emphatic, the player has all song ratings set at 0.

This means that songs you haven't rated yet aren't going to pop up in a

weighted shuffle mode until the very end.  This is usually not

desirable behavior.



To fix this, the installation procedure can walk through your dynamic

data partition and initialize song ratings to 5, which will mean all

songs start off with an "average" rating, which you can raise or lower

to your liking.



I've tested this procedure extensively on my own empegs, under various

versions of player software v2 and v3.  I have had no problems with this

procedure, but because it involves writing some data to the player's

dynamic data partition, I'm giving you the chance to bail out on this

part of the install.  If you choose not to initialize your song ratings,

you will find that unrated songs rarely show up in a shuffle, which will

make doing song ratings difficult if you're in "Favorites" shuffle mode.



If you choose "Y" here, the install process will execute emphatic on

your empeg to initialize the song rating data.  This may take some time,

possibly up to a minute or more, but probably more like 20-30 seconds.



If you're really worried, you may wish to break out of this script now

and back up your dynamic data partition.



Initialize song rating data on your empeg? (y/n)?

y





=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Okay, I will now install emphatic to directory /usr/local/bin on 192.168.1.152

  config.ini will be modified to launch emphatic on startup

  config.ini will be modified to add "Favorites" shuffle mode

  config.ini will be modified to reserve memory for 3rd party apps

  song ratings on /dev/hda3 will be initialized to "5"



Do you wish to proceed? (y/n)?

y

Connected to 192.168.1.152.

220 Connected.

User (192.168.1.152:(none)):

230 Login okay.

ftp> quote site rw

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site exec mkdir -p /usr/local/bin

200 Okay.

ftp> cd /usr/local/bin

250 "/usr/local/bin" directory changed

ftp> bin

200 Okay.

ftp> put emphatic

200 Okay.

150 Opening data connection.

> Netout :Connection reset by peer

451 Internal error.

ftp: 196605 bytes sent in 0.19Seconds 1051.36Kbytes/sec.

ftp> put irattach

200 Okay.

150 Opening data connection.

451 Internal error.

ftp: 22883 bytes sent in 0.00Seconds 22883000.00Kbytes/sec.

ftp> put 13pixel.bf

200 Okay.

150 Opening data connection.

451 Internal error.

ftp: 13032 bytes sent in 0.00Seconds 13032000.00Kbytes/sec.

ftp> put large.bf

200 Okay.

150 Opening data connection.

451 Internal error.

ftp: 15626 bytes sent in 0.00Seconds 15626000.00Kbytes/sec.

ftp> put postinstall.sh

200 Okay.

150 Opening data connection.

451 Internal error.

ftp: 3391 bytes sent in 0.00Seconds 3391000.00Kbytes/sec.

ftp> ascii

200 Okay.

ftp> put emphatic.xml

200 Okay.

150 Opening data connection.

451 Internal error.

ftp: 15552 bytes sent in 0.00Seconds 15552000.00Kbytes/sec.

ftp> put emphatic.dtd

200 Okay.

150 Opening data connection.

451 Internal error.

ftp: 22618 bytes sent in 0.00Seconds 22618000.00Kbytes/sec.

ftp> quote site chmod 755 emphatic

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site chmod 755 irattach

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/postinstall.sh

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site chmod 644 emphatic.dtd

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site chmod 644 13pixel.bf

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site chmod 644 large.bf

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site chmod 644 emphatic.xml

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site exec /usr/local/bin/postinstall.sh /usr/local/bin 1 1 1 1

541 ERROR (rc=1)

ftp> quote site exec rm -f /usr/local/bin/postinstall.sh

200 Okay.

ftp> quote site ro

200 Okay.

ftp> quit

221 Happy Fishing.

emphatic installed.

Press any key to continue . . .

hijack: Remounted read-write: /

hijack: Remounted read-write: /drive0

hijack: Remounted read-write: /drive1

kftpd: write(4096) failed

kftpd: write(4096) failed

kftpd: write(4096) failed

kftpd: write(4096) failed

kftpd: write(3391) failed

kftpd: write(4096) failed

kftpd: write(4096) failed

/bin/sh: /usr/local/bin/postinstall.sh: Exec format error

hijack: Remounted read-only: /

hijack: Remounted read-only: /drive0

hijack: Remounted read-only: /drive1

empeg:/# df -k /usr
/sbin/df: Warning: cannot read table of mounted filesystems: No such file or directory
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
-                        15863     15863         0 100% /
-                            0         0         0   -  /proc
-                     29188940   7834080  21354860  27% /drive0
-                     29166595   7813929  21352666  27% /drive1
-                        15863     15863         0 100% /
empeg:/#

Quote:
I've been looking at this and I like the idea of custom info views. I don't know if I like the fact that it slows down the visuals, mainly because that tells me that all things will run/react slower. Is that because of the lyric part of the program or something else? How bad is the slow down? I'm not trying to complain, I just would hate to slow down the player.

Er, I dunno, why don't you give it a shot for yourself? If the slowdown is unacceptable to you, then you're under no obligation to continue using it. And it's not like it's costing you anything!

Seriously though, I won't even make an attempt to quantify or qualify the slowdown, because it all depends on what else is going on with your player, what player version you're using, how much RAM you have, what model player you have, what other apps might be running... Way too many variables.

What I will tell you is that I use emphatic full time now on both of my players and the only time I see slowdowns is when the player is going to disk to fill its cache. When that happens, ALL bets are off when it comes to 3rd party apps, because disk I/O is CPU-bound and nothing else gets ANY CPU when the player decides to read from disk. There's really nothing I can do about that.

Other people have reported varying degrees of slowdown. It certainly will depend on what emphatic is doing at the time, but the lyric display code is no more or less complex/CPU-intensive than the code for drawing the other display elements (artist, title, etc.) As mentioned elsewhere in this and other threads, the most CPU-intensive thing is the "burnin" function which puts a dark outline around the text for busy visuals. I do intend to try to optimize that code further, but for now, it is what it is, and I think it's still very usable.

Ultimately, you're going to have to install it for yourself and see how things go. If you don't like what you see, take out the EXEC_ONCE entry that launches emphatic and you've got the regular player UI back.

Quote:

So how custom can I get with this?

Quote:

Any plans on say a GUI to create the custom looks? You know to help lazy peeps like my self.