Topic: yet another squeezebox widget

I've decided to make another squeezebox widget as the last one isn't downloadable anymore. I've posted the code, download, and instructions up at github, so it'll hopefully have a longer life smile

http://wiki.github.com/slai/sbController

sbController is a widget for your Chumby that displays the current track and playlist on your Squeezebox (or any other device attached to your SqueezeCenter, including the Chumby itself).

Right now, the implemented actions are –

    * pause/unpause
    * next track
    * previous track

It caters for multiple registered devices too, but not password-protected SqueezeCenter servers (I think anyway; not tested). It is not an alternate BrowseBox implementation, but rather just a playlist/status viewer/controller.

Feedback appreciated smile

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

I was gonna try this, but I don't have that cauth string that it says is required in the xml file.  I run the squeezeserver software on my pc, not a portable device.

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Have you tried the instructions in the profile.xml file?

On the PC running Squeezeserver, open up your web browser and navigate to:

http://localhost:9000/xml/?p0=pref

What do you see?

If you see a cauth value, don't post it here - it should be a secret.

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Yeah I type that string in a browser and it just takes me to my squeezebox control panel, doesn't give me the authentication error.

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

cbox wrote:

Yeah I type that string in a browser and it just takes me to my squeezebox control panel, doesn't give me the authentication error.

Which version of Squeezebox Server/SqueezeCenter are you running?

I'm running 7.4.1 at the moment, and having some issues getting the cauth value too. I think they might have changed something; will let you know when I find out. It worked for me for version 7.3 though.

6 (edited by cbox 2009-12-21 18:45:08)

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

I'm running 7.4

actually looked it up now that I'm at home and I'm at 7.4.1 r28947

must be the most current version

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Has anyone thought of building SqueezePlay for Chumby? http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SqueezePlay

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

@cbox, sorry, still haven't really had a chance to have a solid look. If you put in an arbitary string (like 89104cd14ee4ffd21eefbd03ae134abc) for cauth, does it work?

I still can't find any documentation for 7.4 about cauth; I can't seem to get the cauth value either from the web interface. The widget still seems to work though.

SqueezePlay would be pretty interesting, and the Chumby is ideal for it.

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Any word on getting cauth value for 7.4?  Thanks, Mark

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Yes, i tried also squeezbox widget. I had faced the same problem in Xml file . And the last was an authentication error had arised. But i could not solve it.

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Hello

I know this is quite an old thread now but anyway got this working fine using SqueezeCenter 7.2 (issues on mac getting BBC radio working with anything newer!!)  Great addition to Colin smile

In response to cbox re. Squeezeplay have you seen this thread?

http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=5299

Can't get it working myself as having issues unpacking the tar file, but have got SqueezePlay on my N900 (without audio though only as a remote) and would love to see this on the Chumby

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

I've finally gotten around to updating this widget. The cauth value is no longer required, however, it still needs to be specified if you are running an older version, or have enabled CSRF protection (disabled by default on SBS 7.5+).

Also fixed a bunch of bugs, and added a nicer font.

Download link - https://github.com/downloads/slai/sbCon … er-0.2.zip

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

So...  (I'm new here)  is this a "widget" to control the play back of music which is actually being handled by two other boxes?  A Squeezecenter server and a Squeezebox client?

Questions:
1) If I get a 3.5" Inforcast box, can I install this widget into that box?

2) Has anyone made a complete Squeezecenter client that can also play back the music?

3) What types of music files are native to an Inforcast box?  (mp3's, wav, Orgvorbis (spelling?)...)?

-thanks

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

st2000 wrote:

So...  (I'm new here)  is this a "widget" to control the play back of music which is actually being handled by two other boxes?  A Squeezecenter server and a Squeezebox client?

Yep, it controls the playback of music that is occurring on other devices, e.g. a Squeezebox.

st2000 wrote:

If I get a 3.5" Inforcast box, can I install this widget into that box?

No idea. Hopefully someone with an Infocast will chime in.

st2000 wrote:

2) Has anyone made a complete Squeezecenter client that can also play back the music?

The Chumby at least, can act as a Squeezebox client, i.e. play music from SqueezeCenter/Squeezebox Server, as long as it is in MP3 or WAV format (i.e. you might have to transcode). No idea if this applies to the Infocast.

You're also probably better off starting a new thread for the other Infocast questions in the Infocast forum here - http://forum.chumby.com/viewforum.php?id=18

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

I came across your widget only recently - good stuff! It almost does all I like to have. A little issue remained, though: if the album, title and artist data is long, nearly nothing is seen from the cover picture. Would it be possible to move the text below the (may be slightly smaller) cover picture, or have it with transparent background?

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

u063096 wrote:

Would it be possible to move the text below the (may be slightly smaller) cover picture, or have it with transparent background?

That's a pretty long title there. I can probably make the background translucent; a fully transparent background would make it pretty difficult to read the text if the cover art is the same colour (e.g. white text on white cover art).

Moving the text below the cover art probably isn't going to solve the issue - one or the other will become too small to read/view. I might see if I can make the font size automatically shrink a bit for extremely long song titles.

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

samuel337 wrote:

I might see if I can make the font size automatically shrink a bit for extremely long song titles.

Great - I think that will be sufficient. Looking forward to it! smile

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

I have modified this widget to now work from the Chumby network, instead of having to fiddle with a USB drive. You will need to install a plugin into your Squeezebox Server to make everything work though.

Instructions here, look under the Instructions - Using the widget from the Chumby network section.

This change should mean the widget should work for all 3.5 inch devices, including the Infocast. I don't have one to test though.

The widget itself hasn't changed. u063096, I'll try to work your request into it soon.

19 (edited by SvenC 2011-07-29 02:53:39)

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Hi Samuel
I have a question to you (see the posting on edgylogic).

My question: I have ordered a chumby 8 with a large 8" screen.
Is your viewer flexible in display size or if a re-programming required? When yes, where can I change the screen size settings?

Thanks in advance

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Now, I have the chumby 8, but your widget could not foud on my device.
Any ideas?

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

SvenC:

You weren't able to see it because I had turned it off for devices with displays larger than 3.5 inches, mainly because I have no idea what it would do. As a guess, I'm thinking it would just render the widget in the top-left corner in the 3.5 inch size.

I have just enabled it for 8-inch devices - feel free to give it a shot and let me know what it looks like, and what it should look like. I can probably just make it expand and fill the screen, but maybe it should use that extra space for something else?

22 (edited by SvenC 2011-07-31 02:27:21)

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Hi samuel.
Thank you for your QUICK response!

Very cool. Now, I can see the widget and it's working fine for me on my chumby 8.
Normally, I need a viewer only for this device and your widget is perfect for viewing only. The view is in the middle of the screen (perfect for me). I need the whole screen, because the screen of the Logi touch is too small for me. big_smile

However, it is possible to implement a time bar or a view for elapsed time? This would be fine. smile

Another question: I have tagged all my files on squeezserver with coversize 200*200*72dpi.
I don't know if you use picture-resampling, because all pictures are very slow in resolution now (okay, the resol. 200*200 pixel is not great, but on computer it looks better).
Is it possible to use a resampling function for pictures? When not, can you implement a less picture size for covers? At this point, you have more space to implement something others (when you want).

My suggestion for the chumby 8:
- Top left corner: Album, Artist, Title
- In the middle of the screen: Cover (a little bit smaller as before)
- Bottom: Time bar or when not possible time and elapsed time
OR
When it is easy to implement some buttons.
You can use the bottom for three buttons.
Skip back - Play / Pause - Skip fwd
I don't know if it is possible, but it would be great, when I have a basic control for the squeezebox, but it is not important (because I can use the wipe on the touch for controlling). wink

Thank you for support! cool

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

SvenC wrote:

Very cool. Now, I can see the widget and it's working fine for me on my chumby 8.

Great, turned out better than I expected.

SvenC wrote:

However, it is possible to implement a time bar or a view for elapsed time? This would be fine. smile

I considered a time bar, but it would either jump a bit, or be somewhat inaccurate (when I occasionally look at the squeezeserver one the song usually finishes before the time bar does). Still would be a nice effect though; I'll have a look.

SvenC wrote:

Another question: I have tagged all my files on squeezserver with coversize 200*200*72dpi.
I don't know if you use picture-resampling, because all pictures are very slow in resolution now (okay, the resol. 200*200 pixel is not great, but on computer it looks better).
Is it possible to use a resampling function for pictures? When not, can you implement a less picture size for covers? At this point, you have more space to implement something others (when you want).

I assume you mean they are very low in resolution? I don't resample deliberately, but Flash does stretch the image to fit the screen. Because the widget is still running at 320x240 resolution, your larger screen should not affect it and you should see the art like I do on my Chumby classic. This might have something to do with pixel density of the Chumby screen?

I don't intend to blow the image up when I make a version for larger screens for this very reason though (although others might have higher quality cover art).

SvenC wrote:

My suggestion for the chumby 8:
- Top left corner: Album, Artist, Title
- In the middle of the screen: Cover (a little bit smaller as before)
- Bottom: Time bar or when not possible time and elapsed time
OR
When it is easy to implement some buttons.
You can use the bottom for three buttons.
Skip back - Play / Pause - Skip fwd

I like the suggestion in general. I haven't had a chance to load the widget in the emulator, so I don't quite know how much space I have to work with, but I'm thinking the cover art should be in the top right corner at a reasonable but not overly large size, and have artist, album, title and time bar in the lower left corner in that order, with the time bar stretching the width of the screen.

I'm not a big fan of having buttons, especially when gestures can do all that already, because I think it clutters up the screen.

This may all change once I get a chance to view it in the emulator though smile

24 (edited by SvenC 2011-08-07 09:50:09)

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

Ah sorry. Not slow, low resolution. Yes. big_smile
I have ~ 2000 albums; all tagged with 200*200 pixelsize. On the one hand, I can change the size of the covers...but on the other hand, nearly 2000 albums have to be updated...

On the chumby, I see the cover with large pixels, the picture is not interpolated.
We have two different screen sizes. On chumby 2.5" ? with resolution 320*240 and the chumby 8 has a 8" screen with 800*600 resolution.
It seems the cover is great for small screen sizes, but on large screen sizes, I can see pixel-artifacts...
The cover on chumby 8 is very large and it seems it has a size about 600 pixels (nearly the whole screen is occupied).
That's the reason why the cover does not look fine. I think the solution is to use cover with native resolution...

I think. A viewer only is perfect for chumby. Buttons are not important, your gesture handling is okay. wink
Your explanation is better than mine... feel free to change my ideas.

Thank you for your help. smile

btw. Does the emulator not run for chumby 8?


/edit

I forgot. Is it possible that your viewer resp. your x certificate initiate a higher workload on NAS as without your viewer?
I have a NAS QNAP 119 and the server on it is working fine and quite stable and fast when I skip tracks on my touch.
When your viewer is active on my chumby, functions like skip are very slow in handling, but the audio-stream is okay (no droputs or gaps, only the handling is very slowly).
However, I will check the behaviour on NAS with and without your viewer.

Re: yet another squeezebox widget

SvenC wrote:

I forgot. Is it possible that your viewer resp. your x certificate initiate a higher workload on NAS as without your viewer?

Definitely. I had the same issue when I was running SqueezeServer on my Synology NAS. This is because it is polling the server for the current status too frequently for the box to cope. By default, it polls every 5000 milliseconds, but this can be overridden in the widget config. I'd suggest you lengthen the update interval.

The reason why the Touch seems to be able to update much more frequently without this issue is because it uses the lightweight Squeezebox CLI to communicate with the server, instead of the XML interface that the widget uses. The XML interface is my only choice though due to the security restrictions on the Chumby OS.