Topic: Custom Control Panels?

I want to do my own little control panel, in my mind It was just for the times where my chumby hasn't internet connection (last days my connection has been quite bad) but, also, I was thinking to make it with online capabilities.
My idea includes: Clock (done), alarm, calculator, music player, dim/off screen (done), usb photos frame, load other flash movies from usb

then my questions are:

1. Has someone made any control panel for himself (offline / online) ? any (not just a clock) example online?

2. Can I read files from my USB such as music files or image files?

3. What I have to do to run this control panel with online capabilities (such as read RSS...)?


thank you very much!

Re: Custom Control Panels?

1) Several people have threatened to make their own Control Panels - I'm not aware of anyone that's actually done so and made it publicly available.

2) Yes - a Control Panel can have access to local files, using the "file://" protocol.  We enhanced this protocol to return XML when given a directory.  This post has some example code.

3) Nothing special. The mechanism would be the same as a widget - fetch the XML, parse it, display it.

The only peculiar thing you have to do in a Control Panel is write the heartbeat file every 15 seconds or so to let the watchdog know you're still alive.  Documentation here.

If you want to do things like control the system volume, play streaming music, etc, then you'll want to take a look at this.

Re: Custom Control Panels?

Thank you Duane, I've been doing some new tests with BTplay and _getDirectoryEntry but I can't listen anything yet and I haven't made _getDirectoryEntry work. Anyway I will work more on all of this stuff and when I will have a nice quantity of questions i will tell you. Very interesting the "file://" thing!

Re: Custom Control Panels?

I *think* _getDirectoryEntry requires Firmware 1.7, which hasn't been released yet (soon).  In the meantime, you'll probably have to use the file:// protocol.

5 (edited by theMartix 2009-04-27 13:25:19)

Re: Custom Control Panels?

If someone wants to know more about my offline (or not) controlpanel for chumby, I'm doing some documentation in my blog, at the moment in designing step.

All posts:
http://www.vintiun.net/blog/tag/cosmicpanel/?order=asc

Project posts:
http://www.vintiun.net/blog/2009/04/26/ … functions/
http://www.vintiun.net/blog/2009/04/27/ … el-design/

Applications:
http://www.vintiun.net/blog/2009/04/27/ … alculator/
http://www.vintiun.net/blog/2009/04/27/ … imulation/

Re: Custom Control Panels?

I would like to use my new chumby one offline as well.   At work no way to get wifi or internet connection.   

I really don't know how to program, so if anyone has a solution I would be happy to try it out and give useful feedback as a non-programmer.  Just want the clock, the FM radio, maybe a picture viewer too.

Can anyone point me to a resource to do that? I searched forums but can't find anything except this thread.

The project theMatrix descibes above looks awesome, but not sure if it is available. 

I think if this was available as a published alternative, I would even buy another chumby for dad.

Thankyou

Re: Custom Control Panels?

Hi, after long time "away" I'm decided to restart my project of cosmicpanel since some people have been asking for it.

I will continue with the development of the alarm clock, trying to make it compatible with chumby control panel one, and after this basic feature try to add some other more such as a picture viewer, music player and so on.

Now my project just have got a linux console, clock, background light selection, wifi signal with ability to switch it off and accelerometer menus.

There is a website but it is under wordpress and doing an update it seems not to work... smile

Re: Custom Control Panels?

Great to see you back Matrix, spotted your previous posts before but thought that the project had died.  Be very glad to see an off-line control panel

Re: Custom Control Panels?

I am very interested in this also. Being able to have my Chumby One "somewhat" functional at work would be beneficial. I brought it in this morning (after using it all weekend) figuring I could listen to the radio, use it as an alarm, etc... But that is not a possibility at this time. Features I am looking for are primarily (pretty much in order of priority):
1) FM Radio
2) Alarms
3) MP3s from USB
4) Cached news

With 2GB of memory on the SD card you would imagine it could do some more of this.

Re: Custom Control Panels?

Well, at the moment I am working in basic things such as clock and alarms, mp3, light control... I have got a chumby not a chumby one, I don't know if it will work in chumby one, since maybe they have big changes in their soft.  And that chumby has not FM radio, sorry!
As soon as I get something I will post it.
Thanks for the interest!

Re: Custom Control Panels?

This seems really interesting. I hope that this could be compatible with the Chumby One but then again odds are it might not. Either way hopefully this will inspire others to help or make their own control panel for the new device, or perhaps it could motivate the Chumby team to add offline support for it.

I would like it to be able to function without having to be connected all the time. But despite this i absolutely love my Chumby.

Re: Custom Control Panels?

I put the API for the FM radio up on the wiki.

Re: Custom Control Panels?

theMartix wrote:

Hi, after long time "away" I'm decided to restart my project of cosmicpanel since some people have been asking for it.

I will continue with the development of the alarm clock, trying to make it compatible with chumby control panel one, and after this basic feature try to add some other more such as a picture viewer, music player and so on.

Now my project just have got a linux console, clock, background light selection, wifi signal with ability to switch it off and accelerometer menus.

There is a website but it is under wordpress and doing an update it seems not to work... smile

Sounds good but where i can download the control panel? I found the event test only.

Re: Custom Control Panels?

Hi Andiii,
I didn't do so much but if you want to try what's at the moment I've added a file in the cosmicpanel project in gforge.chumby page.

http://gforge.chumby.com/projects/cosmicpanel/

just add this swf file to a pendrive and reboot chumby with the pendrive and you'll see this controlpanel.

to see the fast menu (top) just make chumby do a heading movement to you, you can try the console (for example with the command "ls")
the other menu will appear after hitting chumby in the left side.
Also you can press the wifi signal to deactivate it.

Its not so much, but i have not so many free time now.

I hope you like it.

Re: Custom Control Panels?

Can you put the source code to the projekt page also?

I tried to use the panel but the acceleration controlling doesn't work. I can see the side menu on start but if i choose something it disappears and doesn't come back.
In the case of pressing the chumby button the top menu appears with all icons in grey in exception of the teminal icon.
The terminal scrolling is really bad on my C1.
Activation of Wifi works but i couldn't deactivate it with the on/off button.

May you give me any suggestion for solving the problems?

muchos saludos

Re: Custom Control Panels?

Andiii wrote:

Can you put the source code to the projekt page also?

ok, but it is embedded in a flash file, because there are all the movie clips etc

Andiii wrote:

I tried to use the panel but the acceleration controlling doesn't work. I can see the side menu on start but if i choose something it disappears and doesn't come back.

It works in mine, but it is the classic chumby

Andiii wrote:

In the case of pressing the chumby button the top menu appears with all icons in grey in exception of the teminal icon.

yes, its because i haven't done the other things yet smile

Andiii wrote:

The terminal scrolling is really bad on my C1.

It can be, I remember last time i was working on it I think i changed it, but this is not this version, sorry.

Andiii wrote:

Activation of Wifi works but i couldn't deactivate it with the on/off button.

It works in mine, but it is the classic chumby

Andiii wrote:

May you give me any suggestion for solving the problems?

well, I think some of the problems are because you have a C1, and the others are because my code is not the best, If I have time I'll have a look and try to do the other things, but I am not sure when I'll be able to. If you know actionscript or flash you can do changes in the code, but tell me before and I'll explain my code a bit.

thanks for your interest, salut!

Martí