[Announce]: iPeng 0.4 iPhone / iTouch plugin

[pippin]

iPeng, the iPhone / iTouch skin just got a new version and became a
plugin, so this goes here...

see also: http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=183

What has changed?

First of all: again, it's a plugin. Erland wrote that part, many thanks
from Coolio again! Apart from having to be installed in a different
directory, that gives the opportunity for localizations, so iPeng menus
and strings can be translated. Right now, it only has English and German
localizations, but we’re happy to admit translations in other languages
;-)

Being a plugin, there can also be configuration options, and they are
used to support two distinguishing features iPeng 0.4 provides:
NowPlaying plugins and configurable toolbars.

Configurable toolbars: There was lots of feedback of the kind: “Can’t I
get a Search button, New Music button, whatever button on the toolbar?”
Now iPeng let’s you configure these yourself, comes with a variety of
additional buttons, allows plugins to register their own buttons plus
allows you to define your own by means of a simple xml file logic. So
anything that can be reached in iPeng through the CLI, JavaScript or a
URL can be put on a toolbar button!

Just to give a small example: the “Player control” toolbar that would
mimic the NowPlaying screen toolbar:

[image:
Loading Image...]

Toolbars can be context specific, so a plugin could offer commands,
that only make sense within the context of the plugin. One example for
this are the “home” screen commands (Internet Radio, Alarm, Sleep) that
get you directly to the respective page on the home screen but are not
available from other screens.

NowPlaying screen: Another part that has been completely reworked, is
the “NowPlaying” screen. Most of this will go unnoticed, but some
features are quite prominent:

The Swipe: Former versions of iPeng had a little button in the top
right corner of the NowPlaying screen to switch between the cover art
view and the playlist view. Now, there’s a page indicator instead that
shows you where you are since it’s no longer only two pages that can be
used on NowPlaying screen:

[image:
Loading Image...]

Now, theoretically you can click on each of the dots to go directly to
one of those pages, and actually that’s what you will have to do when
using iPeng on a PC or a Mac, on iPhone iTouch, however, there’s a more
elegant way: just swpie the page to the left or the right to change back
and forth like browsing through a book. A feature not seen before on
iPhone webapps.

The Plugin Screen: What made this necessary, was the plugin screen. You
reach it with a right swipe and it is a way to let plugins add
NowPlaying specific commands and information. If it’s information, it
will be shown in another (fourth) page. And the best thing is, these
pages get updated depending on context, so they can be used to show
track specific information.

An example, that comes with iPeng is the SongInfo Command. It shows the
SongInfo details presented by the other skins upon clicking a track.

Other examples that come with iPeng 0.4 but require external plugins
are Biography (shows the Bio of the artist for the current track),
Album Info (same for Album Info) and MusicIP (creates a MusicIP mix
based on the current track).

More will be available shortly with upcoming releases of Erland’s
CustomBrowse plugin.

The Landscape Mode: Another feature tried out in the experimental
versions of iPeng 0.3x that now comes with 0.4 is the landscape mode.
While browsing an album view (that is: one that has cover art), just
turn your iPhone to the side and it will re-load the page with big
artwork in a landscape layout.

Note: This is somewhat of a gimmick, it will take much longer to load
than the standard scree due to the large artwork. Also, the album view
will have to be loaded to switch, so moving your iPhone while the
screen still loads or while you are on another scree will not result in
the desired effect.

[image:
Loading Image...]

Other Changes

Apart from this there is a load of other changes:

* The Start screen now aggregates Internet Radio and MusicServices
into one Menu Item. This is something I did for Coolio who just
wouldn’t learn the difference and always try to look up station in the
wrong menu first
* If you use CustomBrowse it does the same to Music Library and
Browse more and shows CustomBrowse on the Main Page instead.
* RandomPlay is now supported
* The Browse Pages now do not cut filenames by themselves but use
iPhone’s browser feature for this, so you will no longer end up with
filenames that were cut short even though there was still space left in
the row.
* BrowsePages use AjaxUpdate to load the next page so you will not
end up seeing an empty load page while waiting for the next page to
show up but stay on the current page.
* Numerous details improvements and bug fixes.

Have fun!

[vrobin]

Yeah! Much thanks... this sounds great! I long being at home to try it!

Long lives coolio!

[Lesu]

I'm using Ubuntu 7.10.
I loaded the new 0.4 iPeng plug-in to its proper location and deleted
the previous helper plug-in and deleted the 0.3 skin.
The old plug-in reference refused to disappear from the list and the
new plug-in didn't show. I tried stopping and re-starting
Squeezecenter, but it didn't change anything.
I then installed 0.4 on a Vista SP1 machine using the latest
Squeezecenter download and the plug-in worked fine.
I was previously running Squeezecenter v7.0 in Ubuntu, because the auto
update kept falling over. In desperation I manually uninstalled
Squeezecenter 7.0 and re-installed with 7.01. Without making any
changes to the plug-in installation files, the whole system burst into
life!

Can I assume from this that 0.4 needs 7.01 as the Squeezecenter
version?

Now I can go exploring all the new features. Keep up the excellent
work, pippin!

[pippin]

Post by Lesu
I'm using Ubuntu 7.10.
I loaded the new 0.4 iPeng plug-in to its proper location and deleted
the previous helper plug-in and deleted the 0.3 skin.
The old plug-in reference refused to disappear from the list and the
new plug-in didn't show. I tried stopping and re-starting
Squeezecenter, but it didn't change anything.
I then installed 0.4 on a Vista SP1 machine using the latest
Squeezecenter download and the plug-in worked fine.
I was previously running Squeezecenter v7.0 in Ubuntu, because the auto
update kept falling over. In desperation I manually uninstalled
Squeezecenter 7.0 and re-installed with 7.01. Without making any
changes to the plug-in installation files, the whole system burst into
life!
Can I assume from this that 0.4 needs 7.01 as the Squeezecenter
version?
Now I can go exploring all the new features. Keep up the excellent
work, pippin!

What are the paths you installed it to?
How did you restart SC?
I tested this with 7.0 and 7.01 under ubuntu 7.1 myself and both
worked, so I think it shouldn't be something about the SC version.
Also, somebody else had trouble with wrong permissions being set on the
plugin when installing under ubuntu, how did you transfer the plugin to
that machine?
I'm sure the permissions were fine when I zipped this on my mac (read
and execute access for everybody) and it does install fine on MY ubuntu
but you never know...
Guess you can't check this, though, now that it's running....

[Lesu]

Post by pippin
What are the paths you installed it to?
How did you restart SC?
I tested this with 7.0 and 7.01 under ubuntu 7.10 myself and both
worked, so I think it shouldn't be something about the SC version.
Also, somebody else had trouble with wrong permissions being set on the
plugin when installing under ubuntu, how did you transfer the plugin to
that machine?
I'm sure the permissions were fine when I zipped this on my mac (read
and execute access for everybody) and it does install fine on MY ubuntu
but you never know...
Guess you can't check this, though, now that it's running....

The plugin wasn't the problem because the files in the Plugin folder
weren't altered when I unloaded the early version and re-installed the
later one. The plugin permissions and file location must therefore have
been identical between using versions 7.0 and 7.01.

I went into Plugins and installed iPeng and deleted iPeng_Support,
checked the folder to see it was updated and then re-booted the
machine.
iPeng didn't show on the list, but iPeng_support was still on the list.
I unchecked it and double checked in the Plugin folder that it was
deleted and rebooted again. It was still on the list unchecked and no
iPeng!
So I uninstalled SC7.0 and installed SC7.01, without touching the iPeng
plugin folder, and there was iPeng listed as a plugin in SC.
Whatever the cause it is now running fine. I merely mention it in case
any else comes across this as a glitch.

Many thanks for this excellent plugin. You should get a percentage from
Apple, I only bought the iPod Touch because of this skin!

[pippin]

Post by Lesu
iPeng didn't show on the list, but iPeng_support was still on the list.
I unchecked it and double checked in the Plugin folder that it was
deleted and rebooted again. It was still on the list unchecked and no
iPeng!
So I uninstalled SC7.0 and installed SC7.01, without touching the iPeng
plugin folder, and there was iPeng listed as a plugin in SC.

This is really a bit weired. Maybe some kind of caching issue, I'll
have to find whether there's also a plugin cache.
Good to hear it works fine now

Post by Lesu
Many thanks for this excellent plugin. You should get a percentage from
Apple, I only bought the iPod Touch because of this skin!

I hope they read this ;-)

[pippin]

Good to see that this works, I still can't test Rhapsody myself.
Yet there was the same issue with LiveMusic Archive and I was able to
test that one.

[gothaf]

Hi!
I just found out about this incredible skin and first thing I would
like to say is a big big thank you!!!
This skin is amazing! I should say that I don't have an iphone. I use a
7" touch screen to control my squeezebox!
What I would like to know is, if it is possible to "stretch" the menu
to fit my monitor's resolution(480x800) so I can have the menu in full
screen. Now there is too much empty space. Here is how it looks:


+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Filename: IMG_5436.JPG |
|Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4862|
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

[pippin]

I KNEW this day would come...
Originally I designed the whole thing to 480px wide and did scale but
the performance was too poor and exact, pixel-wise positioning with
relative scales didn't work, so most of this skin is now really fixed
width. So...hm, this will be hard to do
And there's not even everything in the .css file since that one had to
stay below 25k to allow it to be cached on iPhone.
So, I'm afraid, that is not easily been done.
Maybe you could get a browser that supports scaling?
What kind of device is this? I see you use Firefox right now, is opera
available? Doesn't that do scaling?

[gothaf]

I am using a Lilliput HR 701-NP touch screen as a secondary monitor in
my setup. Controlling squeezecenter wasn't its primary use, until
now...
I started experimenting with Safari. The whole interface works fine.
The two problems I found is that on the settings menu(player and
squeezecenter) I have double entries of all the choices and I have text
overlaps(see pictures below)
Then I tried Firefox. On the cover view there are buttons that don't
work. The back button doesn't work, the "song info details" button
doesn't work and the playlist menu it's empty.
I checked Opera after your recommendation. I can scale the window, but
the whole thing is a disaster. All the menus are in line (check pic
below) and on the cover view, same problems as firefox.
Internet Explorer has the same problems with Opera.
I have to mention that I have the settings menu problems on all
browsers!

I understand that this skin is not intended for desktop use and it is
built taking in consideration the iphone needs. I still think it's the
best touch skin out there and I hope it gets even better and "larger"
;-) ! I went back to Safari for now!


+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Filename: Untitled2.jpg |
|Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4863|
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

[pippin]

Post by gothaf
I am using a Lilliput HR 701-NP touch screen as a secondary monitor in
my setup. Controlling squeezecenter wasn't its primary use, until
now...
I started experimenting with Safari. The whole interface works fine.
The two problems I found is that on the settings menu(player and
squeezecenter) I have double entries of all the choices and I have text
overlaps(see pictures below)
Then I tried Firefox. On the cover view there are buttons that don't
work. The back button doesn't work, the "song info details" button
doesn't work and the playlist menu it's empty.
I checked Opera after your recommendation. I can scale the window, but
the whole thing is a disaster. All the menus are in line (check pic
below) and on the cover view, same problems as firefox.
Internet Explorer has the same problems with Opera.
I have to mention that I have the settings menu problems on all
browsers!
I understand that this skin is not intended for desktop use and it is
built taking in consideration the iphone needs. I still think it's the
best touch skin out there and I hope it gets even better and "larger"
;-) ! I went back to Safari for now!

Safari is a good choice, nothing else is "really" supported. It works
fine on my Mac and PC.
Same is true about Settings, that's also not really supposed to work.
That said: it DOES work, it just looks ugly.
IE DEFINITELY does not work (I removed the IE specific JS code from the
library to speed up loading ;-) I don't know about Opera.

How do you scroll, by the way?

[gothaf]

Safari is good, but it doesn't support full screen or kiosk mode! I use
the scroll bar on the right to scroll(touch pen, if you mean the
medium)! The settings thing doesn't bother me at all, as long as
everything else works fine...
Do you think you can do anything to make it compatible with Opera to
take advantage of the scaling capability?

[pippin]

Post by gothaf
Safari is good, but it doesn't support full screen or kiosk mode! I use
the scroll bar on the right to scroll(touch pen, if you mean the
medium)! The settings thing doesn't bother me at all, as long as
everything else works fine...
Do you think you can do anything to make it compatible with Opera to
take advantage of the scaling capability?

First of all: I don't use opera (except for the mobile version, which I
don't like) so I'm not sure about it's scaling capabilities, may also be
that it olny scales fonts like Firefox does.

Regarding other adaptations: There's a lot of CSS3 stuff I use and
currently every browser supports that differently, so this would be
quite a bit of work to adapt this to other browsers. I'm happy to
support, but I definitely don't have the time to do it myself. Sorry
for that, but doing this for the iPhone is hard enough and I quite a
bit of work on the native version to do.

One good point to start for porting is the prototype library I use,
some on the *.html files import it as "prototype0.js" to
"prototype5.js". If you replace these references with a reference to
the original prototype library (prototype.js, ships with SC or
available at prototypejs.org) then cross browser support should be a
given at least on the JavaScript side. I didn't do other changes to the
library than splitting it in 25K chunks and removing support for other
browsers than Safari and Firefox.
Since caching is not that limited on other systems is may also not be a
big speed penalty as it is on iPhone.

Sorry for not being able to help more, but this would be too much of a
stretch for my time budget, iPeng is already consuming a LOT of it.

[Sune]

Hi Pippin,

It is nice :-) I do not see the big difference from 0.3.11, but
everything seems to work sligtly better than before. I like the Album
browse mode, although you're right - it's too slow to be really useful
(and I miss cover art for a lot of my collection).

It was a bumpy road to get there, though. I first tried installing in
my Application Support (Mac OSX), following your instructions for this.
The Now Playing showed up OK, but the home screen was blank.

Then I uninstalled and reinstalled in the PrefPane. No luck. A few
shots gave me a strange "lacking-all-graphics-but being full-screen"
skin. Then I got this:

Loading Image...
Loading Image...

What on earth went wrong, I thought? It looked the same on the iPod
Touch.

So...I gave up and decided to install the "old" 0.3.11
again...tomorrow. Then I gave it another shot with Safari 30 minutes
later (that is, 2 min. ago). And behold - everything now works as
expected.

Very, very strange...but now it works :-)

Sune (who also purchased a 'touch to run this skin a few months back
:-)

[pippin]

Post by Sune
It was a bumpy road to get there, though. I first tried installing in
my Application Support (Mac OSX), following your instructions for this.

Wait a moment. My instructions were 'installing iPeng under
&#8220;<youraccount>/Libraray/Application
Support/SqueezeCenter/Plugins&#8221; does NOT work'
Please remove the stuff you put under Application Support.
SqueezeCenter does not use the skin code placed into plugins in
"Application Supplort/Plugins" correctly. Maybe I should file a bug for
this...

Post by Sune
Very, very strange...but now it works :-)

Actually: no. I think there will have been remains of the "Application
Support" installation in the Cache. If you experience further problems,
go to
<sune>/Library/Caches/SqueezeCenter/templates/Users/sune/Library/Application
Support and remove all the iPeng stuff that is below that (in Plugins
and HTML)!

Post by Sune
It is nice :-) I do not see the big difference from 0.3.11...

Try the toolbar configuration.
You will like it. Will probably even give you your remote Wake-Up (did
you see my other post on this?)

[Sune]

Post by pippin
Wait a moment. My instructions were 'installing iPeng under
“<youraccount>/Libraray/Application Support/SqueezeCenter/Plugins” does
NOT work'

Actually you do write how to make this work in your instructions
guide...by copying the "skin" part to the "skins" folder...

Post by pippin
Please remove the stuff you put under Application Support.
SqueezeCenter does not use the skin code placed into plugins in
"Application Supplort/Plugins" correctly. Maybe I should file a bug for
this...

I did remove it already.

Post by pippin
Actually: no. I think there will have been remains of the "Application
Support" installation in the Cache. If you experience further problems,
go to
<sune>/Library/Caches/SqueezeCenter/templates/Users/sune/Library/Application
Support and remove all the iPeng stuff that is below that (in Plugins
and HTML)!

Sounds plausible. I actually did a spotlight search for iPeng. Only
found stuff where I expected + in all of the Erland plugins. But I
could have missed something, I guess.

Post by pippin
Try the toolbar configuration.
You will like it. Will probably even give you your remote Wake-Up (did
you see my other post on this?)

Looking forward to have time to play with it. The external W-O-L did
not work (spend 30 min. on this), and I have yet to try with my own URL
(first saw your post later).

I will revert on that one - that would be soo cool :-) But the setup
with the SB as a bridge may pose a problem. Dunno.

/Sune

[pippin]

Post by Sune
Sounds plausible. I actually did a spotlight search for iPeng. Only
found stuff where I expected + in all of the Erland plugins. But I
could have missed something, I guess.

Are you sure that is indexing the Caches?
If you don't have other stuff in the Application
Support/Squeezecenter/... foldery you could just delete all of that
from the template cache. In fact you can safely delete SC's whole
template cache /<sune>/Library/Caches/Sequeezecenter/templates/* will
just take a few more seconds to rebuild it on the next use.

Post by Sune
I will revert on that one - that would be soo cool :-) But the setup
with the SB as a bridge may pose a problem. Dunno.
/Sune

If you are using DHCP or your mac mini keeps its IP address long enough
this should work

[Sune]

Aloha,

0.3.11 was a bliss, and I was really looking forward to 0.4. And it's
sounds like it's great. However, I suck. I cannot get it to work.

My first shot was installing it as usual, but as a plugin, not a skin
(removing the "Support" plugin"). And I did read the note about needing
to install the actual HTML part in two locations. And I got that to work
with the "Now playing" screen, but not with the "home" screen.

Then I *sighed*, and installed it inside the Server itself, also
according to description. There was a bit of confusion in my end, but
it all worked out.

And this is the result:

http://macvaerk.dtu.dk/~lilbaek/temp/ipeng04-1.png
http://macvaerk.dtu.dk/~lilbaek/temp/ipeng04-2.png

What on earth went wrong? Anyone else with this result? It looks the
same on the iPod Touch. Note: In the thrill of everything I did upgrade
to todays release of the SqueezeCenter.

Wonder if there is a solution or if I should downgrade to 0.3.11
again?

Thanks for your input

Sune (who also purchased a 'touch to run this skin a few months back
:-)

[vitoruch]

Congratulations Pippin!!

I'm one more guy that have bought itouch specifically for Ipeng!!! :)

And what is already useful will become even better - as soon as
slimdevices start selling the receiver apart from controller....I will
get a few boxes for different rooms in my house!


Thanks again!

Vitor

[MichAg92]

Following up on the previous thread from the 3rd Party Hardware forum,
version 0.4 has fixed my issues with Rhapsody.

Thanks! I really appreciate the time and effort you put into
investigating and responding to my questions.

And like Lesu, I bought my iPod Touch specifically for this
application.

Thanks - Byron

[vitoruch]

Post by Lesu
I went into Plugins and installed iPeng and deleted iPeng_Support,
checked the folder to see it was updated and then re-booted the
machine.
iPeng didn't show on the list, but iPeng_support was still on the list.
I unchecked it and double checked in the Plugin folder that it was
deleted and rebooted again. It was still on the list unchecked and no
iPeng!
So I uninstalled SC7.0 and installed SC7.01, without touching the iPeng
plugin folder, and there was iPeng listed as a plugin in SC.
Whatever the cause it is now running fine. I merely mention it in case
any else comes across this as a glitch.

Gee..now I have the same problem...!!
And I did it all above, including upgrading to 7.01 and restarting PC -
and i still have in web Plugin section the Žipeng_supportŽ (disabled
but present) but no Ipeng in the list! I have already deleted support
folder from HTML, deleted 0.3X ipeng version from HTML....and loaded
0.4 ipeng in my Žc:/program files/squeezecenter/server/plugins/ipeng
(side by side to biiography, Album review, etc...in my WinXP

Can someone help me please!!!?

Vitor

[pippin]

Post by vitoruch
Gee..now I have the same problem...!!
And I did it all above, including upgrading to 7.01 and restarting PC -
and I still see in web Plugin section the Žipeng_supportŽ (disabled but
present) but no Ipeng in the list! I have already deleted the
ŽIpeng_supportŽ folder from HTML, deleted 0.3X ipeng version from
HTML....and loaded 0.4 ipeng in my Žc:/program
files/squeezecenter/server/plugins/ipeng (side by side to othe plugins,
such as biography, Album review, etc...in my WinXP.
Can someone help me please!!!?
Vitor

Try to delete the content of c:/Documents and Settings/All
USers/Application Data/SqueezeCenter/cache/templates
Also: You said you deleted "ipeng_support" from the HTML? That would be
wrong, you have to delete it from "Plugins", but I guess you did that...

[SJobson]

Pippin, thank you so much for the work you've put in on this! It was a
factor in my decision to buy an iPhone yesterday. I am now irritating
my wife by changing tracks from the kitchen ;)

Having only tried the current stable version (4.0) I've no idea whether
the 3.9 may be faster due to omitting the landscape view (which I didn't
notice being particularly slow, but won't use) - I'm afraid since I have
it working on 4.0 I'm not keen to fiddle with it now! You've mentioned
how much optimisation you've done to speed it up, so I'm guessing that
4.0 is as quick as it gets.

[pippin]

Post by SJobson
Pippin, thank you so much for the work you've put in on this! It was a
factor in my decision to buy an iPhone yesterday. I am now irritating
my wife by changing tracks from the kitchen ;)
Having only tried the current stable version (4.0) I've no idea whether
the 3.9 may be faster due to omitting the landscape view (which I didn't
notice being particularly slow, but won't use) - I'm afraid since I have
it working on 4.0 I'm not keen to fiddle with it now! You've mentioned
how much optimisation you've done to speed it up, so I'm guessing that
4.0 is as quick as it gets.

No, the landscape mode doesn't make the other screens slower, it just
takes longer to load the artwork while you use that view.

iPeng 0.4 should be the fastest iPeng version so far.

[vrobin]

Post by pippin
No, the landscape mode doesn't make the other screens slower, it just
takes longer to load the artwork while you use that view.
iPeng 0.4 should be the fastest iPeng version so far.
There isn't much more speed you can get out of a browser skin on iPhone
if you need more speed, a faster server can help (only if the server is
the slow part) or you need to wait for the native version ;-)

Does that mean that a native version... exists in the brain of
somebody? That would be the definitive solution! Smoothness, ergonomics
and screen of the ipod to control the SBs!!! (my dream!)

By the way, right now, I'm quite pleased with the use of both the ipod
and controller. I'm using them depending of what I want to do: instant
control and quickly choosing a given thing to play is due to the
controler, while looking around not knowing what to play is done with
iPeng (in the new landscape view).

[pippin]

Does that mean that a native version... exists in the brain of somebody?
That would be the definitive solution! Smoothness, ergonomics and screen
of the ipod to control the SBs!!! (my dream!)

Part of it is not only in the brain...
But still pretty much experimental and since I'm doing this with the
official SDK I can currently only experiment with the simulator (no
official firmware available yet). So it will be at least June before it
comes out and I cannot comment on performance until I get that FW.

But Erland and I have done quite a bit of work to get an I/F together
that also allows the use of plugins - this is the hardest part and much
of the new code iPeng 0.4 uses is also based around that architecture so
this should be easy to port.
Some UI stuff will be new, though...

[bklaas]

Post by pippin
But Erland and I have done quite a bit of work to get an I/F together
that also allows the use of plugins - this is the hardest part and much
of the new code iPeng 0.4 uses is also based around that architecture

Pippin and/or Erland- I'm quite interested in the approach you took in
regards to getting plugins access to iPeng. As Erland is well aware, a
weakness of the SBC is its ability to tap into the rich SC plugin
world, particularly Erland's potpourri of fine extenstions.

Is there anything you could either share or point me to on that
subject? This might warrant a separate thread in the Dev forum?

cheers,
#!/ben

[pippin]

Post by bklaas
Pippin and/or Erland- I'm quite interested in the approach you took in
regards to getting plugins access to iPeng. As Erland is well aware, a
weakness of the SBC is its ability to tap into the rich SC plugin
world, particularly Erland's potpourri of fine extenstions.
Is there anything you could either share or point me to on that
subject? This might warrant a separate thread in the Dev forum?
cheers,
#!/ben

Like this one?
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=42986&page=8

There's more info and some specs here:
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=180

Will be happy to get your ideas about that...

[erland]

Post by bklaas
Pippin and/or Erland- I'm quite interested in the approach you took in
regards to getting plugins access to iPeng. As Erland is well aware, a
weakness of the SBC is its ability to tap into the rich SC plugin
world, particularly Erland's potpourri of fine extenstions.
Is there anything you could either share or point me to on that
subject? This might warrant a separate thread in the Dev forum?

The missing part in the SBC interface is in my opinion the "context
menu" concept described in the following enhancement request:
http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=6021

The solution for the iPeng skin is similar to this. It is based on a
JSON command implemented by the iPeng plugin that basically looks like
this:
"ipeng commands nowplaying"
or
"ipeng commands toolbar home"

The first command responds with an array of buttons that should be
available on the "Now Playing" page which optionally can take the
track, album or artist of the currently playing track as parameter.
When the user hits a button it issues a JSON command or an URL
associated with the button.

The second command works in similar way but returns toolbar buttons for
a specific context ("home" in the sample command shown above).

As pippin says there is also a registration mechanism where plugins can
register their buttons which they like to show on the Now Playing page
or in the toolbar, pretty much in the same way as plugin registers
browse menus for the SBC interface.

A similar solution for the SBC could be implemented as described in
enhancement request 6021. The SBC already today offers the ability for
a plugin to register completely new menus but the ability to hook into
exiting menus isn't there yet and this is basically what 6021
describes.
--
erland

Erland Isaksson
'My homepage' (http://erland.homeip.net) 'My download page'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download)
(Developer of 'TrackStat, SQLPlayList, DynamicPlayList, Custom Browse,
Custom Scan, Custom Skip, Multi Library and Database Query plugins'
(http://wiki.erland.homeip.net/index.php/Category:SlimServer))
------------------------------------------------------------------------
erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46294

[pippin]

Post by bklaas
Pippin and/or Erland- I'm quite interested in the approach you took in
regards to getting plugins access to iPeng. As Erland is well aware, a
weakness of the SBC is its ability to tap into the rich SC plugin
world, particularly Erland's potpourri of fine extenstions.
Is there anything you could either share or point me to on that
subject? This might warrant a separate thread in the Dev forum?
cheers,
#!/ben

Ben,

just stumbled upon your bug 6386. What iPeng is doing is pretty much
exactly what you've been requesting there.

Cheers

[vrobin]

Post by pippin
Part of it is not only in the brain...
But still pretty much experimental and since I'm doing this with the
official SDK I can currently only experiment with the simulator (no
official firmware available yet). So it will be at least June before it
comes out and I cannot comment on performance until I get that FW.
But Erland and I have done quite a bit of work to get an I/F together
that also allows the use of plugins - this is the hardest part and much
of the new code iPeng 0.4 uses is also based around that architecture so
this should be easy to port.
Some UI stuff will be new, though...

I didn't dare to expect as much as what you are saying! I hope we'll
see this as soon as possible.

What you're saying explains the quality of iPeng plugin documentation
that I've seen but which I didn't take the time to look at.

Good luck for all this work.

[SJobson]

Post by pippin
No, the landscape mode doesn't make the other screens slower, it just
takes longer to load the artwork while you use that view.
iPeng 0.4 should be the fastest iPeng version so far.
There isn't much more speed you can get out of a browser skin on iPhone
if you need more speed, a faster server can help (only if the server is
the slow part) or you need to wait for the native version ;-)Thanks for confirming.

I wondered what would happen if I pointed my laptop at iPeng - gosh,
you really have optimised it! Loading appears instantaneous. I'm
gobsmacked. So it seems the iPhone and Safari's lack of caching is the
limiting factor.

[pippin]

Post by vitoruch
Gee..now I have the same problem...!!
And I did it all above, including upgrading to 7.01 and restarting PC -
and I still see in web Plugin section the Žipeng_supportŽ (disabled but
present) but no Ipeng in the list! I have already deleted the
ŽIpeng_supportŽ folder from HTML, deleted 0.3X ipeng version from
HTML....and loaded 0.4 ipeng in my Žc:/program
files/squeezecenter/server/plugins/ipeng (side by side to othe plugins,
such as biography, Album review, etc...in my WinXP.
Can someone help me please!!!?
Vitor

Just in case somebody still has this problem:
Stop SqueezeCenter
Delete <youraccount>/Library/Caches/SqueezeCenter/plugin-data.yaml
Start SqueezeCenter

See also
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=294203#post294203

[vitoruch]

Post by pippin
Delete <youraccount>/Library/Caches/SqueezeCenter/plugin-data.yaml
QUOTE]
That you mean in MAC, uhm? My problem is in WinXP.
I have again unninstaled completely my squeecenter, reboot PC, deleted
all directories left in programfiles and documents&settings,
reinstalled (now in version 7.01 beta), rescan my hole library,
shutdown, extracted ipeng04 into C:\Program
Files\Squeezecenter\server\Plugins\iPeng
and restarted squeezecenter.
Still, in settings / plugin I cannot see Ipeng, and when I try
:9000/Ipeng from Itouch it says "Not found"
What am I doing wrong? All other installations were all so smooth.....

[pippin]

Post by pippin
Delete <youraccount>/Library/Caches/SqueezeCenter/plugin-data.yaml
QUOTE]
That you mean in MAC, uhm? My problem is in WinXP.
I have again unninstaled completely my squeecenter, reboot PC, deleted
all directories left in programfiles and documents&settings,
reinstalled (now in version 7.01 beta), rescan my whole library,
shutdown, extracted ipeng04 into C:\Program
Files\Squeezecenter\server\Plugins\iPeng
and restarted squeezecenter.
Still, in web page "settings / plugin" I cannot see Ipeng among the
others, and when I try :9000/iPeng from Itouch it says "Not found"
What am I doing wrong? All other installations were all so smooth.....> >

It should be "documents and setting/all users" or "documents and
settings/<user>" and then there should be a subfolder "Application
Data/SqueezeCenter/Cache" (I can't check this right now) and there
should be a plugin-data.yaml.
Please try to just delete this single file and restart SqueezeCenter
(shutting down the server and restarting it, do you know how that
works?)
We've seen several reports of people experiencing this problem with
SC7, not only with iPeng but also with other plugins. at first I
thought it's Mac only but recently I had reports for WinXP and Linux
for the same phenomenon.
So far, deleting the yaml file and restarting always helped for
iPeng, reinstalling does NOT help, the server keeps the caches in
this case.

[vitoruch]

So far, deleting the yaml file and restarting always helped for iPeng,
reinstalling does NOT help, the server keeps the caches in this case.> >

You're right Pippin!
I thought I was right, because I have indeed deleted the whole
'documents&setting' squeeze folders prior to the new installation
(including the file you asked me to) - but probably when I
reinstalled, it had to be deleted again, so, after copying the Ipeng
plugin, it could be written again, updated.
Thanks again, congratulations for the great work...and fast and
precise answers!
Vitor

[grifforama]

Hi,
I am on a mac, and have deleted the file you mentioned.
I still do not see the iPeng plugin, and I still cannot access from my
iphone ?
Can you please help ?
Dave

[pippin]

Post by grifforama
Hi,
I am on a mac, and have deleted the file you mentioned.
I still do not see the iPeng plugin, and I still cannot access from my
iphone ?
Can you please help ?
Dave

have you restarted the server?
Where did you install it?
Is it a first time install or an upgrade? The .yaml issue should only
hapen when you upgrade from the ipeng-support plugin.

[vitoruch]

Hello Pippin,

Saw your donation link....fair enough!

But when I open it, comes a web page completely in German..gee..I don't
know what to do there : (

Since most of your public doesn't speak german (oder ein zehr zehr
schlecht deutch ; ) why don't you put something in english? Chances of
receiving more donations are great!

Bye!

Vitor

[pippin]

oops. Thanks for notifying me. Was not on purpose, I thought I selected
English. Will look into that.
PayPal is a mess in this respect, I needed almost half an hour to even
find my way to the international page, it keeps redirecting me to the
German one even though my account is English since I opened it up
before they came over here.

[pippin]

OK, should be fixed now. I see an English page ;-) BTW, there is a
Language drop down in the top right corner.

[killie99]

Went and bought an itouch yesterday and have spent the best part of 12
hours trying to get ipeng working fully and I'm on the verge of my head
exploding. I think I've been over everything so often that I've
convinced myself I've done everything right but I clearly haven't.
OK, so I'm running SqueezeCenter Version: 7.0 - 17793 - Windows XP -
EN - cp1252 and I've download ipeng 0.4 and copied the atracted files
to my plugins directory c:/program files/squeezecenter/server/plugins.
Also in that directory are the lazysearch and musicinfoscr plugins.

I can get the ipeng interface up on safari but it is not recognising
any of my album art. All my album art shows fine in squeezecenter and
every folder has a cover.jpg file in it. Any ideas as to where I've
gone wrong?

Other than that little problem I am well impressed with iPeng, I can't
begin to imagine how many hours you've pent developing this but it must
be a lot! All your hard work is much appreciated.

[pippin]

That sound a bit weired to me, can you give me some more details:
Do you NEVER get album art in iPeng, that is, on browse albums as well
as NowPlaying?
What shows up instead?
On the browse album page, if you get the "no artwork" icons ( notes on
grey background), do some of these have a white frame or a blue
"unknown file type icon" in the center?
Do you know, what the "resample artwork" setting in your SC settings is
(if you don't, don't care)
do you know how to use subversion? If yes, you could try the latest
version from the iPeng googlecode repository (as described on the
penguinlovesmusic download page), tha one uses the pre-cached images
the default skin is also using but I'm not sure it will help if you
don't have artwork on NowPlaying eiter

Let's get this sorted out...

[LeifPederson]

Pippin,

I have a situation where I type in http://<server's IP adr>:9000/iPeng
or http://<server's IP adr>:9000/iPeng/home.html and Safari on my
iPhone will show the blue progress bar on the url moving from zero to
about a third of the way across and then it stops. Nothing is painted
in the rendering area of the browser. I've waited 5 minutes and no
progress.

I have SC 7.0 running on a Windows Home Server platform. My iPhone is
running 1.1.4 firmware (the latest as of today).

Using that same IP address, I can in fact get SC to paint the normal
browswer view so I know the IP address is right.

If I look at the "Plugins" tab of the SC Settings page, I can see that
iPeng is loaded, although clicking settings for the iPeng plugin brings
me to a blank screen.

I have about 17000 tracks on my server (is that a problem?).

Could you help me to get this working?

Regards,
Leif Pederson

[pippin]

Post by LeifPederson
I have SC 7.0 running on a Windows Home Server platform. My iPhone is
running 1.1.4 firmware (the latest as of today).

Can you set any permissions on Windows Home server? If yes, are you
sure they are correct (same as for other SqueezeCenter stuff)?
What exactly is the (full) path you are installing iPeng to?
Have you used prior versions of iPeng?

Post by LeifPederson
Using that same IP address, I can in fact get SC to paint the normal
browswer view so I know the IP address is right.

good.
Have you tried to access iPeng from a PC? What do you get then?

Post by LeifPederson
If I look at the "Plugins" tab of the SC Settings page, I can see that
iPeng is loaded, although clicking settings for the iPeng plugin brings
me to a blank screen.

that really sounds like a broken (plugin) installation, you could try
to delete the "plugin_data.yaml" file as described here:
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=12

Post by LeifPederson
I have about 17000 tracks on my server (is that a problem?).

no

Post by LeifPederson
Could you help me to get this working?

yes ;-)

[LeifPederson]

Ok, thanks for the quick response to my request for help! I looked very
carefully at the installation and there were some problems with what I
had done. I downloaded the ipeng04.zip file and when I extracted the
files I noticed problems with the way the file got created (or perhaps
with the way Windows Vista parses the .zip). For each directory in the
.zip file there was also a zero length file of the same name as all the
subfolders. For example, the iPeng folder contains "Configuration",
"HTML" and "lib" subfolders. But also at that same level in the
directory tree there are files with the same name and this prevent the
unzipping from working properly (can't have both a file and folder of
the same name). So when I did my install, I hand-crafted the layout of
the files and obviously missed some files the first time. I re-did the
manual install very carefully and now it seems to be working and it
looks really nice on my iPhone!

I've attached a screen shot of what Windows Vista sees as the layout of
the .zip file. I'd be curious to know if this was some corrpution with
the .zip file, a bug in the tool that created it, or a bug in Windows
Vista zip file support.

Regards,
Leif


+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Filename: iPeng Zip File.jpg |
|Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5045|
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

[pippin]

Post by LeifPederson
I've attached a screen shot of what Windows Vista sees as the layout of
the .zip file. I'd be curious to know if this was some corrpution with
the .zip file, a bug in the tool that created it, or a bug in Windows
Vista zip file support.

Leif,

interesting effect. Actually, I don't know, I don't have Vista and that
particulat zip was created on a Mac. So maybe I should switch to
generating zip files on my PC again...

Good to hear it works now!

[davidcotton]

Hi

Well I've got it sort of working :) Finally went and got an ipod touch
the other day but am now having problems with the internet/network side
of it.

It sort of works in that I can access the ipeng skin and also control
some of the internet radio side of it. However when I try to access my
library it sits there not responding, It's similar to an internet
problem I have with it in that I can go to google search type something
in for it to find and it'll bring up a list of results, however when I
try to click on a link it just sits there not responding. One other
oddity is that although I deleted the previous version its still
showing as v3 at the bottom of the screen. Its the same with internet
radio side. Although I can select say the genre list of live 365, when
I go to actually pick one nothing actually happens.

Am running a mac mini with leopard and ss 7(whatever the heck its
called these days!) I'm also just using the built in airport of the
mac mini.

Liking what I've seen so far though!

Any ideas?

[pippin]

clearly an update/cache/folder issue, had something similar yesterday on
ubuntu.
I would like to help but I'm without computer until monday night. I
will check this then. In the meantime you could check the installation
page on penguinlovesmusic and this thread again, there are some hints
on what can go wrong on installation/upgrade

[vitoruch]

Hey Pippin,

Two issues related to Ipeng possibilities:

1) Is there a way of implementing WOL (Wake on Lan) in the Iphone/touch
application?

2) Do U know if developer's plugin for Receiver stand-alone SETUP is
already operational? Can't find it around, and we already have receiver
sold separately!

Cause I think one tipical situation - that makes people getting an
iphone with iPeng, instead of the controller - is when U want to go
costless to a 2nd unit, buying just the receiver to another room.

Thanks!

Vitor

[pippin]

have a look at the beta forum. I'll check it tuesday when I'm back home

[NFLnut]

I installed iPeng tonight but all I get on the Touch is: "Safari can't
open the page because it can't find the server." I verified that I can
access iPeng from another computer, but the Touch always gets this
error. I tried deleting plugin-data.yaml but that didn't do anything.

Any suggestions?

[davidcotton]

Curious

Did a complete uninstall of both squeezecentre and Ipeng. Reinstalled
sc7, installed v4 of ipeng and now all I get when I navigate to it is
"404 cannot find ipeng" in really small writing!

Any ideas or have I broken it further?

Cheers...

[NFLnut]

I also uninstalled and reinstalled Squeezecenter when I first had the
trouble "seeing" Squeezecenter via the Touch. No change. I'm not sure
what I'm doing wrong.

[NFLnut]

I also verified under SC security that the iPod has permission.

[pippin]

Cool, cool cool!

Some hints.

1. SquezeCenter (not only iPeng) troubleshooting rule #1: Don't
re-install. SC keeps most of it's settings so usually that does not
help.

For the "404"-Error, that looks like an upgrade issue, please delete
plugin-data.yaml (see "Installation" on penguinlovesmusic.com" and
re-start the server.

Apart from that:

What OS are you on?
Which version of SqueezeCenter are you on?
Have you used prior versions of iPeng or is this a clean install
Where did you install iPeng to (full path)

David, your problem sounds like an update issue, please try to make
sure you delete the "plugin-data.yaml" and also make sure there's no
data left in <yourhomefolder>/Library/Application
Support/SqueezeCenter/HTML and <yourhomefolder>/Library/Application
Support/SqueezeCenter/Plugins (on iPeng data, that is, other plugins
may reside there just fine).

NFLnut, can you connect your iPod to the default skin (<yourip>:9000),
what is your IP? You said you can connect to iPeng from another
Computer, is that a different one from the one the server is on? Can
you access internet sites from the iPod? This sounds more like a
connection issue to me.

@vitor: Did you finally try the WOL link i posted in the other thread?
Setup-Tool: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43722&page=8
but I didn't try it myself, seems to work, though.

[NFLnut]

Post by pippin
What OS are you on?

The server resides on an XP-Pro computer.

Post by pippin
Which version of SqueezeCenter are you on?

Squeezecenter 7.0.1 - 19608

Post by pippin
Have you used prior versions of iPeng or is this a clean install?

Clean

Post by pippin
Where did you install iPeng to (full path)?

D:\Program Files\Squeezecenter\server\Plugins

Post by pippin
NFLnut, can you connect your iPod to the default skin (<yourip>:9000)?

yes. Actually, I only use the default skin.

Post by pippin
what is your IP? You said you can connect to iPeng from another
Computer, is that a different one from the one the server is on?

yes. The server resides on 192.168.0.10x The other comuter that
Icurrently have iPeng running on is on the same subnet, 192.168.0.11x

Post by pippin
Can you access internet sites from the iPod?

Yes. I have full access to the internet from the Touch.

I'm stumped. I have no firewalls running at present (I know .. bad idea
.. but it's temporary)

[pippin]

PUH. So I get you right: you can actually access iPeng from another
computer at <ip>:9000/ipeng and it works fine?
You CAN access the Default skin from your iPod touch at <ip>:9000 and
it works fine?
You can NOT access iPeng from the iPod touch through <ip>:9000/ipeng
You don't get ANY output on the pod from ipeng and you get the "cannot
connect to server" message?
That's REALLY strange. Are you absolutely sure you used all the IPs and
ports correctly? What happens if you try to re-load the page a few
times?
You did use a FORWARD slash as separator in <ip>:9000/ipeng?
You did try <ip>:9000/ipeng/home.html ?
Please also try <ip>:9000/ipeng/status.html
You say all your firewalls are down etc. Can you PM me the (external)
ip address of your pc so I could try to access iPeng? (I'll understand
if you don't, though...)

[NFLnut]

Post by pippin
PUH. So I get you right: you can actually access iPeng from another
computer at <ip>:9000/ipeng and it works fine?
You CAN access the Default skin from your iPod touch at <ip>:9000 and
it works fine?
You can NOT access iPeng from the iPod touch through <ip>:9000/ipeng
You don't get ANY output on the pod from ipeng and you get the "cannot
connect to server" message?
That's REALLY strange. Are you absolutely sure you used all the IPs and
ports correctly? What happens if you try to re-load the page a few
times?
You did use a FORWARD slash as separator in <ip>:9000/ipeng?
You did try <ip>:9000/ipeng/home.html ?
Please also try <ip>:9000/ipeng/status.html
You say all your firewalls are down etc. Can you PM me the (external)
ip address of your pc so I could try to access iPeng? (I'll understand
if you don't, though...)

Sorry. To the second question, I *cannot* access the default skin on
the Touch either. I can't access Squeezecenter at all on the Touch.

[pippin]

Sorry. To the second question, I *cannot* access the default skin on the
Touch either. I can't access Squeezecenter at all on the Touch. I am
only able to access iPeng on the internally networked computers. As to
the firewall, I should also clarify that I do have a firewall to the
internet, just not on individual computers inside my own network. I
have no open ports to the internet.

OK, that makes sense now...
Back to square 1: it's an access issue, obviously you cannot access SC
from the iPod. routing comes to mind...
What IP does your iPod get? (Settings->WiFi)
What's your topology? Are the other computers you tried this with also
on your WLAN or on a wired connection? Could your access point prevent
routing of port 9000? After all, that's supposed to be an uncommon
port.
Your iPod may not be part of your windows working group, maybe some
firewall software... oh no, that was turned off...
My #1 suspect is: something in your setup prevents routing of port 9000
to the iPod
My #2 suspect is: your iPod is on a different IP range or subnet.

[pippin]

Hello friends of Coolio. Quite soon: here's a new update of iPeng, only
one month after 0.4 that makes lots of use of the new architecture
introduces with 0.4.

The version number 0.4.5 is to reflect the level of change to 0.4.
While the latter was a technology update bringing the switch to the
plugin distribution, the configurable toolbar and the plugin screen for
NowPlaying, 0.4.5 is a feature upate. and a such it offers plenty of new
functionality that justifies more than a ".0.1" version step.

So what's new?

* iPeng now has a special NowPlaying plugin called "MultiPlayer"
control. It's got a quite unique feature since it allows you to control
all of your players in one place. For users with many players this
control alone will justify the use of iPeng ;-) If you already use
iPeng and own several players, this update is a must.
MultiPlayer shows all your players in a list and let's you directly
o select a player by clicking the player name. The player
will become active (that is, all other NowPlaying controls will act on
that player) without reloading the page.
o Change volume, skip, play/pause, power on/off
o And, sync and un-sync players. The logic is, you select the
"sync" icon to the lower right of a player that you want to ADD TO
ANOTHER PLAYER (that is, it will then play the same playlist as the
other player), then it will let you select other players. You will see
how it works ;-) To un-sync a player from a set, just click the
"un-sync" icon.
* iPeng's NowPlaying screen now has a "Favorites" icon that let's
you add (or remove) the current track or stream (for internet radio or
music services) to your list of Favorites
* A few other NowPlaying plugins, some of the are redundant to
allow for different arrangements (for example, you can put "Favorites"
and "Song Info" on the same line - saves space:
o Player select - a dropdown that let's you select the
current player
o Lyrics support (requires Lyrics plugin)
* The "Extras" Menu now features a "(Re) Scan Library" item that
let's you add tracks to your library or do a full rescan. Useful if you
don't want to fire up the full web skin after adding tracks.
* Also in "Extras": Lyrics support again (Lyrics plugin required).

As usual: have fun!


+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Filename: 080509 MultiPlayer SN.jpg |
|Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5083|
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

[pippin]

BTW, since I've only got two SBs, the maximum number of players I could
test this with is four (SB3, SBR and two SoftSqueezes) so I will be
happy to get your feedback on the usability of the MultiPlayer Control
with more than four players :-)

[davidcotton]

Finally got it all working!

Very nice bit of work. Internet radio is already easier to use.

Only thing is I have to sort out my tags, they are a mess!

Cheers for all the hard work pippin!

[pippin]

David,

good to hear that. What did the trick?
Did you use 0.4.5 or 0.4?

[davidcotton]

Post by pippin
David,
good to hear that. What did the trick?
Did you use 0.4.5 or 0.4?

Deleting plugin-data.yaml seemed to do it. Not sure of the version but
its not the newest one just released. Had to tinker with the network
settings as I was connecting the touch wirelessly to the mac mini which
was then connected to the internet via ethernet (confused? So was I!).

Cheers again for a nice bit of work. Looking forward to the native app
for it!

[rydenfan]

Would a Controller operate any faster than my touch with this plugin?
Thanks for the help.

[pippin]

Post by rydenfan
Would a Controller operate any faster than my touch with this plugin?
Thanks for the help.

You mean SBC? Really depends on what you want to do.
Loading menus and pages is faster, scrolling though lists, too,
although you have more direct access through the alphabet bar with
iPeng.
iPeng has much more functionality that can be accessed directly,
especially on NowPlaying. If you use any of that, iPeng is faster (or
the only choice). If you use more than one SB, for example, and you
want to control the volume (or something else) on two of them
(independently), that's much faster now with iPeng. Shuffle, Repeat,
Love, Ban, skip (within a track), etc is faster with iPeng. If you want
to access stuff you put on the toolbar that can also be faster than with
the SBC since you don't have to dive down a menu structure.
On the functionality side: you can rearrange playlists with iPeng, you
have more browse choices, you can access TrackStat Ratings and maybe
some more things...

Generally:
SBC is much more comfortable if you just want to control one player
immediately due to the hard keys, this is a principal drawback of the
touch (that is also present for the iPod application, for example), it
also FEELS faster when browsing long lists, although it also takes a
few seconds to load a album list (for example).
iPeng can build on the broad support (especially plugin wise) for the
Web Skin platform and thus has more functionality. This is especially
true for the NowPlaying screen since it allows all this context
sensitive stuff that SBC is (yet) missing. And some things are more
comfortable since you have more options to do things on the touch
screen than with the controller, Alarm and the new MultiPlayer control
come to mind as examples.

iPeng native will be somewhere in between. It will be faster than the
webapp but it will not be as compatible to plugins at the beginning. It
does have even more touch screen capabilities on the usability side but
it still lacks hard keys for volume, skip and play/pause.

Does that help? It's a hard choice. Myself (now having both): I
generally use iPeng to browse my database (I use "Albums sorted by
Artist" in around 70% of all cases and SBC doesn't have that) and I use
iPeng to control my two SBs and to rate tracks but I always use the SBC
for fast changes (volume, pause) or when browsing by artist.
Oh, and then there's probably the most important distinction: I use
what ever is laying around in the room I'm in, it's really niche to
have more than one remote...

[davidcotton]

Slightly ot but was just wondering how long touch users were getting out
of their units? Mine seems to last about 2 and a half hours using wifi.
Got a refurbished unit so was just making sure it was ok.

[pippin]

wifi consumes LOTS of power. I would say: depends on how much you use
it, but if you use it a lot, that figure might be right. I typically
run it for a day, and I use it quite a bit: checking mails, writing
this, using iPeng,... 2-3 hours of continuous use could be about it.

[Sike]

Really cool plugin!! It just got girlfirend apporval!!

A native App would be da bomb!!

[pippin]

For all of you who've got a jailbroken iPod or iPhone and want to see
HOW fast tings can get on an iThing: Get yourself a tool called JGoogle
and point it to your iPeng url.
It will show iPeng in a full-screen window. Unfortunately, some things
don't work (dialog boxes, javascript scrolling, swipe etc.) so it's not
fully funtional but it loads SOOO fast and scrolling through long lists
with artwork is a gas!

Just for a bit of fun while waiting for the native app...

[Cipro]

Pippin,

Thank you for all your hard work....i have the duet...and i have been
using your plugin on my ithingy....and the controller...and its a trade
off but i find myself using your plugin more than my duet
controller....

The wifi range on the ipod seems way better....and it fits much better
in my pocket...

I am so thrilled for the native app, is it a SDK you wait on now?

Thanks again,

Cipro

[pippin]

Post by Cipro
I am so thrilled for the native app,

you should be :-)

Post by Cipro
is it a SDK you wait on now?

I do have the SDK and I'm not actually waiting, I'm working on it, but
it's not a fully functioning application, yet, but merely a collection
of modules with which I test certain functionalities (some usability
stuff, e.g. how NowPlaying will integrate with the rest, some
architecture stuff, e.g. how to include plugins, and some functional
stuff, e.g. develop nice browse lists) I don't do a lot on the skin
right now but focus on this but I'm not in a hurry to provide compelte
alpha or beta versions since the firmware needed to put it on the iPod
is not yet out. That will change in June...

[davidcotton]

Slightly odd problem with album art. Have been adding covers to each
album (each in its own folder). Some of these show up some of them
don't. I've done a complete clear and rescan of library which fixed
some of them but not others.

Any ideas?

PS running squeezecentre 7.0 on mac mini osx. Might be an idea to
upgrade to latest maybe?

[pippin]

Post by davidcotton
Slightly odd problem with album art. Have been adding covers to each
album (each in its own folder). Some of these show up some of them
don't. I've done a complete clear and rescan of library which fixed
some of them but not others.
Any ideas?
PS running squeezecentre 7.0 on mac mini osx. Might be an idea to
upgrade to latest maybe?

Is the behavior different between iPeng and the default skin?
If no, have a look at the beta and general forums, there's a lot of
threads on album art issues, many people are having problems with that
(myself included).
I can't judge un the 7.0 on OSX since the library I have on my mac is
not correctly tagged, my 7.0.1 on Ubuntu finally works pretty well.
What have I done:
- One folder per album.
- One "folder.jpg" file per album folder (NOT <album_name>.jpg, if you
do that you have to change a setting and I don't know how well that
works)
- Be careful with folders with many different tracks, some programs put
album art in there for one of the tracks and this will give you lots of
wrong covers on all the others
- I heard that there sometimes is a problem with multi-volume albums,
albeit for me that works fine.
- Sometimes Album art only shows up after you have browsed/played that
particular album for the first time, maybe a 7.0 issue, there were some
comments in some album art threads on this.

[davidcotton]

Post by pippin
Is the behavior different between iPeng and the default skin?
If no, have a look at the beta and general forums, there's a lot of
threads on album art issues, many people are having problems with that
(myself included).
I can't judge un the 7.0 on OSX since the library I have on my mac is
not correctly tagged, my 7.0.1 on Ubuntu finally works pretty well.
- One folder per album.
- One "folder.jpg" file per album folder (NOT <album_name>.jpg, if you
do that you have to change a setting and I don't know how well that
works)
- Be careful with folders with many different tracks, some programs put
album art in there for one of the tracks and this will give you lots of
wrong covers on all the others
- I heard that there sometimes is a problem with multi-volume albums,
albeit for me that works fine.
- Sometimes Album art only shows up after you have browsed/played that
particular album for the first time, maybe a 7.0 issue, there were some
comments in some album art threads on this.

Just had a quick check and from what I can tell the artwork isn't
showing up in normal skin either.

This is what I've done so far :-

One folder per album - done

One "folder.jpg" file per album folder - done

Be careful with folders with many different tracks, some programs put
album art in there for one of the tracks and this will give you lots of
wrong covers on all the others - Yup noticed this as well! Threw me a
little at first!


Sometimes Album art only shows up after you have browsed/played that
particular album for the first time. - Yup noticed this, though this
doesn't seem to be happening with the albums where art isn't showing.

Fwiw I'm not using any programs (not that many exist for the mac it
seems)and am dragging each image to the appropriate folder manually.
This way I get to choose the best version available. Little longwinded
but worth it! (wonder if I'll still be saying that after I've done the
100 or so audio stories I've got coming up!).

[pippin]

OK, then it's probably not an iPeng issue.

Have you checked the other threads on this? I cannot judge, as I said,
I don't seem to have problems with the 7.0.1, maybe something is fixed
then.

You aren't using BMPs on your Mac, aren't you?

[davidcotton]

Turns out it was user error! I had copied the jpegs into the correct
folder at the time,but forgot to rename them! Quick rescan and it
looks like it's fixed!

Cheers.

[drater]

So, I've installed the ipeng plugin, and i can access it through safari
on my mac, but I cant access it on the iphone safari browser. If you
have an idea on how to fix this, please let me know!

Thanks.

[pippin]

Have you read through this thread?
What exactly is your problem? "Can not access" is a bit unspecific.
How did you try to access iPeng (URL)
What is your setup?
Can you reach internet sites with your iPhone?
Can you reach iPeng from another computer?

[drater]

Post by pippin
Have you read through this thread?
What exactly is your problem? "Can not access" is a bit unspecific.
How did you try to access iPeng (URL)
What is your setup?
Can you reach internet sites with your iPhone?
Can you reach iPeng from another computer?

I typed the following in my mac safari and iphone safari:

http://192.168.1.117:9000/ipeng/ and then
http://192.168.1.117:9000/ipeng/home.html

I only see it working on my mac. My mobile safari is working just fine
though for all other websites.

I only have one computer. It's the laptop I am on right now. Both my
squeezebox and the laptop are connected to the wireless router.

If there is something else you need to know, let me know. Thanks.

[pippin]

Could you check the firewall settings (maybe try to turn it off)? I
remember having trouble with that. It's under settings->network or
security on the mac (will check later)

[pippin]

OK, firewall (settings->security) has to be set to "allow all incoming
services" which is probably not secure when you are not behind a
router, or you have to allow access to port 9000 for perl

[drater]

Post by pippin
OK, firewall (settings->security) has to be set to "allow all incoming
services" which is probably not secure when you are not behind a
router, or you have to allow access to port 9000 for perl

Well, I made a dumb mistake...

The iphone was picking up my neighbor's wireless network which it
usually doesnt do.

That solved the problem. Thanks for the input though!

[markstrom]

Is there a reason why iPeng uses the original artwork in the now playing
screen instead of cover_320x320_p ?

[pippin]

Post by markstrom
Is there a reason why iPeng uses the original artwork in the now playing
screen instead of cover_320x320_p ?
I modified the status_player.js file and iPeng loaded the artwork much
faster and the quality of the image was better.

Depends. Your serer will have to resize/resample so if your server is
slow this can take a bit, but that's probably not an issue with only
one pic.

Second thing is: Depends on your artwork. If that's got lower
resolution it may actually take more time. But you are right in that
this is probably less of an issue than the other way round since large
images will take up much more time.

Good hint, I will give it a try.

Expect bigger changes for iPhone 2.0 anyway, some things will get MUCH
faster on iPeng then.

[markstrom]

Depends. Your server will have to resize/resample so if your server is
slow this can take a bit, but that's probably not an issue with only
one pic.
Second thing is: Depends on your artwork. If that's got lower
resolution it may actually take more time. But you are right in that
this is probably less of an issue than the other way round since large
images will take up much more time.

On top of that the is caching of resampled image.

I guess you could modify the pre-generated caching of artwork that
takes place when scanning music to generate 320px images as well. Maybe
just by modifying the thumbnail size in settings from 100 to 320.

[pippin]

Post by markstrom
On top of that the is caching of resampled image.
I guess you could modify the pre-generated caching of artwork that
takes place when scanning music to generate 320px images as well. Maybe
just by modifying the thumbnail size in settings from 100 to 320.

Have you tried that? My understanding is that the pre-cached formats
are fixed.

[markstrom]

Have you tried that? My understanding is that the pre-cached formats are
fixed.

Didn't try just happened to spot some code, didn't even check if
actually get executed.

*** From server\Slim\Music\Import.pm

# Post-process artwork, so we can use title formats, and use a generic
# image to speed up artwork loading.
Slim::Music::Artwork->findArtwork;

*** From server\Slim\Music\Artwork.pm

# Pre-cache this artwork resized to our commonly-used sizes/formats
# 1. user's thumb size or 100x100_p (large web artwork)
# 2. 50x50_p (small web artwork)
# 3. 56x56_o.jpg (Jive artwork - OAR JPG)
my @dims = (50);
push @dims, $prefs->get('thumbSize') || 100;
for my $dim ( @dims ) {
logger('scan.import')->debug( "Pre-caching artwork for trackid " .
$track->id . " at size ${dim}x${dim}_p" );
eval {Slim::Web::Graphics::processCoverArtRequest( undef, 'music/' .
$track->id . "/cover_${dim}x${dim}_p" );
};
}

[pippin]

OK, that looks like it actually does that. I thought they always do
100x100 for Jive.
Problem is: I will need 100x100f for the 2.0 version. But anyway: I
thing this is not a big issue since it's always one image at a time,
not like 50 or so as with the browse pages.

[davidcotton]

Just a quick note to say how much I'm enjoying using ipeng with the
touch. Fantastic. Whilst I'm sure the controller is good, actually
having the advantage of wireless internet (youtube on the things great)
video playback and photos all add up.

Nice work pippin.

[PRGeno]

I've been looking for a remote control solution for over 2 years, for my
growing SqueezeBox network. I've gone through options trying a RF
remote, Windows mobile devices, and both web and native apps on a
couple different Windows tablet PCs. But I have never found the right
combination of features and hardware form factor.

I bought a SB Controller as soon as it became available separately last
month. I thought I finally found the answer, as the Controller is a
very nice device, and works quite well. But unfortunately one of the
primary requirements for my solution is the ability to control the SB
network from outside on my patio, and the Controller's screen just
doesn't cut it outside.

I now think the solution has arrived. I read about iPeng here, and
decided to pick up an iPod Touch yesterday. It was so simple to get
iPeng running, and it works very well. It's a little slow, and seems
to lose it's mind every once in awhile, but what a great job you have
done.

Thank you very much Pippen. I'm now heading over to donate on your web
site, and look forward to where you are taking your pet penguin project.

[pippin]

Thanks for the cool comments.

Now here's the short roadmap:

1. adapt to the new features iPhone 2.0 will deliver
2. native app.

Why this way around? Quite frankly: Apple will improve a LOT on the
next generation of iPhone (that is: software generation, so this will
be available to "old" iPhones and iPods as an update) so most of the
responsiveness issues can be solved using this.
Since I feel a webapp is still more flexible and extensible than a
native app (compare the number of plugins available to, say, the SBC) I
think that path is important

The native app will still come, but it will probably look a bit
different from the skin and offer some integration with other stuff.
I'll keep you updated

</Apple promotion>

[PRGeno]

Pippen,

OK, I've benn playing witht he iTouch/iPebg combo enough to learn the
trends and idiosyncracies.

I can provide some real ffedback now, and have really only two issues
with iPeng/Safari.

First, it seems quite often Safari never finishes loading iPeng pages.
I need to hit some area of the screen,. or the stop button to get Safari
to finish loading the page. If I don't do so before trying to hit a
choice on screen, invariably the choice is ofset by one button, with
unintended actions taking place. I think this issue is what make iPeng
seem slow, when I believe it really isn't. If Safari would just stop
acting like the page hasn't been loaded, iPeng would seem faster.

Second, building a current playlist is hit and miss. Many times trying
to add somthing to an active playlist, cleas the paylist and starts
playing a song which I was trying to add to the current playlist. Very
frustrating when the playlist is fairly large and gets fluched away.
Also it seems occasionally an entire album gets added when only a song
was chosen to be added.

Other than that, I'm really getting to like iPeng. Some minor tweaks
toward making it more robust, and better perfoming, and I believe you
will have created the perfect compliment to SqueezeStuff. Thanks again
for your efforts.

[cakes]

Hi,

I've also been testing out the ipeng skin with my ipod touch and must
say I'm really impressed with the integration. Speed could be better,
and I'm looking forward to the native app, that, as I understand, will
be much faster...

I also fully agree with PRGeno's remarks. About the playlist function,
it would be great if iPeng would ask if you want to clear an existing
playlist, or at least when it is a bit longer. Maybe this could be
configurable?

[Lesu]

Hi Pippin
I have been using iPeng quite a bit over the last few weeks. I'm very
impressed with it, especially when searching for music to play.
As has been observed elsewhere the iPod doesn't last much more than
2-3 hours when on and in WiFi mode, so I tend to leave it in
auto-switchoff mode. When I want to choose a different song or check
out a song that is playing from random mode, I switch it back on again.
At the moment this entails waiting 10-15s while a refresh occurs and
iPeng catches up to the correct Now Playing display for the music
actually playing.
My question is, can iPeng detect that a power up has occurred ? If it
can, could it then automatically refresh the Now playing list to bring
it up to date instantly?

[robroe]

Hi,

I've been using your skin/plugin for quite a while now and I recently
upgraded to the 0.4 version, and wow, it's even sexier than before :)

I do have one quick question, I have RTFM but I couldn't find the
answer to this question. How do I get out of the plugin view and back
to the standard now playing view? I tried the back arrow but I think
that went back to the playlist view?

I think I tried swiping too but my fat fingers must have pressed the
wrong bit as it cleared down the playlist or started a new mix or
something :)

I imagine I am just being really stupid, thanks for your help,

Rob

[vitoruch]

Post by pippin
Hello friends of Coolio. Quite soon: here's a new update of iPeng

Nice, Pippin!

As I asked before, do you know if there is a way we could (thru Ipeng
or not) send a WOL (wake on Lan) command to wake up the PC from
Iphone/touch?

In another thread someone said the duet controller does that function
thru wifi...It would be pretty nice if we could also do it... :)

Thanks,
Vitor

[pippin]

Post by vitoruch
As I asked before, do you know if there is a way we could (thru Ipeng
or not) send a WOL (wake on Lan) command to wake up the PC from
Iphone/touch?

...and I answered before. However, that answer could've been a bit
misleading since I mixed you up with Sune who asked that same question
on another thread.

Answer:
iPeng native: probably yes.
iPeng plugin: at least not for all cases since you will depend on the
browser to keep the page loaded which it doesn't infinitely.

However, as a workaround, could you try this:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=292073&postcount=73

... and give me some feedback on whether it worked? If that's a "yes"
you could just setup a link on your iPod or add one to the toolbar and
the plugin page of iPeng.

[vrobin]

I've just installed new version of iPeng.

What an incredible work you've done! iPeng is now a more serious
challenger to the Controller... If only wish safari could react faster.
The new horizontal album browser is just the best way to browse my
music.

Thank you again!