Readme: | Short: Music player front-end and info screen Uploader: jpv@amigascne.org (jPV^RNO) Author: jPV^RNO Type: mus/play Version: 1.4 Architecture: ppc-morphos; ppc-amigaos; m68k-amigaos; ppc-warpup
WHAT, WHY? ----------
RNOInfoScreen works as a front-end to various music and media players by displaying the "now playing" information with cover art images, and offers basic media control options for the user (play, pause, next, etc.).
Why? Because I listen to music on my MorphOS computers a lot and I wanted to have a fullscreen application to display the "now playing" information when I'm not using the computer screen otherwise.
I find myself quite often wondering what's playing currently when I listen to large random playlists, and my application offers this feature very easily, even from a distance away, so I don't have to drag my ass back to my computer.
Why not make it a full-blown player too? Because I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel. Everyone has their own favourite music players and characteristics for different needs, this program just gives you an alternate way to use them.
Why has it such a generic name? Because I'm leaving my way open, in case I expand it to display more than just music related information in the future.
FEATURES --------
- Detects the running player and gets the information from it automatically - Supported players: Jukebox, SongPlayer, AmiNetRadio, TuneNet 2.4 or later, AmigaAMP 2.22 or later, MPlayer (MUI) - Displays information about the previous and currently playing songs - Displays album art images, if found, from song's directory or via Internet (Cover Art Archive) - Configurable cache for downloaded images - A clock display - Fullscreen and windowed (sizeable) modes - Mouse and keyboard controls for prev/pause/play/next and volume - Can disable screen blankers - Last.fm scrobbling support on MorphOS with the UniScrobbler script - Can be used as a MorphOS blanker with the included binary file - Hidden quit (top left if in fullscreen mode) and screen swap (top right of screen if in fullscreen mode) by single left mouse-click on corner pixels.
REQUIREMENTS ------------
- MorphOS 3.x, OS4, or AmigaOS 3.x - A working ARexx environment (rexxsyslib.library installed on MorphOS) - On a classic Amiga: high or true color RTG, KS3.0+ and plenty of mem, but no guarantee how well it works on real machines, probably not too well.
INSTALLATION ------------
- Copy an executable or the whole directory anywhere you want, no further installation required - To use as a blanker in MorphOS, copy the RNOInfoScreen.btd file to the SYS:Classes/Blankers directory or use the provided install script.
USAGE -----
- Start the music playback on any of the supported players and then just launch this program - Double-click or rcommand-f switches between fullscreen and windowed modes - Displayed elements can be enabled and disabled from the pull-down menu - Move the mouse to get control buttons displayed - Volume can be controlled with the mouse wheel or from the keyboard, holding the shift key changes it in larger increments in MorphOS - Keyboard controls: Right - Next Left - Previous Up - Volume up Down - Volume down Space - Pause Enter - Play Esc - Quit
SETTINGS --------
Following settings can be altered from the pull-down menu of the program.
Generic settings:
"Double-click for fullscreen?" - Fullscreen/windowed modes can be switched with a double-click anywhere.
"Disable blanker?" - No system blanker will activate, and the monitor won't get turned off when the program is running. - Requires a restart of the program to take effect.
"Scrobble to Last.fm?" - Previously played song will be sent to Last.fm if you have the UniScrobbler script installed (http://aminet.net/package/mus/play/UniScrobbler) and the song was played longer than 30 seconds. - Works only on MorphOS. - Remember to avoid double scrobbles if you are using the script already with the music player!
Album art settings:
"Search album art from -> Local directory" - Album art images are searched from the directory the song was loaded. - Search order is a PNG or JPEG image with a word "front", "folder", "cover", or "album*art" in its name. If this image isn't found, filename containing album name is searched next, and finally any image file if nothing else is found and if the directory doesn't contain too many files.
"Search album art from -> Internet" - If the local search is disabled or doesn't bring any results, album art is searched from the Cover Art Archive site and saved to a cache directory.
"Select album art cache directory..." - The cache directory is in T: by default and will be lost in any reboot. - Change the directory location to HD to keep the downloaded album art images permanently without needing to re-download them.
"Show default image if album art is not found?" - A default image is shown (instead of a blank view) if album art isn't found
"Select the default image..." - The built-in default image can be changed to any other image. - Alpha transparency is supported with PNG images. - The program archive includes two example images.
Background image settings:
"Select the default background image..." - If you want to view background images, you can select a default image here.
"Search background images from -> Default directory by artist names?" - A custom background image is searched from the default background image's location (it needs to be selected). - A file containing the artist name (from ID3 tags) is searched. If artist's name contains spaces, file must contain spaces too. For example, "madonna.jpg", "michael jackson.png", etc..
"Search background images from -> Default directory randomly?" - A random background image is selected from the default background image's location (it needs to be selected).
"Search background images from -> Song's directory?" - If the song was loaded from a directory containing a file named "background.jpg", it will be loaded as a background image.
"Use album art as a background image?" - The album art image will be scaled to fit as the background image. - Overrides any other background image settings.
"Preserve the aspect ratio?" - If selected, background images will be scaled and cropped preserving the original aspect ratio, otherwise images are stretched to fill the display.
"Shadows when using a background image?" - Texts and control buttons will get drop shadows to improve visibility.
Color settings:
"Colors -> Default text..." - Opens a color requester for the color of all other texts than song names.
"Colors -> Song name..." - Color for the song names.
"Colors -> Buttons..." - Color for control buttons.
Saving the settings:
"Snapshot window" - Saves the size and position of the windowed mode window.
"Save settings" - Saves all other settings and view selections to ENVARC:RNOInfoScreen/.
MORPHOS BLANKER SETTINGS ------------------------
There are three options in the blanker settings in the MorphOS preferences:
"Exit on user input" - The blanker quits if you move the mouse or press any key if there isn't any playback. If there is playback, the previously mentioned controlling keys can be used without quitting the blanker. If the option isn't enabled, you can use menus and mouse controls, but you have to quit manually.
"Turn off the monitor if no player found" - The blanker turns the monitor off immediately instead of showing the clock display if no supported player is running.
"Don't let the system turn off the monitor" - The blanker screen stays visible and the monitor isn't turned off even if the timeout is set in the MorphOS preferences for turning off the monitor.
HISTORY -------
1.1 - Stream handling (only URL with MPlayer, but stream titles with others), better parsing with MPlayer. 1.2 - TuneNet support fixed, paths with square brackets fixed, small changes to blanker execution. 1.3 - Added background image and shadowing options, configurable colours, and alpha transparency to the default images. 1.4 - More options for background images, volume goes quicker up and down on MorphOS when a shift key is pressed, repeating keyboard commands, uses own AppIcon, invisible close and depth gadgets on fullscreen mode, more system friendly menus, fine-tuned local search.
WEB ---
- Screenshots http://jpv.wmhost.com/jpv_software/RNOInfoScreen/ - Please visit http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos/ for more software and support - This program is made with Hollywood: http://www.hollywood-mal.com/
THANKS TO ---------
- Densho/RNO for the logo - Neil Pearson for proof-reading and testing
DISCLAIMER ----------
This software is made available to you as Freeware and you may use this software in whatever way you wish, but the author accepts no liability for any damage caused to your system or other connected peripherals by using this software.
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