Would you find a little app that sits in the system tray in Windows and allows you to send commands to the empeg (ie next track, etc.) via hotkeys or thru the icon useful?

Nope, not in the slightest. I don't run windows, and neither do a fair number of the folks here.

But if you wrote it in Java, so we could all share in it..

Cheers

I would, problem in that though is I don't know how to do stuff like that in Java.... I can create windows and stuff, read files, etc., but I wouldn't know where to start/look to figure out hot to setup a hotkey in Java... any help with that?

Well, don't let my one vote discourage you. There still are lot's of MicroSoft fanatics around here who'd love such a tool. Go for it, and think about cross-platform support later.

Cheers

A quick google search didn't turn up anything useful for ``Java Hotkey'', but may I suggest using wxWindows in order to make it more portable if and when you decide to take it elsewhere?

I think it'd be cool to have such an app.


TommyE

Yes!

I'd use it.
In fact me and jwtadmin (above poster) were talking about this very thing the other day.

Z~

Ok then... I guess I'll start workin on it...

Will it use serial port commands (n, etc) to communicate with the player, or will it use the Emptool protocols? The latter would be cool.

Need a little info about the emptool protocol if I'm gonna use it... all I know is I want to write this without have anything needing to be running on the empeg itself.... does the emptool you're talking about require me to write a program that will run on the empeg?

No, just the player. The emptool protocol doesn't support track-skip and stuff, though. The serial protocol does.

I'd use it! What'd REALLY be neat is to display the "Now&Next" playlist on a windows machine so you can see your appends.

Well the program is pretty far underway so far, it's pretty trivial to write. Anyways, it creates an icon that sits in the tray, you click on it and it pops up a menu with all the commands, an exit command, and a setup command. Within setup, you'll be able to assign each command a hot key.

For volume up/volume down and FF/RW, since it would be annoying to only FF/RW for a split second, when you execute that command it will fast forward/rewind for about two seconds. Volume up/down, when clicking on the menu item, will turn up or lower the volume ten notches, while using the hot key will turn it up/down one notch (this is because it's easy to repeat-press the hot key rather than to keep clicking on the menu item).

The now and next idea is interesting, and I also thought a display of the current track playing as the tooltip would be nice, but I didn't see any info on the riocar.org site about receiving info via the serial, only sending commands.

Hmmm The only problem I see is that you would need to have your player connected to your computer via serial for this to work. OK for some but for me it's too far away. How about an option to send the commands via http to an empeg running hijack. ala mlord's features page You can also get the current track info by reading from ./proc/empeg_notify

It should be just as simple if not easier. Although I can appreciate an app that does not require the use of other 3rd party add on kernels.

Problem with that though is this was gonna be just an app that doesn't have any display. If the empeg is too far away for you, I don't see how you'd be able to navigate menus anyhow without being able to look at the screen. Thanks for the info on the empeg_notify file though... is that only created with hijack installed?

When he says that it's too far away he's talking about maybe 5 to 10 feet.
I share an office with jwtadmin, and the empeg is up on a shelf behind our desks.
We can both see the screen from where we sit, but to get to the front panel we have to actually roll our chairs and stretch (unthinkable).
It's running to his PC over our local network, and he controls some functions from his desk using various methods. Mostly just next, back, pause and volume.
Actaully viewing the screen is not a concern.
Just to clarify...

Z~

This is almost starting to sound like the Palmempeg idea..

Well I guess I'll release this version as-is, and maybe as I get a bit more time to work on it, I'll try adding some functionality via http.

How does it communicate to the empeg? ethernet or usb ?

Calvin

Serial... most likely will be adding http for those running hijack

most likely will be adding http for those running hijack

If you implement HTTP, is there any way you can use the discovery code that Jemplode uses to locate the player's IP automatically? I'm on DHCP now everywhere I go with the player and hate having to look up the player's IP address every time I want to do something with it.

And if you did that, you could put up a "Launch Web Page" item on the menu so it could launch the Hijack web page.

Possibly... I really would like to I'm just busy with school . I've been working on this almost non-stop for the past day or two.. I'm going to release the HTTP version, but it won't have DHCP (I will try to implement this sooner or later though). Sorry

Just get your network admins to implement proper DDNS support on your DHCP server .

Suggestion when HTTP is added, let either an IP or a name be entered. On both the networks mine sits on, it always has the same name, and would elliminate my need of an autodiscovery being added.