| Readme: | Short: Music player front-end and info screen
Uploader: jpv@morphos-user.com (jPV^RNO)
Author: jPV^RNO
Type: mus/play
Version: 1.8
Architecture: ppc-morphos; ppc-amigaos; m68k-amigaos; ppc-warpup; i386-aros
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 otherwise utilising the computer screen.
I find myself, quite often, wondering what's currently playing when I listen
to large random playlists, and my application offers this feature in an easy-
to-view way, even from some 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 alternative way to use
them.
Why has it such a generic name? This way I leave my options 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), DAPlayer, RNORadio, RNOTunes
- Displays information about the previous and currently playing songs
- Displays album art images, if found, from song's directory, via Internet
(Cover Art Archive), or as embedded images
- Configurable cache for downloaded images
- A clock display
- Fullscreen and windowed (sizeable) modes
- Screen blankers can be disabled
- Last.fm scrobbling support
- Can be used as a MorphOS blanker with the included binary file
- Keyboard controls for prev/pause/play/next
- Hidden volume control/display by using the up/down cursor keys, or the
middle mouse wheel
- 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.
- ARexx support
REQUIREMENTS
------------
- A working ARexx environment with RexxMast running (rexxsyslib.library
installed on MorphOS)
- On a classic Amiga: high or true color RTG, KS3.0+ and plenty of RAM, but
no guarantee it will perform OK on a real machine, probably not so well.
- codesets.library and reqtools.library on AmigaOS 3 and 4, WarpOS, and AROS
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 around to activate the display of the player control buttons
- Volume can be controlled with the mouse wheel or from the keyboard, by
pressing the up/down cursor keys to increase/lower the system volume,
visual representation of the volume control level is shown as a range of
vertical bars in the upper left corner of the window/fullscreen. The volume
controls can be lowered/raised in greater increments, in MorphOS, by
holding down the shift key and using the volume control key/mouse options,
already explained
- Keyboard controls:
Right - Next
Left - Previous
Up - Volume up
Down - Volume down
Space - Pause
Enter - Play
Esc - Quit
Tab - Launch an external script
SETTINGS
--------
The 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.
"Borderless window?"
- Opens on a borderless window in a windowed mode.
"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 for this 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 already using the script with
the music player!
Album art settings:
"Search album art from -> File (embedded)"
- MP3 files are searched for embedded images (ID3v2.3.0 standard)
"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", "cover", or
"album*art" in its name and if the directory contains less than 40 files.
If this image isn't found, filename containing album name is searched next,
then any image file if the directory contains less than 20 files, and
finally if nothing else if found, image with a word "folder" is loaded.
"Search album art from -> Internet"
- If the local search is disabled or doesn't supply any results, the 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 so will be lost upon any reboot.
- Change the directory location to HD to keep any downloaded album art images
permanently, so you no longer need 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 an artist name (from ID3 tags) is searched. If an artist's
name contains spaces, the 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 (which initially needs to be chosen).
"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 the 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 their
original aspect ratio, otherwise images are stretched to fill the display.
"Shadows when using a background image?"
- Texts and control buttons acquire/take-on drop shadows to improve their
visibility.
Color settings:
"Colors -> Default text..."
- Opens a color requester for the color of all text, other than song names.
"Colors -> Song name..."
- Color for the song names.
"Colors -> Buttons..."
- Color for the track control buttons.
Saving the settings:
"Snapshot window"
- Saves the size and position of a 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.
AREXX
-----
Program's ARexx port is RNOINFOSCREEN and supported commands are:
FULLSCREEN . . - Toggles fullscreen mode
VOLUMEINC . . . - Increases volume
VOLUMEDEC . . . - Decreases volume
NEXT . . . . . - Loads the next song
PREV . . . . . - Loads the previous song
PAUSEON . . . . - Pauses playback
PAUSEOFF . . . - Resumes playback
EXTSCRIPT . . . - Executes the external script
QUIT . . . . . - Quits the program
GETVERSION . . - Returns the program version
GETFULLSCREEN . - Returns the fullscreen state
GETARTIST . . . - Returns the artist name
GETSONG . . . . - Returns the song name
GETALBUM . . . - Returns the album name
GETFILE . . . . - Returns the filename
GETPLAYER . . . - Returns the player name
HISTORY
-------
Version 1.1:
- Added stream handling (a URL with MPlayer, but stream titles with others)
- Better parsing with MPlayer
Version 1.2:
- Fixed TuneNet support
- Fixed paths with square brackets
- Small changes to the blanker execution
Version 1.3:
- Added background image and shadowing options
- Added configurable colours
- Added alpha transparency support for default images
Version 1.4:
- More options for background images
- Volume increases faster up and down on MorphOS with the shift key pressed
- Repeating keyboard commands
- Uses own AppIcon
- Added invisible close and depth gadgets on the fullscreen mode
- More system friendly menus
- Improved the local search option
Version 1.5:
- Added support for embedded images in MP3 files (ID3v2.3.0)
- Fixed a crash when the program is iconified
- Added an on-screen volume level indicator
- Improved the invisible depth gadget functionality
- Added UTF-8 support
- Added an option to launch an external script with the tab key
- Added the ARexx support
Version 1.6:
- Added support for Digital Audio Player
- Added the borderless window option
- Settings weren't saved on certain OS3 versions
Version 1.7:
- Embedded images in MP3 files are supported with all ID3v2 versions now
- Added support for RNORadio
Version 1.8:
- Added the embedded image support for FLAC files
- Added support for RNOTunes
- FLAC metadata is read from a file if a player doesn't support it
- Fixed the album art downloading (requires AmiSSL now)
- External Last.fm support is replaced by a built-in solution
- Added work-arounds to get the program to work on AROS too
WEB
---
- Please visit https://jpv.amigaaa.com/ for screenshots, support, donations,
and other software.
- This program is made with Hollywood: https://www.hollywood-mal.com/
- A short video clip: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YNx7Axwhx1E&t=11m17s
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, other connected peripherals, or data files
in any way by using this software.
Please consider the time and effort I put in to create this utility for your
use and enjoyment. If you feel it is useful to you, please consider sending me
a PayPal donation that represents the benefit you gain from using it. The
donation can be sent to the email address quoted in this ReadMe.txt file
(Uploader) or click the Donate button shown on https://jpv.amigaaa.com
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RNOInfoScreen_1.8.lha
