I am a new user and I have two questions regarding the operation of the MK2A

#1 Is there a way to have the Empeg not have the current visual run every time on startup? I would like to have it start with the currently selected info screen. I am running V2.0 and Hijack (latest)

#2 Is there a way to edit the config so that after I select a song or artist out of a search it stays in the search mode and does not return to the current track info screen. (it really bothers me)

Thanks for any help.

#1:

Usually people complain about the other way around. They want the visual instead of the info screen.

First, make sure that you've specifcally selected the info screen from the main menu instead of using a hijack popup. Next, make sure you have NOT activated the feature in Hijack called "Restore DC/Car Visuals" because that's the very feature that de-selects the info screen.

#2:

I've never heard anyone request that. Are you sure you really mean the SEARCH screen, and not just the playlist menu?

If you really mean the search screen, I'm wondering why you want it to stay on the search screen. Is it because you haven't made playlists yet and you're doing searches for everything?

If you mean the playlist menu, then there is an easy way to get back to the last-selected playlist menu after it disappears. Instructions in here.

If you're a new user, have a skim through that section of the FAQ, or heck, the whole FAQ for that matter.

Tony,
I can see the utility for leaving the search menu open - queing up songs at a party or for a friend in the car and not having PalantIR. Playlists don't let you anticipate friend's moods/tastes. Unfortunately I don't see how anything short of a modification to the player software could make this happen.

-Zeke

Oh, I can see the utility as well, but I was just trying to clarify that he really meant the search screen. He's a new user and might have been a bit fuzzy on the terms. I was trying to make sure that he (a) is really creating playlists, (b) is making use of them, and (c) knows about the "secret" feature to get you back to the last playlist screen.

thats all good and well, but none of which help him with his question.

If he meant the main menu instead of the search screen, then yes it does help him with his question. I linked to exactly the thing he's looking for... how to get back to that same menu without all the intermediate scrolling.

if we were to nitpick, which we wont, he doesnt want to have to get back to the screen. hed like to remain on the screen. whether that screen is the search or the playlist is irrelevant to the question as phrased.
but alas, i seem to be nitpicking.
sorry

he'd like to remain on the screen.

Right. Which he can't do no matter what, regardless of which screen he was talking about. We already established that. So there's nothing we can do to help him do that. I moved past that one right away and went on to the next step.

Since we can't give him exactly what he's asking for, I was trying to at help him find something as close as possible. In this case, the fastest way to get back to the screen. Which, if he's referring to the last playlist, is only a couple of button presses. I'm betting he's referring to the playlists and that this will help him out a lot.

#1
see tony post at top

#2
no

heh. sorry, my familys moving to delaware which means when i go home for christmas it wont be home. itll be some small state ive never been near where i know noone. not too ecstatic about it at the moment.

Thanks everybody for the info. Question #1 is will be taken care of shortly. Just to clarify on question #2. I have made a few playlists and I really like the playlist capability. I can make as many as I want to cover my needs but sometimes I do search for a song title in particular and it would seem to me that once you found a particular track you like and select it for play it should take you back to the very place you were searching from. If you want to cancel out and get back to the song at hand there could be a number of buttons that do just that. I will try the tip I was given. Thanks for the replys.

Nick

Darn, I was wrong!

Okay, here's my next question, then...

Are you saying that you're primarily using the search screen to select music, because you've only made just a couple of small playlists?

Just as a reminder... This player was originally designed to use nothing BUT playlists, and most of its functions are based around that. The search screen is just for one-off quick searches for something like "I wanna hear this particular tune next". Most of the time you'll find it's quicker and easier to use playlists to select things like groups of artists or multiple albums.

If your problem is that you haven't created any playlists and it looks like too much work... Then what you want is to have an artist/album tree of playlists to be "created for you". There are a couple of ways to go about it.

You can use something like MP3 Tag Studio to organize your music on your PC's hard disk into that kind of a folder tree and then drag and drop the entire tree onto the root playlist. That will make a tree of playlists for you.

Alternatively, you can use Jemplode to have it create soup-based playlists for you.

... if you are searching, hold down Search to go straight to the Track Search screen, instead of pressing it 3 times to get there..

it might seem obvious to some, but i didn't find out until a year after owning my empeg.

wow...cool...I didn't know that either...

Yeah, there's a few interesting tricks you can do with the remote. I kept forgetting to mention the hold-search in this thread, thanks for bringing it up.

you know what would be really cool to add to that screen?
make it so if you click a button, it shows the screen that would occur on the empeg display.

Ouch, lots of work. Hard enough just getting the text in there. Have you looked at the source code?

Has the FAQ master met his match?
"A FAQ soooo big, not even the FAQ master could code it"

A FAQ soooo big, not even the FAQ master could code it

Every project I've ever done (FAQ, coding, whatever) is like that. You look back on how much work it was and think "there's no way I could ever do anything like that again".

And you see, what I'd love to see is a way to do a search without the remote. As both of mine are currently dead (well on one of them the 2 button refuses to work) I'd love to be able to scroll through the alphabet on the player, or better yet, scroll through groups of letters just like the remote so there'd be less scrolling.

what I'd love to see is a way to do a search without the remote

Right, it's called making playlists and scrolling through those playlists with the knob...

I rather meant if I were specifically looking for a specific song by say, Billy Joel, of which I have over 230 songs, or say, ACDC, when I can't remember if I've stuck them in 70's, 80's, rock, metal, etc. Or even if I can't remember the artist but know the song name. This happens a LOT with me. I want to listen to something, and have to go look it up on the net to see where I've stashed it. It would just be cool to be able to quickly find EXACTLY what I was looking for. Without the remote.

Besides, the last thing anyone wants to see is me fumbling for the remote wile driving.

You could use JEmplode to create the sudo soup playlists. That way you could find at least some things a bit easier, without a ton of manual playlist creation.

OK, I really need to learn what those are.

sudo

You've been running Unix too long.

pseudo