How hard would it be to implement something in the player software so that every menu option had a serial command to activate it? Many of the menu options are static and don't change at all, and I can't think of any that change inbetween syncs.

Stay with me here as I work this out in my head as I type... The entire interface once you hit the down button can in theory be thought of as a tree, and it shouldn't be too hard to generate a unique number indentifying each node as you traverse it.

So, we turn on "spew" mode, and the player software starts spewing out the code for each menu option as you go into it. Find the thing you want to create a shortcut to, look at the last code on the terminal, and you're all set...

Want to be able to insert "your song" at the right time towards the end of a date? Map the Stun button (your remote does have a stun button, right?) to inserting it. Want to be able to switch to your favorite visual? Go right ahead... Hijack would have to include these in it's IR translation, but the kernel is open source and i'm sure someone would step forward. (more likely, if someone could beat Mark to it)

Much of this can be accomplished through hijack macros, but that's an ugly kludge. Creating a serial command for anything automaticaly would be great for all empeg developers doing anything that wanted to interact with the player.

This is a half baked idea, and I'm sure it would be a pain to implement, but it seems usefull to me... What does everyone think?

Matthew

You can already drive the menu through serial, see http://www.empeg.mars.org/devel/software/player.php3

I'm not sure if this'll give you everything you need, but start with this...

I think he's asking for discrete menu commands, so that he doesn't have to go [right][right][right][down][right][right][down] and possibly screw it up because of timing problems.

There shouldn't be any timing problems -- you can stuff all of the keys into the serial buffer, and then send a return, and they'll be executed in one go. At least, it used to work -- I've not tried recently.

Hmmm... The serial commands all now are very similar to remote commands, but not as complete (i think). I havn't messed with them at all yet. What Tony is talking about isn't actually serial commands but Hijack macros, i think, which aren't quite the same and have different timing aspects.

My idea was that it would be nice to be able to access the whole menu structure through external commands fairly easily and indepently of what is actualy on the screen at the time.

An example of this is hijack's restore visuals which causes the menus to display on screen, and doesn't always work quite right. (i don't usualy use it, so i've only not had it work once, but...). Or if the web interface wanted to be able to append a song, it perhaps could understand out magic-number-function which created these on the fly serial commands, and know what the command for append would be relative to the FID...

I'll perhaps have a go at thinking about a nice algorithm for specifying the nodes of the tree, as my brain is turning to jell-o while i'm on summer break.

Matthew

What Tony is talking about isn't actually serial commands but Hijack macros, i think, which aren't quite the same and have different timing aspects.

No, I'm talking about serial commmands. Can be done without hijack.

HOWEVER, I have just noticed there is a bug in it. I don't know if this bug is Hijack's fault or not:The documentation for the serial commands says that N and P should be next/previous in the menu. This is not working currently. You can enter the menu structure with M, but after that, N and P don't work any more.

Also, the seek commands (f and b) have a problem in that I can't seem to stop them once initiated.

Empeg Guys? Is this yours?

Yeah, you have to cancel f and b with another serial command. Might be F or B, or it might be whatever 'play' is mapped to.

Also, it's 'n' and 'p', not 'N' and 'P'. It's definitely possible that they're broken.

Also, it's 'n' and 'p', not 'N' and 'P'.

Both uppercase and lowercase work for next and previous track. However, once you're in the menu, neither one does anything.

I'll stick that in the bug list.

Ah, my bad. Just checked -- it doesn't care what the case of the letter is. The fact that 'N' and 'P' don't work is definitely a bug.

Hi.

The problem with the "down-right-right-right-down" etc. approach is that the number of "right" buttons to press/simulate might change between releases. I guess what he is asking for (and what I have asked for numerous times, most recently under the topic of virtual IR codes) is that each menu entry gets a dedicated and permanent serial command attached to it, so that the serial command for , say, the transient info mode does not change between releases.

cu,
sven