Hi there.

I would really like to be able to modify the existing UI for
the player. Ideally this would involve some sort of scripting
language that we can use, but this is not necessarily required.

Is it likely that we will ever get source to the player?

I'd be happy with just the UI stuff. If all the database
machinery, actual decoding software and nifty visuals
(in short, everything which Empeg might not own) were accessible
via some API into a shared library that would be just great.

The API might contain things like:
- get list of tracks from database
- get tags for a given track
- play a given track
- adjust volume / eq
- select a particular visual

For example, it would be good if you could add a new item to the menu,
which enters a new UI submode, that would let you define common
characteristics of tracks at runtime to create dynamic
playlists, that would be really neat.
Imagine being able to tell your player "For the next 5 tracks,
pick tunes from the same year as the current track".

My favourite mode would be one which randomly selects a new
track based on the current track, but the probability
of selecting a particular track would be decreasing
according to:
- the "next track" (whatever that means)
- some other track from the same CD
- some other track from the same artist
- some other track with a studio musician in common with this track
( you would need a fair amount of data as info tags for this
to work, obviously )
- a track with nothing (necessarily) in common with this track

The possibilities are endless, which is why I would never expect
functionality like this example to make it into the released player.
But you can at least make it possible for people to make customisations
to the player.

Maybe I've missed something, and it's already possible to do this,
in which case I'd appreciate some pointers.

I can't see any obvious legal problems (but I'm not a lawyer).
The published API could be easily implemented with stubs to
allow compilation without the proprietry (sp?) stuff being
affected. What do you reckon?

I certainly hope we can get something like this, as it's the main
reason I bought the empeg in the first place.

Richard.

rjlov --

Go to the "Wish List" part of the bbs, look down the list to a thread started by bobo called "software", last update October 1, and you will find a great deal of discussion on this topic. It is one of the very best threads on this whole bbs.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

OK, I had a look, and the comments from empeg seem to suggest that
they do intend to release some sort of API. Does anybody
have an idea of when that might be?

I really want to be able to customise the UI because I don't believe
that ANYBODY is good at UI design; it requires that the person who
writes the software knows how I relate to my music.

The only good UI is one which lets me change how it works.

On a barely related UI note, yesterday by accident I discovered
the ability to search for playlists/tunes by year/title/artist/genre.
Should I have been aware of this through any documentation?
This is a cool part of the UI, and one which would lend itself
nicely to customisations.

Richard

That feature is one of the newer additions to the player software - one of the many items which is only mentioned in the readme files that accomany
each beta release.

In order to find out whats been added, you have to trawl though all the readme files to find out whats been added to each one.

We know the manual is becoming woefully more inadequate with each successive beta release of the software. I may use the long lonely evenings whilst at CES to re-write it, but then again, I may just go out and have fun :-) Either way a rewrite is on the cards very soon. We'll make it available electronically first, whilst it's being translated into a few other languages, and then send out paper copies to everyone when the first full consumer version of the software is released. It will be a rather more nicely printed manual than the current user guide!

Thanks for your patience.

Rob

Rob --

When the new manual is available electronically, will it be available to all the bbs users, or only those who actually own an empeg? I must confess that my ideas of how the emplode program works and how the hierarchy of the playlists is structured, etc., is hazy at best. I would love to be able to read the manual and see how much of it I could figure out.

For that matter, is the current manual available electronically?

Just in case nobody has mentioned it recently, the service that you and Hugo and Mac and all the rest at empeg provide on the bbs is of inestimable value. You have developed a fanatically loyal following and there are a lot of people on this bbs who are deeply appreciative of the effort and time you spend here.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

I assume that the manual will be made available (in electronic format) from our web site, for download by anyone who's interested.

Rob