Is there anyway to get rid of the little counter that shows how many times a song has been played? Thanks its kind of annoying.

I agree it is annoying and I even posted that as a bug.

However, there is no way to remove it and the bug was marked as "no fix planned". Seems the developers like it there.

why do people have such a problem with the plays counter ?

They could at least allow it to be an option to hav on or off. I personally don;t care how many times I've pllayed the song and it just wastes screen space. It couldn't be hard to take out. Wasn't there in releases past.

You should have put it as a very important feature request (to allow toggling) instead of a bug. Damn.

I changed the language file last night to remove the "Plays: " text so now it just shows the counter number. Not ideal to have the floating number, but it saves some space that can be used by longer album titles.

If one of the empeg guys would post what the offset is (in the binary) for the plays variable printing, I suppose we might be able to zero it out as well. I'd be happy with that little hack for now. Ideally I wanted the ability to use the space for something else (post-2.0 feature request).

Bruno

Hmmm - interesting. I actually *like* the counter! To each his own, I guess...

-- Dave

Hi.

Right, to each his own. I would really like to have that play counter removed, or at least have a toggle in emplode to switch it off.

On the other hand, I could bring up an old wish of mine:
User configurable info screens. Something like "%L128T%\n%L80A%Plays%R20C%"
for:
left aligned display of song Title, maximum width of 128 pixels, newline,
left align. disp. song artist, max. width 80 pixel, right al. disp. playcount....

Just a string that somehow resembles a DOS like environment variable expanding string mixed with C-like printf format string, but with the format of % as the escape character, followed by an alignment tag, followed by a maximum width in pixels, followed by the id3-tag denoting character (T for title, A for artist,...), followed by the escape character. With \n for newlines and possibly \t for tabs, anything else is taken literally. So the above might look like this, if resolved:

Paradise by the dashb..

Meatloaf     Plays 10

Would really be wonderful. Perhaps there should also be tags to draw a horizontal line and to switch between font sizes or to switch scrolling on/off both horizontally (per tag) and vertically (for wrapping and scrolling display of id2 comments) . I would love that, and I guess it would also be nice for other empeg (the company) powered devices.

cu,
sven

.. and on a more realistic front.. I can easily "blank out" that part of the screen in Hijack. But is that all that people here want done with it?

-ml

Hi Mark.

As much as just blanking the area out would help some people, most probably would like the player to use that area for other purposes. [Edit: that read puproses before]

cu,
sven

My porpoise for removing the plays counter would be to have more space for the other data on that line (album title). So blanking it with Hijack wouldn't be useful.

My porpoise for removing the plays counter would be to have more space

That sounds kind of fishy to me...

tanstaafl.

Kill the text in the language file and you're left with only the numeral. The player will use the new space to scroll the title. Been running like this two days now and everything's smooth. Smooth as a porpoise.

Bruno

Maybe it's time I shut my blow-hole.

Where do I find that language file ?

For a minute, I thought Bruno was back - where the heck is he??

fishing i guess...?

anyone knows where i find this file ???
i'd like to get rid of the 'plays:' before i go hunting purple puproses tomorrow...

/empeg/lib/lang/ I imagine.

Note: I have *no* idea what to do with this file - I opened it in notepad and it has two instances of the word 'plays' in it. I would STRONGLY advise not doing anything with it unless you a) have a backup and b) have a fair idea of what you're doing.

Hope this helps,

A.

thanks !
i found only one instance of Plays: in that 'en_UK.msgso' - file and replaced it with hex-zeroes. now it's gone !

Is the length of the "Album (Year)" field lengthened the appropriate amount, or does it still cut off at where the word "plays" would have been?

Ideally (for me at least), it would be nice to have the options of:
1. using the "plays:" screen area for longer titles (as suggested earlier)
2. using the entire space for titles (no plays info at all), and
3. resetting individual or groups of track plays counters to 0

The first two options would seem reasonable to do in either Emplode or Hijack. Number 3 would probably best be done in Emplode.

The 'album-scroll-area' now is longer, so it scrolls where the Plays: was before.
Only 2 or 3 pixel-lines divide the actual plays-counter from the scrolling album-title (or, ideally, not scrolling anymore because now it fits !).
Maybe this would not work if you put blanks where the Plays: was. That may just eat up that area and make it useless.
That's why I tried it with ascii-zeroes first, and that worked fine.

The counter is still kind of annoying... I'm already hearing people ask what that number would mean...

Could you post instructions for a newbie? Step by step as if you were holding my hand?

Ok:

- the software's developer version must be installed on your riocar/empeg

- connect empeg to PC with serial-cable

- use Hyperterminal with com-settings 115200 8-N-1, No Flow-control to connect to the empeg

- press q to get to the prompt

- type

 cd /empeg/lib/lang 

to enter that directory (the prompt should change accordingly)

- type

 ls 

to list that directory's contents. now the file en_UK.msgso should be listed; this is the file you need to edit (this was the only file my player had in this directory)

- type

 sz en_UK.msgso 

to download this file to your PC

- "You might not know where the file has been saved on your PC's hard disk. Go to Hyperterminal's main menu and select Transfer/Receive File and you will see the name of the folder to which the file was saved."

- open that file with a HEX-editor (if you don't have one, you can download WinHex from winhex.com)

- Find the 7-digit-string "Plays: " ("Plays[colon][blank]") and replace that with seven ASCII-characters having the hex-value zero (00). Do NOT replace it with the CHARACTER zero - these would have the hex-value 30... (you can usually switch from text-editing to hex-editing with the TAB-key)

- save your changes to the file

- in HyperTerminal, at the empeg-prompt, type

 rw 

(set to read-write)

- type

 cp en_UK.msgso en_UK.backup 

to make a backup of the original file

- type

 rm en_UK.msgso 

to delete the original file

- send the changed en_UK.msgso to your empeg using the HyperTerminal 'SendFile'-Command; use a 'ZModem'-protocol

- type

 ls 

to make sure it's there

- type

 ro 

(set to read-only - important !)

That's it; remove power and restart the empeg - no Plays: anymore !

Ummmmm, any chance this could be included in the next Hijack release?

Probably not. This is a Patch to the player software, not to the kernel.
It might be possible to modify the file at load time though.
Hmm, I will have a look at this patching as soon as I get the /dev/hda2 boot thingy going correctly. It still doesn't work as intended.

cu,
sven

Sven

Would you care to elaborate on your "/dev/hda2 boot thingy" at all. Interested to know what you are trying to achieve...

I believe there is the potential to intercept the file in Hijack like it does with config.ini and mod it on the fly. I might have a look at this tonight....

u guys are just nervous about one to find out your favorite is britney

Hi.

Would you care to elaborate on your "/dev/hda2 boot thingy" at all. Interested to know what you are trying to achieve...

The "/dev/hda2 boot thingy" is a way to install 3rd party software on the player and have it available even after an update to the player software. Well, this is not 100% true.
After an upgrade of the player software, you would still need to upload a custom kernel, but you wouldn't need to install custom init scripts and applications again. Also, we gain some megabytes of additional program storage space. Watch the programmers forum for more information (as soon as it gets ready).

cu,
sven

Well, if that was the case, they would need a background process that does a blank overlay over the actual playcount.
Modifying the language file doesn't remove the playcount, it only removes the "Plays: " label in front of it.

cu,
sven

Cheers pupvogel - I hadn't got around to doing mine 'cos I couldn't be bothered hunting for the correct file/section.
This was dead easy

Damn I just focked up my player. I followed pupvogel's directions EXACTLY and now it freezes up when it boots. Shows the "Rio digital audio" animation then just sits there not responding to any button presses or hyperterminal or emplode or jemplode. I hate being a newbie.
NOW WHAT!?

NOW WHAT!?

Install the player software over again, using an official ".upgrade" file. This will repair the player.

Because the player software is currently hosed, you will need to leave the power unplugged from the player until the moment when the upgrade software prompts you to apply power.

Nice! Works again and I went through pupvogel's instructions again and now that works too. So still no way of removing the actual number of plays on the display?

Removing the actual number will require a patch against the player software. Or a recompile for anyone with the source code. Let's hope it's an option (long-for wished) in the next beta release. I've already found that Plays tracking isn't always accurate (I've had played tracks read 0 when they should read 1 for instance - not a dupe track).

Bruno

Decided to pop in for a minute.. No, not dead, not abducted... Just BUSY. BTW, I'll be in NYC at MacWorld in a couple of weeks.

Well looky here!

Indeed long time no see! Good to hear nothing bad has happened to you (apart from being swamped with work apparently).
I hope you'll be able to attend the boards more frequently in the near future!

Good to see you again.