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To the discussion above: In general, it is also my opinion that a program should not try to implement everything, however, this concrete feature can be very useful for using Silverjuke in kiosk mode if you do not want to use a mouse (you can try it out with a normal keyboard just by checking "Settings / Kiosk mode / Numpad / Use numpad"). Moreover, it has a direct correspondence in "real" jukeboxes, so everyone should understand what's going on.
Statistics: Posted by Service-Team — 18. Jul 05, 04:41
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> point out what I feel as a general behaviour
> towards software and with which I do not agree.
>
> If the idea of criticizm is to improve, fine:
> nothing is perfect and discovering bugs or
> matters to be possibly enhanced is worth being
> stated; it helps everyone.
>
> But if the idea - which seems to be an expanding
> attitude - is to require or even propose
> modification of the very software's architecture,
> in order to satisfy personal tastes and
> preferences, in order to get a sort of home-made
> revisited software, then I disagree.
I don't know whether or not to infer that you are thinking I am doing this. I'm wondering about this, because following the links I've provided to show the skills, projects, and options that seem to be in HIGH demand would, in fact, demonstrate that the proposition I put forth not only ISN'T satisfying MY personal tastes and preferences, but in actuality IS satisfying a REQUIREMENT of quite a large number of people that would otherwise find the software unusable. I see that as a clear enhancement for widespread appeal.
> "Yes, but
> everyone would appreciate it" seem to implicitly
> or explicitly argue some. How do they know?
> Besides improvement, the software is the
> programmer's creation: let us not ask him to
> revisit his code just to have an extra - more or
> less capricious - feature.
Trying to simplify the answer in case following my link is too tedious, suppose you have a handicapped individual. Could not my suggestion aid them in use? Is that to be considered "capricious"? I know that you may be using THIS opportunity to make your point, but in doing so, give the impression that MY queries and suggestions are exactly what you are speaking of. I've worked with several developers in the past to fine-tune their software. I realize throwing in every last gee-gaw known to man not only isn't practical or useful, it invites problems with the software. My questions are almost specifically related to interacting with a keyboard and in making the commands easier or more intuitive to the end user as to condense them down to a handful of button presses. That would still be possible with a keyboard matrix, the two other tools simplify even a keyboard matrix!
> Take it as it is or leave it, I would say. I've
> taken Silverjuke because I like it as it is.
> There are as salways possible improvements,
> period. If programmers start trying to satisfy
> everyone's personal expectancies, then we end up
> with a bloat software fattened by a multitude of
> extra features which are more cumbersome to all
> than profitable to a few.
Clearly, I'd have left it. I must simply INSIST at this time that you follow the links I've posted to see if, in fact, I am looking to get my personal expectancies satisfied, or if I'm actually someone who's offered up a recommendation for software to a mass audience requiring EXACTLY what I have spoken of here, and have demonstrated the concepts necessary to be useful to a multitude.
I am not sure whether to be offended or not, because your insinuation by entering this into my thread is that I AM, in fact, guilty of what you mention, yet you never clearly state it. IF you believe me to be guilty of this, I challenge you to do exactly what I've insisted above, and examine my credentials and the concepts I raised my initial questions about. It's insulting to think that you used the clear popularity, based on the number of views in comparison to the rest of the topics, of the idea I posted (probably by the very people I have recommended this software to) in order to put forth your point instead of simply creating your own thread.
That you may have not even looked into what I proposed simply because the software works for you, and you can't see outside the box to understand why my ideas WOULD be an improvement to many others HAS entered my mind. I'd like to point once again to the popularity of the thread topic to demonstrate that it IS one of the larger options people are concerned about, which would back up my words here.
Statistics: Posted by drewkare — 17. Jul 05, 16:00
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If the idea of criticizm is to improve, fine: nothing is perfect and discovering bugs or matters to be possibly enhanced is worth being stated; it helps everyone.
But if the idea - which seems to be an expanding attitude - is to require or even propose modification of the very software's architecture, in order to satisfy personal tastes and preferences, in order to get a sort of home-made revisited software, then I disagree. "Yes, but everyone would appreciate it" seem to implicitly or explicitly argue some. How do they know?
Besides improvement, the software is the programmer's creation: let us not ask him to revisit his code just to have an extra - more or less capricious - feature.
Take it as it is or leave it, I would say. I've taken Silverjuke because I like it as it is. There are as salways possible improvements, period. If programmers start trying to satisfy everyone's personal expectancies, then we end up with a bloat software fattened by a multitude of extra features which are more cumbersome to all than profitable to a few.
Statistics: Posted by Nirvana — 17. Jul 05, 11:54
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I currently have spoken to someone looking for that specific type of implementation of ANY juke software, however, if there is a way to offer that as an option in addition to tying the first 2 numbers to a specific album, that would work better.
The reason being in kiosk, if a person enters the first two digits incorrectly, they may be playing a song they never intended to select. In essence, it would work as CD-style jukeboxes currently work...first two digits correspond to an album, second two digits correspond to a specific song on the album.
===================================
"Okay, two more keys for up/down - currently the PageUp and PageDown keys do this job.
Another idea: Alternatively, if there are not so many keys present in the input device, just one for down and the left/right keys reset the vertical scrolling."
THAT would be an excellent item to implement! Less keys often means MORE confusion, but the instant the left/right key would be pressed, it would be recognized as to what was going on.
Statistics: Posted by drewkare — 8. Jul 05, 23:17
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> have to be done to work around that (I'm
> referring to the 2 numbers required to input the
> track number beyond 9).
My current idea is, to add the unique number to the tracks independently of which albums are in view. So if your music library contains 5000 tracks, you will have unique numbers with four digits: 0001, 0002, 0003, ... 0010, 0011, 0002, ... 4999, 5000.
A track is recognized for playback if all digits of an unique number are pressed. With some more intelligent numbering algorithm it should also be possible to cancel erroneous input sequences.
Moreover, this method should also work if there are less than 10 keys available for entering the unique numbers - in these cases we have to use another radix (eg. octal), which, however, is transparent to the user.
> If that can be done, then any of the keyboard
> interface devices I listed can be used.
Okay.
> Also, to page vertically, can up and down keyboard
> inputs be implemented in lieu of a mouse scroll
> down/up, or are those already the default
> control? I've got a few old-time discs that
> have upwards of 20+ songs, and doing away with
> the mouse in kiosk mode is desired.
Okay, two more keys for up/down - currently the PageUp and PageDown keys do this job.
Another idea: Alternatively, if there are not so many keys present in the input device, just one for down and the left/right keys reset the vertical scrolling.
drewkare, thank you for your tips so far - I'm looking forward for your response.
Statistics: Posted by Service-Team — 7. Jul 05, 02:02
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> Silverjuke:
>
> - Assigning a unique number to each track which is
> (optionally) shown instead of the normal track
> number
>
> - Reacting eg. to the Keys "0"-"9" and to "<"
> and ">" (customizable). If a sequence of the
> "0"-"9" keys identify a unique track number, this
> track is played; the keys "<" and ">" will
> scroll horizontally one page.
>
> If we implement these changes, can the controllers
> you mentioned above (KeyWiz, iPac, ...) map the
> special hardware keys to the ones used in
> Silverjuke? And is this a comfortable and usual
> way interacting with such hardware devices?
If the unique numbers go beyond 10, something will have to be done to work around that (I'm referring to the 2 numbers required to input the track number beyond 9).
If that can be done, then any of the keyboard interface devices I listed can be used.
Also, to page vertically, can up and down keyboard inputs be implemented in lieu of a mouse scroll down/up, or are those already the default control? I've got a few old-time discs that have upwards of 20+ songs, and doing away with the mouse in kiosk mode is desired.
Statistics: Posted by drewkare — 7. Jul 05, 01:30
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> through a keyboard hack (using a keyboard
> matrix), a KeyWiz, or some flavor of iPac (...)
I think, we have to add the following changes to Silverjuke:
- Assigning a unique number to each track which is (optionally) shown instead of the normal track number
- Reacting eg. to the Keys "0"-"9" and to "<" and ">" (customizable). If a sequence of the "0"-"9" keys identify a unique track number, this track is played; the keys "<" and ">" will scroll horizontally one page.
If we implement these changes, can the controllers you mentioned above (KeyWiz, iPac, ...) map the special hardware keys to the ones used in Silverjuke? And is this a comfortable and usual way interacting with such hardware devices?
Statistics: Posted by Service-Team — 6. Jul 05, 03:55
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It would interface with those controls either through a keyboard hack (using a keyboard matrix), a KeyWiz, or some flavor of iPac (all can be found amongst that link of the forum I posted above)
I just was refreshing some things and noticed your new "old-style" skin and it reminded me I never re-checked on the question I was asking!
I'm not sure about your "advertising", but that forum seems to be jumping up in jukebox making, and in the past has spawned yet another juke forum that ISN'T doing near as well as that one. Not a plug, just trying to help you get your product in front of as many people who might use it as possible.
Thanks for your time :)
Statistics: Posted by drewkare — 4. Jul 05, 15:37
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Something with a minimal amount of controls. We have a bunch of folks who have juke projects going, and our whole purpose is to avoid having them look like there's a computer in there if at all possible, and the keyboard just takes away from that.
Hopefully the picture makes it more clear =)
I'll give the skins a go and see how that turns out as well.
Statistics: Posted by drewkare — 6. Jun 05, 02:14
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> software attractive to others looking to build a
> jukebox, is if the controls are customizable.
If you mean the look and feel of the jukebox (the skin), yes, it is fully customizable. Although there are currently no alternative skins, a description is found here:
http://www.silverjuke.net/sdk/skin-howto.html
If you mean the type of "hardware" input controls; currently Silverjuke supports the mouse, the keyboard and so-called multimedia-keyboards with additional controls for pause, play etc. The shortcuts for the keyboard (and more) are also fully customizable using "Settings/Basic settings/Further options" (scroll down the list). Maybe this will already fit your needs.
> Obviously having to buy buttons or controls to
> take the place of a keyboard will get extremely
> cumbersome, and I'd like to NOT have to use a
> keyboard to select music.
I do not exactly understand what you mean; see above for the keyboard handling.
> I've seen mention of working command line, but I
> was wondering if there's an ini file somewhere
> that can be tinkered with to customize the
> controls.
By default, Silverjuke do not use an INI-file but the registry.
However, some users prefer using INI-files as an alternative to the registry. Currently, there are only few options to edit "by hand" - most things can be edited by the "settings" dialog in Silverjuke.
The registry or INI-files has nothing to do with skins.
> Is there a possibility of this being able to be
> controlled with a relatively small number of
> controls? I'm thinking 2-4 directional buttons
> and a 10-key controller.
See the remark about the keyboard above. However, in which way do you want the keys? Maybe we have to add some additional features.
So far, thank you for your interest - any further comments are welcome.
Statistics: Posted by Service-Team — 5. Jun 05, 20:26
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Here's a link to my posting of your software:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.p ... 03.40.html
What I'm wondering, and what will make your software attractive to others looking to build a jukebox, is if the controls are customizable. Obviously having to buy buttons or controls to take the place of a keyboard will get extremely cumbersome, and I'd like to NOT have to use a keyboard to select music.
I've seen mention of working command line, but I was wondering if there's an ini file somewhere that can be tinkered with to customize the controls.
Is there a possibility of this being able to be controlled with a relatively small number of controls? I'm thinking 2-4 directional buttons and a 10-key controller.
Any answers to the cusomization or ini editing possibilities are appreciated.
Statistics: Posted by drewkare — 5. Jun 05, 19:40
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