DOSCab/WinCab Jukebox 3.0 Beta 1 Released

[Chris]

It seems as if there's always "one more thing" to do and one more week to wait, so I've opted to release what I have now rather than wait for everything to be completely done. The victim in this release are CD-based skins; they are not quite ready for prime time, as cover art isn't available yet and CD numbering isn't working properly.

This version does contain four usable skins: the default skin, which has on-screen buttons suitable for a touchscreen; a "classic" skin which looks like the 2.41 version; an Arcade Jukebox 8 clone which will work with any Arcade Jukebox 6 background; and an experimental "high-density" skin with no background at all yet that supports 15 labels (30 songs) on the screen at once.

The other big loser in this version is documentation; I haven't written any yet. Most of what you need to know is in the comments in jukebox.ini. There is no configuration GUI, so all configuration changes are made by editing jukebox.ini.

I know this is a rough release, but if I wait until it's completely polished it'll probably never get out...

NOTE: This beta version keeps a debug log in a file called allegro.log. This file has the potential to grow very large in an extended session.

The beta can be found at http://webpages.charter.net/celamantia/jukebox .

Here is the changelog for this version:

- Added multiple resolution support.
- Added rotation support.
- Added skin support.
- Added TrueType font support.
- Added OGG Vorbis support.
- Added multiple dot-matrix font sizes to support multiple resolutions.
- Added support for multiple song paths.
- Added ID3 support.
- Added function to release unused time slices so jukebox no longer uses 100% CPU in Windows.
- Added mouse support.
- Added mouse cursors to jukebox.dat.
- Added touchscreen (invisible mouse) support.
- Added icon support.  Icons can both send messages and respond to messages sent by the jukebox.
- Added new default skin with on-screen icons for mouse or touchscreen use.
- Added support for button- or joystick-based GUI navigation (up, down, left, right, tab, select).
- Added support for single (Arcade Jukebox-style) title strips in addition to the standard double (45-style) title strips.
- Added support for CD-style title cards; in this mode, songs are sorted by album, not artist.
- Added splash screen/indexer status display.
- Added file version block.
- Added BTN_EXIT; the ESC key is no longer hardcoded to exit.
- Added BTN_PAUSE.
- Added a "radio mode"; if BTN_RADIO is pressed, the PlayStimulator value is overriden to a one-second delay, causing music to play continuously until BTN_RADIO is pressed again.
- Added ability to disable unused displays.
- Added ability to adjust the number of lines in Now Playing and Coming Up displays.
- Added album name to Now Playing display when at least 5 lines are displayed.
- Added ability to specify number of titlestrips per page; removed hardcoded setting of 8 titlestrips per page.
- Added JPG support.
- Added Unicode support.
- Added key repeat.
- Added joystick/gamepad support.
- Added a configurable brief delay between songs.
- Added a slight delay before the automatic select when AutoSelect is enabled.
- Rebuilt indexer; eliminated need for jukelist.
- Rebuilt music API.
- Jukebox will now play in the background while MAME plays in the foreground (in Windows) if the hardware mixer supports it.
- Changed screenshot function to output BMP files instead of PCX.
- Moved play counts to song database.
- Moved graphics from datafile to individual files to support skins.
- Moved symbol definitions to jukebox.dat.
- Moved control definitions to separate ini file; default file is controls.ini.
- When using Artist Sort, the word "The" at the beginning of an artist name is now ignored for sorting purposes, so "The Beatles" now sorts under B rather than T.
- Songs are grouped on labels by album and in track order (when known) within an artist.
- Fixed major bug that was causing excessive CPU usage (labels continually redrawn).
- Fixed bug where songs wouldn't start in the background in Windows.
- Fixed bug where SongPath wasn't actually working in Windows.
- Fixed bug where files with a # in them could not be played.
- Fixed bug where read-only files could not be played.
- Fixed bug where last titlestrip wasn't being displayed.


--Chris

[RacerX]

I'm loving it so far!  I've been dorking around with the skins and controls.  So far I haven't found any issues.

[Silver]

Now THAT is what I call an update list....

Superb work. Now I really will have to sort out all my mp3's!

Keep it up! Nice one.

[chipsdad]

Chris,

Looks incredible.  I may redo my jukebox with a trackball instead of buttons (or maybe a touchscreen.)  Keep up the good work.

BTW, I think I'm going to keep my directory structure rather than use ID3 tags.

Thanks again.

Bill

[Chris]

BTW, I think I'm going to keep my directory structure rather than use ID3 tags.

If you want to go this route, go into jukebox.ini and set UseID3 = False.  If the music files are one folder from the SongPath root, the folder name will be assumed to be the artist.  If the folder is two or more levels deep, the folder name will be assumed to be the album and the parent folder will be assumed to be the artist.  (I should probably make this configurable...)

I just realized that even with this setting, OGG files will still use their internal tags, since they don't use ID3.  Hmm.

--Chris

[chipsdad]

Gotcha, thanks.

[chipsdad]

Chris,

Built my first skin last night and had a question.  Can you increase the speed of the mouse in the app?

Thanks in advance.

Bill

[Chris]

Built my first skin last night and had a question.  Can you increase the speed of the mouse in the app?

The Windows mouse driver uses the Windows settings.  DOS mouse drivers use a variety of methods to set their speeds like a mouse.ini.  I can manipulate this speed a little bit programmatically, but I don't have a lot of range to play with.  Unfortunately, the most common mouse on an arcade cabinet will be a Happ trackball, which is a very low resolution device.  I may need to look at hooking the mouse interupt and mucking about with the position directly.  I'll try to have something in the next beta.

--Chris

[chipsdad]

Okay, thanks.  I'll send you my skin when it's polished.

[RacerX]

I found a very minor issue.  

When I add a new mp3 file to one of my music folders and then run WinCab, of course it updates the database, as it should.  But when I go to the new mp3 to play it, I see that the single is listed twice on the same tag (I'm using the "45" tags).  However, if I exit WinCab and then restart it, it updates the database and the new song is now listed correctly only once.  So this isn't a big deal at all, it just appears that there is something different about the routine for adding new songs versus the routine that checks for existing songs.

[Chris]

I found a very minor issue.  

When I add a new mp3 file to one of my music folders and then run WinCab, of course it updates the database, as it should.  But when I go to the new mp3 to play it, I see that the single is listed twice on the same tag (I'm using the "45" tags).  However, if I exit WinCab and then restart it, it updates the database and the new song is now listed correctly only once.  So this isn't a big deal at all, it just appears that there is something different about the routine for adding new songs versus the routine that checks for existing songs.

You may see this behavior if the song you added is a duplicate of one somewhere else in the database.  But I'll check it out.  Can you do it again and then after the run where you see it twice send me the allegro.log file?

Thanks!

--Chris

[Johnny]

The new one looking good, Keep going,,,,  

I have just tested the new vversion, and there is one thing I like see implemented,

I would have been great to have a splitted line in Artist tag. Eg like this:

http://www.amrc.no/label.jpg

[Silver]

Hi,

Will DosCab work on a network share (assuming dos network drivers loaded)?

i.e. \\server\share

cheers,
Silver

[Chris]

Hi,

Will DosCab work on a network share (assuming dos network drivers loaded)?

i.e. \\server\share

cheers,
Silver

DJGPP, which is what DOSCab is compiled with, does not support UNC paths.  WinCab is compuled with Visual C++, will should support it, but I haven't tested it.

If you can map a drive letter to that path, though, it should work fine.

--Chris

[tenex2mg]

Greets,
     It may be hard to believe but I've got more problems then just my dreamcast hack .  Anyways, when I first update my database (for the first time after installing it) it works fine, but when I re-run the program from say mamewah it loads the database for a few seconds then crashes.  I've got a little over 5k worth of mp3's all in the format ( mymusic/artist/album/song.mp3).  Am I doing something wrong here or is there  a certain way I should set up my mp3's?

[Chris]

Greets,
     It may be hard to believe but I've got more problems then just my dreamcast hack .  Anyways, when I first update my database (for the first time after installing it) it works fine, but when I re-run the program from say mamewah it loads the database for a few seconds then crashes.  I've got a little over 5k worth of mp3's all in the format ( mymusic/artist/album/song.mp3).  Am I doing something wrong here or is there  a certain way I should set up my mp3's?

It could be an issue with how mamewah launches the program, or it could be a bug due to the size of the database.  Will it run reliably outside of mamewah?  

--Chris

[tenex2mg]

Well, after reading thru jukebox.ini, I tried disabling the update feature...so far its working fairly well.  Out of curiosity when its updating the database for the first time, a lot of mp3's weren't loading up...any thoughts?  they work fine in mediaplayer/winamp/musicmatch jukebox?

[Chris]

Well, after reading thru jukebox.ini, I tried disabling the update feature...so far its working fairly well.  Out of curiosity when its updating the database for the first time, a lot of mp3's weren't loading up...any thoughts?  they work fine in mediaplayer/winamp/musicmatch jukebox?

Last time someone asked this question we troubleshot it for days before realizing that the music files that weren't loading were actually WMA's, not MP3's... if these are actual MP3's, E-mail the smallest one that won't load to celamantia@charter.net along with the allegro.log file from the jukebox and I'll see if I can figure it out...

--Chris

[Silver]

Hi,

loving the 3.0 beta so far. couple of questions though:

I have a monster mp3 collection, and was wondering if you had any plans to add a addition selection level - such as picking a genre before listing the songs.... Would be a boon to me, as getting though them all is a bit ridiculous.

cheers

[Chris]

I have a monster mp3 collection, and was wondering if you had any plans to add a addition selection level - such as picking a genre before listing the songs.... Would be a boon to me, as getting though them all is a bit ridiculous.

Yes, I'm going to have to add some sort of shortcuts for those with large collections.  The last thing I added was code to pull the genre out of the tag, so that should be one of the options; just have to figure out how to do it without a mouse.

--Chris

[Silver]

Aha - yet again superb news!! Nice one.

I was trying to think of any user-friendly way of implimentiing this one - at first I was thinking of an inital selection screen, and then adding a "back" button to the navigation screens....  Although actually having a list of genres on all the time - such as a series of tabs along the top somewhere - would be nice... but space consuming! And I'm sure everyone has there own preference....

Anyhow is fine by me - I'm trying to run this all through a 7" touchscreen(!).

[Chris]

I was trying to think of any user-friendly way of implimentiing this one - at first I was thinking of an inital selection screen, and then adding a "back" button to the navigation screens....  Although actually having a list of genres on all the time - such as a series of tabs along the top somewhere - would be nice... but space consuming! And I'm sure everyone has there own preference....

Touchscreen users have a lot of flexibility but for button users this sort of thing is tricky at best.  Right now, the best way I can think of is for a button to "pop-up" a genre selection list, and when a genre is selected, if either song on a titlestrip or any song on a CD fits the genre it's displayed.  The same could be done for artists as well.  Pop-up windows aren't very jukeboxy, but it's a necessary evil.  If someone doesn't like it, they don't have to map a key to it.

--Chris

[RacerX]

I was trying to think of any user-friendly way of implimentiing this one - at first I was thinking of an inital selection screen, and then adding a "back" button to the navigation screens....  Although actually having a list of genres on all the time - such as a series of tabs along the top somewhere - would be nice... but space consuming! And I'm sure everyone has there own preference....

Touchscreen users have a lot of flexibility but for button users this sort of thing is tricky at best.  Right now, the best way I can think of is for a button to "pop-up" a genre selection list, and when a genre is selected, if either song on a titlestrip or any song on a CD fits the genre it's displayed.  The same could be done for artists as well.  Pop-up windows aren't very jukeboxy, but it's a necessary evil.  If someone doesn't like it, they don't have to map a key to it.

--Chris

That's one of the things I love about WinCab.  You've made it so that everything is optional and thus fully customizable.  You da man!

[Chris]

That's one of the things I love about WinCab.  You've made it so that everything is optional and thus fully customizable.  You da man!

I think I'm over-compensating for 1.0, when I had to have people send me their CP layouts and re-compile a custom version for them...  

--Chris

[Chris]

NOTE: This beta version keeps a debug log in a file called allegro.log. This file has the potential to grow very large in an extended session.

The beta can be found at http://webpages.charter.net/celamantia/jukebox .

There's a minor update posted at http://webpages.charter.net/celamantia/jukebox ; nothing really exciting, but it does make this debug file an option (disabled by default), so those of you who are using the jukebox in your cab won't have to worry about it filling up the disk.  There are also a couple of small bug fixes, mostly related to vertical monitors, and a couple of additional skins.  The Arcade Jukebox 8 compatible skin has also been fixed.

--Chris

[RacerX]

Excellent.  This will come in handy.  While I want the log file disabled most of the time, it did help me recently.

I had a couple of corrupted mp3 files that were causing the jukebox to crash, and the log file told me exactly which ones they were (each was the last song loaded before the crash).  So I was able to get uncorrupted versions of the mp3's and correct the issue.

Thanks, Chris!

[Silver]

Quick question regarding the potential genre-selection. This may be a bit too non-jukeboxy, but I was thinking that even with a genre selection system (which will help loads) some of my genres are still massive. I was wondering if there could be a system of assisting the selection even more - such as a break down alphabetically by artist (i.e. sub-genre of A-M, N-Z etc...)

just wondering. Maybe I just need to prune that mp3 collection...

[garyh]

Chris,

A superb job on version 3, many thanks for your hard work and especially for OGG support.

I am having one problem and that is setting UpdateIndex=True works fine but then setting it to False gives the error "No songs found! Check the SongPath setting in JUKEBOX.INI".

The file path is fine as it works okay when UpdateIndex=True.

I am running wincab from c:\jukebox and the OGG files are in c:\jukebox\music\.....

songpath=c:\jukebox\music

Am I doing smething wrong?

Hope you can help.

Best regards

Gary

[Chris]

Chris,

A superb job on version 3, many thanks for your hard work and especially for OGG support.

I am having one problem and that is setting UpdateIndex=True works fine but then setting it to False gives the error "No songs found! Check the SongPath setting in JUKEBOX.INI".

The file path is fine as it works okay when UpdateIndex=True.

I am running wincab from c:\jukebox and the OGG files are in c:\jukebox\music\.....

songpath=c:\jukebox\music

Am I doing smething wrong?

Hope you can help.

Best regards

Gary

Hmm... not sure.  Is this Beta 1 or Beta 3?  Can you post the debug log, or e-mail it to me? (If you're using Beta 3, you'll have to enable the debug log in the jukebox.ini first by setting DebugLevel=5.)

Thanks!

--Chris

[froggerman]

Hi Chris,

I have been playing with your test layout and I like it a lot. I was wondering if you have the files for the Jukebox single labels in an editable form that you could share with me. I am looking to remove the shading on the left side, but I like the paper texture that you have used. Let me know if this is a problem or not.

Cheers.

[Chris]

I was wondering if you have the files for the Jukebox single labels in an editable form that you could share with me. I am looking to remove the shading on the left side, but I like the paper texture that you have used.

The only other form I have is PCX versions of the same images.  These are lossless, so they'll be better for editing than the JPG versions.  I'm E-mailing them to you.

--Chris

[Silver]

Hi Chris,

In addition to my question about genres further back, I was also wondering about how your program accesses the mp3/ogg files....

I've set up beta3 with no problems, but I've added a music directory on another pc connected by a 11g wireless network. Database generation is as expected slow over this - no problem, I generate it locally and copy over the db -  but song access is also quite delayed. But opening the exact same song in Foobar/Windows media player gives instant playback. Is Wincab downloading the whole file before playing back? Or scanning the file first? If so is there anyway to either turn this off or use an exernal player (ideally foobar due to low cpu requirements) instead of your inbuilt allegro one? Ideally I'd like to keep yours so I can cut out everything else but some songs have 20 seconds or more delay before starting.

Any tips/thoughts? Otherwise awesome though!

[Chris]

I've set up beta3 with no problems, but I've added a music directory on another pc connected by a 11g wireless network. Database generation is as expected slow over this - no problem, I generate it locally and copy over the db -  but song access is also quite delayed. But opening the exact same song in Foobar/Windows media player gives instant playback. Is Wincab downloading the whole file before playing back? Or scanning the file first?

The entire file is loaded into memory first.  I may be able to stream the file instead as an  option; I originally didn't go that rout because I didn't want to chance hiccups in the file, and loading over a hard drive only took a second or two.

--Chris

[Silver]

Ah that clears that one up....

I've done a bit of experimenting and its not too bad on a small highly comprised file,  but a lot of my stuff is somewhat larger ogg files - some up to 8 megs or so. I also have a few Mixes - read 20-100meg - which would completey hold up the system.

Obviously streaming in my case would be perfect, although I appreciate I have no idea how hard that would be to impliment - although I imagine its easier in wincab than doscab.  Probably should have tested all this out before building a wireless mini-itx 7"touchscreen mobile jukebox ;-)

If you do think about implimenting it then let me know! otherwise, you still have a great program...

Cheers, Silver

[Chris]

Obviously streaming in my case would be perfect, although I appreciate I have no idea how hard that would be to impliment - although I imagine its easier in wincab than doscab.

It'll be the same either way, although in DOS it'll be critical to make sure SmartDrive is loaded in the AUTOEXEC.BAT. I abstracted out all of the music playing commands some time ago just so I could bolt these sorts of things on without too much trouble.  Are you volunteering as my low-speed network streaming beta tester?  

--Chris

[Silver]

Done! I'd prefer to test in windows (XP) but can test DOS as well if you need......

Actually, I was planning to go dos all the way - but a complete lack of wireless networking dos drivers hindered that plan, with the exception of some expensive cisco gear....... so windows it is.....

I'll pm you my email for any contact....

thanks,
silver

[froggerman]

Hi Chris,

I have been playing around a bit with the skins and I have found a small problem. There seems to be a white '0' on a black background in the very top corner of every skin. Note: this is not part of the skin, but displayed on top of the skin. See attach image below.

[Chris]

Hi Chris,

I have been playing around a bit with the skins and I have found a small problem. There seems to be a white '0' on a black background in the very top corner of every skin. Note: this is not part of the skin, but displayed on top of the skin. See attach image below.

Yeah, this was a debug value I forgot to remove.  I'll put up a fix tonight.

Incidentally, does anyone see a 1 there instead of a 0?

[froggerman]

Hi Chris,

I found another small problem. If I set HighLetter=C it will still let me enter D. If I set HighLetter=D it will let me enter E. Not a biggie, just a little annoying.

I have been playing with your skins and the skin.ini file. This program is wonderful! The only thing that might be sort of nice is the ability to use more than one label design at a time. I know that it was common to do things like have the top row be Hits, or to put a coloured piece of plastic across a row. Have you given any thought to something like that. By the way, I love that fact that this is a single oriented Juke box program.

Keep it coming!    

[Chris]

Hi Chris,

I found another small problem. If I set HighLetter=C it will still let me enter D. If I set HighLetter=D it will let me enter E. Not a biggie, just a little annoying.

Whoops!  Nice catch... thanks!

I have been playing with your skins and the skin.ini file. This program is wonderful! The only thing that might be sort of nice is the ability to use more than one label design at a time. I know that it was common to do things like have the top row be Hits, or to put a coloured piece of plastic across a row. Have you given any thought to something like that. By the way, I love that fact that this is a single oriented Juke box program.

That's coming.  You'll be able to have a regular and Hit label for each genre, with a default regular and Hit label if nothing is set for a genre.  The genre used is the one set in the ID3 tag.  I'm toying with the idea of artist labels; I've seen this before for major artists like The Beatles.

The default skin will use the "standard" genre color-coding:
- Green was for Country or Country and Western
- Blue was for Blues or Rhythm and Blues or Soul
- Lavender was for Oldies
- Red lines on a white background were for miscellaneous or for the
unprinted blanks that the operators filled in by hand
- Red/pink was for Pop.

I also was toying with the idea of randomly having a handful of labels set in Courier no matter what the font is set for; it seems like on every jukebox there were one or two hand-typed labels.  But I decided not to do this since a DOS system isn't going to have Courier and I can't include it in the distribution.  This is a good time to note that the fonts in the distribution come from Ray Larabie of Larabie Fonts (http://www.larabiefonts.com/), who has generously made them available for free redistribution.  He has many other fonts available, some for free and some full font families for purchase.  The font I'm using us Blue Highway, which Ray designed to match the font used on highway signs.  The real font used on old jukeboxes was usually Futura, but I can't distribute that, and Blue Highway is close.

--Chris

[Chris]

Hi Chris,

I have been playing around a bit with the skins and I have found a small problem. There seems to be a white '0' on a black background in the very top corner of every skin. Note: this is not part of the skin, but displayed on top of the skin. See attach image below.

Yeah, this was a debug value I forgot to remove.  I'll put up a fix tonight.

Okay, the fixed version is up.  The HighLetter bug Froggerman mentioned is also fixed.

One important note: For those using the 4ButtonPanel option in JUKEBOX.INI, it has been changed to AlphaToggle, since panels are no longer restricted to 4 buttons. This option allows the same set of buttons (mapped in CONTROLS.INI to the letters) to toggle between entering letters and numbers automatically for use on panels with a limited number of buttons.

I know these tiny differences hardly merit a new build, but the 0 in the corner is really annoying in low resolutions.

--Chris

[Silver]

Speaking of bugs - and note I have not tried this new bugfix version yet - I noticed last night that when inputing codes on my keyboard all the letters were fine, but any number above 4 could only be entered on the Keypad not on the top row of numbers..... It could possibly have been something weird in my pc so i will give it another shot tonight and let you know.... Unless I'm just being really thick or imagining things.....

[Chris]

Speaking of bugs - and note I have not tried this new bugfix version yet - I noticed last night that when inputing codes on my keyboard all the letters were fine, but any number above 4 could only be entered on the Keypad not on the top row of numbers..... It could possibly have been something weird in my pc so i will give it another shot tonight and let you know.... Unless I'm just being really thick or imagining things.....

That's due to the default keyboard mapping.  In a nutshell, 5 and 6 are mapped to coin entries as they are in MAME, so the numbers across the top stop at 4. See controls.ini and edit to taste.  

--Chris

[Silver]

Thank you.
I am a muppet.....

[garyh]

Hi Chris,

Can you tell me what algorithms you use for selecting tracks in radio play mode? The reason for asking is that I have offered to provide the music at a Queen Fancy Dress party in a couple of weeks and the hosts want a mix of Queen and non-Queen tracks. The problem is that in radio play mode it seems to be playing many more non-Queen tracks than Queen tracks.

Best regards,

Gary

[Chris]

Can you tell me what algorithms you use for selecting tracks in radio play mode? The reason for asking is that I have offered to provide the music at a Queen Fancy Dress party in a couple of weeks and the hosts want a mix of Queen and non-Queen tracks. The problem is that in radio play mode it seems to be playing many more non-Queen tracks than Queen tracks.

Radio mode just picks a random song, although if you have more than 40 songs in the jukebox it will not pick any of the last 20 songs played.  I can do a quick hack for you to make it pick Queen songs more often, if that'll help...

--Chris

[garyh]

Chris,

Thanks for the reply. No need for a hack, I was probably just "unlucky" with the random selection and assumed it might be trying to space out selections by artists.

IMO it might be better to have no repeat (until it has played them all) if it finds less than 20 songs though.

Best regards

Gary

[froggerman]

Hi Chris, I have been working away on my skin and I will have something to show you a bit later. Then I had this evil thought. Having a real juke box downstairs I know some of the strange things that they do, so I checked your program to see if you had thought of this one. Select a song, select a second song, now select the second song again. What should happen is that your credit should go down by one but the song should not appear on the Coming Up list. I know that is a little quirky but I thought I would mention it to you. Of course, I am talking about mechanical juke boxes not the newer electronic ones.

I have been thinking about your idea of having random labels come up in Courier font. I really like this idea. I bounced this idea off a few friends of mine and they all thought is was great as we didn't see as many preprinted labels here, at least where I grew up you didin't.

Anyway I should download your new version and test away.  

[froggerman]

Hi Chris, Could you check something in the new Beta 4? When I type the G key I sometimes get a 7 and when I type the H key I somes get an 8. For example if I type FG the selection F7 is played.

[Chris]

Hi Chris, Could you check something in the new Beta 4? When I type the G key I sometimes get a 7 and when I type the H key I somes get an 8. For example if I type FG the selection F7 is played.

Do you have AlphaToggle set to True?

[froggerman]

Hi Chris, Could you check something in the new Beta 4? When I type the G key I sometimes get a 7 and when I type the H key I somes get an 8. For example if I type FG the selection F7 is played.

Do you have AlphaToggle set to True?

Not any more!  

[RacerX]

I have a suggestion, Chris.  I am a bit worried about screen burn-in over the long hall with the jukeboxes I am building.  This is certainly not a huge concern, but perhaps a future release would allow you to have a set of skins available and a random one would be selected each time you start up the program.  That way you don't always have the same thing on screen every time you start the program, and screen burn-in could be reduced.

I can accomplish this right now by having a batch file copy a randomly selected skin to be my default skin before executing doscab.exe so it can certainly wait.

But I thought it might be a cool feature somewhere down the line.

[Chris]

I have a suggestion, Chris.  I am a bit worried about screen burn-in over the long hall with the jukeboxes I am building.  This is certainly not a huge concern, but perhaps a future release would allow you to have a set of skins available and a random one would be selected each time you start up the program.  That way you don't always have the same thing on screen every time you start the program, and screen burn-in could be reduced.

I can accomplish this right now by having a batch file copy a randomly selected skin to be my default skin before executing doscab.exe so it can certainly wait.

But I thought it might be a cool feature somewhere down the line.

The final version of 3.0 will have a screensaver of some sort.  Random skin selection would be doable, it's certainly easy enough... I had random label selection in the earlier version, though, and people didn't seem to like it.

[RacerX]

Oh, yeah, it would definitely need to only be optional.  And I can do it myself with batch files anyway.  Just a suggestion.

[froggerman]

I have been playing around a bit more and I think I may have found a bug. I wanted to use all of the numbers, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 0. I have not been able to find a setting that will allow me to use the 0. If I set the Highnumber=0 then I can only use buttons 1-4. If I set the Highnumber=9 then I can only use buttons 1-9. If I set the Highnumber=10 then I can only use buttons 1-9. Any ideas how I can use the 0 as well?

[RacerX]

I have been playing around a bit more and I think I may have found a bug. I wanted to use all of the numbers, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 0. I have not been able to find a setting that will allow me to use the 0. If I set the Highnumber=0 then I can only use buttons 1-4. If I set the Highnumber=9 then I can only use buttons 1-9. If I set the Highnumber=10 then I can only use buttons 1-9. Any ideas how I can use the 0 as well?

You have to set UseZero=True in the following section of your skin ini file.

[Selection]

# SelectionMethod: Alphanumeric,Numeric,SingleLetter,SingleNumber
SelectionMethod=Alphanumeric
UseZero=True
HighLetter=D
HighNumber=4
DiscAddress=Relative

[froggerman]

Thanks for the pointer. I hadn't seen that option. Works like a charm now.  

[Chris]

Good new for those with touchscreens... I'm working with a tester who is helping me find a possible solution to the touchscreen problem.  I might even have a build to test tonight.... anyone have a touchscreen handy to test with?

--Chris

[Silver]

Hi,

I've got a 7" touchscreen (lilliput) that I can test on later on.... but not sure what the problem you are referring to was?

[Chris]

The problem was that it just doesn't work.    I now have reason to believe that I'm getting uncalibrated data from Windows, so I need to write my own calibration for it.

[froggerman]

Is there any way to control when the font switches from the wide font to the condensed font? If is use label jb45lb09.jpg longer file names seem to fit perfectly, but if I use label jb45lb10.jpg The longer names overwrite the "HIT" by almost 2 letters. I am just wondering if I can get the display to be even better...

[Chris]

Is there any way to control when the font switches from the wide font to the condensed font? If is use label jb45lb09.jpg longer file names seem to fit perfectly, but if I use label jb45lb10.jpg The longer names overwrite the "HIT" by almost 2 letters. I am just wondering if I can get the display to be even better...

Not yet.  Right now it makes assumtions that all labels look the same.  I'm looking into giving you more control, but I don't know if I should do that now or wait for a later version.

--Chris

[froggerman]

Unless it is very simple, I would wait for a later version. This is not a big problem. Perhaps when you support the labels by song category. "OLDY", C'TRY, etc.

[Chris]

Unless it is very simple, I would wait for a later version. This is not a big problem. Perhaps when you support the labels by song category. "OLDY", C'TRY, etc.

It is very not simple, but there are a lot more benefits than margin control.  The idea would be that any place a string could be output that is related to a song, you would be able to supply a "format string" in the skin to decide just how the string should appear.  That would really break things open: you would have so much control over DOSCab/WinCab's output that you would be able to create skins that act like media players, look like just about any jukebox, sort and work in different ways (like an album- or genre- based "classic" view), etc.  That, along with planned programmable filters, amount to a big change.  I think I'm talking myself into saving those for version 4....

--Chris

[Silver]

version 4?  

arn't you still beta releasing for v3..... ;-)

Anyway - can I ask if the sort-by-genre type option is planned to make an appearance in v3? or is that another v4 option?

[Chris]

version 4?  

arn't you still beta releasing for v3..... ;-)

Anyway - can I ask if the sort-by-genre type option is planned to make an appearance in v3? or is that another v4 option?

A simple sort is easy; I'll still get that in.  I'm going to try to catch up this weekend.  I need to fix touchscreen and mouse issues and get back to finishing the album-mode support.  I've also got to figure out the periodic crash-to-desktop thing that only seems to plague the Windows version.

[MikeAlex]

Hello Chris!

Do you plan to support WMA files?

Thanks.

BTW, great work!!!!

[johnman001]

I have a few questions.  

I had been using 2.41 for about a year now and just recently put 3.0B4 on my cocktail cabinet.  The monitor rotation helps me since my monitor is basically vertical (in a cocktail table).

My questions are:

What changed with the keyboard mapping?  In the previous version (2.41), I didn't have any conflicts between mapped alphanumeric keys and the special keys on my keyboard.  In this release, my volume up button and my volume down button are mapped somehow to alphanumeric keys....  When I press the up volume or the down volume button, I get an alpha code now, where before I did not.

Is there a way I can disable the special keys from being "seen" by WinCab?  (what are the number values corresponding to the keys?)

In radio mode (I set it to 10 second delay), I have problems with the program hanging occasionally.  I thought it might be bad MP3 files, but I don't think it is a problem with the MP3 files now.  I think it must be an error or a bug.

I also can not seem to be able to get the alternate screen rotation feature to work.  Can anyone get that to work???

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Johnman001

[Chris]

What changed with the keyboard mapping?  In the previous version (2.41), I didn't have any conflicts between mapped alphanumeric keys and the special keys on my keyboard.  In this release, my volume up button and my volume down button are mapped somehow to alphanumeric keys....  When I press the up volume or the down volume button, I get an alpha code now, where before I did not.

The old version only looked at the keys it needed to function. In the new version, since you can assign multiple keys to a function (explicitly to support cocktail cabinets), it now looks at all the keys.  In the controls.ini file, try unmapping every key that you're not using by either mapping the key to DISABLED, commenting out the key definition by putting a # at the beginning of the line, or by deleting the definition altogether.  I'm not sure this will help, but it's worth a try.

In radio mode (I set it to 10 second delay), I have problems with the program hanging occasionally.  I thought it might be bad MP3 files, but I don't think it is a problem with the MP3 files now.  I think it must be an error or a bug.

This is a WinCab bug, and I'm trying to track it down.  It doesn't seem to happen in DOS.  Unfortunately, it's likely to be a memory allocation bug deep in the MP3 library I'm using; I may try another library for testing purposes.  Unfortunately, reproducing the bug is next to impossible... if anyone can find a definite sequence of events that leads to the crash, please let me know.  Right now, the only way I can test it is to queue up a few hours of music and wait for it to crash; skipping through songs with the Skip key doesn't seem to cause the bug.  According to the debug log, the crash happens after the song loads but before it starts playing.

I also can not seem to be able to get the alternate screen rotation feature to work.  Can anyone get that to work???

That's cause I haven't written it yet.    It wasn't a priority because I didn't know anyone who was using a cocktail, so I'll go back and work on it if you don't mind being a guinea pig...

To rotate the display, I actually have to completely reload the skin, so I'll probably rename some things in this area to make this a general skin-changing feature.  Thus, you'd be able to flip between album mode (once I make it work) and singles mode at any time.  Actually, now that I'm writing it out, it sounds like a good feature.

--Chris

[johnman001]

In the controls.ini, it states that you can call out the key by name or by number.  Is that Hex or Decimal?  I would be able to disable the Volume+ and Volume- keys if I could enter the HEX or DECIMAL values...  I may try it anyway just to see.

Me a guinea pig?  Heck no, I don't mind.

I have been adding comments to my .ini files to make it easier for me to assign keys (and more importantly for me to remember what changes I made and why).  When I am done commenting, I could send them to you to see what you think.  I know the only documentation supplied is in the configuration files.....

I have found several of my MP3 files will crash WinCAB.  I have most of them saved in a "badMp3" directory.  I had thought that there may have been something wrong with the files, but they play in winamp and media player just fine.  Those that I have identified will crash the program just as they complete, not just before playing.  I also have seen the program hang just before playing a song.

I really like this jukebox better than any of the others I have tried.  Thanks for all the work you have and continue to put into it.

Thanks again.

Johnman

[RacerX]

Just because an mp3 file doesn't crash Media Player or another player doesn't mean it will work in WinCab or DOSCab.  At least that's what I have found.

I have gotten DOSCab to crash in a similar manner, but it *was* bad mp3 files causing it.  Because I can download a different version of the mp3 file or rip a clean one off of a CD, and DOSCab doesn't crash on that song anymore.  These mp3 files didn't discriminate between DOSCab and WinCab, though.  They would cause both of them to crash.  But I believe I have found all of the ones in my collection that were causing this and replaced them with good versions.  I found them by turning on the debug log and leaving two PC's running in radio mode until one or the other would crash.  Then I would replace the offending mp3 file.

[johnman001]

"I have gotten DOSCab to crash in a similar manner, but it *was* bad mp3 files causing it."

Do you know what it is about those MP3 files that DOSCab/WINCab does not like?

(I'm just curious)

At least I don't feel so alone now and I know its not just me.....

Thanks

[johnman001]

A brief backround:  I use Win98, I have a cocktail cab using a PC monitor rotated 90deg.  I use a hacked keyboard and not a dedicated encoder.

After spending some more time with the programs (WinCab and DOSCab), I have found the following:

1.  My keyboard volume buttons only cause extra input in WinCab and not in DOSCab. (easy workaround)

2.  I replaced the alleg41.dll in windows/system directory with the one distributed with WinCAB/DOSCAB.  The new one is smaller in size than the older version.  I think WinCAB/DOSCAB seem more stable now (or is it that I deleted most of the bad MP3s).

I still have some questions regarding the key assignment syntax.

In controls.ini, what would the syntax be for "special" keys?

KEY_(       ) = ###

I would like to map my "special" keys (Decimal 174 and 175) to null or "0" so they do not effect WinCAB.

Other than my minor inconvienance with the "volume" keys, WinCAB/DOSCAB are by far (in my opinion) the best jukebox emulators out there.....

Keep up the good work, and many thanks Chris.

[RacerX]

"I have gotten DOSCab to crash in a similar manner, but it *was* bad mp3 files causing it."

Do you know what it is about those MP3 files that DOSCab/WINCab does not like?

(I'm just curious)

At least I don't feel so alone now and I know its not just me.....

Thanks

No, I sure don't.  But getting a different copy of the mp3 has fixed every one.  So I just didn't worry about it.  Plus, I don't know how you could even figure out what is wrong with the mp3 files.  

[Chris]

Even if the MP3 is bad, I need to find a way to make WinCab deal with the issue more gracefully than to bomb out.  So it's still a bug.  I just got back from a week-long business trip, but I'll be digging back into it as soon as I can.

Thanks to everyone for sticking with me through all these bugs!

--Chris

[garyh]

Chris,

What's the status with touchscreen support for DOS/WinCAB? I got the impression from previous posts that it worked under Windows but not DOS, however having just bought a touchscreen I find it doesn't work under Windows. Should it work or have I misunderstood? If it doesn't and you are looking for a tester then let me know - I bought the touchscreen specifically for WinCab (it has to be the coolest input method for this app) so I'll help however I can.

Regards

Gary

[Chris]

I have a test build with touchscreen support... send me your E-mail address and I'll E-mail you the test version (half a meg or so).  Results have been mixed so far.

It should work under DOS with a jukebox.ini tweak, but I haven't found any DOS touchscreen testers.

--Chris

[StJohn]

Chris,

A superb job on version 3, many thanks for your hard work and especially for OGG support.

I am having one problem and that is setting UpdateIndex=True works fine but then setting it to False gives the error "No songs found! Check the SongPath setting in JUKEBOX.INI".

The file path is fine as it works okay when UpdateIndex=True.

I am running wincab from c:\jukebox and the OGG files are in c:\jukebox\music\.....

songpath=c:\jukebox\music

Am I doing smething wrong?

Hope you can help.

Best regards

Gary

Hmm... not sure.  Is this Beta 1 or Beta 3?  Can you post the debug log, or e-mail it to me? (If you're using Beta 3, you'll have to enable the debug log in the jukebox.ini first by setting DebugLevel=5.)

Thanks!

--Chris

Has there been any resolution to this?  I am having the same problem with 3.0b4. I keep getting "No Songs Found" Error.  

[Chris]

Make sure you don't have a # in front of the SongPath in jukebox.ini.  The # is a comment character; unfortunately, I don't make it clear in the default jukebox.ini that the # needs to be removed to make the sample paths in the file work....

--Chris

[Chris]

There's gonna be a slight delay for updates... my hard drive just died.... AIEEE!

[Silver]

ouch! bad news! Hope you are able to recover what you need/backups etc..... I HATE it when that happens......

Good Luck!

[Chris]

Thank goodness for thumb drives... I happen to have the source on my thumb drive... I lost a bunch of other projects, though...

[johnman001]

Sorry to hear of your hard drive crash.

I ran into a new problem (to me at least) and I am wondering if anyone hs any suggestions.

I had been working with DOSCab and had been logging errors (to try to weed out all my "bad" MP3 files).  I thought I was fairly successful as it would run without crashing for more than 24 hours....

Then this morning I went to load it up and it won't play any songs at all.  I tried:

Rebooting
Re-installing WinCAB/DOSCab (deleted the entire directory and recopied)
Booting in DOS

All without success.

I tried WinCAB and it works as it always has.  (I still have the problem with my volume up/down keys which is why I had been using DOSCab).

DOSCab loads all the songs up and displays the tags and even selects the song and displays like it is about to start, but the timer stays at 0:00 indefinately.

If anyone could offer something to try, I would greatly appreciate it.

[garyh]

DOSCab loads all the songs up and displays the tags and even selects the song and displays like it is about to start, but the timer stays at 0:00 indefinately.

The only time I have had this was when my soundcard wasn't setup correctly. Might be a pointer . . . .

Gary

[RacerX]

Yep.  That's a sound driver issue.  I had the same problem until I installed the correct DOS drivers.

[johnman001]

If it is a sound card issue, then what could have happened between last night when it worked with the existing drivers and this morning when nobody used the computer.....

It's a simple AWE64 soundblaster card, so it should be a no-brainer....

[johnman001]

After taking your advice and attempting to change my sound card configuration over and over and over and over with no luck, I was going to attempt more troubleshooting so I attached a standard mouse to the PS/2 port so it would be easier to work with (rather than the trackballs on the control panels), DOSCab now plays.

The trackballs on my cocktail cabinet are oddball devices (they are serial devices with PS/2 adapters that are plugged into USB/PS2 adapters).  I am doing this so that under Win98, I can have player 1 and player 2 have seperate trackballs in 2 player games.

I only use the PS/2 mouse when troubleshooting or setup (I have a plug under one of the control panels that lets me plug a mouse and a keyboard in when required).

Now that I can duplicate the issue I am having, is there any way for DOSCab to work without having a mouse plugged in?  I am assuming that the program is somehow looking for a mouse just prior to playing a song for some reason......

In a nutshell, it was not a sound card setup issue, but a lack of a PS/2 mouse issue.

[Chris]

After taking your advice and attempting to change my sound card configuration over and over and over and over with no luck, I was going to attempt more troubleshooting so I attached a standard mouse to the PS/2 port so it would be easier to work with (rather than the trackballs on the control panels), DOSCab now plays.

<...>

Now that I can duplicate the issue I am having, is there any way for DOSCab to work without having a mouse plugged in?

My DOS test machine does not have any mouse drivers loaded.  If you have mouse=DISABLED in the jukebox.ini, the mouse should never be checked at all.

Is it possible that the presence of the mouse is changing the IRQ on which your sound card appears due to Plug and Play?  If there is a SET BLASTER line in your autoexec.bat, try REM'ing it out.... it may not have the correct info, and if it is not present the jukebox will attempt to autodetect the IRQ.

--Chris, still without his main PC

[garyh]

Chris,

Sorry to hear about your hard disk crash, hope the rebuild is coming along okay.

You sent me a test version of WinCab to try with my touchscreen and I sent back a a reply but it may have gone down with your disk. Just to let you know that it didn't work. The cursor appears but touching the screen has no effect at all. The cursor doesn't move and "double clicking" has no effect. I am using 3M MicroTouch drivers and the touchscreen works fine with all other Windows apps.

I noticed that the file sizes of the .exe and .dll files you sent are exactly the same as the 3.0B4 versions, and the debug log header states it is 3.0B4 - is this what you would expect for the touchscreen test version?

Do you know what hardware / software the other touchscreen testers are using?

Best regards

Gary

[Chris]

The DLL is the most important change.  The correct version should have a Halloween date on the DLL file.  Make sure you don't have any other alleg41.dll's running around anywhere.

--Chris

[johnman001]

My jukebox.ini does have mouse = disabled.

Well, I don't have any mouse drivers being installed in either autoexec.bat or in config.sys.  I do have the set blaster= in autoexec.bat.

Just for grins, I rem'ed out the set blaster out of the autoexec.bat, and unplugged the PS/2 mouse.....  -> DOSCab hangs just prior to playing....

I un rem'ed out the set blaster in autoexec.bat (PS/2 mouse unplugged).
DOSCab hangs just prior to playing...

I rem'ed out set blaster, plugged in PS/2 mouse DOSCab plays....

I un-rem'ed set blaster, plugged in PS/2 mouse DOSCab plays....

I run DOSCab through WIN98 (in case that matters)....

I still think that the mouse must somehow be polled just prior to playing (even with mouse = disabled).

[garyh]

Chris, yes I have the halloween files and no other instances. Happy to try anything to help resolve the touchscreen issue once you are back to full spec.

Thanks as always for a great program and the time you devote to it.

Regards

Gary

[Silver]

Hi,

I've been trying out my small lilliput touchscreen too. Works fine in windows+apps but will not work in Wincab. You can sometimes see the cursor (I have it on visible) appearing at random places over the screen when you touch, but it has never "hit" a song/button.

I've set Wincab to use same screen (800x600) and res (75Hz) as my desktop but no help.

This is just the regular --BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type-- from your website. Happy to test anything else - I'd love to get this working - and can do DOS touchscreen testing if you need.

PS Er... realise you're probably busy what with a hard drive crash and all but wondered if you had made any progress enabling streaming within Wincab/doscab? (I'm the guy with wireless so it has to download an entire song before it will start playing...)

Cheers and good luck!

[simian]

Hi! Does anyone know how to clear current selection,adjust volume and how to change the highlight bar in doscab/wincab beta 4? Please help me.

[Chris]

Hi! Does anyone know how to clear current selection,adjust volume and how to change the highlight bar in doscab/wincab beta 4? Please help me.

You can change the controls in controls.ini.  To clear the last key entered, map a key to BTN_BACKSPACE.  To clear the entire entry, map a key to BTN_CLEAR.  To clear the currently playing song and go to the next song in the queue, map a key to BTN_SKIP.

There are no volume control buttons yet; I'll add it to beta 5.

For highlight bar, do you mean the dotted line showing focus when navigating via the joystick or mouse?  The focus line for the song labels always uses the font color.  The focus lines for the other buttons are set in the button definition as FocusColor.  The thickness of these lines is set based on the resolution and is not ajustable.  If you mean something else by highlight bar, let me know...

--Chris

[simian]

yep I get it now. sorry for the redundant posting tho, I tend to forget my other posts. thanks.

[Chris]

There are no volume control buttons yet; I'll add it to beta 5.

Okay, I've got my PC back to where it can compile, and I've laid in the volume functions.  You can map keys to volume up, volume down, volume minimum, volume maximum, and mute, which toggles between the current volume and the minimum volume.  The mute state can be detected by an icon so you can have visual confirmation of mute in a skin.

In the INI file, you can set the initial volume, the increment by which volume changes, and whether to adjust volume for the entire system or just for the jukebox application.

I need to do some more work on b5 before releasing it, but the volume controls will be there when it is.

--Chris

[garyh]

Glad to hear you are rebuilt Chris, but now you are just teasing us 

All the best

Gary

[Silver]

Yes that is good news.

Did you need anymore specific info/testing for touchscreen? I posted earlier that mine won't work either.

Are you still looking for DOS touchscreen testing? I can do that too if it would help.

[Chris]

Did you need anymore specific info/testing for touchscreen? I posted earlier that mine won't work either.

I really just need to break down and buy a touchscreen.  Unfortunately, since my revenue from this project is $0.00, my research and development budget is also about $0.00... the last fixes made the jukebox work with my lightgun, which I assumed would work in a similar fashion to a touchscreen, but I guess not.

Are you still looking for DOS touchscreen testing? I can do that too if it would help.

DOS may already work.  Try adding the following to jukebox.ini:

[mouse]
mouse = I33

Then run with the touchscreen.  Of course, your DOS touchscreen mouse driver needs to be loaded in your AUTOEXEC.BAT first...

I'm working on the random crash bug now.  I've rewritten the memory allocator and I have high hopes that will solve the problem.  Unfortunately, I can't prove that I've fixed the problem, only that I haven't...

--Chris

[Dermbrian]

I'm working on the random crash bug now.  I've rewritten the memory allocator and I have high hopes that will solve the problem.  Unfortunately, I can't prove that I've fixed the problem, only that I haven't...

--Chris

Chris, I had sent you a couple of mp3's that *always* die at the end, knocking out WinCab and returning to Windows.  WindowsME in my case.

I just unzipped one of those offending mp3's and it still does it with your latest build.  Same mp3 runs fine in WinAMP and in SalmonKing's new jukebox. 

Hopefully that mp3 would be a good indicator of the 'random' crash bug having been fixed.  I know the behavior can be random but the same abort happens with specific files that work with other players.  I'd love to try any next build you do!  I seem to have the problem worse than anyone.

Brian

[johnman001]

Dermbrian,

I seem to be able to fix my "bad" mp3 files.  I took all my "bad" mp3 files and sent them into a "bad" directory and opened each of them up in sonic foundry.  The only thing that I did with the files once in sonic foundry was to strip a fraction of a second from the end of each of the files and re-saved the files as mp3.

I have a feeling that the problem may have something to do with "variable" bitrates.  I may be wrong about this, but it is my only theory so far....

I only had a dozen or so "bad" mp3 files.  I think it has to do with how the mp3 files were created in the first place.  None of the ones I personally made were "bad".

[Chris]

Chris, I had sent you a couple of mp3's that *always* die at the end, knocking out WinCab and returning to Windows.

[Dermbrian]

I only had a dozen or so "bad" mp3 files.  I think it has to do with how the mp3 files were created in the first place.  None of the ones I personally made were "bad".

Johnman, all of my mp3's are personally made from my collection of LP's.  You may be correct about the variable bit rate contributing to the problem to some degree.  I had a collection that I had encoded at a straight 128kbps and letting those randomly play didn't result in any random closing of the program.

If I do re-encode one of the problem files, it will generally be OK.  But I'm pretty sure there's nothing really 'wrong' with them in the first place.   I'm taking the time to use the '-extreme' setting of LAME to encode my files at a high variable bit rate, so I'd rather not dumb them down.  I'm of the 'every little bit help's' mentality when it comes to mp3 quality.  Lower bit rates kind of give me a headache after a while.

One other behavior that I've had win DosCAB (and I think with WinCAB) is that if I let it play for a very long time (1 hour or longer) then the mp3's begin to sound very rough.

It's a wonderful program with a super interface, and was really what I was looking for in terms of pulling up a random selection of my lp tracks.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Chris can fix this issue that is minor to most but kills mine within 5-10 songs on random play almost every time.

Chris, I'll send you the short one that dies.  1 1/2 minute song.


Brian

[Chris]

I have a feeling that the problem may have something to do with "variable" bitrates.

[Chris]

You may be correct about the variable bit rate contributing to the problem to some degree.

[Chris]

Chris, I'll send you the short one that dies.

[Dermbrian]

Chris, I'll send you the short one that dies.  1 1/2 minute song.

This does not die in my latest build.

Now that sounds promising, especially if you find that it does fail on your setup with a previous build.  I take it to mean it doesn't fail with you new, unreleased build., right?


Goodnight and good luck.  Let me know if I can help test your newer version.  I work at home and can let this run all day one desk over.

Brian

[Chris]

Goodnight and good luck.

[Chris]

Now that sounds promising, especially if you find that it does fail on your setup with a previous build.

[Dermbrian]

Goodnight and good luck.  Let me know if I can help test your newer version.  I work at home and can let this run all day one desk over.

A cautious huzzah...hopefully a louder hoorah tomorrow.

Brian

It's already in your mailbox.

I got it, installed it, and tried the 'offending' mp3.  It played it and did not bomb out to windows at the end.   

I really think you probably found a way for your program to tolerate whatever it was that it didn't like! 

Like I said, I can let WinCAB run much of tomorrow and I'll let you know how it works out. 

Thanks!

Brian

[Chris]

Okay, I've uploaded the latest for everyone with random crashes to try.  This version also includes the possible touchscreen fix I've sent out to certain beta testers.  (I'll post this info in a new thread as well.)

See http://webpages.charter.net/celamantia/jukebox for the latest.

--Chris

[Chris]

wondered if you had made any progress enabling streaming within Wincab/doscab? (I'm the guy with wireless so it has to download an entire song before it will start playing...)

Streaming looks like it's not going to be easy to add... I need to rework some things to get it in.  I'm not saying I'm not going to do it, but since it's not an easy thing I'm going to need to pick off some higher priority things.

I'm so glad I made that tape backup!  I wasn't too worried through the crash because I knew that all the source files were on my flash drive.  Well, I plugged my flash drive in today to discover that it's dead.   

[Silver]

Streaming looks like it's not going to be easy to add... I need to rework some things to get it in.  I'm not saying I'm not going to do it, but since it's not an easy thing I'm going to need to pick off some higher priority things.

No problem - I'm sure its a very low request so stick it at the bottom of the 'to do' pile... I'm currently leaning to sticking a large HD in my mini-box so I can add addition tunes via wireless if/when its available. Now that touchscreen is working I've got no excuses not to build it ;-)

  Well, I plugged my flash drive in today to discover that it's dead.   

Ouch again! you have had bad luck! Glad your all backed up anyway, but that can't be normal. You break any mirrors recently....?

Speaking of priorities, are you still thinking of added some kind of genre/area selector? That would come in REAL handy....

Cheers

[Chris]

Streaming looks like it's not going to be easy to add... I need to rework some things to get it in.

[sWampy]

The default skin will use the "standard" genre color-coding:
- Green was for Country or Country and Western
- Blue was for Blues or Rhythm and Blues or Soul
- Lavender was for Oldies
- Red lines on a white background were for miscellaneous or for the
unprinted blanks that the operators filled in by hand
- Red/pink was for Pop.

I also was toying with the idea of randomly having a handful of labels set in Courier no matter what the font is set for; it seems like on every jukebox there were one or two hand-typed labels.  But I decided not to do this since a DOS system isn't going to have Courier and I can't include it in the distribution.  This is a good time to note that the fonts in the distribution come from Ray Larabie of Larabie Fonts (http://www.larabiefonts.com/), who has generously made them available for free redistribution.  He has many other fonts available, some for free and some full font families for purchase.  The font I'm using us Blue Highway, which Ray designed to match the font used on highway signs.  The real font used on old jukeboxes was usually Futura, but I can't distribute that, and Blue Highway is close.

--Chris

Awesome juke box, any progress made on labels by genra/age, It would really make it pop to be able to highlight xmas songs this time of year. ;-)  Oh, and do you disable the screensaver when running?   It never seems to kick in while the jukebox is running.   I'd like to make your jukebox the screen saver for my front end.  It would be nice if I could have jukebox kick in as a screensaver in radio mode at some preset lower than full volume, and after a set number of minutes go to a black screen for powersavings till a button is hit. 

[Chris]

Awesome juke box, any progress made on labels by genra/age, It would really make it pop to be able to highlight xmas songs this time of year. ;-)

Unfortunately, I have had almost no free time since Thanksgiving.  I wish I had though of the Christmas issue earlier, though.  Let me plow into this tonight and see if I can crank out genre labelling.  It should theoretically be easy...

[sWampy]

Awesome juke box, any progress made on labels by genra/age, It would really make it pop to be able to highlight xmas songs this time of year. ;-)

Unfortunately, I have had almost no free time since Thanksgiving.  I wish I had though of the Christmas issue earlier, though.  Let me plow into this tonight and see if I can crank out genre labelling.  It should theoretically be easy...

Man to quick on the reply, I had thought of another question.

Oh, and do you disable the screensaver when running?   It never seems to kick in while the jukebox is running.   I'd like to make your jukebox the screen saver for my front end.  It would be nice if I could have jukebox kick in as a screensaver in radio mode at some preset lower than full volume, and after a set number of minutes go to a black screen for powersavings till a button is hit.

[Chris]

Oh, and do you disable the screensaver when running?

[Chris]

Oh, and do you disable the screensaver when running?

[Chris]

Edit: Moved screensaver commentary to the thread at http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,30563.0.html .

--Chris