DOSCab/WinCab Jukebox 3.1 released

[Chris]

DOSCab/WinCab Jukebox 3.1 has been released.  Get it at http://webpages.charter.net/celamantia/jukebox .

This release brings the largest number of changes in any one release. Note that the DLLs have changed in this version, so simply installing the updated EXE is not enough to get a working installation.

The default installation is set up for DOS and Windows XP. If you are using Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000 and you want to use a mouse, you will need to replace alleg42.dll with the included alleg42-98.dll. Simply delete or rename the alleg42.dll and rename alleg42-98.dll to alleg42.dll.

Changes in this release include:

• Added AllowSelectFullCD setting to enable or disable selecting all tracks when Track 0 is selected.
• Added BTN_FREEPLAY and MSG_FREEPLAY to toggle and indicate the state of the credit requirement.
• Added BTN_CLEARALL which clears both the queue and the currently playing song.
• Added automatic addition of .skn extension if not specified.
• Added automatic search for skin files in a folder with the same name as the skin
• Added transparent backgrounds for displays. Use TRANSPARENT as the background color.
• Added MSG_IDLE message to indicate no songs are playing or queued.
• Added time index to debug file.
• Added logging of processed messages to debug level 4.
• Added delays before and after songs, indicated by MSG_PRESONG and MSG_POSTSONG.
• Added message to delay between songs, MSG_INTERSONG.
• Added MSG_IDLE to indicate when no songs are playing or queued.
• Added MSG_QUEUE to indicate that songs are present in the queue.
• Added ability to specify different fonts, colors, quote status, and quote symbols for various font contexts.
• Changed color parameters to accept either "Color" or "Colour" spellings.
• Changed clock to count seconds based on globalclock rather than asking the music engine for the time; this fixes the clock for MIDI files and makes it more consistent for MP3's.
• Changed BTN_CLEARQUEUE to not clear the currently playing song.
• Updated Allegro library to 4.2; this seems to have fixed the DOS MIDI crash.
• Fixed getting song lengths for MIDI files.
• Fixed bug that sent MSG_CREDITS even if 0 credits were added.
• Fixed bug where -MSG_SONGSTART was not being sent if song was skipped.
• Fixed bug where song would be skipped if paused within the first second.
• Fixed bug where extraneous button unsets were being sent when processing the delayed turn queue.
• Fixed taskbar icon and window title.

Here's a sneak peek at the features I'm planning on working on next:

• TrueType fonts as an option for displays
• Orphan control, dividing up split CD's in a more reasonable fashion rather than stranding one or two tracks on a CD
• More customizable displays; you'll be able to set up any arbitrary number of displays showing pretty much anything related to the status of the jukebox
• More customizable titlestrips, such as being able to add track numbers to singles strips, specifying different fonts for different display elements, etc.
• Animated icons
• More flexibility over icons, i.e being able to send one message and respond to a different message
• A Slider object type for volume control or navigation
• An LED object type, allowing you to control the ScrollLock, CapsLock and NumLock LED's in response to jukebox status messages.
• Adding MouseOver events to icons to allow for more customization
• Queue/Credits optionally saved on shutdown
• Multi-page navigation options
• More page-change animations

The next set to work on after that is:

• Support for alternate titlestrip graphics for different genres
• Filter support to filter on an artist, genre, decade, or perhaps custom-definable filters
• Touchscreen support for Windows 98
• Changing skins/sorts on the fly (switch from random singles to sorted albums with the touch of a button, or from horizontal to vertical, or to flip sides on a cocktail, etc.)
• Faster indexing
• More screensaver options, including the much-requested slide show.

Options I'm considering but haven't committed to:

• A Search function. (I'd have to create a customizable on-screen keyboard first.)
• Loading/Saving Queues. Same problem as above.
• Support for 4x40 external LCD displays
• Support for one of the hardware light controller options.
• WMA support through Media Player

I've been pushing hard to get this out this weekend so there is lots of potential for bugs!  Also, the latest skin features have only been added to default.skn and cd4-1.skn so far.

I've tried to keep up with documentation but i know a lot of the more recent features are poorly documented, so please don't hesitate to ask how to do something!  I'm always happy to help people set up skins or tinker with their configuration.

Hope you enjoy it!

--Chris

[JustMichael]

Seems to put artists like M

[Alan sinking]

Hi Chris
I have just read your latest post (brilliant) Just one thing I have noticed, right at the bottom of your list of things to do (A Search function) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring it further up your list as I think this would be a major asset to doscab, when you have hundreds of albums as I do it can take forever scrolling back and forth to find anything. Best Regards Alan.

[Chris]

Seems to put artists like M

[Chris]

OUCH!  Some huge bugs are showing up early... things that I know were tested and working somehow got broken before release.  The biggest and most obvious is that BTN_PAUSE no longer works.  You may want to hold off on downloading this until I can get home tonight and figure out what the heck I did wrong.

--Chris

[RPO R6V]

Did the "vinyl sound" feature make the cut for this version?   

[ebateman21]

I'll jump in and respond to RPO -- yep, recpop.wav is part of the new package and is activated in the default skin.

I was wondering about the UpperCase/LowerCase setting...I checked the new beta and still couldn't force the Artist to UpperCase. Is this still an option?

ebateman21

[ebateman21]

I also noticed the condensed font doesn't want to kick in for long Artists or Titles...just an observation!

ebateman21

[Chris]

Which skin are you using where the fonts aren't correct?

[ebateman21]

Oops, my bad on the condensed font thing. I tried it on one of my own skins and it didn't work, but it works okay on the default skin. I'll have to modify my skins for the new settings.

Still can't get the UpperCase to work, though...

ebateman21

[ebateman21]

Now I have the dilemma of version-specific skins...with the [Titlestrips] section divided into a [Fonts] section and a [Titlestrips] section, skins optimized for v3.0b8 won't work correctly with v3.1 without some modifications. But I'll let you work the bugs out of the new version before I get into any changes!

ebateman21

[Chris]

Now I have the dilemma of version-specific skins...with the [Titlestrips] section divided into a [Fonts] section and a [Titlestrips] section, skins optimized for v3.0b8 won't work correctly with v3.1 without some modifications. But I'll let you work the bugs out of the new version before I get into any changes!

No, I need to fix the backward compatibility.  It's supposed to all work the same; the fact that it doesn't is a bug.

[Chris]

Now I have the dilemma of version-specific skins...with the [Titlestrips] section divided into a [Fonts] section and a [Titlestrips] section, skins optimized for v3.0b8 won't work correctly with v3.1 without some modifications. But I'll let you work the bugs out of the new version before I get into any changes!

No, I need to fix the backward compatibility.  It's supposed to all work the same; the fact that it doesn't is a bug.

OK, I think I got the backward compatibility fixed.

[Chris]

Oops, my bad on the condensed font thing. I tried it on one of my own skins and it didn't work, but it works okay on the default skin. I'll have to modify my skins for the new settings.

Still can't get the UpperCase to work, though...

ebateman21

Fixed.

[dhansen]

Oooooh gimme true type fonts for the display, great app but I'm getting sick of the dot matrix font!

 

[Chris]

Oooooh gimme true type fonts for the display, great app but I'm getting sick of the dot matrix font!

Well, if you can't wait, look in jukebox.ini for

DisplayFont = jbdotmat.fnt

You can change it to jbsans.fnt, which is essentially Arial, or jblcd.fnt which is a 7-segment LCD-style font.

[dhansen]

Yeah, I know, I don't like those either 

I do love your app though, I tried 'em all and this one works the best for a touchscreen implementation.  I made my own skin and mapped out all the buttons, a little daunting at first but the results are great!

Doug

[Chris]

Yeah, I know, I don't like those either 

I do love your app though, I tried 'em all and this one works the best for a touchscreen implementation.  I made my own skin and mapped out all the buttons, a little daunting at first but the results are great!

Well, the TrueType displays are coming.  The problem is that the displays are some of the oldest and cruftiest code going, and they just can't be hacked on anymore; I need to rip them out in their entirety and rewrite them from scratch.  But I'll get a lot more than TrueType out of the deal; I'll make it worth your wait.