New member questions

[Karaokedude]

HI
 
firstly let me say Thankyou for letting me be part of this forum, and secondly wow
having just discovered this software what can I say Ive been playing with it for the last week its awesome.

and a friend of mine who repairs jukeboxes was more than impressed

I have got to grips with the ini files and have managed to get the software to act  more or less how I want.

JUst a few queries:

having seen the Rockola Tri Vue conversion i thought id try setting the selections to Numeric only . ouch!!!! i cant get to grips with the settings in the ini file

i asume you need to modify the background image and change the indexing to numbers what lines do you need to add or remove.

the second is a request

my friend was very impressed with the software and loved the record pops and general sounds.  Is there a way to have the initial volume of the selected track set
to say 50% and have it increase over a few seconds to its maximum.

the reason for this is more for a purists view on old rockolas  and early jukeboxes
they use valve amps which switch on as the record plays and off when it ends they take about 2-3 seconds to warm up and the volume dosnt reach its full until they have so on initially playing a record the volume is slightly lower

he reckons if this could be done it would be nearly a 100% reproduction of how they play .

[Chris]

OK, we're using default.skn as the example here.  No changes need to be made to jukebox.ini to change the skin to numeric.

Look, for the Selection section in default.skn.  It looks like this:

Code: [Select]

[Selection]

# SelectionMethod: Alphanumeric,Numeric
SelectionMethod=AlphaNumeric
UseZero=False
HighLetter=D
HighNumber=4

Changing the actual method is easy, change SelectionMethod from Alphanumeric to Numeric.  The next question is: What are the lowest and highest number buttons that you have (or want to have)?  If your keypad goes up to 6, set HighNumber to 6.  If it's a full keypad, set High Number to 9.  If your keypad or button set has a zero, set UseZero to True, otherwise leave it at false.

Now you need to change the background image, as it has the alphanumerics embedded into it. But what numbers to use?  By default the track numbers start at 01 if you have a zero, or 11 if you don't.  If you want it to start at 00, you need to add UseTrackZero=False to the Selection section.  Once you know the starting number, just follow along with the alphanumeric version.  So if you don't have a zero and your keypad goes up to 6, your selections look like this:

A1 = 11
A2 = 12
A3 = 13
A4 = 14
B1 = 15
B2 = 16
B3 = 21
--BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type-- = 22
C1 = 23
C2 = 24
C3 = 25
C4 = 26
D1 = 31
D2 = 32
D3 = 33
D4 = 34

If, however, you have a full 10-key pad with a zero, it would look like this:

A1 = 01
A2 = 02
A3 = 03
A4 = 04
B1 = 05
B2 = 06
B3 = 07
--BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type-- = 08
C1 = 09
C2 = 10
C3 = 11
C4 = 12
D1 = 13
D2 = 14
D3 = 15
D4 = 16

If you can tell me what your keypad or button set will use I can change the image for you if you like; it'll be a bit easier for me since I have the original multi-layer files.

Of course, you will need to edit the controls.ini to make sure you have all of your digits mapped.  By default, all of the keys on the numeric keypad are mapped to their coorresponding number, but across the top of the keyboard only the digits 1-4 are mapped (as 5 and 6 are mapped to coin inputs). 

As far as your second question:  Right now, there is no way to trigger a volume change the way you describe; I'll have to add it.  It sounds intriguing, though.  Is the volume increase linear?

--Chris

[Karaokedude]

Thanks for the reply

yes the sound would be linea and literally for 2-3 seconds as the amp warms up
from about 50-60 % to full

what would i use to redo the background image

i am looking at picking up a couple of tri vue boxs in need of some work
 not sure which skin would look best but ive been playing with BJRock28 as it looks the part.

[Chris]

Thanks for the reply

yes the sound would be linea and literally for 2-3 seconds as the amp warms up
from about 50-60 % to full

what would i use to redo the background image

i am looking at picking up a couple of tri vue boxs in need of some work
 not sure which skin would look best but ive been playing with BJRock28 as it looks the part.

If you can get me some good, clean, straight-on photos of the Tri-Vues when you get them, I can create a brand new skin specifically designed for it.

[Chris]

By default the track numbers start at 01 if you have a zero, or 11 if you don't.  If you want it to start at 00, you need to add UseTrackZero=False to the Selection section. 

Oops... I forgot I still have a bug here.  The track number will always start at 00 if zeroes are enabled.  I need to fix this.

[Karaokedude]

was just going to post about the 00 selection LOL

so i just need to take the alphanumerics and replace with numbers with photoshop
just got me a wee bit confused

i was going to use bjrock28 or 60 as a full size screen

as i think the tri vue looks like that as its only a wall selection box

[Karaokedude]

Ok how i would like it to look is

i have access to original label strips can a skin be made with a selction of these scanned as its a bit more random looking ive scanned 1 but it looks to uniform just repeated

basically a 7 by 8 grid with the labels on the background image
with the number selections on the labels

[Chris]

Ok how i would like it to look is

i have access to original label strips can a skin be made with a selction of these scanned as its a bit more random looking ive scanned 1 but it looks to uniform just repeated

basically a 7 by 8 grid with the labels on the background image
with the number selections on the labels

The label image is specified in the skin, so it doesn't matter what the background has.  In future versions there will be support for having different labels.

I'll work on the 00 selection bug after my audition tonight.

--Chris

[Karaokedude]

what i meant was can the background image incorperate the labels in the image
or do they need to be seperate and just overlay the track titles and artist info onto an image

[Chris]

By default the track numbers start at 01 if you have a zero, or 11 if you don't.  If you want it to start at 00, you need to add UseTrackZero=False to the Selection section. 

Oops... I forgot I still have a bug here.  The track number will always start at 00 if zeroes are enabled.  I need to fix this.

OK.. Download http://celamantia.arcadecontrols.com/releases/313beta.zip and unZip it to your jukebox folder, and download http://celamantia.arcadecontrols.com/skins/numeric.zip and unZip to your skins folder.  This should hopefully fix the UseTrackZero setting not being honored and prevent you from selecting songs on the next page, and the skin is a numeric version of the default skin.  If someone could bang on these and make sureI haven't broken anything, I'd appreciate it; I shouldn't trust code written at 2:30 in the morning. 

--Chris

[Karaokedude]

Thanks Chris

just gave it a quick try and all seems ok on the track selection

1st track 01 last selectable 56 tried 57 58 etc and no selection available

with regards to my other question about the background image
I tried adding the images to the background image but because the BG Colour is set to show if no Strip image is available it dosnt show it
can the color be set to transparent so the Track titles and artist infomation
shows over the background image ?

[JustMichael]

Well the beta seems to fix the use track 0 problem.  Now I can have songs from 01 - 80 on my skin and nothing higher is selectable.  Thanks!!!   

[Chris]

can the color be set to transparent so the Track titles and artist infomation
shows over the background image ?

Not yet.  I need to be able to preserve the background in a buffer, and right now I only use one buffer for all of the titlestrips.  I need to rewrite the interface to maintain separate buffers for each strip, but only in the case of transparent backgrounds so the performance hit isn't there for normal titlestrips.  I've done this for the displays (you can specify the background color of a display as "transparent"), but it's a little more complicated for the titlestrips because there can be any number of them so it all has to be done dynamically.  Certainly doable, just more work.  I've already started on the code for this, so it will come hopefully soon