UncleT's Jukebox (v2.02) RELEASED. Many new features, updated look and feel

[unclet]

After using my own jukebox software for a couple of years, I finally decided it was time to add every feature I wish I had included the first time around.   As a result, I spent the last 4 months making a bunch of changes.

Perhaps people who once thought my jukebox application was to "Windowsy" will have a new appreciation for it now.   A lot of hard effort went into this and I wanted to share it once again with everyone at BYOAC (and beyond) free of charge.

My website has been updated --> http://unclet.arcadecontrols.com/Jukebox/

The BYOAC Jukebox Wiki has been updated as well 

** If you want to report any bugs, make enhancement requests, etc... then visit the "UncleTs Jukebox" forum listed above in the BYOAC forum listings.   Here is the direct link:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/board,22.0.html


To use this software you must have the following:

- Windows Media Player installed
- Resolution must be at least 1024x768

The jukebox software now has everything I ever wanted in it ........ such as ....

- Dual Monitor support
- Updated Touchscreen interface (since I now own a touchscreen monitor)
- Much better skining options
- Scrolling lyrics
- much much more ....

The jukebox can be interfaced via a keyboard, touchscreen monitor, mouse and arcade controls (with 70+ key mappings available ... just pick which ones you need)

** Even though this is a video/audio jukebox you do not have to have videos to use it.  If you only have MP3 files (ie: no videos) then you most likely would stay on the Albums Tab page most of the time since this is where you can request songs to play and see the song queue, select playlist entries, etc...   

Pictures are included at the bottom of the page.

Here is the complete list of updates which went into v2.0 .....

Version 02.00
==============
- Added dual monitor support with the following rules:

  1) User must configure their system for dual monitor usage BEFORE configuring the dual monitor application settings

  2) At most only two monitors shall be configured on the system

  3) The jukebox application is designed to run on the "primary" monitor only.

  4) It is not necessary for the primary and secondary monitors to share the same resolution, however ......

     a) If the secondary monitor is positioned to the LEFT or RIGHT of the primary monitor then the secondary monitor display must have a (X,0) coordinate placement.

     b) If the secondary monitor is positioned ABOVE(UP) or BELOW(DOWN) of the primary monitor then the secondary monitor display must have a (0,Y) coordinate placement.

- Added better skinning of background and framed sections which include a new "transparent" setting: 

  The application displays various sections (ie: Song Queue, Album Cover Display, Idle Play Options, etc..) each surrounded by a border.  You can now set each section's background to be "transparent" so you can view the main background image underneath.  You may also set the borders to be transparent as well. 

- Added ability to assign different fonts per skin.

- Added ability to change the default button text within a skin.

- Added ability for the toggle buttons to have UP and DOWN images assigned so you can tell when they are selected or not.

- Added the ability to determine which albums have not been assigned a genre yet by adding the "Unassigned" genre.  Simply select this new genre type to see the unassigned ones.

- Added the ability to assign colors to the borders which surround each section.

- Added option to automatically scroll the song lyrics in the primary and dual monitor displays. 

  Scrolling speed is based upon a best estimate calculated by the lyrics window size, the lyrics font size, how many total lines of lyrics exist and how many lines of text wrap to the next line within the lyrics display window. However, if you would still like to tweak the scrolling speed a bit, then there is a new Album option setting available.  The best results will be seen when the lyrics display window is as large as possible and the font is within a reasonable size.  Scrolling does not occur immediately, but rather waits until the song progresses a bit.

- Added TWO album search scrollbars to allow the user a better way to jump to certain albums within their album list more quickly.  The first (left) scrollbar defines a letter which is used to jump to albums starting with that letter.  The second (right) scrollbar defines a second letter which is used to jump to albums which start with the first/second letter combination.  The addition of these new scrollbars resulted in the original small, singled-letter scrollbar being removed.

- Added Album options to allow hiding the first and second letter scrollbars

- Added ability to assign colors to the new scrollbars

- Added ability to assign new icons to be used with the sliders and scrollbars so you do not have to use the defaults only.

- Added new "Media Display" options under the MISC section which provide the user with options to allow the lyrics, album cover or media player to be visible in the media display region of the primary and dual monitor displays.
 
- Added ability for the user to single click on the primary and dual monitor media display area to cycle through the lyrics, album cover and media player displays.   

  Note1: Double-clicking on the primary media display area will still result in the display becoming become full video.

  Note2: When the current song ends, then what is displayed on the media display is once again based on the current option display settings.  This ability is nice when the monitor display is a touchscreen so someone can simply touch the monitor display to cycle through the lyrics, album cover and media player for that song.

- Added a new key mapping to cycle through the media display lyrics, album cover and media player displays.

- Added ability to change font size and color of lyrics text  being displayed in the media display region of the primary and dual monitor displays.

- Replaced all existing sliders with better looking ones and now allow background color, slider bar color and slider icon image to be skinned as well.  Previously used sliders did not allow for any color settings.

- Added the ability to display "25" albums per page now.

- Added "Enter Selection" buttons (ie: number buttons) to the Albums and Search pages.  These already existed on the Media page.

- Split the "Idle Play" buttons and the "Enter Selection" buttons to be displayed on different frames on the Media page.

- Added capability to expand/enlarge an album cover image for viewing by double-clicking on an album cover displayed.

- Added "Loading..." window when application is first loaded

- Added "Up" and "Down" buttons to search results window

- Moved the "Search Text", "Select Genre"  and "Set Genre" functions from the main and into their own input windows.

- Removed the "Search Skin" setting since I believe it was just a nuisance to use.  You can skin the Media and Album pages how you like.   The Albums and Search pages are the same, so there was no need to skin them differently.

- Removed all "Hover" skin settings since I believe they were just a nuisance.

- Upgraded Skin assignment window to allow for multiple image files to be imported and deleted at one time.

- Upgraded the crappy application icon which was being used to something a bit nicer.

- Added key mappings for the Options and Search Windows

- Added new PullOut menus associated with the Main Tab buttons, Song queue buttons, Song Track buttons and Playlist buttons.  These pullout menus are where the less-used buttons are located.  This frees up space on the main window pages so the number of buttons displayed will be reduced.  Also let me increase the button sizes for touchscreen users.

- Added a new key mapping to toggle the visibility of the Main Tab pullout menu.

- Added "Cycle" genre button to the IdlePlay section

- Added "Cycle" playlist button to the Playlist section

- Separated the Attract Mode and Party Mode option menus

- Added new Party Mode options to allow hiding each pullout menu button and disabling the SetGenre, Select Genre and Assign Genre buttons.

- Added ability to make the "UncleT's Jukebox" title text transparent so the applied skin image (which has the text "UncleT's Jukebox") can be seen instead.

- Added transparency settings to the virtual keyboard

- Added "Cycle" button to the virtual keyboard to cycle through the available targets to apply the entered text

- Added ability to seek to the album covers starting with a certain letter by using the virtual keyboard to enter the seek letter.  Basically, this allows the user the option of using the virtual keyboard to seek to a group album covers rather than having to use the seek scrollbars (since they could be hidden from view)

- Added default MUTE button "images" to the default skin instead of using default "text" to represent mute.

- Added startup option to allow application to start on the Media or Album page.

- Added startup option to automatically start the Idle/Play function (ie: start a song automatically)

- Added "Currently Selected Genre" text on top of the Albums page so the current genre associated with the album cover display can be known.

- Added option to hide the "Current Selected Genre" text if the user does not want to see the information.

- Added a "Features" page to the Options menu so all the features offered by the application so the user can discover new feature capabilities previously unknown to them.

- Added Up/Down buttons to the Top100 options page

- Added Up/Down/Select buttons to the Main Options page

- Added button on MISC option page to EXIT Jukebox

- Added Clear button to search window

- Added Up/Down buttons on the Options/Skin page so you can scroll through the available skins more easily.

- Added Up/Down buttons on the Library page so you can scroll through the song library more easily.

- Fixed problem where media control keypresses were not being recognozed when the primary media display was in full video mode.

- Fixed off-center album numbering on 4x4 album display grid

- Fixed problem which caused the program to crash when scrolling through album/artist search results.

- Fixed album cover scrollbar problem in which the scrollbar would be activated by the mouse simply moving over the scrollbar arrows instead of the need to click on an arrow.

- Fixed the problem of not activating a Top10,25,50,100 button when the Genre button was deactivated via the associated key mapping.

- Fixed problem where the selected idle/play genre value was not being maintained after restarting the program

Here are some pictures:

Picture1:  This is the Media Tab page.  Videos are viewed on this page and Idle Play activation occurs here as well. The user can request activation of playing a song from a particular Genre or from the Top10, Top25, Top50, Top100 list. These songs are played when the jukebox becomes idle. The songs may also be requested to be played randomly.

Picture2: This is the Albums page.   Shows the album covers being displayed as well as the song tracks related to the currently selected album cover. The song queue can also be displayed on this page.

Picture3:  This is the Albums page.   When a pull-out menu button is clicked then the pull-out menu is toggled open/closed. This image shows the pull-out menus when they are opened. Extra buttons are provided in these pull-out menus to provide additional functions for the related section.

Picture 4:  This is the Albums page.   This picture shows 25 album covers being displayed at one time as well as the "Enter Selection" section where songs can be requested via their album/track numbers.

[FrizzleFried]

No vertical monitor support?   

[unclet]

Sorry ..... there is no option to switch to vertical mode.   

I guess having an option like this would mean that your video card would need to rotate the image 90 degress and my application would need to stretch the height of the display downward a bit while also decreasing the width of the display as well.

I never thought about this, but it seems like a lot of work at this point.

[Timoe]

What if you're using a TV as a monitor on your arcade cabinet and everything else (windows, Mala, mame) all use 640x480 resolution.  If I launch Uncle T's Jukebox will it switch the resolution automatically to 1024?

Some of my PC games do that and its alright cause it switches back to 640x480 when I exit to Mala.

[unclet]

No .... but I will look into this .... possibly just changing the resolution to be 1024x768 if the current resolution is "less than" 1024x768 (and obviously switch back on exit).   Would there be a need for the resolution to automatically switch to 1024x768 when the current resolution is "greater than" 1024x768?  You can start my jukebox up in fullscreen mode if desired, so it should resize automatically to higher resolutions. 

[unclet]

Also, on my site ..... all the "links" provided are displayed in a default grey color .... not sure why they do not display in the normal dark blue color .... oh well 

[FrizzleFried]

Grrr...

People rarely think of us VERTICAL oriented folks...we are so...unloved!   

[unclet]

I guess I never had a vertical setup so you are right ..... I never thought about it before.    sorry   

I believe offering the option to switch to a vertical display would be too much work since most of the controls and layouts would need to change to accomodate the new "thinner" sized width of the screen.    This is something which should have been thought about at a very early stage in the project, not at this time.

[unclet]

If anyone ends up using this software  on their jukebox/cabinet, then send me a picture and I will place it on the website .......

Touchscreen users:    If you test this software out, let me know what you think.   I invested a lot of time trying to make the touchscreen interface much better than before.  I have since bought my own touchscreen monitor and believe the interface works well, but I could be a bit biased   

[loadman]

Nice one Uncle...

I have a vertical Cab set-up..

But Luckily I got the wife to approve (some time ago) purchase of more hardware to allow me to have my Juke in a seprate Cab..

Nice Work    

[leapinlew]

Looks good!

[unclet]

Thanks for the nice words .....   

[javeryh]

Wow - unclet... thanks for all of the hard work you put into theis software - and for free!!  When I finally get around to b uilding a jukebox I'm definitely going to try your software.  You've got some skillz.   

[Knievel]

Looks real sharp...I'm more than a little concerned about that Reba content though.
Hopefully the Crue has got her outnumbered.

I'll give it a try in the MS and let you know how it goes..

[loadman]

Looks real sharp...I'm more than a little concerned about that Reba content though.
Hopefully the Crue has got her outnumbered.

   Oh Yeah....   

[unclet]

.......I'm more than a little concerned about that Reba content though

I am married you know    ............ however I still have 8 albums from Motley Crue 

[Knievel]

Guess you didn't marry a Metal Queen like me.

Seriously though, I'd sleep easier if you'd move that Reba onto a separate drive.


So I'm just trying out the software and it looks pretty nice.
But why is the black/blue skin not editable? I just want to change the font for cripes sake.

[unclet]

Knievel
Well, I wanted to make sure everyone had one default(grey) skin and one colored skin (BlackAndBlue) which they did not delete by accident.

However, you can do what you want very easily .....

The "Media page" has it's own BlackAndBlue skin and the "Albums/Search page" has it's own BlackAndBlue skin as well.   You will notice in the install directory that there is a "skins" directory which has subdirectories called "mediaMenu" and "albumsMenu".  Inside each of these subdirectories you will notice each skin has it's own directory which has all the information related to the skin.  Basically, the "mediaMenu" directory holds all of the Media page skins and the "albumsMenu" directory holds all of the Albums/Search page skins.

What you want to do is to go into the mediaMenu directory and copy the entire BlackAndBlue folder to a new folder name (ex: MyBlackAndBlue folder) and inside this new folder rename the 3 files (ie: BlackAndBlue.fnt, BlackAndBlue.jpg and BlackAndBlue.skn) to your new skin name (ie: MyBlackAndBlue.fnt, MyBlackAndBlue.jpg and MyBlackAndBlue.skn).   Do the same thing in the albumsMenu directory.   This basically means you now have a new skin called "MyBlackAndBlue", so when you start the jukebox, go into the Options/Skin menu and apply the "MyBlackAndBlue" skin for the "Media Page" skin location.  Do the same thing for the "Albums/Search Page" skin location.    Then edit the skin how you would like .....

PS:  Actually, you do not have to apply the skin to edit it .....


Timoe
I tried coding up switching the resolution automatically and it never really worked perfectly, and it most likely will get confused when dual monitors are connected so I am now officially scared from trying to put this functionality into the software.   I really do not want to mess up people's resolutions for them, I would rather they do that themselves ....     Anyway, do not think this would be a safe enhancement for me at this time.    Now, I would still recommend to try the software out to see if you like it and perhaps you can figure out another way to switch the resolution locally before executing my app.  Sorry   

Loadman
I recently bouhgt an 18" touchscreen monitor and I love it.  If a touchscreen is within the budget, I more than recommend buying one for a jukebox.   Nothing is better than people going up to the screen and simply touching it to make requests.

[loadman]

Loadman
I recently bought an 18" touchscreen monitor and I love it.  If a touchscreen is within the budget, I more than recommend buying one for a jukebox.   Nothing is better than people going up to the screen and simply touching it to make requests.

Well the plan was to use all my spare buttons and Joysticks on the Jukebox..

You are Evil... Now I think I may invest in touch technology   

[unclet]

Just tell your wife the jukebox is for her.   Put a lot of Reba songs on it .. or perhaps being from down under she prefers Abba   

[CCM]

WOW!  The jukebox software looks great!!  I've been thinking about building a dedicated jukebox cab for a while now, and you may have just pushed me over the edge!  And now I want a touchscreen too, I think you are going to cost me some money!  Great work!

Anyone else used this with a touchscreen yet?

[unclet]

Here is text from the HELP page which indicates what format must be used along with how to load the jukebox:

L I B R A R Y   D I R E C T O R Y   F O R M A T

Audio and video files (to be known as "song tracks" from now on) must be categorized in a specific manner.  Each artist should have their own directory.  Each album associated with an artist should be listed as a subdirectory within the artist directory.  The song files of an album should be listed as filenames within the album directory.   All song files can be assigned a two digit track number or a two digit track number can be assign automatically.

** The first two characters of the artist and album name must be alphanumeric only if you want the search function to work properly.

One image file may exist to represent the cover art to be used for that album.  The image file must have the exact same file name as the associated album.
 
Each song file can have an associated text file which is used to store the lyrics of the song file.  The lyrics file must have the exact same file name as the associated song file.

Two examples of valid directory structures are shown below:


EXAMPLE 1:                         EXAMPLE 2:

...\MusicDirectoryPath1            ...\MusicDirectoryPath1
      \Artist1                           \Artist1
         \Album1                            \Album1
            \Album1.jpg                        \Album1.jpg
            \01 - Song1.mp3                    \Song1.mp3
            \01 - Song1.mpg                    \Song1.mpg
            \01 - Song1.txt                    \Song1.txt
            \02) Song2.mp3                     \Song2.mp3
            \02) Song2.txt                     \Song2.txt
            \03.Song3.mpg                      \Song3.mpg
            \03.Song3.txt                      \Song3.txt
         \Album2                            \Album2
         \Album3                            \Album3
      \Artist2                           \Artist2
         \Album4                            \Album4
         \Album5                            \Album5


Example 1:
Shows the format required when track numbers are being provided within the filename.  The track number used must be one or two characters in length and must be the first characters of the file name.  The track number and song name must be separated by either a dash, underscore, period, closeParen or space character.

Example 2:
Shows the format required when track numbers are to be provided automatically when loading the library occurs.

In the examples which are listed above you will notice a song track (ex: Song1) can be represented by an audio file as well as a video file.  Sometimes a video of a song is not as clear sounding as the CD version of the song (especially if the video is of a live performance).  Allowing one song file to be stored as two separate formats provides the user the ability to have two different formats of the song under the same album directory as well as providing an easier way for the user to select a different format of a song to play.

Valid extensions include:

AUDIO files: MP3
VIDEO files: MPG MPEG AVI WMA WMV ASF ASX WPL WM WMX WMD WMZ
IMAGE files: JPG, GIF, BMP, JPEG, ICO
LYRIC files: TXT


L O A D I N G   S O N G S   I N T O   T H E   L I B R A R Y

After your songs have been categorized according to the required format described above, you can now proceed to loading the songs into the library.

Steps to load songs into the library are as follows:

1) Click on the "Options" button (located in pullout menu)

2) Select the "Music Directories" option

3) Locate your music directory path and click the "Add Path" button (repeat this step until all your music directories have been added)

4) Click the "Update Album List" button.

There are two main options provided when loading songs into the library:

- The "Reload available albums" option will result in all albums (new and existing) in the library being renumbered sequentially in an alphabetical manner.

- The "Update albums" option will result in maintaining the assigned album numbers for existing library albums while assigning new numbers to any newly loaded albums only.  This means your alphabetical list of album names might not have sequential assigned album numbers.

Note: The "Update albums" option was included because I have young children who memorized their favorite album numbers and I did not want these album numbers potentially to change as a result of loading new albums into my library.  Any new albums which are loaded get a new assigned number while my existing albums maintain their previous assigned numbers.

[unclet]

UncleT's Jukebox (v2.02) RELEASED .... (see link below)

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=65281.msg655947#msg655947

All future release notifications will occur in the "Audio/Jukebox/MP3" forum.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/board,5.0.html

If you wish to report a bug, enhancement idea, etc .... please make those in the "UncleTs Jukebox" forum:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/board,22.0.html