Squeezebox plugin v2 supports hstouch

[r_255]

Today i was at the hs forum and saw that the squeezebox plugin got a major update and now supports hstouch

main things that are updated :

HS-Touch support
Option to use Location2 instead of Location to organize Devices in SqueezeBox player menus
Option to display caller name from address book when caller-id is briefly displayed
New Power button in player's HS2 device to toggle the player’s power
New HS2 actions to set the song rating using percent (0 to 100%) and to toggle the player's power
Support for HS2 MusicAPI and MultiZoneAPI and each player is considered a different zone.
Added wait argument to several existing APIs. If set to true, the API will only return once Squeezebox Server sent a reply.
Periodic query of currently playing song time
Icon displayed in SqueezeBox Controller next to the “HomeSeer – HS2” top menu label
Updated documentation

direct link to the hsforum

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=139345" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Wim2008]

Can give some information what you experience is with Squeezebox and HStouch?

B.R. Wim

[Francois]

Updated last week, still a beta but a very promissing one!

The pro's :
- HS Touch integration, it is possible to do music selection and browse the my music collection
- It's fast, I have about 30.000 songs but browsing is and changin selection is still possible
- Full music API integration, selectable from the HSTouch designer, no more "virtual device tricks"
- Quite stable for a beta

The con's:
- I have two players, Homeseer sees both but HS touch only shows one. Seems to be a HS problem.
- Memory, i have experienced a "out of memory error", seen this also with the iTunes plugin. Looks like yet another HS problem
- Small bugs, eg. it cannot not handle special characters (Michael Buble works, Michael Bublé doesn't)

The verdict:
- Still a lot of work to do, but hey its a beta!
- Very promissing and basic functionality from the 1.x version is stable and already works like a charm (bought it 2 months ago)

[Wim2008]

Thanks.

[r_255]

Here i am expieriencing some trouble that i can solve ( same as marcus at hs forum )
just need some time for that... but if it works it works very nice.

The way It works in designer is almost the same as the mediaplayer or itunes plugin, the way you build i mean.
I simply modified my mediaplayer plugin page wich runs good as long the numbers of my players dont change.

but i guess you get a good impression in this picture what music options you get for eachplayer..

sq.jpg (37 KiB) Viewed 14913 times

[Wim2008]

Looks great. I'm very interessed in further information.

B.R. Wim

[Wim2008]

Last days I am working at several screens for HS touch. At this moment I like to make a nice screen for the music.
In the server from Squeezebox there is a possibility to change the webinterface into a touch screen. Is it possible to intergrated the touch-screen from Squeezebox in HStouch?
The IP adress from the Squeezebox Server is known. I know that you can create a text box and you can link this to that URL. As example: http://192.168.1.3
But till now I don't get a squeezebox screen on my HStouch.

Do you to do something more to get the screen working in HS touch or is this the wrong way?

B.R. Wim

[Francois]

Basically there are three ways to control the Squeeze box using HS Touch:

1. Without the plugin

In this case you will embed the SqueezeServer website in a HSTouch screen (URL in a text box) This will work but this is quite a cumbersome process, you have to change teh existing SqueezeCenter websize in such a way it fits in the HStouch screen (size) and matches the style You have chosen for your screens. I do not like this approach, synchronising styles in two different envrionements us difficult. The upside however is that in theory you have all SqueezeServer features available, including music selection, within HS Touch.

2. WIth the v1.x plugin

This is a simple -no thrills- solution with just basic player control, you can stop, start, ff, rewind etc. but music selection is not possible. If you have the desire to also do music selection and other functions you might considering it with the Squeeze Server website integration as mentioned above. By installing the plugin a set of HomeSeer device are created for eacht player found, to control a player you simple add a device action to eg. a button (action if released --> player1 poweroff)

3. With the v2.x beta plugin

This is the way integration should work, HSTouch comes with a music API that offers a full set of controls (music selectors, cover art, player controls etc). that is fully embeded within HSTouch. You will get this funtionality by adding the Music control to a new screen and selecting the corect player. The nice thing is that it is a generic API that works for all players, so if you now build a couple of screens for squeezeboxes and than decide for what ever reason to switch to windows media player, the only thing you have to do is simply select the windows media player as the music player and it will work without any other changes needed.

Hope this makes things a bit more clear.

[Wim2008]

The plugin v1 was on my system. I load the plugin v2 Beta, and now I got directly a format for Squeezebox. See Below.
But is it also possible to get the touch screen from the Squeezebox server? Or do you have to install first the Squeezebox server on the pc where HStouch is working?

B.R. Wim

[r_255]

Wim, I dont get what you want ? but you are on the go....

Hst communicates with the server to a certain player.. like in your example squeezbox wim.
If you want to use a local pc as player then you could try softsqueeze.

[Snelvuur]

i really should play with that too, i have 4 players in my house. so far i only use my iphone with ipeng which works wonders i might add. i have the old plugin though, seems to do what i wanted for the time being.

is this new version going to be a "upgrade" or a new program? (i would presume a upgrade)

[Dickr43]

The plugin v1 was on my system. I load the plugin v2 Beta, and now I got directly a format for Squeezebox. See Below.
But is it also possible to get the touch screen from the Squeezebox server? Or do you have to install first the Squeezebox server on the pc where HStouch is working?

B.R. Wim

Tried the Squeezebox Touch skin in HSTouch and I'm afraid that it is not working correctly. It is working when loaded in Internet Explorer, but when loaded into a Textfield inHSTouch it is not. You do not need to install the Squeezebox server onto your HSTouch PC. Just call HTTP://YOURSERVERIP:9000 when I'm correct where YOURSERVERIP = the ip of the server you installed the Squeezebox server.

It does work with the standard Squeezebox theme tho. Depednding on your screensize (mine is 8.9") this could be a solution!

[Wim2008]

Hello Dickr43,

You helped me perfectly. This screen what I got now in the textfield is exactly where I was looking for.
On the pc where squeezebox is running on, you have to start the squeezebox server before. If you don't do this, nothing is happen in your HStouch.

Below I have attached a example of a screen what I created this afternoon in HStouch. You are also saying, it will not work well. Can you say when or why?
If I change the call HTTP://YOURSERVERIP:9000 into HTTP://YOURSERVERIP:900, I got the same screen. What tells the 9000 or 900?



B.R. Wim

[Alexander]

What tells the 9000 or 900?

That's the port number. It's used to connect to in combination with the ip address. An application on a server can be programmed to listen on a port to receive traffic from other hosts. 9000 is the default port for Sqeezebox Server.

[Dickr43]

. You are also saying, it will not work well. Can you say when or why?
If I change the call HTTP://YOURSERVERIP:9000 into HTTP://YOURSERVERIP:900, I got the same screen. What tells the 9000 or 900?
B.R. Wim

Wim,

I did get the same screen but nothing happend when I used the buttons. My Squeezeboxserver is always on, it's running on a Windows Homeserver. So if it works in your system, something might be wrong with mine.... I'm now using the standard Squeezebox skin, that works well.

Dick