Announce: Screen Switcher, switching screensaver for Controller/Touch/Radio

[erland]

A first beta version of the Screen Switcher screensaver for Squeezebox Controller/Touch/Radio is now ready for usage. It uses similar principle as the great SaverSwitcher plugin by peterw available for Classic/Boom players.

See the following wiki page for more information:
http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.ph...witcher_applet

NOTE!
Since this is a beta version it's only available in my testing repository so you need to setup this manually:

http://erlandplugins.googlecode.com/svn/repository/trunk/testing.xml

It's installed by going to "Settings/Advanced/Applet Installer" on the Touch, Radio or Controller. In the Applet Installer you will find a "Screen Switcher" applet which you need to install.

To use it you need to activate it as a screen saver under the Settings menu on your Touch/Radio/Controller. There are two screen savers available:
- Screen Switcher: Switch between the screen savers you have configured in the Settings/Screen/Screen Switcher Settings/* menus
- Random: Switch between all available screen savers

There are several things left before I like to consider this finished, for example:
- Support for manually switching between screensavers
- Support for selecting which screen savers that should be part of random mode
- Support for specifying delay in random mode, at the moment it uses 60 seconds for each screen saver in this mode

Some of my other screen savers will need updates to work really good with Screen Switcher, for example the Album Flow applet shouldn't restart every time Screen Switcher switches to it.

Feedback or bug reports are very welcome

[bluegaspode]

Just tried it out and really like it !

Now I can have the best of all my favourite screensafers (Clock, Weather-Forecast + Alblum Flow to show off )

Just some minor remarks, all to the config-screen:
- is 'delay' the right word ? Wouldn't 'duration' be more appropiate ?
- if I configure a new screensafer in the order and then have the list of screensafers, it still looks as if no screensafer was configured.
- I realize that you put your configuration-menu directly under the screen settings. In the weather-screensafer I use the screensafer API to register my config-menu and it appears under screensafers then.
Why did you decide to manually choose the position of the config-menu ?

Ah - and what needs to be done, that a screensafer isn't restartet everytime the switcher switches ? Or in other words: what will you change in your Album-Flow applet ?


Great work !

[erland]

is 'delay' the right word ? Wouldn't 'duration' be more appropiate ?

Duration would be better, thanks!

- if I configure a new screensafer in the order and then have the list of screensafers, it still looks as if no screensafer was configured.

Yes, I know, I haven't had time to investigate how to refresh the parent menu automatically. The list will be refreshed if you step left out of the menu that shows the list and then right to enter it again.

- I realize that you put your configuration-menu directly under the screen settings. In the weather-screensafer I use the screensafer API to register my config-menu and it appears under screensafers then.
Why did you decide to manually choose the position of the config-menu ?

I didn't know the possibility existed, will take a look. I think I took inspiration from one of the existing builtin applets.

Ah - and what needs to be done, that a screensafer isn't restartet everytime the switcher switches ? Or in other words: what will you change in your Album-Flow applet ?

The plan is to make Album Flow continue where it left the last time.
Similar problem also exists in the Daylight Clock which shouldn't re-read the image if it's activated soon after it was used last time.

[vw195]

Just installed this plugin, and it appears to be working grat with Custom clock and Weather! Thanks!

[erland]

As some of you might have already noticed there is now a new version of the Screen Switcher applet available.

The new version contains the following changes:
- Corrected bug with random mode where Flickr screen saver caused it to stop
- Added support for showing different screen saver on different week days or times
- Improved switching so it doesn't show the menu for a few milliseconds in-between the screen savers, this should make the switching more seamless than the previous version.
- Made sure screen savers are sorted correctly in the settings menu

The major new functionality is the possibility to configure different screen savers for different weekdays or times. For example, have a special screen saver on the night or have a special screen saver on the weekend when you aren't working.

At the moment there is one default selection made and you can make two overrides on each screen saver mode (off, playing, stopped). Let me know if there is a need for more than two overrides and I'll increase it. If two overrides are overlapping it will select the first one.

[vdeknock]

I have been playing with the screensaver switcher plugin and the ability to have different screens at different times.
The only one I have set is the off screen, I have a night time display and daytime SDT weather dispaly.

Night time 10:40pm to 6:15am - the other one is active for the period outside of this window. The morning change over is when the alarm activates every weekday.

My issue I noticed last night for the first time as the unit was off when the change over happened - the unit turned on and the home menu was being displayed rather than the clock - I rolled over near 11pm and did not see the time, I had to press the off button to get it back to the off clock mode.
Anyone else noticed this? I dont see it in the morning as the alarm has turned the radio on.

[vdeknock]

I watched this happen last night and the Radio gets in a loop. It turns on and the screen flicks between the menu to set the screen switcher and the actual screensaver. I had to hold down the off button to turn the unit to an off state to stop this loop.

I am going to revert back to one single screen for the OFF position.

The morning switch occurs with the Alarm and that is fine.

[erland]

I have been playing with the screensaver switcher plugin and the ability to have different screens at different times.
The only one I have set is the off screen, I have a night time display and daytime SDT weather dispaly.

Do you have several screens which it continuously switch between or do you just have a single screen that varies depending on the time ?

I need to take a look if there is some error in the /var/log/messages file on the Radio/Touch/Controller in this scenario. If you know how to use SSH and can get the /var/log/messages file, it would help if you retrieved it immediately after the problem has occurred. If you don't know how to use SSH, I'll try to reproduce it in my own environment as soon as I have the time.

[elziko]

Thanks for this plugin!

I would like to have a single screen saver from 07:00 to 23:00. In between these times I would like to have my screen off.

Is this possible with this plugin? I have tried to set this up but I don't seem to be able to set the End Time - once I have set the time there is no button to accept to my only option is to 'go back'. But then when I go back and check the end time it has reverted to the default 12:00.

Am I doing something wrong?

[vdeknock]

Do you have several screens which it continuously switch between or do you just have a single screen that varies depending on the time ?

I switch between two screens depending on time.