Announcing SqueezePad - the first dedicated iPad App to controll your SqueezeBoxen !

[bluegaspode]

[Update 12/2010].
Hi first time readers.
A long time has passed since this very first announcement of SqueezePad, more than 10 feature und bugfix versions followed in the meantime in just 6 month - and now SqueezePad even support music playback. Be sure to visit my website www.squeezepad.com, to read the latest feature set.
The beginning of this thread is really outdated by now.
[/Update]

Hi guys ! Today is the time to officially announce the availability of 'SqueezePad' - your iPad App to control your SqueezeBoxen from the iPad.
Avaible on the iTunes Store here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/squeezepad/id380003002
Or visit YouTube or my Home-Page to get more infos: www.squeezepad.com

The current version gives you the following features:

• switch players instantly
• see cover art of the currently playing song for each player
• control volume and play/pause of each device
• skip or rewind the current song
• navigate through the menus of the player
  - its the 'original' menus as you already know from your devices, so you'll find your way instantly
  - swiping right or tapping the title gets you up in the menu hierarchy
  - long touch on the title brings you back to the home menu
  - touching the album art icon starts playing the album
  - long touch a menu-item brings up the context menu (if available) - this allows you for instance to put songs/albums to the end of the current playlist
• long touch the big album art on the right brings up the context menu for the current playlist item
• full integration of 3rd Party Plugins and Logitech Apps: Last.FM, Spotify, Napster, Pandora, Queen, Album Review, Biography ...
• album and songlist have an alphabetical index for faster navigation
• you can see the current playlist for the current player under 'my music' (it's the playlist menu as known from the Squeezebox-Touch)
• 'Screensafer Mode' (huge coverart, huge fonts in landscape and portrait) by tapping the cover art on the right
• full Squeezebox-Settings menu: even change your alarms right from your iPad
• support for authenticated servers
• (optional) prevent sleep when playing

Take your chance to vote for the next bigger feature of SqueezePad: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=80575

[pippin]

Nice. But is there a way to NOT have a rotated keyboard overlaying the server configuration screen? Auto correction is enabled on that entry field and mangles my URL and since it's behind that keyboard I can't keep it from doing so.

[pippin]

Ah, and could you add support for authentication?

[bluegaspode]

Nice. But is there a way to NOT have a rotated keyboard overlaying the server configuration screen? Auto correction is enabled on that entry field and mangles my URL and since it's behind that keyboard I can't keep it from doing so.

Rotated keyboard? the keyboard never overlayed the textfield for me, but I'll have a look.

Ah, and could you add support for authentication?

Put on the next-bugfix-release-list.

[pippin]

Rotated keyboard? the keyboard never overlayed the textfield for me, but I'll have a look.

It's always like that for me.
I think the problem is you launch the App in landscape mode but the modal view is portrait yet the underlying windows are still in landscape.

[pippin]

OK, found out about what it is, here's how to reproduce it:

1. Turn your iPad to portrait.
2. Enable rotation lock (that's it!)
3. Launch SqueezePad.

[RBM]

Interesting development... A little rough around the edges and lacking functionality, but quite usable already. I quite like the swipe navigation though the left menu. Maybe add room for some shortcuts somewhere? Long touch for getting back to 'Home' works well, but it would be nice to be able to quick-jump to other items as well.

Using the Spotify plugin, album art is showing in the album lists (great!) - for some reason iPeng does not. Not too fond of using different font sizes in lists - kind of disturbs the clean user interface.

Oh - and please lose that gradient background for something solid or greyish (or make it user configurable)...

[bluegaspode]

lacking functionality

Shouldn't be worse than your Logitech Gadget . I'll do a poll this evening to ask for the next big features.

Using the Spotify plugin, album art is showing in the album lists (great!) - for some reason iPeng does not.

Good to know ! Cover art should be present in all menus where the Logitech devices show them as well

Not too fond of using different font sizes in lists - kind of disturbs the clean user interface.

My wife said the same and suggested scrolling menu entries to keep the fontsizes. I then replied that it would mean two other nights of developing and that I wasn't sure if the result would look better. Other ideas than scrolling ?

[erland]

This is great!

I realized you were up to something when I saw the thread in the 3rd party plugins section earlier but I didn't expect something like this. Really great work, a lot better/more than I expected for an initial release.

I'm going to create a longer list of enhancement requests (and maybe some bug reports) a bit later, I just need to use it a bit more first.

Some bugs and other things I noticed immediately:
- Would be great to have a "back" button on the navigation menu, will make it more similar to other apps. I realized pretty fast that I have to be able to slide back but making the title as a back button can't hurt. I also think it would be a bit user friendly as sliding back sometimes misses, especially in lists which can be scrolled vertically.
- There seems to be some issues with the Custom Browse menus regarding album art that isn't perfect yet, have to investigate a bit more what differs compared to SqueezePlay and iPeng. I really happy they are working as good as they are though. The problem I saw was that I got album cover icons on track level but it showed the default album cover and not the real one. The standard browse menu track menus doesn't contain any album cover.
- Is there some way to show current playlist ?
- I'd love to have a portrait mode that showed big album cover and a bit larger text so it's visible from the couch 2-3 meters away.

Anyway, really great work, it's worth every cent, I'd definitely recommend this to anyone having an iPad. Just have to decide if I should give it a 5 or 4 star rating in the AppStore, I think I'll wait a bit to give you a chance to convince me it's worth a 5 through some bug fixing and enhancing it even further :-)

[pippin]

For some reasons most Albums on Napster have no content. Some do.
This is with SBS 7.5