Announcement: Mobile skin for iPhone, iPod touch, PSP, LG Dare, Samsung Instinct ...

**vitoruch** · 2008-09-12, 19:38

Interesting...

Nice, although I´m a big Ipeng fan, I will surely give it a try!

- Where exactly must I extract these 'Mobile' folder? I use WinXp with 7.1 SqueezeCenter version.

- Is there a tutorial somewhere?

Thanks!

Vitor

**MeSue** · 2008-09-12, 20:56

It looks good on the Wii Opera Browser.

On my Dell Axim (480x640 VGA portrait) a lot of the text in list is wrapped. Even if I switch to landscape it is wrapped. Still it has the Add Next" option so I prefer it over the Handheld skin.

Do you plan to add icons for the Play, Add, Next, Up, Down, Delete links? If I can help with icons let me know.

**tmarti** · 2008-09-13, 00:56

Hi Sue, would you mind adding a screenshot so I can see where it is wrapping on your Axiom?

Re: icons - I'm up for it. I'll try to make them switchable (text or icons) depending on the device since the original reason I went with text only was because the PSP did a horrible job caching images, so in list mode it took a long time to load all the images.

So if you could bake up some icons for those functions I will add them in.

Thanks,
Tim

**pilot000** · 2008-09-13, 11:11

@vitoruch:

you can adapt the installation procedure from the iPeng skin

Installation – Penguin Loves Music

http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=30

**pippin** · 2008-09-13, 11:32

Originally posted by pilot000

@vitoruch:

you can adapt the installation procedure from the iPeng skin
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=30

Almost.
This is a skin, not a plugin, so if you want to use the iPeng instructions, you have to use this one or it won't work:

Installation of iPeng versions prior to 0.4 – Penguin Loves Music

http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=57

**astonm** · 2008-09-13, 17:21

Mobile (PSP) Skin comments

Tmarti,

Glad to see that you've brought the PSP skin back to life. I always found the standard handheld skin to be cumbersome to use on the PSP. I have one comment and a feature request/question:

Noticed the pages do not align with the top of the PSP screen. It does, however, align (more like a slight scroll up) when clicking on the change settings at the bottom of the screen. Navigating back to the back-arrow and home buttons results in the screen scolling down again and creating the 10-pixel margin as noted earlier in the this thread.

We use the Multi-Library and Custom Browse plugins enabling each family member to browse just their own music library. Is it possible to change the default configuration for the music library icon to reference all or a specific libraries configured via the Multi-library plugin. Or, maybe add a button that presents the current list of libraries?

Keep up the excellent work!

**tmarti** · 2008-09-14, 15:32

Originally posted by tmarti

Hi Sue, would you mind adding a screenshot so I can see where it is wrapping on your Axiom?

Re: icons - I'm up for it. I'll try to make them switchable (text or icons) depending on the device since the original reason I went with text only was because the PSP did a horrible job caching images, so in list mode it took a long time to load all the images.

So if you could bake up some icons for those functions I will add them in.

Thanks,
Tim

Thanks for the feedback and the icons, Sue. I've added the icons and made them switchable per device so you can choose text or icons (set prefs at the top of pageheader.html - defaulted icons to off for PSP, on for other devices). Updated skin attached.

- Tim

**MeSue** · 2008-09-14, 16:40

It looks great! Thanks.

**MeSue** · 2008-09-20, 20:31

Tim,

Is there any reason you don't have access to "Favorites" anywhere in this skin? Or maybe it is there and I just can't find it?

Would it be possible to add "play next" for podcasts? Maybe this is not possible because I can't find it in any skin and it doesn't work from the remote either, so I've filed an enhancement request. Currently I work around it by using add to playlist, then switching to the playlist view where I can bump it up to play next, but it is a lot of extra clicking.

**tmarti** · 2008-09-21, 01:43

Originally posted by MeSue

Tim,

Is there any reason you don't have access to "Favorites" anywhere in this skin? Or maybe it is there and I just can't find it?

Would it be possible to add "play next" for podcasts? Maybe this is not possible because I can't find it in any skin and it doesn't work from the remote either, so I've filed an enhancement request. Currently I work around it by using add to playlist, then switching to the playlist view where I can bump it up to play next, but it is a lot of extra clicking.

Hi Sue, is "Statistics" on the home page the same as "Favorites"?

I'm not sure there is an easy way to do what you want with Podcasts. Since that is just another plugin, it comes "as is". So adding an enhancement request for that plugin is indeed the way to go.

- Tim

**MeSue** · 2008-09-21, 02:07

Originally posted by tmarti

Hi Sue, is "Statistics" on the home page the same as "Favorites"?

- Tim

No, that appears to me just a list of the most played tracks. Favorites are user defined. You can see them in the Handheld skin with the URL http://serverip:9000/handheld/plugin...tes/index.html

**vitoruch** · 2008-09-22, 19:02

Interesting

I´ve posted the text below last week, wrongly in the Luke applicacation´s thread...so I repost it here, for sharing feedback for you and Pippin...best regards. Vitor

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mobile was a surprisingly fast application for a skin...

I did some benchmarks between Mobile and Ipeng, choosing songs (from memory) in different artists from different genres and tracks, and it seemed to me Mobile was faster to get there than Ipeng. And It´s also faster to go up some directories to choose another trach from the same genre.

But Ipeng has a much better (smoother) volume slide bar (and fast and precise volume change is a critical issue). Still, in Ipeng I also can get a full screen with the artwork, and that gives me a much better impression that I really got the Album CD cover!

Another nice thing is that Ipeng always fills the whole Ipod touch screen, as Mobile always shows the address bar on the top (so overall Mobile text suffers from been a little bit small to tap). But, on the other hand, I didn´t have any fake taps in Mobile (once I hit it correctly), as I frequently get in Ipeng (where the page seems to start loading - the addres bar comes down, but suddenly it vanishes and the screen doesn´t load at all, and I have to tap again - what´s kinda frustrating if you are in a hurrry)

Of couse, Pippin has done a great job on the "now playing screen", in volume and in the smooth sliding to the track screen, but overall, Mobile has a snapier navigation, until you "get to the sushi". I mean, both navigation speed (new page refresh times) and also with the possibility to go directly from the "now playing screen" to the artist list of records, or directly to other artistis in the same genre as the artist being played. That also seemed faster to change in a party, for example.

***

Well, I don´t want to incitate a "run for the gold" between applications - I´m very thankfull to both - but it seems to me both have very good aspects that can help each other to become both real killing application....

Good luck, guys!

Vitor

**pippin** · 2008-09-22, 19:30

Vitor,

I'm afraid you will not get a good compromise on your wishes.
Problem is, what you describe is a classic trade-off situation. If you want more of the cool stuff you need JavaScript and graphics and that hurts performance.
tmarti's skin gains a lot from being simple and using lots of text instead of graphics. I admittedly did some mistakes in the beginning of doing the skin (that's my first HTML code ever!), like using tables, that hurts but the general issue is really that tradeoff.
I spent considerable time to speed up iPeng at the beginning of the project and did so again for the 0.6 version - which loaded everything in place and so could offer smooth back-out and switching between NowPlaying and browse pages.
..which was a bad mistake because it turned out that JS on the iPhone lacks performance and generally the iPhone 2.0+ browser is waaaay too buggy to use these cool features. It was fully functional and I used it for a while, but it kept crashing all over the place and the rendering was full of bugs.
Apple has invented cool new features for the browser but the quality just sucks.

I now completely dropped that path and will focus on doing things natively, which finally shows some results (have a look at my blog tomorrow ;-), although it's still far from a releasable app. But it already looks cool...

iPeng as a skin will revert to the 0.5 path, with a 0.53 coming as soon as I have a some time to redo the Alarm, which is the main added feature. It's a bit faster than 0.5.2 but not fundamentally so.

**vitoruch** · 2008-09-23, 00:09

Ok, Pippin!

Originally posted by pippin

What you describe is a classic trade-off situation between graphics and text

Ok, Pippin, thanks for the explanation...now I understand it better.

Originally posted by pippin

Apple has invented cool new features for the browser but the quality just sucks.

Yeah, I can see that clearly...with iphone/touch growing too fast and having to combat jailbreaking with more "native versatility", things got very buggy lately indeed

Originally posted by pippin

I spent considerable time to speed up iPeng at the beginning of the project and did so again for the 0.6 version - which loaded everything in place and so could offer smooth back-out and switching between NowPlaying and browse pages (...) iPeng as a skin will revert to the 0.5 path, with a 0.53 coming as soon as I have a some time to redo the Alarm, It's a bit faster than 0.5.2 but not fundamentally so.

0.6 is a native? 0.53? I didn´t get: wich will be released?

Originally posted by pippin

I now completely dropped that path and will focus on doing things natively, which finally shows some results (have a look at my blog tomorrow ;-)

really?!? That´s the news I´ve been waiting for....I´ve been to your blog every single week hoping for some new version...will you post some "trailler screens" or an ultra-beta version? [/QUOTE]

Good luck, Pippin, I´ve been downloading your appl since 0.2 and if you need some native tester (winXP with Ipod touch and SB3 classic), count me on!

Vitor

Announcement: Mobile skin for iPhone, iPod touch, PSP, LG Dare, Samsung Instinct ...

Announcement: Mobile skin for iPhone, iPod touch, PSP, LG Dare, Samsung Instinct ...

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