Artwork Display

[starfleetcommand]

This is my first posting. I've been using Squeezebox now since 2003. I have the SqueezeBox version 2 and bought the Squeezebox 3 last year. Want to add another one. Anyway, on to my topic. I've read through the majority of the forum postings regarding the ability to display album art and song info on a remote LCD monitor. I would like to have a remote LCD monitor (perhaps coupled to a mini ITX system running DSL or some other small OS) to display the album art and song info of the song currently being played. While there are some good links in some of the forums, none really give a step by step how to. I know I can just point a browser to my squeezecenter server but that is too much info to casually display for the average person. Just thought another monitor would be really cool that just shows the "Now Playing" info with the Album artwork :-)

Anyone have any thoughts?

[pfarrell]

Artwork Display

starfleetcommand wrote:
> This is my first posting.

Welcome.

> the majority of the forum postings regarding the ability to display
> album art and song info on a remote LCD monitor. I would like to have
> a remote LCD monitor (perhaps coupled to a mini ITX system running DSL
> or some other small OS) to display the album art and song info of the
> song currently being played.

If you run a browser, it will display the album art, and a bit of
information.

Just get a computer, fire up a browser and point it at your squeezecenter.

There is really nothing more to it.

--
Pat Farrell

http://www.pfarrell.com/

[starfleetcommand]

Artwork Display

Yeah, I know but that is too much info to display on a remote monitor. Just want something simple like: Title/Artist/Album. Would like the album art as a back ground for the COOL factor. Or am I missing something? Can I point the remote browser to SqueezeCenter at a special URL and not get all of the stuff you typically see when going to http://mySqueezeCenter:9000?

[pfarrell]

Artwork Display

starfleetcommand wrote:
> Yeah, I know but that is too much info to display on a remote monitor.
> Just want something simple like: Title/Artist/Album. Would like the
> album art as a back ground for the COOL factor.

Have you looked at all the skins? They vary a lot on what they show.
And if they are still too much, you can use the one that is closest and
hack away stuff. Skins are pretty eazy

They simply end up as HTML

[JJZolx]

Have you looked at the undocked Now Playing window from the Default skin? That might get you pretty close. Maybe you could fiddle with the skin to increase the artwork and font sizes and eliminate the buttons. The rest should be exactly what you need - cover, artist, track and album names.

A quick and dirty solution would be to install some kind of window zoom in your browser to increase the size of the whole window. The capture below is of Firefox with the PageZoom addon. It would take up the whole width of a 1024 pixel wide LCD. The artwork isn't particularly good, since it was crunched down to fit the original window, then blown up in size.

[mherger]

Artwork Display

> Yeah, I know but that is too much info to display on a remote monitor.
> Just want something simple like: Title/Artist/Album. Would like the
> album art as a back ground for the COOL factor.

The code snippet from the SqueezeJS tutorial might give you a start:

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SqueezeJSTutorial

Michael

[JJZolx]

The code snippet from the SqueezeJS tutorial might give you a start:

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SqueezeJSTutorial

Michael, that's too cool.

Nothing fancy, but if you put it up on a 17" monitor you could probably read it from 20ft away:

[elziko]

Anyone have any thoughts?

There is always this:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53722

but it doesn't seem to have generated much interest. Probably due to the fact that it's Vista only and requires hardware that supports it... or perhaps I just didn't describe it properly!

[starfleetcommand]

Michael, that's too cool.

Nothing fancy, but if you put it up on a 17" monitor you could probably read it from 20ft away:

This is exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks Michael and everybody. This gives me a few options to explore. I don't know much about HTML but I have a book.

[starfleetcommand]

There is always this:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53722

but it doesn't seem to have generated much interest. Probably due to the fact that it's Vista only and requires hardware that supports it... or perhaps I just didn't describe it properly!

I actually saw this posting while do my initial research but I am not running Windows Vista. Great idea though and something to keep in mind when I do go to Vista.

[starfleetcommand]

Michael, that's too cool.

Nothing fancy, but if you put it up on a 17" monitor you could probably read it from 20ft away:

When I use the CompoundTitle attribute, I get the word "undefined" as in this example:

10. One By One undefined Enya undefined A Day Without Rain

Not familiar yet with how to attach pics into the forum :-(

[JJZolx]

JJolx, I was wondering how you got the artist name. I reviewed the SqueezeJS.UI attributes and only see the following available.

It's Contributors, although it gloms together both the album artist and track artist, that may be the best you can do. Seems to be the same thing that the default skin displays in the now playing window.

I'll post the template later tonight when I get home. You might need to adjust the font size depending on the size of the display, but that's easy to do.

One thing I was thinking would be nice to add was an "Up Next" section at the bottom, with smaller artwork and text.

Today I was looking at little Linux computers to implement this thing. Here's one that runs Firefox and has built in WIFI. Probably total overkill for this application - someone in another of the SD forums even wondered if it would make a good server. If size isn't an issue there are probably cheaper options. Then just pick up an old LCD monitor off of Craigslist and you're in business.

http://www.cherrypal.com/

[starfleetcommand]

It's Contributors, although it gloms together both the album artist and track artist, that may be the best you can do. Seems to be the same thing that the default skin displays in the now playing window.

I'll post the template later tonight when I get home. You might need to adjust the font size depending on the size of the display, but that's easy to do.

One thing I was thinking would be nice to add was an "Up Next" section at the bottom, with smaller artwork and text.

Today I was looking at little Linux computers to implement this thing. Here's one that runs Firefox and has built in WIFI. Probably total overkill for this application - someone in another of the SD forums even wondered if it would make a good server. If size isn't an issue there are probably cheaper options. Then just pick up an old LCD monitor off of Craigslist and you're in business.

http://www.cherrypal.com/

I found a really cool mini-ITX system complete with DSL (Damn Small Linux) that I'm thinking of using. It is fanless system that I'm going to attach a solid state drive to. No noise. Here's the link:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/store/Mini_ITX_Systems/533MHz_fanless_Mini_ITX_PC

I have an old LCD monitor already. It's kind of beat up but still works good. I was planning to rip it apart and build some sort of neat enclosure like a picture frame and put it on the wall and have the small ITX box on the floor behind the couch -- out of sight. It may be overkill but then again so is a cheap laptop that you would have noise and, possibly, overheating issues with.

I'd appreciate a template post. I sort of got my prototype to work. Just need some more tweaking of the HTML.

The idea of the "Up Next" sounds really cool. I did figure out that the "Contributors" is the Artist. Tried that right after I posted.

Here's an attachment: (Sorry for the poor quality)

[mherger]

Artwork Display

> Also, when I use the CompoundTitle attribute, I get the word
> "undefined" as in this example:
>
> 10. One By One undefined Enya undefined A Day Without Rain

Did you include SqueezeJS/Strings.js? It defines the commonly used strings.

Alternatively I've added a new SqueezeJS.loadStrings() method in the
upcoming SC7.3. This can be used to load strings during initialization.

Michael

[starfleetcommand]

> Also, when I use the CompoundTitle attribute, I get the word
> "undefined" as in this example:
>
> 10. One By One undefined Enya undefined A Day Without Rain

Did you include SqueezeJS/Strings.js? It defines the commonly used strings.

Alternatively I've added a new SqueezeJS.loadStrings() method in the
upcoming SC7.3. This can be used to load strings during initialization.

Michael

Not being a programmer, I have no idea what you mean. I just took the demo file from the SqueezeJS Tutorial. Instead of using the CompoundTitle attribute, I am just using "Album", "Contributors", "Title". Works good. I just need to tweak the HTML to display the way I want now.

Also, I can't seem to find a whole lot of documentation on SqueezeJS other than what I found in the WIKI. Would be nice to get a list of available options/attributes. One thing I would like to add to my project is a method to monitor the Squeezebox state and somehow blank the LCD when the Squeezebox isn't playing. Looked at the SqueezeJS info on the WIKI and it hints at a way to monitor the Squeezebox state but, again, I'm not a programmer so I don't know how to do that. A little help, please.