RSS Feeds when client is off?

[Paul Wisneskey]

I've recently upgraded to the latest 5.4 release and am really happy
with it. In particular, the ability to have an RSS feed of the local
weather has been enthusiastically appreciated by my wife. However, we'd
really like to set it up so that our Squeezebox is displaying the RSS
feeds when its in its "powered off" state (displaying the time and
date). Is it possible to do this now? Is it something planned for
further down the road? Ideally, the client would cycle between the time
/date and a list of RSS feeds.

- Paul

[vidurapparao]

Paul,

There has been some discussion about being able to run screensavers
while in the "off" state. Bug 649
(http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=649) currently covers this
idea.

--Vidur

Paul Wisneskey wrote:

> I've recently upgraded to the latest 5.4 release and am really happy
> with it. In particular, the ability to have an RSS feed of the local
> weather has been enthusiastically appreciated by my wife. However,
> we'd really like to set it up so that our Squeezebox is displaying the
> RSS feeds when its in its "powered off" state (displaying the time and
> date). Is it possible to do this now? Is it something planned for
> further down the road? Ideally, the client would cycle between the
> time /date and a list of RSS feeds.
>
> - Paul
>
>

[Paul Wisneskey]

Vidur,

Thanks for the quick follow up and apologies for not finding the bug
report myself :-). I wasn't thinking of my request in terms of
screensavers and only searched on "RSS" and "off".

FWIW, I don't mind the idea of a powered off unit initially displaying
the date/time until the screensaver kicks in though I do think the
ability to configure two screensavers is desirable (one for "on" and one
for "off"). I prefer the now playing screensaver when the unit is on
and only want the RSS feeds screensaver when the unit is off. Then I'll
just have to find an RSS feed for the current date and time. ;-)

- Paul



Vidur Apparao wrote:
>
> Paul,
>
> There has been some discussion about being able to run screensavers
> while in the "off" state. Bug 649
> (http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=649) currently covers this
> idea.
>
> --Vidur
>
> Paul Wisneskey wrote:
>
>> I've recently upgraded to the latest 5.4 release and am really happy
>> with it. In particular, the ability to have an RSS feed of the local
>> weather has been enthusiastically appreciated by my wife. However,
>> we'd really like to set it up so that our Squeezebox is displaying the
>> RSS feeds when its in its "powered off" state (displaying the time and
>> date). Is it possible to do this now? Is it something planned for
>> further down the road? Ideally, the client would cycle between the
>> time /date and a list of RSS feeds.
>>
>> - Paul
>>
>>

[David Cohen]

Paul,

I take by your smiley that you aren't serious about the RSS feed for the
date and time. Which is good because it wouldn't work. The plugin
caches the RSS feeds for an hour or so before refetching (it could be
smarter and look for clues from the feed as to how long to wait).

However the idea of modifying the plugin to display time and date
between feeds is an interesting one. It could display Now Playing info,
too.

And here's an idea that's either stupid or brilliant (or both): an RSS
server plugin, which makes the SlimServer serve up its own feed, with
info like the current time and now playing. Then the current plugin
could just retrieve that feed like it does any other (or course it would
have to not cache the result).

Hmmm....

-Dave


On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 11:51:07 -0600, "Paul Wisneskey"
<pwisneskey (AT) objectsciences (DOT) com> said:
> Vidur,
>
> Thanks for the quick follow up and apologies for not finding the bug
> report myself :-). I wasn't thinking of my request in terms of
> screensavers and only searched on "RSS" and "off".
>
> FWIW, I don't mind the idea of a powered off unit initially displaying
> the date/time until the screensaver kicks in though I do think the
> ability to configure two screensavers is desirable (one for "on" and one
> for "off"). I prefer the now playing screensaver when the unit is on
> and only want the RSS feeds screensaver when the unit is off. Then I'll
> just have to find an RSS feed for the current date and time. ;-)
>
> - Paul
>

[kdf]

I've posted this to the bug report, but perhaps this needs to be made available
for public opinion as well.

a little bit of history:

Originally, the screensavers were ONLY for when idle. While playing, the "NOW
PLAYING" display functioned as a screensaver. Squeeky wheel comes along, and
'now playing' becomes simply one of many screensavers. Screensavers would
henceforth kick in regardless of playback as long as the player was not in
'off' mode. As the screensavers, each, are modes of their own, having a
screensaver is 'off' mode is by definition impossible. The screensaver would
move the player out of 'off' mode, into the screensaver mode. Thus, all
current tests to check if the player is off would be broken. While its
possible to change this in the server, all plugins that do the same tests would
be broken too. It is not a simple thing to arrange for all plugins to be fixed
as this relies on users to download the updates themselves. Many do not, and
end up coming to the list to complain about a 'serious problem' that can take
up a lot of support time before anyone realises its due to a broken plugin.

So, 'off' mode pretty much has to stay as 'off' mode. one possible way to work
within this, is to find a way to refer to any existing screensavers' dislay
function (lines()). If so, we can simply replace the off linefunc with the
chosen screensaver's function. The catch here is that some screensavers arent
just displays. TinyLittlePacman has a button set all to itself, thus it would
be broken if chosen for 'off' screensaver.

Now, there is the fact that 'off' mode is, in reality, a total fake. The player
is not really off; its just a different mode to let ppl feel comfortable by
having the ability to press a big red button. Perhaps there could be a way to
go into a screensaver mode, but still have it labelled as "off" mode as far as
anything else is concerned. This would involve overwriting the 'off' mode
parameters with those of the chosen screensaver. Some sanity checks would have
to be in place in order to restore the normal 'off' mode if anything
inappropriate were to happen.

Other option, as touched upon in a few cases is to leave 'off' as 'off'. If you
want RSS feeds when 'off', just set the screensaver to 'rss feed' and leave it
alone. it will go into that mode after the timeout (tell yourself its
automatically turning off, if you have to). When the player is actually
playing a song ....well, personally I dont know why "now playing" isn't the
only choice, but there could easily be a setting to use only when there is
curent playback. Maybe this will mean more when the visualiser works. This
way, a now playing screensaver could be a fullscreen spectrum display.

The problem is, 'off' still exits and people will always want to 'power off'
their player and likely not be happy that the clock is the only display.

-kdf


Quoting Paul Wisneskey <pwisneskey (AT) objectsciences (DOT) com>:

> Vidur,
>
> Thanks for the quick follow up and apologies for not finding the bug
> report myself :-). I wasn't thinking of my request in terms of
> screensavers and only searched on "RSS" and "off".
>
> FWIW, I don't mind the idea of a powered off unit initially displaying
> the date/time until the screensaver kicks in though I do think the
> ability to configure two screensavers is desirable (one for "on" and one
> for "off"). I prefer the now playing screensaver when the unit is on
> and only want the RSS feeds screensaver when the unit is off. Then I'll
> just have to find an RSS feed for the current date and time. ;-)
>
> - Paul

[Paul Wisneskey]

David Cohen wrote:
> Paul,
>
> I take by your smiley that you aren't serious about the RSS feed for the
> date and time. Which is good because it wouldn't work. The plugin
> caches the RSS feeds for an hour or so before refetching (it could be
> smarter and look for clues from the feed as to how long to wait).


It was a joke as you surmised. I almost included a musing about how
useful it would be to have access to feeds for times from around the
globe. :-p

> However the idea of modifying the plugin to display time and date
> between feeds is an interesting one. It could display Now Playing info,
> too.

I like that idea a lot. So far to my wife, the Squeezebox has been a
very expensive clock. She hasn't quite figured it out enough (my fault
for not being the patient teacher) to be comfortable with it (but
already likes it better than our now retired Audiotron). She was very
excited to see that it could display the weather too but didn't like the
fact that it required her to navigate to the RSS Feeds sub-menu.

Having the screensaver rotate between time/date and now-playing would be
nice since it would display everything we'd like to see. It would be
really neat if the RSS feeds could be done as some sort of scrolling
marquee above or below the now playing information.

> And here's an idea that's either stupid or brilliant (or both): an RSS
> server plugin, which makes the SlimServer serve up its own feed, with
> info like the current time and now playing. Then the current plugin
> could just retrieve that feed like it does any other (or course it would
> have to not cache the result).
>

That could have lots of other uses - for people who like to post their
currently playing information to a web/page/blog etc. I'm not too up on
RSS - this is my first time messing with it, but is it possible to
include a link to the slimserver's stream in it? You could then publish
your own radio station as an RSS feed...

> Hmmm....

Darn it, I might just have to relearn perl (my O'reilly perl book is
dated 1991) just so I can start playing with this. I'm already
contemplating creating an RSS feed of the high scores on my pinball
machines since the Pinball 2000 platform (which I did some work on)
includes a basic web server.

- Paul

[Jason Snell]

David Cohen wrote:

>I take by your smiley that you aren't serious about the RSS feed for the
>date and time. Which is good because it wouldn't work.

I was thinking of something similar, though -- and no smiley here.
I've got a weather station at my house. I would _love_ to have my
Squeezebox display the outside temp alongside the time when the
unit's off. I've got the temperature in an easy-to-parse text file on
the same server that Slim Server is using, and I could even output it
to a text file all on its own if necessary. (I also have it set as an
RSS feed, but of course it doesn't update as often as I'd like, and
doesn't solve the issue of display it at the most appropriate time,
which is next to the time when the item is off!

Anybody have any ideas? :-)

-jason
--
Jason Snell / Editorial Director, Mac Publishing / jsnell (AT) macworld (DOT) com
415-243-3565 / AIM: MW jsnell / www.macworld.com / www.playlistmag.com

[kdf]

Quoting Jason Snell <jsnell (AT) macworld (DOT) com>:

> David Cohen wrote:
>
> >I take by your smiley that you aren't serious about the RSS feed for the
> >date and time. Which is good because it wouldn't work.
>
> I was thinking of something similar, though -- and no smiley here.
> I've got a weather station at my house. I would _love_ to have my
> Squeezebox display the outside temp alongside the time when the
> unit's off. I've got the temperature in an easy-to-parse text file on
> the same server that Slim Server is using, and I could even output it
> to a text file all on its own if necessary. (I also have it set as an
> RSS feed, but of course it doesn't update as often as I'd like, and
> doesn't solve the issue of display it at the most appropriate time,
> which is next to the time when the item is off!
>
> Anybody have any ideas? :-)

slim-konfabulator??

-kdf

[David Jameson]

Hmmm, why not have it play music while it's switched off, too? Maybe we
could then get our computers to work when they're switched off. And then my
TV. Oh - how about making my fridge and oven work while they're powered off
as well?

What a great way to save energy!

<grin>

David Jameson




"Paul Wisneskey"
<pwisneskey (AT) objectsciences (DOT) com> wrote in
message news:cn2mok$12j$1 (AT) sea (DOT) gmane.org...
> I've recently upgraded to the latest 5.4 release and am really happy with
> it. In particular, the ability to have an RSS feed of the local weather
> has been enthusiastically appreciated by my wife. However, we'd really
> like to set it up so that our Squeezebox is displaying the RSS feeds when
> its in its "powered off" state (displaying the time and date). Is it
> possible to do this now? Is it something planned for further down the
> road? Ideally, the client would cycle between the time /date and a list
> of RSS feeds.
>
> - Paul