Cowon D2

[saratoga]

current build is broken now (get an error when opening the file with winrar).

Works fine for me.  Probably just a problem on your end (or its been resolved since whichever unnamed version you tested).

[tomers]

current build is broken now (get an error when opening the file with winrar).

Do you mean it fully compiles, but the archive created (make zip?) is invalid?

[tomers]

The Cowon D2 manual is released! 

There are some sections which still need some work. Some keymap for plugins, and a description of the player for blind users, etc.
I will fix the keymap issues, but please, could somebody write a short description of the player's structure (buttons, etc.) for a blind person. I know this target is not suitable for blind and visually impaired persons, but still, manuals usually include this section.

In the wiki, there's the following section:

Most Rockbox functions are usable on the D2/D2+, including music playback and most plugins, but there are a number of shortcomings that prevent it from being a fully supported target:

    * An SD card is required to use many features, since the internal flash memory is read-only in Rockbox.
    * There is only basic touchscreen support.

I would like to know why the touchscreen support is considered basic, and where exactly are the areas which lack proper touchscreen support, so I can fix it.

Regarding the read-only internal flash - does anyone works on it?

[shotofadds]

Thanks for your work on the manual so far!

I would like to know why the touchscreen support is considered basic, and where exactly are the areas which lack proper touchscreen support, so I can fix it.

"basic touchscreen support" == the far-from-ideal 3x3 grid mode. Originally this was only intended to be a stop-gap measure until Rockbox could support touchscreens in a more natural stylus/finger point mode. There is a wiki page about what needs to be done: TouchscreenInterface.

The user can switch between "3x3 Grid" mode (the default) and "Absolute Point" mode. I strongly disagree with 3x3 Grid mode deing the default (it's not an intuitive way to use a touch screen at all) but many, many things need to be fixed before Absolute Point can be made the default:

- some screens (and most plugins) automatically switch to 3x3 Grid Mode without alerting the user
- some screens cannot be used at all in Absolute Point mode
- the default WPS doesn't have any touch areas
- the default theme font is too small to be used comfortably in the menus

There is some work going on towards adapting the various screens to Absolute Point mode (eg. FS#10639, FS#10806) but this is complicated by having to support both 3x3 Grid and Absolute Point modes. I'd rather get rid of grid mode completely, but some devs/users want to keep the choice of both.

I also started a patch (FS#10804) which adds a "touchscreen mode" icon to the status bar, which is really handy for when screens switch mode without alerting the user in any other way.

I tried to get some discussion going on these issues on the dev mailing list a while back, but it seems very few devs are interested in working on this area. So my enthusiasm is somewhat lacking these days.

ps. further discussion of touchscreen work should go in the User Interface and Voice forum as it's not D2 specific.

Regarding the read-only internal flash - does anyone works on it?

No, no-one's working on it now. I've spent months looking into this, and in my opinion providing write support (compatible with the Cowon firmware) would require a collossal amount of further effort, and we would almost certainly fall foul of some FTL-related patents.

The current situation of booting from an SD card works perfectly well for me, and from the lack of complaints, it seems the majority of users don't mind either. The only difficulty I am aware of is that RbUtil doesn't know about the need to unzip .rockbox to the SD card.

[tomers]

Thanks for the info. I agree with you regarding the touchscreen being immature. I hope that making D2 a stable platform will drive further development in the touchscreen area.

BTW it should be a lot easier now to create a manual to all other touchscreen platforms, too.

Regarding the read-only internal flash - does anyone works on it?

No, no-one's working on it now. I've spent months looking into this, and in my opinion providing write support (compatible with the Cowon firmware) would require a collossal amount of further effort, and we would almost certainly fall foul of some FTL-related patents.

The current situation of booting from an SD card works perfectly well for me, and from the lack of complaints, it seems the majority of users don't mind either. The only difficulty I am aware of is that RbUtil doesn't know about the need to unzip .rockbox to the SD card.

Then if we make RbUtil automatically detect and choose the SD card as the installation point (if no card inserted it would prompt the user), then can we declare the D2 as a stable target? The touchscreen is ugly and unintuitive to work with at the moment, but it does work and provide full functionality. I really like to see this platform getting stabilized :-)

[Bkd11]

I noticed since STOP was added to the power button on the main menu there seems to be a bug where STOP is initiated also when you exit the settings and the plugins menus.

Edit: Nevermind, I see it was already changed to BUTTON_MINUS|BUTTON_POWER. Much better!

Edit: @Tomers: Perhaps you can do the same for ACTION_WPS_BROWSE because you sometimes hit it by accident when turning off hold feature.

BTW, glad to see another dev working on the D2.

[tomers]

Edit: @Tomers: Perhaps you can do the same for ACTION_WPS_BROWSE because you sometimes hit it by accident when turning off hold feature.

Done! See r24052.

I also sometimes hit the Menu button by accident when controlling the volume using the buttons, and it gets to the menu. When the DAP is in your packet, it is very annoying to open it and return to WPS. Do you think we should disable this button while in WPS?

BTW, glad to see another dev working on the D2.

Thanks! 

[shotofadds]

I also sometimes hit the Menu button by accident when controlling the volume using the buttons, and it gets to the menu. When the DAP is in your packet, it is very annoying to open it and return to WPS. Do you think we should disable this button while in WPS?

If you meant the MENU button then NO!

[tomers]

I also sometimes hit the Menu button by accident when controlling the volume using the buttons, and it gets to the menu. When the DAP is in your packet, it is very annoying to open it and return to WPS. Do you think we should disable this button while in WPS?

If you meant the MENU button then NO!

I did meant it 
Fair enough...

[3amsleep]

there are ways to introduce a hold-mode buttons,i configures mine to skip tracks and play plause with the top buttons while hold is on and the player is on the WPS and in hold.

[shotofadds]

there are ways to introduce a hold-mode buttons,i configures mine to skip tracks and play plause with the top buttons while hold is on and the player is on the WPS and in hold.

Yes, there's already a patch to do this on Flyspray (FS#10698). There was some discussion about whether it can be included in the main build or not - I think in the end we came to the conclusion that nobody was going to die if it got committed. So I'll look to get it in soon - in the New Year most likely.

[foth]

Hello. First of all, thank you, shotofadds, for your work. I use Rockbox most of the time.
I want to sort out issues I experience, maybe someone could fix them (Or at least add  them to "Cowon D2 Info" page).

SOUND ISSUES
1. On track start, stop, in the end and in the start of most of quiet tracks I hear clicks (they are often in groups - 3 clicks in group).
2. Sometimes I get no sound output. Turn off & turn on helps to solve this problem.

READ/WRITE ISSUES
3. Can't load Rockbox from my SDHC 32 GB A-Data Turbo Class 6.
Get “ATA mount File not found”. Cowon FW loads well.
4. Rockbox can't open some files with long filenames, but standard firmware can. I.e. file with this name “J:\MUSIC\02 Rus1 (MFM02) [BS2B]\07 Патриаршие пруды (сборник авторской песни) (Приложение к журналу 'Stereo _ Video') (2001)\06 Зеленая карета (ст. О. Дриз, пер. Г. Сапгир, муз. А. Суханов).ogg” (from internal memory) (187 chars + 3 chars for extension).

OTHER ISSUES
5. The screen does not turns off when in hold mode. Only backlight turns off.
6. I have a lot of large covers. And it takes time for Cowon to resize cover to fit wps.
6.1. Playback does not starts till the cover is loaded. It should at first start playback and then load cover (as in standard firmware).
6.2. Rockbox reloads cover every time I change track. It should check, if there is need to reload cover.
7. Can't view large pictures when playing music (“not enough plugin memory”). Standard FW can.
8. JPEG viewer shows some pictures not in full screen. I think, it shows embedded thumbnail.
9. In "FM Radio" mode most of Sound Settings doesn't work. Is it possible to remove items that doesn't work.
10. Short battery life (~2x shorter than with standard FW).

[tomers]

1. On track start, stop, in the end and in the start of most of quiet tracks I hear clicks (they are often in groups - 3 clicks in group).

The player and also some other players (e200) are 'hearing' flash memory activity. This doesn't happen on the OF, and it is a known bug. Please browse files and folders on your internal and/or external storage and let me know if this is the click sounds you have been hearing.

4. Rockbox can't open some files with long filenames, but standard firmware can. I.e. file with this name “J:\MUSIC\02 Rus1 (MFM02) [BS2B]\07 Патриаршие пруды (сборник авторской песни) (Приложение к журналу 'Stereo _ Video') (2001)\06 Зеленая карета (ст. О. Дриз, пер. Г. Сапгир, муз. А. Суханов).ogg” (from internal memory) (187 chars + 3 chars for extension).

I've confirmed this bug, and opened FS#10899 for it.

foth, can you please open a separate bug items in Flyspray, as I did for item #4? It will be easier for everyone to manage your findings and fix them this way. But keep in mind to research a bit before posting to avoid filling duplicate bugs.

[foth]

Thank you tomers for quick reply!

I think I can't speak English good enough to post items in bugs forum. But I'll try.

1. On track start, stop, in the end and in the start of most of quiet tracks I hear clicks (they are often in groups - 3 clicks in group).

The player and also some other players (e200) are 'hearing' flash memory activity. This doesn't happen on the OF, and it is a known bug. Please browse files and folders on your internal and/or external storage and let me know if this is the click sounds you have been hearing.

I hear clicks on internal and on external memory. I didn't find info about "'hearing' flash memory activity" on bugs forum.

This is what shotofadds said of this issue:

Yes, I hear these clicks too (usually 3 in a row when starting or stopping a track). I'm not sure what is causing them, all I know is that when i first implemented playback on the D2 there were no clicks at all, except at power on/off. Something's obviously broken.

[tomers]

4. Rockbox can't open some files with long filenames, but standard firmware can. I.e. file with this name “J:\MUSIC\02 Rus1 (MFM02) [BS2B]\07 Патриаршие пруды (сборник авторской песни) (Приложение к журналу 'Stereo _ Video') (2001)\06 Зеленая карета (ст. О. Дриз, пер. Г. Сапгир, муз. А. Суханов).ogg” (from internal memory) (187 chars + 3 chars for extension).

I've confirmed this bug, and opened FS#10899 for it.

I've closed FS#10899 as invalid, following comment by Dominik Riebeling (bluebrother):

Pasting the filename into a text document and saving it in utf-8 encoding yields 288 bytes. MAX_PATH is 260 bytes, so it's not surprising that this path doesn't work.

You can recompile Rockbox yourself with a higher value of MAX_PATH I don't know what are the side-effect of such change, probably it will work, but your player will have smaller audio buffer, which results in somewhat shorter battery life.

If you think this value is too small for most users (I seriously doubt it), you can talk to developers in IRC.