AF_Flow: 1st Theme with a basic PictureFlow integration (320x240)

[AsusFreak]

Hi all,

I really like the existing theme Rockflow but I always felt a kind of disappointed because it was only fake with the sliding albums.

But now something has happened: one of the busy guys of the rockbox crew made it possible to switch between the pictureflow plugin and the WPS screen. Therefor a new hotkey feature is activated which couldn't be used for the D2 in the past.
History can be seen here: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=25025.0
Thanks to csavery and jdgordon !

If the WPS works for Ipod Video? I don't know. Please try youself.

So if you like to change rockbox's browsing feature from the old list view to the visual sliding of pictureflow, you have to do some configuration and use my theme or any other adapted theme.

Step 1 - Configure the Hotkey:
Go into the settings of rockbox and set the following parameter:
Settings-General Settings-Hotkey-WPS Hotkey -> PictureFlow

Step 2 - Configure the PictureFlow Plugin:
2.1) Start the Plugin: Plugins-Demos-pictureflow
2.2) Maybe you're getting the following warning: "No Albums found. Please enable database. Press any botton to continue." Then press any button and you get the message "Plugin returned error". Go back to the rockbox menu and go to database. Then it's said "Database is not ready - initialize now" then you press the upper (hardware) menu button and the database will be generated and you have to reboot your D2 and repeat step 2.1.
2.3) Now you'll see your albums. Please tap into the upper left corner. Now you're in the menu of the plugin. (Attention: while you are in the plugin you are using the 3x3 grid mode) Please change the following parameter: settings-WPS Integration -> Via Tracklist

If you want to avoid this manual effort than try using or looking at my D2 config files in the attachment - no warranty if something will break and you'll have to reconfigure your device!
pictureflow.cfg -> .rockbox\rocks\demos
config.cfg -> .rockbox

Now you are done.

If you now chose my AF_Flow Theme you are able to tap on the middle album art (in absolute point mode. In 3x3 grid mode use the lower right corner) and get directly into the pictureflow plugin where you can browse through your albums, select a title and jump back to WPS automatically.
Please remember that the pictureflow plugin currently only supports 3x3 grid mode. I use absolute point mode in my WPS and I am familiar now with the 3x3 grid mode in the plugin - no problem for me but it's your choice if you want to use the absolute point mode or the 3x3 grid mode in the WPS. Maybe in the near future there will be a skilled developer giving us the absolute point feature in the plugin as well.

I designed my theme for the following pictureflow settings:
number of slides=3 (but I can't see any differences in the plugin when changing this to e.g. 5
zoom= 100 (this could be important. zoom = 100 means album art will be 128x128 pixel. If you change this the WPS might look crazy.)

Edit: some more details how it works in reply #6.
And Version V2.0 is up - see reply #7.

You have to use a current build.

Download: http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=865&target=cowond2

Please post your experiences with the new feature. Is it comfortable for you?

And what do you need additionally in this theme: FM Screen, More information on Pause or Hold, any other features?

Thanks in advance.
Asus Freak

[JdGordon]

are the 2 side images kept from picureflow? or did you fake the screenshots so it looks like it? If it does keep those images then very clever

[AsusFreak]

I took a screenshot of the pictureflow, removed the middle album and the album title and used this screenshot as base for the WPS design. So all dimensions and colours are taken from the pictureflow plugin to get a better smell of integration.

BTW: thanks for your help to get the technical possibility to do this, JdGordon.

[JdGordon]

haha ok, thats what I suspected

[AsusFreak]

If there is another way I would do this for sure. 

[JdGordon]

not likely maybe later

[AsusFreak]

So for now I'm happy with this Jump-To Feature. I think it's a step forward...

In the iaudio forum I was asked about the way the jump-to feature works.

So here some more details:

csavery and jdgordon - all credits to them - built a patch for having a workaround to integrate the pictureflow plugin in the WPS. Additionally they defined a new toucharea tag called hotkey to provide the feature to the touchscreen devices. Both features are in the SVN now, so you have to use a current built.

The toucharea tag hotkey can be configured in the main rockbox settings as I described it in Step 1 of post #1. If you set the hotkey to PictureFlow you are able to jump from the WPS to the pictureflow plugin by tapping on the hotkey toucharea (which is the middle album art in my theme).

Now you have to be able to get back again.
In the PictureFlow settings you find a parameter called WPS Integration. If this is set to Via tracklist you are able to slide through your albums, select one and get to the regarding tracklist. Selecting one title closes the pictureflow plugin and brings you back to the WPS. This configuration is done in Step 2.2 of post #1.
If the manual configuration is a way too complicated then try my config files in the attachment. They should overwrite the main rockbox config file and the pictureflow config file.

One thing will lead to confusions, I guess:
in the WPS you are able to use both 3x3 grid mode and absolute point mode. The pictureflow plugin currently only supports 3x3 grid mode.

So if you use absolute point mode (which I do) then you tap the middle album art in the WPS and jump to the plugin and have to switch in mind to 3x3. When jumping back to WPS you will have the absolute point mode back again.
If you are already in 3x3 grid mode in the WPS then you have to tap at the folder icons at the lower right corner of the WPS and jump into the pictureflow plugin.

If you aren't familiar with the usage of the 3x3 grid mode in the pictureflow plugin here are the 9 fields of the pictureflow screen:

menu.........step up......Jump To WPS
step left.....select........step right
O............step down.......cancel

I know it's a way more complicate than only loading a theme but I think this is a good step forward on our way to a perfect rockbox, isn't it?

Please give it a try and give more feedback.
Thank you all.

[AsusFreak]

VERSION V2.0 IS UP !!!
There were some modifications with the touchscreen areas done by the rockbox crew and some of them bring us new features for the themes.

1. Bugfixing
The absolute point mode is working perfectly again. So no need to use 3x3 grid mode instead. And the hotkey area (which is in my WPS the actual album art in the middle) works now again.

2. New touchscreen area actions and screen related buttons
It's now possible to define buttons related to the actual screen. And we got a few new actions for the touchscreen areas.
So if you take my theme you'll see different buttons on the different screens:
On WPS you have VolumeDown, VolumeUp, RWD, Play, FWD and Settings.
On Menu Screen you have Quickscreen, LineUp, Select, LineDown and Cancel.
On FM Screen you got VolumeDown, VolumeUp, Scan backwards, Scan forwards and Cancel.
I think this is a great improvement to the absolute point mode. I guess now it's the time for some more users to switch from 3x3 grid mode to absolute point mode, isn't it?

3. Faked albums on While Playing Screen
I was asked to change the faked albums on the WPS to some classical ones. I decided to change but I decided to use Faith No More's Angel Dust and Chris Rea's Road To Hell And Back because they fit with the colours of AF_Flow.
I changed my background and reduced it to a screenshot of pictureflow plus two grey lines for the bars. So it will get much more easier to change the background if there will be the need to change it again.

Give it a try and please give some feedback.

[mp3]

Excellent!!!

[[Saint]]

I jumped the gun a little and rushed to the themesite to download this so I could work out how on earth you'd managed to get plugin integration working when one of the devs here came to a roadblock himself some time ago trying the same thing, on a hunch, I went back and re-read the whole thread and realised the side images were static...

I would hate to work out the likelyhood of another user having those two albums in their library...
And because of the shape of them there's no easy way for an end user to easily insert their own images into the theme either...even if they weren't actually part of the backdrop.

I've tried and tried to think of ways this could work better for you, but the best I can come up with is making the images on the side conditional to something (perhaps playmode?) so that they at least *seem* to change dynamically, but to me even that idea is a little sucky, though perhaps something you hadn't thought of?

It *looks* cool, hopefully one day the real thing will be possible.


[St.]

[AsusFreak]

Hi St.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Your words sound nearly the same as jdgordon's at the top.

Yes you are totally right being disappointed that the images on the side are static.

Being a bit more dynamic would be an improvement, yes. Linking the images to a conditional like playmode would be a small step.

If I had a wish I would like to have a configurable pictureflow (with adaptable colours, fonts, sorting orders) and a possibility to create a WPS layer covering defined parts of the pictureflow screen and showing all these additional information we would like to see on the While Playing screen.
Or keeping my feet on the ground: reducing the used screen size of pictureflow - acting the same way as the custom UI viewport currently does and defining the rest of the screen as base skin being able to get the WPS information in there.

In the meantime the skin *looks* cool and we have to be happy to be able to jump to the pictureflow plugin via defined touchscreen areas...