Cover in radio stations

[MadkaT]

Hello, I'm an old rockbox user and I wish if could be posible to use an artwork, cover, picture thing for the radio stations. Is a cosmetic detail, but It would be nice to put a cover art of the station, the name and the dial on the screen. Thanks.

[[Saint]]

This has been a possibility for years.


[Saint]

[cela]

You can do this already. I have it on my Fuze+ its called "radio art"
It used to crash due to a bug, but I can confirm its now been fixed.

Just name put jpgs in a folder .rockbox\fmpresets and make then the same name as the station preset you want.

From Manual:-

It is also possible to show “Radio Art” which can be used to display images associated
with presets. The tags are exactly the same as for album art, described above. Images
need to be placed in/.rockbox/fmpresets/, and must have the same name as the
preset. They need to be in either.bmp or.jpgformat, and the radio must be in preset
mode and tuned to a preset (and not recording) in order for them to be shown

[MadkaT]

Wow nice, I have done the following:

1. I've made a preset file and loaded into the radio.
2. The radio is in preset mode.
3. This is an example of some presets:

94900000:Sample 1 radio
95900000:Sample 2 radio
96900000:Sample 3 radio

4. In the fmpresets folder I've added a file called 49400000.jpg then i turn the radio on, and preset the Sample 1 radio. But the cover doesn't show.

What I'm doing wrong?

[[Saint]]

In the fmpresets folder I've added a file called 49400000.jpg then i turn the radio on, and preset the Sample 1 radio. But the cover doesn't show.

Unless your preset is actually called "49400000", this won't function as you expect.

What I'm doing wrong?

Images need to be placed in/.rockbox/fmpresets/, and must have the same name as the preset.

[Saint]

[MadkaT]

Sorry, the file name was a typo in my post, I have tested all the possibilities, but still can't work

This is my test

in the fmpresetsfile is

94900000:Sample 1 radio

I have 94900000.jpg and Sample 1 radio.jpg and two themes that support radio art (grayfog and googley-fuzeplus).

I've tested using letters for the preset names(A B C D E F. etc), and different files formats, jpg, and bmp.

94900000:A
94900001:B
94900002:C
94900003:D

Files:

A.jpg
B.jpg
C.jpg
D.jpg

Sorry about the stupid question but I still can't understand why is not working. Sorry

[cela]

I have tested all the possibilities, but still can't work

What size is your radio art?
Mine are 96x96 and they work fine, but if they are too big it could be the problem.

[MadkaT]

I have tried various sizes

96x96
200x200
350x350 etc.

Also deleted other files and leaving one only with a letter number to the station, with the correct uppercase.

My image is JPG format 96x96 72 pixels per inch. I have scaled the image with GIMP

I also reinstalled my rockbox from the rockbox utility, but nothing happens.

A curious thing is when I use the grayscale theme and tune up the station with the cover, the storage activity turns on, but nothing happens in the other stations this won't happen. It probably tries to read the file.

Some ideas of what can I do to solve this? Thanks for the attention.

[Julian67]

My experience with radio station cover art has been identical.  It does not work.  I never really cared enough to ask about it or report a bug but as someone else is experiencing the same issue and approaching the point of having a bloodied wall and painful forehead I thought I'd just add my experience:   quite often when it comes to actual_real_life_vs._how_the_manual_says_it_works people do keep quoting the manual despite not having the direct experience to be able to do other than than quote the manual.

Radio Station Cover Art, as described in the manual(s), does not work.  It doesn't work on iRiver H340 or H140 or Sansa Fuze+.  I guess maybe it works on a simulator or maybe it works on certain ancient builds from when the idea was implemented, but it does not work now.

My solution has always been to put the player in my pocket and listen without staring at the non-changing display, but then I am a lazy mf who is grateful when anything works at all.

[benshepherd]

I have no direct experience of this, so consider this "just an idea" - but does the actual filesize of the image file have any bearing on the situation? My recollection is that the GIMP saves JPEGs at very high quality (i.e. a big file) by default; it might be worth trying to turn it down a bit and see if that helps.

Also, Julian67, your post really made me smile

[skip252]

My experience with radio artwork is that it works in the way described in the manual. I have a Fuze+. Using the Rockbox Utility been it's updated to 8375b69-140403.  I have the Googley-FuzePlus-Storm theme loaded. When place a .jpg  with the same name as a FM preset in the .rockbox/fmpresets/ folder the images display.

I first used the Preset context menu to rename the presets. I find using the virtual keyboard awkward even with a custom keyboard. To make future changes easier I opened the saved .fmr file as a text file on my PC. I noted the changes saving the .fmr file had made and used the same pattern to make changes to my other presets. Once I did and added .jpg files named the same as the presets the radio artwork displays as expected.

The size of the artwork doesn't seem to matter as long as it's reasonable. I think of reasonable as no larger than the smallest dimension of the screen. Larger dimensions and file sizes work but I don't see a reason to eat up space using files that don't add to the display quality.

I'm not much of a radio listener but I find the ability to quickly identify which preset is active by the artwork displaying very helpful. I'd like to thank the people that did the coding and maker of the theme for their efforts in extending the capabilities of my Fuze+. 



 

[Julian67]

I had a look at various themes I've used.  Some don't include any fms file, some include one but the author didn't add the relevant section for displaying cover art, only a single specific backdrop.  Some themes didn't include a fully featured fms but have later been updated to do so.   It's not a consistent experience and I can see why it "just works" in some cases and appears to be broken in others.   If you have a theme with a well written fms it works just like in the manual and if you don't it doesn't.  So I copied a cover art section to the fms I'm using and indeed cover art did work after a reboot (full reboot, not just unmounting from USB) .

MadkaT I don't know what player or theme you are using but check the file .rockbox/wps/<your_theme>.fms and if it doesn't include a section like:

Code: [Select]

# Cover Artwork
%V(0,0,240,240,-)
%Cl(0,0,240,240,c,c)
%Cd

Then that is why you aren't seeing the covers.  Don't copy that example directly.  Look at your theme's .wps file and it probably has a suitable cover art section you can copy to the .fms file.  Possibly you need to edit it for width/height.  See the Rockbox manual if unsure how this works.

[[Saint]]

Well...that was an impressively quick change.

"It doesn't work, ever, insert rant and claims about people quoting from manuals yet not knowing what they're taking about here"
...
"Ohhhhh, the theme has to support it - well...carry on, nothing to see here".


[Saint]

[Julian67]

Well...that was an impressively quick change.

"It doesn't work, ever, insert rant and claims about people quoting from manuals yet not knowing what they're taking about here"
...
"Ohhhhh, the theme has to support it - well...carry on, nothing to see here".


[Saint]

It's nice to be appreciated, especially by the saintly.

There's more to it than "the theme has to support it" because themes can have bugs too.  Some themes don't work as described unless/until someone notices and fixes it (the big theme change a couple of years ago gave a lot of opportunities for this).  For example in the theme I use on the Fuze+ (grayfog) cover art in the radio screen had never worked despite it being supported (until yesterday when I saw this thread and was curious enough to revisit the issue and fix it).

Just now I checked the theme section of the site and in the theme description notice there is now an updated version, tagged "Fixed FM Radio artwork..."

It is perfectly possible to install bootloader, firmware and theme using the official installer onto fully working hardware, configure and use it exactly as described in the manual and for it to still not work in every aspect.  That has been precisely my experience on more than one theme and on more than one player, and the fact that the same feature didn't work on my two different colour screen players certainly gave a damn good impression of the feature not working.  Like I said earlier I didn't care enough about radio cover art to do any more than think "oh well" and carry on, but I do know how puzzling it can be if you're new to something, you follow the instructions to the letter,  it doesn't work yet everyone keeps telling you it does.

Anyone might hit upon a combination of hardware/firmware/config that does not do what it is supposed to do in every aspect.  The OP described the problem very clearly and posted his file names and presets demonstrating that he is apparently doing it by the book and it still doesn't work. Saying "sure it works" doesn't strike me as a diagnostic technique because it doesn't allow for the possibility of a bug being present.

Thank you for your blessings.

[[Saint]]

You just phrased "the theme has to support it" for me in a very long winded fashion.

"Not having user introduced bugs" is part of "supporting" this feature.

Users often forget that these themes are user submitted and no guarantee is given of their functionality. The theme site is perhaps a bit misleading, possibly adding to this confusion. We can't actually reliably say "Works with Current Build", as we have little idea of what "works" is, as intended by the author. "Works" is a pseudonym for "parses", really. We can tell the syntax is intact, no needless duplication of files is happening, and that no irrelevant files are included, but that's it. Being syntactically valid doesn't necessarily mean it functions as originally intended by the author.


[Saint]