Known issues
emphatic
isn't perfect. These are the known issues with the
current release.
-
After
waking up from standby in car mode, sometimes the display
and input aren't properly handled.
-
Screen
updates aren't as fast as they could be. With very
busy visuals, you may notice a significant slowdown,
especially if you're using the "burn in text" feature.
There may be ways to improve on
this, but right now, don't expect visuals to be quite as
fast as they are in the player
itself.
-
On
occasion, you might notice the wrong track information
displayed on the player screen, particularly if
you're changing tracks very rapidly. I have not been
able to nail this bug yet, but am working on
doing so. For me, it's rare that it happens.
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Future enhancements
The following
features are on my "to do" list for a future release:
-
Custom
"Now & Next" info screen. I tried to make
this happen in this release, but failed miserably. It's
freakin' hard.
-
Bitmap
support in custom display modes. (album covers,
etc.)
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Support
for multiple arguments in field definitions, e.g.
$(volume:db:format=\($\))
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Normalizing track
volumes based on track RMS/peak data in ID3v2 fields
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Fields
that animate or move on the screen in some way
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Graphical
representation of song rating (1-5 stars)
-
Choose
shuffle modes from the emphatic menu
Release history
Version: 2.04
Date:
2004-08-17
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Added an
integrated version of Mark Cushman's "Empire" server
which allows you to
queue up songs using a Palm PDA interface via IrDA.
Thanks to Mark
for suggesting this, and allowing me to use his
code. To
enable this, change the "use_empire" option to "true"
in your XML, or
add it if it's not present in the "settings" section.
The default
configuration (if no "use_empire" setting is
specified) is to not
launch the Empire server. This has been lightly
tested, but seems to
work.
-
I
received permission to redistribute the empeg fonts, so I'm
doing so. Only
two of the fonts are necessary, as the player always
contains
"small" and "medium." The fonts for "large"
and "gimungous"
will be installed to the same directory as the
emphatic binaries, and
will be read from that location. If you had
problems using those
fonts before, they should work now. Thanks to
the empeg guys for
allowing me to redistribute the fonts.
-
Added a popup
display of the mode name when display modes are
changed.
To turn this off, use the setting
"show_mode=false".
Version: 2.03
Date:
2004-08-09
-
The
Unix script is fixed this time. For real. No,
really, it is.
-
The
postinstall script now adds car_rate=115200 to the
[serial] block of
config.ini (creating that block if necessary.) This
is necessary to
avoid serious slowdowns and lockups when using
emphatic in DC
power mode.
-
The
auto_foreground setting now not only brings emphatic to
the foreground on
startup, but also when waking up from standby.
This may not work
well in car mode, something I'm investigating.
-
Fixed a bug
which would cause emphatic to crash in certain
situations
-
Fixed a bug
where sending of IR codes for info change and
visuals wouldn't work
properly in DC mode
-
Version: 2.02
Date:
2004-08-05
-
Changed the
loop timer to try to reduce CPU utilization.
The player should
hopefully lag less now.
-
The
method I was using for switching visuals depended on
having favorite
visuals set, and some people don't, so I'm trying a
new way. This
one uses one less button press, and seems to work on
both v2 final
and v3a8.
-
It's the Unix
script's turn for a bugfix. Took the passive
mode command out,
which really shouldn't have been there. If you
tried to install from
a Unix box and it failed, try, try again.
Version: 2.01
Date:
2004-08-03
-
The
Windows batch file was broken in v2.00, and has been fixed,
and hopefully fixed
correctly. If you had install problems, try
again with this
one.
-
Install scripts
now support an "upgrade" where the existing XML
file is kept
intact, and config.ini is left unchanged.
-
The
postinstall script has been fixed to add some
important config.ini
changes, without which emphatic won't function
properly.
-
Thanks to some
improvements to the Hijack user APIs, emphatic now
provides the
option to bring itself to the foreground on player
startup.
This requires Hijack v408 or later. The new
behavior is now the
default, so if you wish to turn it off, set the
auto_foreground
setting in the XML file to "false."
-
New
track attribute, "bpm", which is the beats per minute
as calculated by
the player. Shown in the Track Details screen in
the default XML
file
Version: 2.00
Date:
2004-07-23
-
Too
many new features to mention here, but I'll try...
-
Horizontal
lyrics scrolling should be much cleaner and smoother.
There should be
much less frantic scrolling trying to keep up in
horizontal mode
(though with REALLY fast lyrics, all bets are off.)
-
Vertical lyrics
has been made into a standard field that can be
placed anywhere
in a display mode. The scrolling code has been
overhauled and
is much smoother now.
-
Custom info
modes have been completely overhauled. The
player's screen can be
used as a background, including masking/blending
effects.
-
Lots of new
field types and data to display in those fields.
Check the DTD for
details.
-
Graphical
display elements like rectangles, status bars, and
volume knobs.
More coming.
-
Added a "global
mode" which contains fields which are present in
all
info modes. Good for volume display, or any field you
want on screen at all
times.
-
New
font size added. The old "large" font is now
called "gimungous" and
there is a new "large" font from the 13pixel.bf
font file.
On the newest v3.0 alphas, some of these font
files might be
missing, so if the "large" and "gimungous" fonts
don't work, that's
why.
-
Song rating
feature. Kick ass.
-
New
button definitions.
-
Player screen
can now be on display modes, complete with blending
effects.
This is so pimp, it has a hat and a stick.
-
User can now
select a visual to accompany any display mode.
-
All
emphatic configuration is now done in an XML file
-
Customizable
emphatic menu with button macros.
-
About a
thousand bug fixes and stability enhancements.
(But probably a
thousand bugs introduced.)
Version: 1.10
Date:
2003-02-18
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Custom info
mode! Read down below for more info!
-
New
--verticalbars / -v switch to turn off bars in vertical
mode.
-
emphatic now
supports the "new FID structure." Start the
program with -N or
--newfids if you need this (untested).
-
You
can now switch modes by holding the knob down.
-
Support for
remote controls to navigate emphatic's menus. See
"Using remote
buttons" below
-
Using a new ID3
library, libid3tag from the MAD audio player. It's
less bloated
than ID3lib, and seems a LOT faster on my empeg.
Thanks to Pim
Z. for suggesting this library.
-
lrc2sylt now
supports millisecond timestamps.
-
Menu options
are different. "Close" is now "Off".
-
We
now read lyrics using a separate thread. This allows the
main thread to
continue handling buttons, which means we should be a
lot more
responsive, especially when changing tracks rapidly. We
also unbind from the
left/right front panel buttons when we don't need
them
now.
-
The
"we need to go faster" increment wasn't being reset
(Patrick Giasson).
Should result in lines being spaced closer to where
they should be in
horizontal scrolling mode.
-
The
--notify switch now works (Aaron Wright).
Version: 1.01
Date:
2003-02-08, a few hours later
:)
-
Fixed a bug
where menu wasn't redrawing if lyrics weren't found
Included BAT
and FTP files for installation
Version: 1.0
Date:
2003-02-08
-
Initial
release, the grand-daddy of them all.