Next xLobby beta Pre-Release (Preview)

[wesblack]

I wanted to share some more features we are working on. Steven has made a list of some of the old requests and we are priortizing items to work on. If some of you want to see some items added or fixed in the next release, please post them here in the pre-release area. Below are just some basic screen shots to show everyone.




RS232 control is underway, Steven and I are already controlling devices. The RS232 interface will be full duplex with some cool functions and feedback query and handling events, Timed and date driven events, chained Macro functions. I will be working on this post thru-out the evening so more items will be added here, etc.. All comments and suggestions are welcome.

Some new features in the Music module have been added.

1. (Global Shuffle): Complete loading of the music library, this will shuffle your complete collection and play it until its finished.

2. (Genre Shuffle): Shuffles music library with all titles tagged Rock, Jazz, Rap, etc.

3. (Artist Shuffle): Shuffles music library based on a Artist. Loads
all music from that artist then shuffles it and then plays until finished.

4. (Moods): This will create a playlist based on any song tittle, artist that is tagged by a pre-defined label.

5. (Star Ratings): A feature that allows the user to attach a rating to the Artist, Song providing a tag to create a playlist based on how you rated the Artist or song.



We have designed the new interface's to work with the following, paying close attention to each input devices interaction.

1. mouse & keyboard
2. IR remotes (The next version will work with the Snapstream FireFly, FireFly mini. We can now map to any key on these remotes. Calrad's new remote is also mappable.
3. Touch screens, we will have some new skins that are more suited for Touch Screen controlability and interaction at the time of final product release.

(Touch Screen, Mouse) The command button on the lower right side of the screen provides quick access to a Touch screen user to control Volume, Music player or any set of events you want. If you want access to this pop up menu, simply add the command button to any screen and these controls are accessable anywhere. The exit button on the far right provides fast access to exit the xlobby program at anytime if necessary.

(Touch Screen, Mouse) Touching or clicking on the Weather icons on the top right of the screen will advance the weather to other weather forcasts or can link directly to the weather menu.


Command control overlay


Quick exit of xLobby



Some RS232 home automation events, work in progress.


Music Sleep timer Feature


Alternate Touch Screen View






Wes Black \ Calrad

[lpg]

I am interested in putting touchscreens in about 11 rooms. This will be 11 zones that I would like independent volume control for.

I would also like to be able to control my video source and display devices remotely from the touch screens.

I would like to control camera video - triggered from door bell ring (could be done with Door Fon) - Manny has done some of this with Powerhome.

Finally I would like to be able to integrate my HAI Security and Home Automation into the front end.

I am very excited in the direction you are going.

Larry

[wesblack]

The Screen shot below is a custom solution running on Calrad touch screens controlling Calrad's 8 x 8 HDTV Matrix switcher via RS232 using Calrad's 40-WACI IP based controller. 8 Zones, 8 Sources 4 Tivo units, 4 Calrad Media Client's. Any 8 rooms can watch any 8 sources at the same time or independently. The control interface also provides IP based camera feeds and traffic IP camera feeds to monitor traffic problems before leaving the house among other functions. Most of what you described is possibe, we are implementing many new idea's and features into the next several release's of xLobby for everyone to play with, we will announce them when available.









Wes Black \ Calrad

[cmhardwick]

now that looks SWEET. Way out of my price range, but SWEET!!

[rembetis]

Lord almighty. A flatscreen in the bathroom and indoor/outdoor theaters. Can't wait to see Xlobby in an episode of Cribs (not that I even get MTV with my basic only cable, thank you).

[cmhardwick]

You can also get an LCD screen built into the bathroom mirror. When it's off, it's a regular mirror, can't even see it.

[S Pittaway]

If you play with the music features on MP or MCC they are quite lame...

I bet a lot of people simple kick off a random playlist and let it go...


I have mine setup to do -

add played times/counts to tracks (can add the tag to tracks and albums artist) this enable simple stats - most played artist genre ect, I think this logic should be expanded to all categories

shuffle takes acount of played times, means you have a better chance of actually listeing to all of you music (old inbuilt suffle always liked ac-dc for ome reason!) it also factors in the songs rating.

the shuffle actually re-arange the playlist into a random order, this is how it works in quite a few apps (you can see whats next and go back to the last track) - its more intuative if it works like this, also un-shuffling can revert to the original order (hard to do via a plugin)

A exclude from play-all playlist tag is quite handy, there are certain tracks you dont want poping up in normal play....


i haved added the stats yet, but i am sure it would look kind of neat - you could wrap them up in a few KPI graphs


Like i aid i have hacked this up in a plugin, but it all so easy to do in the core... and helps make it a bit more polished! MCE certianly felt very eak when i tried it and compared the two.

I also do smart transitions between the differant music screens - if i am listenin to queen/a kind of magic/one vision and go to the artist view it auto selects that antry, dito for the music album view...

They are all litle things that end up making a big diffreance!




Sean.

[lar282]

Me like alot!
S Pittaway, u willing to share that plugin?

regards

//Lasse

[S Pittaway]

some of its in xmusic (no proper multi-zone support)

the rest is to tied into my skin (its the only reason i havent simply stuck it on the forum - yo would have to edit some C# if you want to mod it)

I was more getting at the fact that they are very easy to do in the core and help make the music side stand out a bit!