Spinner TIVO with Framed Now Playing Integration

[c912039]

Michael,
Id be happy to provide you with the details of the IIS port.

Probably the best way to do this would be for me to zip up all the files used by my virtual webserver, and let you do a DIFF on them compared with your source.

For each application, I create a new virtual webserver host in IIS, and only install the files required for that app. I find it much easier to manage this way.

Once I have it working in its isolated environmnet, I then copy the files over to the "PRODUCTION' virtual web server.

I do the same with any updates. I created a new server for your V1.3 NPFrames, and then compared it with the previous converted running version.

For some reason, IIS didnt like the OPTION EXPLICT command on each ASP file, returning an error about expecting a command instead of OPTION EXPLICIT.


As for SlinkEServ via DCOM, I have to admit that the first time it starts up on the HS box, it does take a while for TTF to connect & settle down. However, I have found by seperating CDJ onto another PC, I have been able to run TTF on the HS server 24 hrs a day, never shutting it down, without a problem.
This also means CDJ is running 24 hrs a day on the other PC too.

When I used to have everything on the one machine, I would get lockups.
I very rarely have any issues now.

I, too, have moved over to use IIS to serve out all my web pages, and leave HS to process events.

Oh, I forgot to mention, that the CDJ PC actually has all the MP3 files and User database files on a thrid computer, my File Server. The HS box also maps to the same file server accessing the same files.

I found better performance and stability with TTF if I DISABLED TTF from copying the Album covers to the local HS HTML directory.

Instead, I created a Virtual Directory entry in IIS pointing to my file server, where the album cover art is, and configured NPFrames to pick up the artwork via that path. It works really well. I used to have TTF complain like crazy if it couldn't find the image for a given album.

Whilst that works really well, for some reason the NPFrames code to examine and build a list of playset files wont work via IIS web virtual directories. SO for that, I have had to configure NPFrames to look at a local REAL directory off of C:, and I have to manually copy over the playlist files from the fileserver to the real local directory.



Many thanks
David Kings
Adelaide, Australia

[This message was edited by c912039 on Thursday, 02 May 2002 at 12:36 AM.]

[gregoryx]

Well, now that I spent the hours hashing through all the "how does it work" to be able to resize and modify things to suit my preferences, I can see why I didn't get the usual "here's how you do it" response from the board - it's a lot of scattered stuff now.

That said, I now have NPFrame working beautifully and reliably. I can't thank you enough, Michael; this is one of the primary things I purchased the P510s for in the first place: as a display for the music playing on the changers. Thanks so much for the incredible work you and Jake and everyone else put into the NowPlaying/CDJ/TTF portions of this.

K... one thing that confused me a bit in the .INI is the section regadarding UseSpinnerDatabase. It reads: "Set to true if no use of the Spinner database is to be made. This is appropriate
if NPFRame is installed, but not SpinnerTIVO." I read this to mean that I should have it set to "true" since I'm currently using NPFrame, but not SpinnerTIVO. That caused the artist/album info to bomb since it looked for a database it shouldn't, I guess. Am I just reading this wrong? Bottom line: "false" works with NPFrame solo, "true" does not.

I am currenty running the NPFrame implementation only, but am really excited about what SpinnerTIVO is supposed to do, so whatever I'm about to ask that is "that'll work when you go Spinner" just lemme know.

On the screenshot at the top of this discussion, down at the bottom in the "NowPlaying" portion, I see what look like the "Bio, Lyrics, AutoRefresh, etc" on/off indicators that I get on the Lyrics and Bio screens. Is there somewhere to turn this on instead of the original "NowPlaying" graphic title?

Last thing (for the moment): I've got the "elapse" setting at "1" which sounds like it should have it displaying the "time elapsed" numbers as NP was doing for me, but I just have four little boxes with nothing in them. Is there something else I'm missing?

Thanks!
-Gregory

(see profile for environment)

[Michael McSharry]

1. The Now Playing graphic, when clicked will bring up a condensed Spinner TIVO status/control display that shows if tracks area being recorded, bio being recorded, or lyrics being recorded in tha background. If Spinner TIVO is not installed then you cannot get access to these status/controls.

2. The elapse time numbers are sourced from a location specified in the .ini file. Mine are served by localhost. On my audrey I have the localhost directory mapped via the windows share back to the homeseer computer. This eliminates the traffic for the 1 second updates between the client and server. If your computer has a built-in server then you can use this technique. Likewise if your client cache's them then there is no need use this approach. It is changed in your .ini definition to look like definitions for the albumcovers, buttons, etc. where they come from the homeseer server.

[gregoryx]

I didn't look closely enough at the .ini - since you're using the Audrey set up, you were using a "reversed" order on the config lines for the counter images. Counters working great.

Since I'm not using SpinnerTIVO at this point - just the NPFrame, I guess I don't get the cool status display. Interesting, the link clicking on the "NowPlaying" title still does something - it seems that it moves the current playing track info back to the previous one and the "NowPlaying" title graphic is gone. Did I miss something else in the set up that's making it do this?

Cheers!

(see profile for environment)

[Michael McSharry]

I believe that I took care of the lack of Lyrics updates with NPFrame, but I am not in an environment that can really test it. One file that is attached should replace your existing one in the \Scripts directory. I'll take a status report for anyone who want to try it.

Gregory X,

Hitting the Now Playing graphic when Spinner TIVO is not installed will result in a "Back" function being sent to the browser. I tried to make it work for both Audrey and IE, but eventually gave up on Audrey and left it in a not very usable state for IE. What it does is goes back to the previous frame that was updated. This is usually a roll-back of the frame that has the track info. It could also be the Album cover. Hitting it enough times should eventually get you out of NPFrame. Realistically, it is non-functional except when you first enter NPFrame and decide you do not want to be there. Once a few tracks have been played the history gets too deep to be of any value.

[gregoryx]

Replaced file. Ran NPFrameInstall script. Fired up NPFrame page. Get valid song which is likely to have lyrics. Push "NPLyrics" button. Stays on "Searching..." with no sign of changing.

FWIW, do "back" on browser and get "Script error: Index out of bounds" and "btouchScreen = isTouchScreen" in header position.

Thanks for the info on the "Click on NowPlaying graphic" thing. I'll just avoid doing that, eh?

Oh... just noticed (a bit later) that the two times that I "clicked" appear to have launched the "NPLyrics.txt" scripts which appear to both be still running (with no results and I'm not on that screen any more). Bummer.

Cheers!

(see profile for environment)

[This message was edited by Gregory X on Sunday, 12 May 2002 at 10:58 PM.]

[gregoryx]

Is it possible to just use the background color as in the primary style.css from HS as opposed to using a background image?

I realize that I could just make a small image and use that, but I'd rather just not push the image at all if that's an option.

Uh... I guess I'm asking if this is something that's supported in the homeseer.ini, 'cause I really don't want to try to edit every "built" page.

TIA.
-Gregory

(see profile for environment)

[Michael McSharry]

I believe that setting bga = "" in the .ini file will result in only a background color and no image. The bca value is the background color. I did not intentionally change any of the logic for the "Make it so" aspect of now playing developed by Jake so whatever worked before should continue to work now. I have only tested the one scheme that is in the NPFrame archive.

Also thanks for giving the lyrics a try. I'll look into it some more.

[gregoryx]

Wow... setting bga = "" really makes for an interesting look.

It appears as though there's a few different background colors coded in somewhere... and that placement of some things is dependent on the background graphics.

I think I'll aim for a different background graphic!

Thanks.

I'm game to give another NPLyrics a run whenever you are!

Cheers!
-Gregory

(see profile for environment)

[Michael McSharry]

The colorful display is a result of a missing quote mark on the following statement:
Background = "bgcolor='" & bca & "'"
Unfortunately is is replicated on most of the asp files. I updated the archive, but if you have made your own customizations it may be easier to just edit the files to add the second quote mark.

Since your NPLyrics.txt scripts do not complete the problems looks to be with how the \scripts\includes\IEaspGetURL.inc file is setup. I do not have any ideas in particular, but I would suggest putting an hs.writelog at the entry and exit of the function in this include file. I cannot test the NPLyrics button where I am at, but the same core functions are used with the Lyrics button next to the playlist selection pulldown and I am able to force some test data down this path and it did work for me. It is likely just a configuration thing that should be easy to resolve.

[jwilson56]

Just a follow up post to let everyone know that the NPframe works great. I have opted not to use lyrics or bio for now. But the day to day use of NPframe to play my 400 CD's on a 5 zone system is great. My wife loves it.


Thanks again to all who contributed and for Michael's efforts in making the framed version.

John

[gregoryx]

Colorful display is resolved, no joy on the NPLyrics, however.

Didn't take long to seek out the missing quotes and fix them. Thanks.

Any suggestions on the NPLyrics and/or Bio stuff? It worked for me with NowPlaying, but not NP Frame.

'Nother item: any ideas why the old CDJ.asp might have lost track of the album covers after I set up NPframe?

TIA.
-Gregory

(see profile for environment)

[Michael McSharry]

Gregory X, I suspect that the Lyrics problem relates to \scripts\includes\IEaspGetURL.inc setup and I suggest that you put a little debug code in this include file to confirm the desired URL is being passed to it and it is returning a reasonable data string. Alternately you can replace the IEGetURL call with hs.GetURL. Both have the same parameter requirments.

NPFrame uses the album covers from the directory that is generated when CDJ_Albums.txt is executed. I believe CDJ uses the album cover that is copied by TTF to a Homeseer HTML directory as a new track is started. I'd have to look further, but the directory used by CDJ is likely defined in track.ini and this file is updated based upon .ini settings in NPFrame. Take a look at track.ini and see if it contains the info that you expect to support CDJ.

[Michael McSharry]

I got back home to look at the Lyrics problem and did find some things that prevented its display. NPFrameWindow.asp and NPFrameLyrics.asp each had the the parm(0) and parm(1) values reversed. I also added a little filtering for foreign characters in SpinnerLyrics.inc as well as improved the formatting of the lyrics in the track display window. The script library archive is updated.

Let me know if this does not take care of it for you.

[htsource]

Gregory,

After I read through the whole thread, I was actually run into the same experienced you had before. However, I do want to ask you or Michael how to change the screen size. Right now, the default npframe.html is optimized for 640x480, I want the header to span across the whole page and the rest to centre on the page. I also would like to know how to get rid of the background image. I got the backgrounds in the frames removed but there is another background in the remaining of the screen which I can't get rid of.

I have a LCD screen and the size is 1280x1024 so I would like to optimize it as much as possible.

Thanks a lot for all your help,

Simon