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    #46
    Without Audrey's you must of implemented NPFrame on a screen larger than 640x480. I did put together a version that is able to dynamically build 640, 800, 1024, 1280 screen sizes based upon the client. Gregory X now has these for evaluation and adjustments.

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      #47
      First, my huge thanks to Michael for writing this, and to all on this topic for having the discussions in public. I printed out this thread and used that to help me make changes as I installed, and it helped tremendously! I'm now up and running and pretty stable, but I have a couple of questions - can anyone give me pointers on which .asp file to look in, or what variable to play with to address these?

      1) I've tried changing the update interval to 1, 3 or 5, and the album covers don't update consistently. What is the "unit" for the update interval? seconds? cycles through a loop? Track titles and artists are updating properly, and more reliably than before, and that makes me really happy!

      2) The pane containing title, artist, elapsed time, etc is just a hair too large on my configuration for some reason, so I sometimes get horizontal and vertical scroll bars. I'd like to avoid that if possible, since it makes the "ones" part of the "seconds" field go to a second line; is there a way to reduce the font size, or the table size, or something like that? Is there perhaps a setting on the Audrey image that I can change?

      Please excuse if any of these questions don't make sense. I'm learning a lot on this, but I'm sure I don't have all the connections worded right.

      Thanks for any help that anyone can offer!

      Ray

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        #48
        The update interval is in seconds. I suspect Audrey will have trouble processing updates as 1 second intervals. The album cover is a relatively large graphic compared to other items on the page so it will take longer for Audrey to draw it and for the server to deliver it. Your update interval can be no faster than the time it takes the client to process an update. Audrey is pretty slow so intervals under 5 seconds will likely not work and 10 to 15 may be better. I think I run at 10 seconds.

        NPFrameR2B.asp contains the fonts size logic for the area I believe you are describing. There was a version I provided Gregory X that made this, as well as the frame sizes programmable but I do not know if it worked for him or not. In Audrey's case it's browser has a small and large default font set that is set in the Audrey Options / Browser Options menus on Audrey. I use the small font set. What I would first do it check the Audrey font set, then if that does not do it then either see what Gregory X found out or manually edit the NPFrameR2B.asp to make the font sizes or the number of character truncation until it works for you. I suspect that the first of these will work for you since I initially had size problems with NowPlaying that Jake tried to address with his squish parameter and the solution was to use the smaller font.

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          #49
          Michael, thanks for that pointer! I thought there was something like that - I was using large font, and changed to medium, and all is well.

          I did increase the time to as high as 20, and I'm still not seeing album covers change. I can do a manual refresh and get the correct one, but it's not happening automagically. Weekend project perhaps......

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            #50
            Debugging these type problems can be difficult. I do know I use the Album covers produced by CDJ_Albums2.txt and not the ones generated by TTF. You should turn off TTF's checkbox that generates it. Make certain you rerun the install when you make changes to the .ini file such as the "20". In NPFrameMonitor.asp is where the Album cover refresh commands are generated. A hs.writelog of the variable "command", just before it is delivered should show you what the server is trying to send. You should see the .jpg file name in that command string when it is being sent to Audrey.

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              #51
              Thanks for the pointers; I've turned on the debug mode, and I'm working with that. Thanks much for putting that mode in there; it does make it easier to see what's going on!

              I'm a little confused (and perhaps a little naive, not having much experience writing html and asp code) - I thought the main job of CDJ_Albums2.txt was to create pages that could be used to build playlists. Does it also look at the current album playing, and copy the appropriate album cover somewhere? I had thought that TTF was the only place that was done. I did turn off TTF's feature, but now I'm not finding any "album.jpg" file anywhere, and I think that's what the NPFrame frame is looking for. I've got CDJ_Albums2.txt creating .asp files, not .html files; would that make any difference?

              I checked the "properties" of the (blank) image of a displayed R1C1B frame, and it's looking for "http://localhost/AlbumCovers/-album.jpg". I had set my "coverpath" in homeseer.ini to http://localhost/AlbumCovers/" that by analogy to your setting in the homeseer.ini file, since CDJ_ALBUMS_2 creates the new album covers in "...homeseer\html\cdj\AlbumCovers". In this case, does "localhost" refer to the machine that's actually running the script (the "server") or the machine that's running the browser ("client")? And I can't figure out why there's a "dash" before "album.jpg"; I can't find that construction anywhere......

              In the homeseer log, Monitor Cover(3) is "/album.jpg>/album.jpg<", which is surely a sign that something's confused, but I don't find the string "album.jpg" in homeseer.ini, track.ini, or CDJALBUMS_2.txt. (I have been running the NPFrameInstall script any time I make changes, so they get propogated to the other .ini files; thanks for that suggestion.

              Thanks much for your help!

              [This message was edited by Talaray on Sunday, 08 September 2002 at 10:18 AM.]

              Update, after playing with things for a bit -
              I've now got album covers being created, and I can get them displayed on the R1C1B frame by refreshing the screen. I'm using TTF to create the .jpg of the currently playing album, and I told TTF to name it ...../-album.jpg (with the dash), so that it would be picked up when the frame looks for it. I'm still not sure where the dash comes from. And I changed "localhost" to "192.168.1.2ort number" (the LAN address of my HS web server).

              So I've got things working ok as far as pathnames (though if this is inefficient for some reason, and there's a more elegant way to accomplish this, or you can just explain what I'm missing somewhere, I'd be terribly grateful to know.) And I've got refreshing working pretty good for almost all the frames - I do notice that when I use a new playlist, while the first track is playing, the list in R2A shows "ALBUM:" for the first four entries, and the correct entry for the fifth. By the time the first track finishes, though, I have a correctly populated dropdown list. But the sticking point is still getting R1C1B to update autmatically - it doesn't show the correct cover unless I force an update by refreshing the browser. This situation is not unique to the Audrey; I'm using a laptop to test, and it doesn't refresh automatically there either.

              [This message was edited by Talaray on Sunday, 08 September 2002 at 12:41 PM.]

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                #52
                CDJ_ALbums2.txt copies all the album covers from the CDJ Library into a directory for use by homeseer. It also transforms there names to remove spaces and other problem characters. This target directory is where NPFrame goes to get the album covers. TTF takes the currenlty playing track and copies it's album cover to a specific directory and deletes it when the track has completed.

                In your case what this means is that your .ini file configuration needs to specify the path that both NPFrame and CDJ_Albums2.txt are to use for this purpose.

                Since CDJ_Albums2.txt writes to the location specified in the .ini file, if the HS_Cover_dir is changed while you are experimenting, then CDJ_ALbums2.txt needs to be run after NPFrameInstall when a change is made to this .ini value. I forget if this is done automatically in NPFrameInstall.

                "coverpath" is used only by NPSearch so it has no bearing on this problem. HS_Cover_dir is the one that is important. I't been too long since I was working closely with this code and I do not remember how the -album.jpg is constructed. It is also probably best if you do not use the localhost constructs initially. They are there as an optimization to reduce client/server traffic on the LAN. Once you have something working then these can be tried if desired. The configuration that is path of least resistance is to have the hs_cover_dir somewhere in the homeseer\HTML path. Some program run from the server's perspective and some from the client's perspective. If you define it in the homeseer\HTML path then it will work for both client and server.

                Again from memory, tge Monitor Cover(3) debug shows that the album playing is "/album.jpg" which is the default album cover as defined by the .ini parameter HSIMGLOC. This means that it believes the album cover for the playing track does not exist in the directory path for album covers(CDJIMAGEPATH). The filename it is looking for is formed from the album name without punctuation along with the CDJIMAGEPATH path which should be stored toward the end of the virtual device Z9. The value in Z9 is stored by TTF based upon the client's perspective. CDJIMAGEPATH should be the same in your .ini file as hs_cover_dir which is used by CDJ_Albums2.txt since that is its target directory where it will be placing the album covers for TTF to find.

                My .ini configuration related to the covers is:
                <pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre"> ;Album Covers as know by CDJ
                ; CDJ_ALBUMS_2.TXT
                NirVis_Cover_dir="\\Mcs6\c\My Music\AlbumCovers\"
                ; Track_To_File
                ;CDJIMAGEPATH - Set in [Track.ini] (comment only here)

                ;Album covers know by Homeseer applications
                ; CDJ_ALBUMS_2.TXT
                ;Album Covers as known by Homeseer script/asp (Cannot be same path as known by CDJ)
                ;CDJ_ALBUMS_2.txt references this from perspective of server file systme
                HS_Cover_dir="\\Mcs6\c\Program Files\Homeseer\HTML\CDJ\AlbumCovers\"
                ; NPSearch (referenced as a web page access)
                coverPath="/cdj/albumcovers/"
                ;HSIIMGLOC - Set in [Track.ini] (comment only here, but also includes file name in track.ini)



                HSIMGLOC=,\\mcs6\c\Program Files\Homeseer\HTML\CDJ\AlbumCovers\Album.jpg
                CDJIMAGEPATH=,\\Mcs6\c\My Music\albumcovers\
                CDJDATABASE=,\\Mcs6\c\My Music\user.mdb </pre>

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                  #53
                  Thanks so much for the detailed response! I'll print this out and go through it in detail and see what I can come up with. I know I wasn't running CDJ_Albums_2.txt every time I made a change (There are about 1100 CD covers to deal with, so it takes a while) but I'll try that and see if it helps, too.

                  My HS_Cover_dir is "C:\Program Files\Homeseer\html\cdj\AlbumCovers\", so that should help the "localhost" issue.

                  Ray

                  [This message was edited by Talaray on Sunday, 08 September 2002 at 01:59 PM.]

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                    #54
                    OK, I think I'm down to a single sticking point - everything seems to be updating consistently (and in a very stable fashion!) except for the album cover. I think I see what's supposed to be going on, but I can't figure out what I'm missing....

                    My HS_Cover_dir is "C:\Program Files\Homeseer\html\cdj\AlbumCovers\" - that's where the album cover files with no extraneous characters are.

                    Just as an example, one recent value of the HomeSeer variable "z9" was (copied from the HS webpage)

                    "2FBEB0152CE0F80710Rolling StonesBeggars BanquetSalt Of The Earth 4:530:13/album.jpg".

                    I can't figure out how the "/album.jpg" gets added, but maybe that's ok. I do know that there is a file titled "RollingStones-BeggarsBanquet.jpg" in the HS cover directory, but for some reason, the NPFrame isn't picking it up. I know I'm just missing something easy, but I don't see it. Any suggestions?

                    Ray

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                      #55
                      Z9 is populated by TTF based upon finding the album cover in it's CDJIMAGEPATH path. If you look under the Configure button of TTF you will find a Image Options tab. It picks up that value from Track.ini. Track.ini is set based upon the CDJIMAGEPATH value in the homeseer.ini file when NPFrameInstall is run. You should be able to just configure it there in the menu, but the next time you run NPFrameInstall it should overwrite the value with what it finds in CDJIMAGEPATH. The best place to fix it is in homeseer.ini. The CDJIMAGEPATH syntax is a little different because it must conform to TTF which uses its own syntax rather than a standard .ini syntax.

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                        #56
                        Michael, thanks for all your help on this! I finally figured out that I was using an older version of TTF - the one that created the album cover as "album.jpg", rather than the newer version which creates it as the title of the album, sans problem characters. I had had NowPlaying previously, so I just installed NPFrame over the top of it, without upgrading the underlying files. My oversight....

                        So I'm pretty solid now, and the updates are reliable, and the system runs smoothly, and refreshes when it's supposed to, and I'm happy about that. Thanks so much for your work in putting this together!


                        Gregory X, I'm getting EOF/BOF errors in TTF as well; did you happen to figure out a fix for that? I do notice that once TTF has that error, it doesn't update the virtual HS devices any more, so perhaps that could be a way to work around the problem. Like you, I find that if I click "OK", and restart TTF, everything syncs up pretty quickly (a tribute to the robust design of NPFrame.....)

                        Ray

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                          #57
                          I've been running NPFrame for several days now, and things are going very smoothly - thanks so much for your work, Michael - great improvement in the SAF around here!

                          One question - I run CDJ almost exclusively in "random" mode, no preselected playlist. I notice that after a while, the "Next" and "previous" tracks in the R1C2B frame aren't correct. If the current track=n, I see that next track=n, and previous track=n-2. After a little while longer, next track=n-1, and previous track=n-3. I looked at z60, and it appears that the problem is that TTF isn't updating that correctly. If I use TTF to advance to the next track in the playlist, the situation resolves. Any thoughts as to what might be going on? I am running all this on a 400MHz Dell Optiplex with XP Pro - I know that's a "slow" machine, but CDJ/HS is the only thing running on it, and I'm hoping to avoid having to upgrade just to run CDJ/HS - that would have a pretty low SAF.....

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                            #58
                            I never ventured into the TTF/CDJ interface and that is where the problem appears to be. If we had the current source for TTF then it might be possible to investigate and work the problem. The lastest source that is generally available is about 2 months prior to the executable we are running.

                            I started a thread a number of months back to document TTF bugs so if the source ever became available there would be a record of what should be fixed. I do not think that post went anywhere.

                            A faster machine is likely not the solution.

                            I'll try random play and see if I have the same problem you are experiencing.

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                              #59
                              I put together a version of TTF based on the January source that checks for the BOF/EOF conditions and it should not produce that error. Since the source is roughly a month older than the latest exe there may be other bugs in it, but its been working fine for me.

                              I've never had the EOF/BOF error so I really cannot check for it. It looks to be caused when TTF attempts to read the Lyrics and the CDJID and track number requested do not exist in the library. I suspect it is a problem with the integrity of the data in the database rather than a problem with TTF. In any case I now check to make certain the record exists before trying to read it so the error messages should not be present.
                              Attached Files

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                                #60
                                Once again I would like to take a moment and thank Michael for the wonderful job NPFrame does. He and Jake with others did a great job of putting together an awsome package. I still am amazed at what this does. It rivals systems costing thousands of dollars. With a few mods of my own to control 6 zones I have a system others only dream of. Thanks


                                John
                                John

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