[Android] Android remote (2 Viewers)

[kiwijunglist]

Re: [Plugin] Android remote

what i imagine being most useful

1. browse the MP music database on the android device and queue up music on the MP client for play back on the MP client.

2. Copy XX random tracks from the MP music database onto a specific directory on the sd card. Customisable filters being: date added, star rating, play back count, genre

eg. Copy 50 random tracks
Data Added < 180 days
Star Rating > 0
Play Back Count = Any
Genre = Drum n Bass or Trance

This would be great if you had a lot of music on your client that wont fit on your android. By placing in a seperate directory you could delete the files then readd another random mix of tracks to keep your portable audio fresh. altneratively you could use the WMP database and create an app that any one could use.

 

[TechLife]

Re: [Plugin] Android remote

1. browse the MP music database on the android device and queue up music on the MP client for play back on the MP client.

Second that motion for sure! Similar to remote for iTunes would be perfect!!

It would be great if we could do this for movies (MovingPictures) and TV Series (MP-TV) as well.

I'm very excited to see someone working on this...If I could help, I'd jump in in a second.

 

[kiwijunglist]

Re: AW: [Plugin] Android remote

Hi kiwijunglist,

as I wrote

This plugin is in an early stage

but of course I'm happy for all comments. Looking on my webservice this are my plans:

Remote:
Control the MP via Android (mostly working)
Pictures:
browse and view pictures. I do have about 800 directories with about 12000 pictures. There is not really a good way how to display these. I know there are time lined solution out there. But I like this better. So I will keep the directory structure and I will implenent a slideshow plus possible a transfer to the SD card. I dont know if someone want to see the EXIF information of the picture. This could be displayed too.
Musik:
Same here for me. All albums are in seperate directories. I do have A LOT. Sitting on my couch I want to hear one particula album. Also I want to transfer MP3s to go.
Video:
Hm ?? streaming to the Andreoid would be possible, but for what ? Al least a controller to browse and start playing movies on my TV. Maybe grab the information from the database.

Right now I working on the "now playing" part. I updated some screenshots. Also I start to write a small documention for my webservice. Still there is a lot work out there. It will take some time also to include different sizes and languages and so on... It will get better over the time...

So far from here.

My thoughts / comments are:

browsing mp tv series database on the android for playback on the android device via streaming
very useful, eg, watching tv in bed, ditto for movies.

browsing mp tv series database on the android for file transfer to the android device
very useful, eg. transfering video file on to the android device for watching later eg. on the airplane, ditto for movies.

browsing mp tv series database on the android for playback on the tv. (what you mentioned in your post)
- less useful feature as you have to have the tv on already to watch the program, so you might as well browse on the tv screen, ditto for movies.

browsing the mp music database to queue up music files on the MP client
- most useful feature as you can control the music without having the tv on

browsing the mp music database on the server using the android device for playback on android device via streaming
- useful as there is nothing that can do this currently

browsing the mp music database on the server using the android device for file transfer to the android device
- useful as there is nothing that can do this currently

browsing the music directory on the server using the android device for playback on android device (what you mentioned in your post)
- not very useful there are lots of media browsers already, eg. All Share, uPnP player etc.etc.

browsing the music directory on the server using the android device for file transfer to the android device (what you mentioned in your post)
- not very useful there are lots of media browsers already, eg. All Share, uPnP player, es file explorer, etc

***

Having said all that I still think what you are doing is good, but I think my ideas would be more useful to more users, however i do appreciate my ideas are more complicated.

 

[kroko]

AW: [Plugin] Android remote

Hi kiwijunglist,

I'm just working on the music part I already added the music database to my webservice.
so now

http://192.168.0.30:8200/db_music/artist.xml

will return artist like this

<Database>
<Item>
<Album>Shame-(UK_CDS)</Album>
<Artist>Robbie_Williams_And_Gary_Barlow</Artist>
<Title>shame</Title>
<Genre>shame</Genre>
<Year>shame</Year>
</Item>
...
<Item>
....
<Database>

So now I can do an implemtation on the Android. I thinking of a TAB styled browser so we can go by song, artist or genre ? and also browse the dirs directly. Not sure how to filter the results. If I call my webservice with no filter the result is huge. (a lot of artist) I will do some test how long the transfer takes...

Of couse I can now call the webservice also for genre or songs and add a filter if needed.

Lets see how we do the music part.

Android music part
-browsing database (by song/artist/genre)
-browing directories
-sending files/db entries to play list on the MP
-streaming to Android
-send to sd card on the Android

Thats not so far away. A couple things I do have mainly ready. Maybe the code is not very nice in the current state, but ehhh this is my first Java app.

kroko

 

[kiwijunglist]

Re: [Plugin] Android remote

if you want i can probably help with concept / layout / design / gfx. i should really install xbmc remote so i can see how they do it, what bits are good, what bits are bad.

 

[kroko]

AW: [Plugin] Android remote

I updated my remote functions ( see first post). I decided to use a similar layout like the xbmc. I dont want to overload the screen thinking about small devices. Funktions like channel / volume .. will be accessible using the "menu" button on a different view. Also I'm planning to have a selector for MP functions like "My Video" "My TV" and so on...

On the music part I added a tab styled screen to use different views (Artist,Album,Songs,Dir). Still some work to do there. I need to wrap some classes. It seems I repatable use part of the program here and there.

So far
kroko

 

[codemann]

Re: [Plugin] Android remote

Sounds very good my friend. When can we start testing?

 

[el_gato]

AW: [Plugin] Android remote

it's so nice to read these updates and that it's being worked on an android remote including the ideas of the community. the xbmc app is sth to use as an example how it could/should look like. it's not meant to be a total conversion, but the app is pretty good in fact... so some updated screens or mockups would be nice by the time to have sth more to discuss about in more detail to optimize etc

 

[oddfella]

Re: [Plugin] Android remote

I am right now working on some mockups for the graphic part of the plugin, if anyone is intrested. The layout seems great, but the graphics just don't cut it.

 

[kroko]

AW: [Plugin] Android remote

Hi oddfella,

yes that would be really nice. I'm mostly focused on the software right now. I tried to keep the size for small / medium devices the same. It is possible to make different screens for different resolution, but it makes it more complicant. So I tried using linear layouts and using sizes in "dip" so it doesnt matter what kind of screen you have (basicly). On my Samsung and I believe on yours it will be fine. For example the main screen I use buttons 70 hight and divider by 2 makes 5*70 + 5 *2 = 360 and then filling the width as supported. The scaling will mostly fit on all medium and small device. Only on the now playing screen the space is rare because of the cover. On the remote I tried not to overlod the screen. Most buttons 80x60 or 160x60 right now.

I will add a second remote screen for controlling channel, volume and switch the htpc off/suspend or standby.
Also we need a third remote screen to select MyMusic, MyVideo, ....

Write me a PM if you have any questions.
Thanks.

kroko