iPhone / iTouch as HiFi remote

[ipippin]

If you are using SqueezeCenter (aka SlimServer) as a streaming server or SqueezeBox hardware you might find this useful:

www.penguinlovesmusic.com

It's a web based skin for SC7.0 dedicated to iPhone/iTouch. It let's you do about everything SC supports, like browsing music library, showing album artwork, managing playlists, access streaming media etc. Since it's web based you don't need a jailbreak.

Looks quite cool.

some images:
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=7

[ipippin]

It now also has a cool webclip icon for all 1.1.3 users out there.

[KLD712]

hi i from the uk how do i get this on my iphone

[ipippin]

You don't need to get in "on" the iPhone, it's a webapp.
You install it as a skin for SqueezeCenter, as described here:
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=12
And then you point your iPhone's browser to :9000/iPeng, e.g. 192.168.178.1:9000/iPeng

There will be a new version ot this weekend that's got quite a few new features and will install as a plugin instead of as a skin, but that's not more complicated than the old one, it's just a different directory to copy it to.

Have fun!

[ipippin]

Here it is, as said earlier, there's a new version of iPeng that brings a lot more functionality with it!

see also: http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=183

What has changed?

Configurable toolbars: There was lots of feedback of the kind: “Can’t I get a Search button, New Music button, whatever button on the toolbar?” Now iPeng let’s you configure these yourself, comes with a variety of additional buttons, allows plugins to register their own buttons plus allows you to define your own by means of a simple xml file logic. So anything that can be reached in iPeng through the CLI, JavaScript or a URL can be put on a toolbar button!

Just to give a small example: the “Player control” toolbar that would mimic the NowPlaying screen toolbar:



Toolbars can be context specific, so a plugin could offer commands, that only make sense within the context of the plugin. One example for this are the “home” screen commands (Internet Radio, Alarm, Sleep) that get you directly to the respective page on the home screen but are not available from other screens.

NowPlaying screen: Another part that has been completely reworked, is the “NowPlaying” screen. Most of this will go unnoticed, but some features are quite prominent:

The Swipe: Former versions of iPeng had a little button in the top right corner of the NowPlaying screen to switch between the cover art view and the playlist view. Now, there’s a page indicator instead that shows you where you are since it’s no longer only two pages that can be used on NowPlaying screen:



Now, theoretically you can click on each of the dots to go directly to one of those pages, and actually that’s what you will have to do when using iPeng on a PC or a Mac, on iPhone iTouch, however, there’s a more elegant way: just swpie the page to the left or the right to change back and forth like browsing through a book. A feature not seen before on iPhone webapps.

The Plugin Screen: What made this necessary, was the plugin screen. You reach it with a right swipe and it is a way to let plugins add NowPlaying specific commands and information. If it’s information, it will be shown in another (fourth) page. And the best thing is, these pages get updated depending on context, so they can be used to show track specific information.

An example, that comes with iPeng is the SongInfo Command. It shows the SongInfo details presented by the other skins upon clicking a track.

Other examples that come with iPeng 0.4 but require external plugins are Biography (shows the Bio of the artist for the current track), Album Info (same for Album Info) and MusicIP (creates a MusicIP mix based on the current track).

The Landscape Mode: Another feature tried out in the experimental versions of iPeng 0.3x that now comes with 0.4 is the landscape mode. While browsing an album view (that is: one that has cover art), just turn your iPhone to the side and it will re-load the page with big artwork in a landscape layout.

Note: This is somewhat of a gimmick, it will take much longer to load than the standard scree due to the large artwork. Also, the album view will have to be loaded to switch, so moving your iPhone while the screen still loads or while you are on another scree will not result in the desired effect.



Other Changes

Apart from this there is a load of other changes:

* The Start screen now aggregates Internet Radio and MusicServices into one Menu Item. This is something I did for Coolio who just wouldn’t learn the difference and always try to look up station in the wrong menu first
* If you use CustomBrowse it does the same to Music Library and Browse more and shows CustomBrowse on the Main Page instead.
* RandomPlay is now supported
* The Browse Pages now do not cut filenames by themselves but use iPhone’s browser feature for this, so you will no longer end up with filenames that were cut short even though there was still space left in the row.
* BrowsePages use AjaxUpdate to load the next page so you will not end up seeing an empty load page while waiting for the next page to show up but stay on the current page.
* Numerous details improvements and bug fixes.

Have fun!

[screamo]

i feel really dumb. I wanna test this out so i went to this site on my itouch and i am completely lost. Can someone post up a link to this webapp for me please??

[ipippin]

It's a webskin for the SqueezeCenter audio Server (www.slimdevices.com). You have to install SC and then you can control it with the itouch.
SqueezeCenter is open source so you can install that foc.

[modders]

ccccoooooooooooooooooollllllll

[ipippin]

Hello friends of Coolio. Here's a new update of iPeng, only one month after 0.4 that makes lots of use of the new architecture introduces with 0.4.

The version number 0.4.5 is to reflect the level of change to 0.4. While the latter was a technology update bringing the switch to the plugin distribution, the configurable toolbar and the plugin screen for NowPlaying, 0.4.5 is a feature upate. and a such it offers plenty of new functionality that justifies more than a ".0.1" version step.

So what's new?

• iPeng now has a special NowPlaying plugin called "MultiPlayer" control. It's got a quite unique feature since it allows you to control all of your players in one place. For SqueezeCenter users with many players this control alone will justify the use of iPeng ;-) If you already use iPeng and own several players, this update is a must.
• MultiPlayer shows all your players in a list and let's you directly
  • select a player by clicking the player name. The player will become active (that is, all other NowPlaying controls will act on that player) without reloading the page.
  • Change volume, skip, play/pause, power on/off
  • And, sync and un-sync players. The logic is, you select the "sync" icon to the lower right of a player that you want to ADD TO ANOTHER PLAYER (that is, it will then play the same playlist as the other player), then it will let you select other players. You will see how it works ;-) To un-sync a player from a set, just click the "un-sync" icon.
• iPeng's NowPlaying screen now has a "Favorites" icon that let's you add (or remove) the current track or stream (for internet radio or music services) to your list of Favorites
• A few other NowPlaying plugins, some of the are redundant to allow for different arrangements (for example, you can put "Favorites" and "Song Info" on the same line - saves space:
  • Player select - a dropdown that let's you select the current player
  • Lyrics support (requires Lyrics plugin)
• The "Extras" Menu now features a "(Re) Scan Library" item that let's you add tracks to your library or do a full rescan. Useful if you don't want to fire up the full web skin after adding tracks.
• Also in "Extras": Lyrics support again (Lyrics plugin required).

As usual: have fun!