SD player UI development

[jkeny]

Sorry, maybe I needed to give this link? https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Just edited the first post to include this link

[randytsuch]

Sorry, maybe I needed to give this link? https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Just edited the first post to include this link

:)
Thanks John

[randytsuch]

So I edited the config file, and it connects to my wifi, and I can find the card and write files to it, so that's all good.

Only issue I have is that I don't see the new file unless I power cycle the SD Player?

Randy

[jkeny]

So I edited the config file, and it connects to my wifi, and I can find the card and write files to it, so that's all good.

Only issue I have is that I don't see the new file unless I power cycle the SD Player?

Randy

Is the top left button a power cycle or reset - same thing, I guess?

Yea, that's something Nige & I encountered - it looks like the ARM uC reads the SD card at startup & builds its list of folders/tracks

That's why I suggested that maybe we should use the SD card as a buffer - the SD card only has one folder - the playlist folder - that files are added to via Wifi from the control program (select tracks to add to playlist which is transmitted via WiFi to SD card) on computer or phone & the SD player just goes around a cycle of - play the first file in the folder & when finished, delete it & do a reset - that way the newly added files will be seen by the SD player & the old ones dropped off

So a Lua script might be able to do this in combination with an ESP - just need to figure out how to sense track is finished playing so we can do the reset & start playing the top file

[jkeny]

So, I reckon with the above use case i.e using the SD card as just our playlist folder - we need the following:
- music library software that we can modify which shows our music collection (on NAS) graphically on computer or phone
- modify the software to transmit via WiFi to SD card, the files that are selected for playing/queuing - this is the control program
- Transmit via Wifi button presses Play/Pause/stop/next to SD player for ESP to action
- If the control program also plays the same audio file in synch with the SD card player, we have visual track progress feedback & when track ends we can send a delete file & reset command to the SD player.Careful synching between the control program & SD player is needed to ensure we do a delete & reset at the right time - not too soon or we chop off SD player track playback. This synching may be the trickiest part but we'll only know this by going further into this

I initially thought AmplitudeJS would do the job but it was just a playlist player, not music library management software

Now I favour Volumio as it seems to be modifiable, available for phone/compute, works with LAN music library

What do people think?

[randytsuch]

I tried again later, adding songs, and this time they showed up in the directory after I copied them over

I also tried the "reset" button, top left, and it worked, pushing it reset the SDP.

I looked for a reset button on the remote, pushed all the buttons and could not find one that would reset the SDP.

If you push the power button, it blanks the screen, and then push it again, and looks like the SDP was reset, so pushing power twice appears to act as a reset.

In regard to Volumio, I think of that as a Pi based program. I think it needs to be running on a linux platform, but never looked at running it on other platforms. I've played a bit with it on a Pi, and it has a nice UI and has a lot of features, so if we can make it work it would be a good platform to start with.

Randy

[jkeny]

I tried again later, adding songs, and this time they showed up in the directory after I copied them over

Oh, I haven't seen that happen - thought the ARM uC only read the SD card on power up or reset? Although thinking about it now, it probably only reads the folder contents once folder is navigated to? Did you transmit file to root or sub-folder?

Must get Nige to check - unfortunately my SD player is dead - I disconnected the screen to see what current draw it was taking & see if we could play this headless/blind. It didn't seem to like this - I just get a red LED now even when I reconnected the screen - following in Nige's footsteps - lots of devices need to be sacrificed to find the best configuration - the sacrifices we make :)

Anyway, I have some of these SD players coming from Taobao so should be OK - I doubt I'll burn through them

I also tried the "reset" button, top left, and it worked, pushing it reset the SDP.

I looked for a reset button on the remote, pushed all the buttons and could not find one that would reset the SDP.

If you push the power button, it blanks the screen, and then push it again, and looks like the SDP was reset, so pushing power twice appears to act as a reset.

OK, a reset is just a restart then (power off & immediate power on)

In regard to Volumio, I think of that as a Pi based program. I think it needs to be running on a linux platform, but never looked at running it on other platforms. I've played a bit with it on a Pi, and it has a nice UI and has a lot of features, so if we can make it work it would be a good platform to start with.

Randy

It looks like Volumio is an minimal OS that can be used on PC, Pi, Odroid & can be controlled by phone (android & Ios)?
https://volumio.org/get-started/

If you have a look in the "Music Library Software" file on my Flashair google folder, I have randomly put in bookmarks to open source music library/playback software that might be used but Volumio is now my top pick

[randytsuch]

Cool, I didn't realize there were other versions of Volumio for different platforms.

And Volumio is designed to be controlled from a phone/tablet/browser. I think there are phone apps available.
Took a quick look, saw there were instructions for setting up a build environment, so looks like making changes to it is doable.

I was looking at this page, to delete files
https://www.flashair-developers.com/en/ ... gi/#DELETE

I will play with that command, and see if I can delete the files I loaded onto my flashair card.

BTW, I was just writing files to the root directory. Have no idea why the files showed up after I wrote them the second time I tried it

Randy

[jkeny]

Cool, I didn't realize there were other versions of Volumio for different platforms.

And Volumio is designed to be controlled from a phone/tablet/browser. I think there are phone apps available.
Took a quick look, saw there were instructions for setting up a build environment, so looks like making changes to it is doable.

Yep, but I don't know if we have to fork our changes back into github - I haven't used github before or dealt with open source software?

But Volumio looks like a good interface & it seems to have all we are looking for - access to local music library or on NAS or LAN, remote control from phone/tablet/browser. All we need to do is modify it to send files & send button controls

I was looking at this page, to delete files
https://www.flashair-developers.com/en/ ... gi/#DELETE

I will play with that command, and see if I can delete the files I loaded onto my flashair card.

Yea, I have used it & it works, AFAIR. So it's looking like we can control everything from the control program (Volumio?) which sends files to SD card & issues commands play/delete/pause/stop/... The SD player is just a dumb device following commands.
The only issue I see at the moment is ensuring the correct synching between what's happening in the control program & what's happening on the SD player - for instance when we send a file to the SD card it will take a certain amount of time to fully write to SD & then we can start playing the file - we want Volumio to also start at this time so they are synched because Volumio is going to issue a delete file command to the SD card when it has finished it's local playback & we don't want that to happen while the SD player is still playing the file.

I wonder what happens in this situation - I never tried it i.e. sending a delete file while the SD player is playing the file - I presume we can query the success/failure return code?

BTW, I was just writing files to the root directory. Have no idea why the files showed up after I wrote them the second time I tried it

Randy

Oh, that's weird - I don't think I had that experience, nor Nige - the transmitted files remained invisible to the SD player until a reset, AFAIR

[jkeny]

Cool, I didn't realize there were other versions of Volumio for different platforms.

And Volumio is designed to be controlled from a phone/tablet/browser. I think there are phone apps available.
Took a quick look, saw there were instructions for setting up a build environment, so looks like making changes to it is doable.

Yep, but I don't know if we have to fork our changes back into github - I haven't used github before or dealt with open source software?

But Volumio looks like a good interface & it seems to have all we are looking for - access to local music library or on NAS or LAN, remote control from phone/tablet/browser. All we need to do is modify it to send files & send button controls

I was looking at this page, to delete files
https://www.flashair-developers.com/en/ ... gi/#DELETE

I will play with that command, and see if I can delete the files I loaded onto my flashair card.

Yea, I have used it & it works, AFAIR. So it's looking like we can control everything from the control program (Volumio?) which sends files to SD card & issues commands play/delete/pause/stop/... The SD player is just a dumb device following commands.
The only issue I see at the moment is ensuring the correct synching between what's happening in the control program & what's happening on the SD player - for instance when we send a file to the SD card it will take a certain amount of time to fully write to SD & then we can start playing the file - we want Volumio to also start at this time so they are synched because Volumio is going to issue a delete file command to the SD card when it has finished it's local playback & we don't want that to happen while the SD player is still playing the file.

I wonder what happens in this situation - I never tried it i.e. sending a delete file command while the SD player is playing the file - I presume we can query the success/failure return code?

BTW, I was just writing files to the root directory. Have no idea why the files showed up after I wrote them the second time I tried it

Randy

Oh, that's weird - I don't think I had that experience, nor Nige - the transmitted files remained invisible to the SD player until a reset, AFAIR