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Updated Feb 20, 2008 by codertimt
Labels: Featured
ommpcHelp  
Help File for ommpc.

Introduction

I'm hoping ommpc will be fairly straightforward to use, but it's always helpful to have a resource to look at to answer and questions... Plus there are a few caveats and issues that should be addressed. So let's begin.

Details

General

Music Player Daemon is a playlist based player with it's own internal database for file information. Thus ommpc inherits these attributes. Most of your interaction takes place in the playlist mode. Thus that is where the player control is most functional. The other modes are basically all helpers to get what you want in your playlist. So let's examine these areas in the order you would be likely to access them from first installing the program.

Getting Started

The archive file for ommpc contains a directory structure that needs to remain intact for proper functionality. It expects the "ommpc2x" directory to be placed int the root directory of the memory card(/mnt/sd). If you place the directory elsewhere, you will need to edit applicable lines in the config file and any supporting scripts(ommpc2x.gpe itself is actually a script, and the path will need to be edited there first). Assuming you do choose the default location, you'll need to undertake the following step to get started.

  1. Change the music_directory and playlist_directory lines in mpd.conf to point to where you're music and playlists are located
  2. Change the albumArtRoot line in ommc.conf to that same music directory if you plan to use album art
  3. Start up ommpc2x. You will presented with a very blank slate.
  4. Press the start button to access the Main Menu, choose Update Mpd Database. Get prepared to wait, it could take quite a while. Up the CPU speed to quicken the process.
  5. You're now ready to start using ommpc.

A quick word on Album Art. I look in the directory the song is in for "AlbumArt.jpg", "AlbumArtSmall.jpg", "Folder.jpg", and then any other jpg. Then I use the default. Any other suggestions for filenames to look for? Currently I am only looking for a lower case jpg extension.

Browser Mode

The file browser currently shows a listing of your music as it appears in the directory structure of your disk. In the future it will be expanded to sort by Artist/Ablum/etc in case your music isn't nicely organized. 'B' will go into a directory(or up if the directory is "..") and 'B' also inserts a selected song in the playlist at the currently playing location and starts playing that selected song. Holding 'B' for a second will pause the currently playing song. 'X' will back up one directory, just was in the gp2x menu. Holding 'X' will stop the currently playing song. 'A' appends the selected song to the end of the current playlist.

Playlist Browser Mode

The Playlist Browser works similarly to the file browser, with the exception that the playlist structure is flat(there are no directories). This is required by the mpd implementation. 'B' loads a playlist, while holding 'B' once again pauses. You simply have to push 'X' here to stop the current song as there is no need for "back" functionality. 'A' appends the currently selected playlist to the active one, and holding 'A' will delete the currently selected playlist. There are a couple of special items here also. "New Playlist" will basically clear the active playlist so you can start fresh. "Random Playlist" fills the active playlist with 65 random songs. Saving t

Bookmark Browser Mode

The browser for bookmarks controls very much like that for playlists. You have an option to Save a Bookmark, which will bookmark the current position of the currently playing file. 'B' loads a saved bookmark and of course carries out the save. Holding 'B' still pauses. 'X' stops and holding 'A' deletes the current bookmark.

Playlist Mode

Finally, we come to the playlist. Nothing really out of the ordinary here. 'B' plays the current song and pauses if still on the current song. Holding 'B' will pause no matter what song is selected. 'X' stops. Holding 'A' deletes the song from the playlist. Pressing 'Y' once initiates a move and once you select a new position, pressing 'Y' again finishes the move. The 'R' trigger is next and holding it will fast forward. The 'L' trigger is previous and rewind. It will start out empty; I recommend going to the playlist browser and creating a random playlist to begin with. Then you should be able to start listening to your music.

Global Options

You can access the Main Menu from any screen by pressing the 'Start' button. Holding the 'Start' button for 4-5 seconds will blank the screen and also restore it. The 'Select' button toggles the different modes. Holding the 'Select' button, toggles views within the mode, if any.

Now, returning to the Main Menu. From within that menu you can choose a few different options with the 'B' button. 'X' will close the menu.

One submenu you can get to is the options menu. From there you can similarly navigate to an item. One on a selected option use the joystick left and right to change/toggle options. You can set the cpu from 65-280 Mhz. That's too low to be useful and too high to be needed. Most music seems to play fine at 100Mhz. Most of my ogg files(quality 5 or 6?) are good down to 90Mhz, my 192kbps mp3s down to 95. The only caveat is slow buffering. This isn't a problem listening to a playlist, but if you select and hit next/prev alot, it can get bothersome. Speed it up it it bothers you. If you plan to turn off the screen while playing, you can manage down to 70-75Mhz. You can also choose whether to display Album art or not, the skin to use, and if you want to use the Software volume feature(good for F200 headphone users). Any of these options require a restart to see the change.

Launching Programs

Now a few words about launching programs and detaching the client. It does not work at all perfectly The main problem occurs when the launched program changes the cpu clock while mpd is currently playing. The play speed gets messed up and volume spikes. I manged to fix the the play speed issue in the mpd code, but the volume will still spike. Terminal problems also occur when another program attempts to access the sound device. So the best way to use this is if the launched program has command line options not to change the current clock speed or output sound. Then a simple script can be used and will work probably 90% of the time. However, since most games/programs at the very least put the cpu clock where they want it, a workaround had to be created. So I wrote a program called watchdog to check for volume spikes and reset the volume when they happen. So you will still get a small spike, but it should get corrected by watchdog. Occasionally the changing clock speed or sound device will cause mpd to hang and you won't be able to restart ommpc until restarting the gp2x.

Now the final bit of subterfuge in the launch programs scripting it getting back to ommpc2x when we're done. We can't use a static autorun.gpu like a third party launcher, because, well, we do want to exit sometime. So I've put some scripting in place that will put an autorun file in place to get us back and then remove it once we've returned back to ommpc2x. It will of course back up your current autorun script and put it back in place if you are using one. It's kludgy, but it works for the most part. The only issue being if the gp2x dies while you're running a program launched from ommc2x. If that happens your autorun files will be out of sync an you'll have to fix them manually. Alternatively here is a script under Launch Programs called forceMenuExit that should fix it. If all of this seesm terribly unappealing to you, simply don't use the Launch Program feature.

Other Issues

The only other issues that I can't quite figure out are that occasionally while interacting with ommpc2x the sound will become "crackly" or volume becomes muted. A quick pause/play and/or changing the volume usually rectifies the situation. I've never had it happen just playing through the playlist, only when I've started a song manually with select/next/prev or during fast forward/rewind.



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