Release Notes

What does it have, what does it not have and what are the next steps. Oh, and already a changelog

There will be no more “unstable” releases of iPeng. Instead, there’s now a GoogleCode project where the latest developments will be available. See Developers’ Section for details.

iPeng 0.5

This is version 0.4 of iPeng and here’s the current state of functionality:

Last modified on 2008-08-02 22:59:51 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

• Main Menu. iPeng is organized like an iPhone app and it features a Main Menu, from which you can access the library, the settings and the Player page called “Playing”. The Main Menu also let’s you select and synchronize Players.
• Toolbar. iPeng features a button bar on the lower end of any page to access shortcuts to certain browsing features and to get back to the Main Menu. This Toolbar is configurable and can take various commands and links.
• Library Browser. To select a song you can browse the library by different categories. They are grouped in “standard” browsing called “Browse Library”. Everything in here is supposed to work. And there is “Browse More”, where Browse Playlists, New Music, Search work, Random Mix works but looks bad and Favorites can access but not manage favorites. If you have an iPeng Compatible browse plugins they will show up here as well. The “Album” browse pages (the ones that do have a cover art icon) have a landscape mode that is being activated when the iPhone is turned to the side.
• Internet Radio and Music Services: iPeng has support for streaming services like ShoutCAST, Pandora or internet radio. Not all of these are tested but a lot works already.
• Browse Back and Forth. There is a “Home” button on the title bar that gets you back to the next higher level and to the page you visited there.
• Settings. Selecting the active player (on Main screen) and selecting the sort order for albums (in Browse Library) if supported. Currently no other settings work.
• Extras. The “Extras” menu shows “Alarm” and “Sleep” as well as plugins that support the iPeng API. See Developers’ Section.
• Playing. The “Player” page. It features a main view to look at the cover, access the main controls, a playlist view to access the currently active playlist and a plugin view that can be used to access additional information in the context of the current track. Looks a lot like the iPod application but behaves differently in some cases and has a lot more functionality.

What does NOT work

Last modified on 2008-08-02 23:05:48 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

• Internet Radio and Music on Demand now work but are not fully tested. Shoutcast is tested and works, entering a URL is tested and works but especially the commercial services are not tested. LastFM plugin works Pandora, Rhapsody and Slacker work. Support on testing these is highly appreciated, especially Pandora, since I cannot access that from Germany. Should you still encounter issues, please let me know.
• Managing playlists. You can manage the actual playlist through the Player page, yet loading, browsing and editing playlists works only in a really rough way. Number 2 on the prio list. Works since 0.2, but no Ajax yet, so probably a bit bumpy on editing playlists. Editing Playlists currently does NOT work outside the NowPlaying screen.
• National Language support works now. Only English and German are available to date so any translations to other languages are highly appreciated! Even though I am using this on a German version of the iTouch and SqueezeCenter, anything that required special formulation is English language only. And since SqueezeCenter is quite verbose, there’s a lot of stuff where I had to refine the wording for the little space available on the iPhone/iTouch.
• Unadapted Plugins. Technically, stuff that goes through the standard Interface for Plugins should work, yet most plugins do some assumptions on the skin behavior and don’t look good. Also, some plugins make use of Drag’n’Drop or Mouseovers, both of which are not supported by the iPhone. There’s a Developers’ Guide on how to adapt plugins to iPeng and any support is highly appreciated. See Developers’ Section.
• Landscape artwork view works now. I’ve got one, but it’s not included yet, since it does not fit into the current code structure and needs reworking. Prio 4.
• Please, don’t look into the code!! Now this got a lot better with 0.3, a lot of code is new now but still….
• Streaming to the iPod/iPhone. This is a SqueezeCenter limitation as I can see it now, yet it breaks my heart. So if anybody out there has a solution for this, these are my number 1, 2, 3 and 4 Christmas wishes! OK, Christmas in Summer. Actually streaming is still an issue (although it somewhat works with some 3rd party apps) but iPeng now also has a feature called “local playback” that allows you to play tracks on the iPhone. Cool.
• OK, didn’t get that, neither for Christmas nor for my Birthday, so: Please use any other Opportunity! Thanks, Andy 😉
  

Known Issues

Last modified on 2008-08-02 02:30:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

• Mobile Safari terminates any JavaScript after 5 seconds. If you have a slow connection or a slow server, that can influence the behavior of iPeng. This shouldn’t be an issue with 0.3 or later if you don’t have a very slow server.
• Mobile Safari collapses tables when dynamically deleting rows or inserting rows at the beginning of the table. This seems to be a bug since no other browser (including Safari on Mac and PCs) shows this behavior. But it will lead to a slightly distorted playlist view when editing playlists or loading additional playlist items before the current one. Fixed.
• Alphabet Headers in Browse Lists show redundant Categories when using special characters (“Umlaute”) and on the “Various Artists” part of the database. This is due to the structure of the returned information form the server and I currently don’t have a solution for that. It’s considered a bug by Logitech and will be fixed on V7.1 of SqueezeCenter
• .BMP encoded covers that are embedded in the ID3-tag do not show up on the iPhone since iPhone does not support .BMP! Please use PNG instead (for best performance).
• iPeng apparently sometimes has display issues for lists on iPhon/iTouch Firmware 1.0.2. There are bugs in 1.0.2 that got fixed with 1.1.1 so if you want to get around this, update your phone to a more recent firmware.
• If you have an “Artist” and “Albumartist” set in your ID3 tags depending on your sorting creteria, when sorting a list by artist (e.g. Albums) a different Artist may be used for sorting than the one displayed. This especially happens for tracks and albums that have an Albumrtist of “Various Artists”. In these cases errant alphabet headings will be shown. This is a known SqueezeCenter bug but will only be solved for SC7.1

Changelog

Changes in iPeng 0.5.3

Last modified on 2008-10-01 00:42:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

iPeng 0.5.3 is a maintenance release.

Originally it was meant to support the new Alarm feature of SC 7.2 but that functionality is not ready yet. Sorry. I need it, too 🙂

Here’s what’s new:

• 0.5.3 is zipped under Windows instead of on a Mac. Vista users were experiencing issues with Mac zip-files.
• it comes with support for the XM Radio plugin
• the Podcast plugin is now supported
• there’s a toolbar shortcut icon for Pandora

Oh, and some cool but useless stuff, too:

• 0.5.3 has the smooth main-menu transition of the failed 0.6
• plus some bling-bling on Now Playing
• the MultiPlayer control is now a bit more reduced. It doesn’t show the track title, album and artist anymore. This takes down server and client load a bit and makes the control smaller, fitting more players on a screen. Should anybody miss the text items, please let me know.

Have fun 🙂

Changes in iPeng 0.5.1

Last modified on 2008-08-02 02:30:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

(0.5.2 is 0.5.1 plus Local Playback. No other changes)

So we did it again. Weird version number. 0.5.1. Hm.

OK, here’s the story:

iPhone 2.0 just came out and it’s got a number of cool new features that will make iPeng MUCH better. So let’s get started. However, at the same time, it breaks iPeng 0.4.x, so better get started quick.

Now, it’s a lot of new stuff and there’s also quite a few bugs still in the new iPhone browser so this only has pre-release-quality, yet and not all that will be there is. So 0.5.1 to indicate a transitory version…

Here’s what it has:

• All changes so far are on “NowPlaying”. There will be a lot on all other pages, but that’s how it starts…
• First of all: No more “two finger scrolling”. Yeah! You cannot imagine how much Coolio loves this. Look at his wings and you know, why! It now works as expected: just scroll the section to scroll…
• Left/right swiping of the NowPlaying pages is now seamless, just like scrolling
• Volume Controls and Position within Track are no longer clickable, but real sliders. Just touch the knob and move it. The volume will change immediately along with it (ok, it lags a bit behind, since the signal has to go to the server, and from the server to the player but you can use it quite well). Also, an additional overlay indicating the volume level will show up (not on MultiPlayer control). For the track position that overlay will show the time to drag to in mm:ss format. And no, the position within the track will NOT change “on the fly”.
• Drag’n’Drop reordering of the current playlist. Remember the little “track exchange” line. It’s gone. Was a cool idea, but is no longer needed. Now you can just touch a track, keep your finger down and still for more than 1.5 seconds and it will elevate and let you drag it around along the playlist. COOL!

Changes in iPeng 0.4.5

Last modified on 2008-08-02 02:30:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

iPeng version number just jumped from 0.4 to 0.4.5. Coolio got a bit weird? Rotten fish, can’t count anymore?

No, 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 users with many players this control alone will justify the use of iPeng 😉 It 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).

Changes in iPeng 0.4

Last modified on 2008-08-02 23:10:24 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Version 0.4 is a major upgrade that has a lot of new features and updates.

First of all, iPeng 0.4 is not a skin but a plugin, replacing both the iPeng skin and the iPeng support plugin. Prior versions of these have to be removed before installing iPeng 0.4. Please refer to section Installation for details

• Command on the toolbars are now configurable. There is a set of default commands, plus additional commands can be defined by plugins or even the user. There are three levels of configuration:
  • select the toolbar command. Go to Settings->Plugins->iPeng->Activate Commands for this
  • define the Command order in the toolbar. Settings->Plugins->iPeng->command position
  • define your own commands. See Developers’ section for details.

• The NowPlaying screen now features an additional plugin page that can be used to access additional information in the context of the current track. This can also be extended by plugins or the user, see Developers’ section for details.
• Sub-pages on the NowPlaying screen are now switched using a “swipe” to the left or to the right
• Localization, iPeng strings now can be translated in national languages.
• RandomPlay plugin is now supported
• Changes from the experimental 0.3.x versions:
  • Landscape mode
  • Ajax’ed Browse page

Changes in iPeng 0.3

Last modified on 2008-03-31 05:50:06 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

(0.3.11 is probably the last experimental 0.3 release. It fixes some swipe issues of 0.3.10 and otherwise has a completely rewritten NowPlaying screen (although it may be hard to notice). Differences are in lots of details on NowPlaying: the plugins on the left swipe page now are automatically updated when the track changes (Songinfo does not yet work!), the current track automatically centers into view when you did not scroll that page for 20-30s, the playlist table doesn’t collapse anymore, some things should be faster than before, but loading of NowPlaying is not cache optimized, yet. Now playing should lose connection to the server less often (not show “empty playlist”) etc. etc.

Major usability change is that the button in the top right corner got removed by a dot indicator showing which page you are on. Use swipe to switch between pages. If you have very small fingers you can also click the dots directly but that feature is intended for desktop use.

Plugin API changed.)

(0.3.10 is another experimental release. It fixes some bugs when used with CustomBrowse and MusicIP. The most important new feature is a new “left and right” swipe mode to switch views on the NowPlaying screen that also brings a new overlay for Plugins. This is currently experimental and only works with AlbumReview and Biography and also needs Erland Isaksson’s iPengSupport plugin. Apart from this it has Ajaxed Browse Screens, that is, you will not see a blank screen while waiting for the next page to load. Also, loading is a little bit faster this way.)

(0.3.9 adds experimental landscape view for “Album” and “Year” view (that is: ALL of these views including e.g. the “all albums of a particular artist” view. Just turn the iPhone or iPod into landscape orientation while on the screen. Be warned: loads lots of artwork, so probably not fast.)

(0.3.8 has some minor changes regarding header rendering and adds a skin for the LastFM/Squeezescrobbler plugin. NOTE: This does NOT work with SqueezeCenter’s native Last.fm plungin, the latter does not work with the current LastFM API)

(0.3.7 is the stable release to follow 0.3.4. It has the speed improvements introduced with 0.3.5 plus various bug fixes and usability enhancements, see below. 0.3.7 comes with a customized version of the prototype library and does NOT support Internet Explorer and Opera.)

(0.3.5 has significant code refactoring that should speed up the use of iPeng since a lot of the code can be cached. Effect should be most significant for NowPlaying Screen and “Home” menu. Only other difference is that NowPlaying playlist automatically centers on currently playing track)

(0.3.4 adds Webclip icon for Firmware 1.1.3)

(0.3.3 adds “Home” button on NowPlaying screen – If you don’t like that stick with 0.3.2, it’s the only change)

(0.3.2 adds cover and elapsed time Display for Pandora and LastFM on NowPlaying)

(0.3.1 adds missing playlist.html)

Usability:

• Enhanced browsing features, especially for long lists:
  • Alphabet-Links within a page work immediately now.
  • Added quicklinks to jump to top and bottom of page to alphabet headings
• Re-Worked “Play” functionality. Did not work as expected in non-standard cases. Behavior now defined as:
  • Clicking an Album Cover will play the complete Album, if possible
  • Clicking a Song will play the Album from that song in all but Music Folder and Playlist View
  • Clicking a Song in Playlist View will play the complete playlist from that song
  • Clicking a Song in Browse Music Folder View will Play the Folder Content from that song, if the folder does NOT contain descending folders
  • In all other cases clicking a song will play only that song.
• No two-finger padding on all Main Menu pages (yet stays on NowPlaying Screen)
• Cover Display for Pandora, LastFM, probably other internet radio and music dervices (0.3.2)
• Elapsed Time Display for Pandora, LastFM and probably other internet radio. Does not work with and gives erroneous times for Shoutcast (0.3.2)
• “Home” button on NowPlaying Screen (0.3.3)
• Webclip Icon for iPhone/iPod Firmware 1.1.3
• NoPlaying Playlist now scrolls current track into view (0.3.7)
• Returning to InternetRadio browse pages now works (0.3.7)
• Significant speed enhancements due to caching optimization, especially for NowPlaying and Home screens. (0.3.7)

Added Functionality:

• Alarm Function (under “Extras”) to manage Alarms
• Sleep Function (also under “Extras”)

Changes from unstable releases since 0.2e are included:

• TrackStat support in NowPlaying Screen
• Synchronization
• “Current Playlist” control on all browse pages
• Plugin development interface
• Playlists have a “Play” instead of an “Add” button

Known Issues:

• Playlist editing does not work with recent builds of SqueezeCenter due to changes in SqueezeCenter.Playlist editing on NowPlaying screen and Playlist Saving, Browsing, Clearing and Renaming works.

Changes in iPeng 0.2.9

Last modified on 2008-08-02 02:30:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

• Added TrackStat support for NowPlaying screen
• minor fixes

Changes in iPeng 0.2.7 and 0.2.8

Last modified on 2008-08-02 02:30:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Bug fixes and enhancements

Changes in iPeng 0.2.6

Last modified on 2008-08-02 02:30:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

• added Synchronization

•  added the “Clear and Save Playlist” line to the top of every (iPeng internal) browse lists. The controls are only visible when there are items in the current playlist.

• exchanged the Add-Buttons for Play-Buttons in the Playlist view since playlists might more often be played than added to other playlists.

Changes in iPeng 0.2d

Last modified on 2008-08-02 02:30:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

This is mainly a release for plugin developers. It has very little additional functionality, but includes a re-worked API that fits the documentation in the Developers’ Section.

New features:

• Browsing Backward works now for Internet Radio and other xmlbrowse based pages
• Full titles added to clickable elements, yet doesn’t work as expected. I believe this is a MobileSafari bug.
• Clickable areas now turn blue instead of gray.

Changes in iPeng 0.2

Last modified on 2008-01-02 04:06:04 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

• Reworked Main Menu andShortcut Buttons
• Added Internet Radio and Music Services (not fully tested!)
• Added Playlist Browsing and Management
• Added Generic Plugin Support
• Added Search Functionality
• Added Alphabet Section Headings to Browse by Artist and Browse by Album Menus
• Added Jump-to-Time in PlayingNow
• Added Plugin Development Functionality (see here)
• Some Speed Improvements on Long List Browsing (especially Scrolling)
• Added Displaying of Favorites (no management yet)
• “WinterIce” color scheme

Thanks to Erland Isaksson for help and suggestions

Thanks to everybody else who contributed

OK, that was sooner than expected:

iPeng 0.1a – Dec. 4th ’07

Last modified on 2008-08-02 02:30:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

• updated manual (OK, that’s not a software change)
• Alphamap: The alphabet list to the right of the complex list is now repeated over and over again to get better access to any character
• Aplphamap 2: Chlicking on a character in the alphamap not brings you to the first item on the list starting with that character.
• Oh, and after giving me a tough night for using him for promo and not having him on iPeng Coolio sneaked in on the “Playing” button…