Installation

Install SqueezeCenter 7

Installation of iPeng is rather straightforward if you are familiar with SqueezeCenter. If you are not: Go to SlimDevices, get the latest version of SlimServer (now called SqueezeCenter) and install it. You need version 7 or later.

Installing iPeng 0.5

Installing iPeng 0.5 works like for version 0.4. However, if you upgrade from 0.4 to 0.5.x you will have to re-start the server (SquezeCenter). This is the same like for a fresh install, though.

Changes in iPeng 0.4

From version 0.4 on iPeng is a plugin and not a skin anymore. This means, you have to remove any old versions of iPeng AND of the iPeng support plugin (if you have installed that one) before installing iPeng 0.4. To install iPeng 0.4 follow the instructions below.

Instructions to install iPeng versions prior to 0.4

Install iPeng

• Download iPeng.
• Unzip iPeng and copy the folder iPeng to the folder “SqueezeCenter\server\Plugins” of your SqueezeCenter installation (Windows, see Hints for other OSs, please read this on Mac OSX if you are using a SqueezeCenter 7.1 or newer), so that you’ve got a folder “SqueezeCenter\server\Plugins\iPeng” containing all your iPeng files and subdirectories. See Hints if you need some more info.
• Restart SqueezeCenter. Again, see Hints if you need to know, how

• You will need the original SqueezeCenter skins, especially the Default skin (“EN”). These are installed with SqueezeCenter by default.
• You can access your iPeng skin by calling “<SqueezeCenterHost IP address>:9000/iPeng” in mobile Safari. And again… see Hints if you need some more info.
• If you have trouble with getting iPeng, see Troubleshooting.
• You now can bookmark this page or make a webclip. Note: If you use dynamic IP addresses this can change between reboots, so if you use bookmarks or webclips you might want to switch to a fixed IP address.
• I do not recommend setting iPeng as your default skin since it does not provide all skin functionality yet.
• If mobile Safari does not recognize the viewport setting when iPeng is called the first time, try …/iPeng/home.html instead. This should be solved, but just in case…
• iPeng is a skin for iPhone and iTouch. It only works well with mobile Safari, it works somewhat well on Safari on PC and Mac. Some features do NOT work on Mozilla Browsers, IE or Opera. Only looks good on iPhone/iTouch.
• You may want to set some server settings:
  • Do not show track numbers with song titles.
  • Set a reasonable value for the numbers of items to show at once in a list. It’s a trade off. Scrolling is fast on mobile Safari, yet loading pages with artwork thumbs is not (although it got much faster than in early iPeng releases). For extended browsing, loading a long list can be preferential, since you have to load a new page fewer times; browsing within a page is quite quick, using the Alphabet Bar. If you want to reach different pages fast, use smaller values. I started with 21 now I prefer lager values and use 75.
  • Displaying the year with an album is implemented but untested. Expect strange behavior.
  • There were others I forgot, will come back and add them in…

Now you are ready to get your fish…

Hints

Where to put iPeng

The iPeng target directory will likely be something like:

On Windows:

C:\Program Files\Squeezecenter\server\Plugins\iPeng

On OSX:

Note: since SqueezeCenter 7.1 you should use this path, the old recommendation (to install in the pref pane directory) is outdated and no longer needed; it is also no longer recommended since that directory gets wiped on SqueezeCenter updates:

~/Library/Application Support/SqueezeCenter/Plugins/iPeng

“~” is your home directory.

NOTE: IF you MOVE iPeng from one directory to the other, however you MUST make sure you

– shutdown SC

– delete ~/Library/Caches/SqueezeCenter/plugin-data.yaml

– start SC

Or you will get a non-working plugin.

On LINUX (Debian/Ubuntu/Suse):

/usr/share/squeezecenter/Plugins/iPeng

On Synology DiskStation (with SSODS):

• Unpack iPeng and move the iPeng folder into the folder “/public” on the DiskStation
• Open the DS’s “Filestation” in your browser
• move the folder “iPeng” to “SqueezeCenter/plugins“
• Access SSODS throug <server-IP>:9099 and then de-activate and re-activate SqueezeCenter (can take about one minute)
• If you run into trouble, see the notes below.

On ReadyNAS:

For ReadyNAS you will need a special plugin, available here. You will also need Raidiator 4.1.3 or greater.

1. Download above linked file
2. Open Frontview (Readynas web admin)
3. Choose System-Update-Local and select file from step 1)
4. Go to services-streaming services-uncheck Slimserver and press apply
5. Go to services-streaming services-check Slimserver and press apply
6. Regular squeezecenter/ipeng is now up and running

I don’t know about ReadyNAS, so if you’ve got further questions regarding that System, please follow up on the ReadyNAS forum at http://www.readynas.com/forum/

If you find errors in these descriptions or have updates please let me know.

If you have hints for other OSs, please provide.

Correct installation?

If you have a folder called “…iPeng\iPeng” you have put your iPeng data one level too deep.

• Rename the first folder to something else, like .\iPengWrong\iPeng
• move iPeng and all of it’s contents to iPengWrong’s parent folder so that you get

.\iPeng

.\iPengWrong

• delete iPengWrong

What is my IP address

If you don’t know your server’s IP address, here’s some hints on how to find it.

Windows:

Open a command line window e.g. by selecting “Run…” from the Start Menu and entering “cmd”.

In the command line window enter “ipconfig” (without any further parameters).

This will give you among other items an “IP-Address”, the numberbehind that is what you want (e.g. 192.168.0.2). If you get more than one IP Address, you need to use the one that connects to your WLAN router. It will probably (but not necessarily) be one of 192.168.0.* or 192.168.178.*

OSX:

Go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal and then enter

ifconfig | grep “inet ”

It will give you two lines of numbers; the second line is your IP address

How to restartSqueezeCenter

Windows

On Windows, there’s a SqueezeCenter status bar icon (on the lower right corner of the screen). There you can select “stop server” and after a while “start server”.

OSX:

Go to Settings, select the SqueezeCenter preference pane. Select “Stop Server” and when it appears “Start Server”.

Debian/Ubuntu:

Open a command line and type “/etc/init.d/squeezecenter restart”

Troubleshooting

Got trouble getting iPeng to work? Especially on upgrades?

Main source of trouble has been that the plugin doesn’t initialize correctly or prior versions don’t get deregistered correctly. So if the installation does not lead to the desired result, try the following:

• Find the file “plugin-data.yaml” (see below)
• Delete it – and ONLY this file
• Restart SqueezeCenter.

This so far has helped with all plugin installation/registration related issues.

Where do I find “plugin-data.yaml“?

Windows XP:

It’s either at

c:\Documents & Settings\All Users\Application Data\SqueezeCenter\Cache

or at

c:\Documents & Settings\<user>\Application Data\SqueezeCenter\Cache

Vista:

C:\Program Data\SqueezeCenter\Cache

OSX:

~<user>/Library/Caches/SqueezeCenter/

Debian/Ubuntu

/var/lib/squeezecenter/cache

(NOT /var/cache/squeezecenter, that should be outdated in 7.0 and newer)

Synology DiskStation

In the Cache subfolder of the Squeezecenter folder