PictureFlow plugin

[benji01A]

Hello,
yesterday I've RB'd my rev1 Clip, and this stuff is amazing.
Although I couldn't figure out how to start playback from the PictureFlow plugin. According to the Manual it is possible.
So i'd like to ask wether the Manual looks into the future or something is wrong on my side.
Thanks in advance.

[CrowdAds]

[skip252]

PictureFlow works on the Clip now. Well, kind of. The Clip screen only has 2 colors, blue and yellow. It does it's best to show album art but the lack of a screen that's meant to display AA is a real handicap.

That section in the manual has a couple of ?? instead of a link to any instructions on Album Art. So a couple of things may not be obvious. Rockbox doesn't work with embedded album art so you need to have a folder.jpg for each album folder. Cover.jpg works as well. The larger they are the longer it takes to build the cache so you want to keep them small.

While in the WPS long Select=>PictureFlow. That will start the plugin. Preparing the artwork can take quite a while. If you've a full player it can take a looooong time. Once it's ready the display starts and you can access the settings menu with the Home button.

I tried it a few times out of curiosity. The fuzzy little flickering pictures weren't worth the time invested IMO. It works pretty well on the Fuze. It takes every bit as long but at least when it working you can see something.

[benji01A]

Thanks for your feedback!
I can see the album covers and the corresponding tracklist when I select an album, but can't start the playback from there. My question is that if it is normal or not.
Clearly the screen wasn't made for this, but still it's funny and cool. (And I'm a controll freak I like to know that something works well even if I never use it.)

[skip252]

Once it's ready the display starts and you can access the settings menu with the Home button.

You can have playback started before you enter PictureFlow. A short press on the Home button while in the PictureFlow screen should take you to the main menu.

BTW, big ups to you for at least trying to pick it up from the manual. Once you get used to it's very literal style it gets pretty easy to deal with. With the right page up on your PC screen and the player in hand you can work through the steps and customize your set up fairly easily.

[benji01A]

Aham, something must be wrong with my installation, that's why I don't understand what you try to explain to me kindly.
I'm in the WPS, listening some music > from context menu I start PF > music STOPS(), PF starts > I browse among the albums with the Left and Right button and select one > I can see its tracklist > I can move in this list with the Play and Submenu buttons but I can't select any of the tracks, nothing happens when I press the Select button.
Pressing Home takes me to the main menu of PF and I understand from the Manual that it should look like this:
Main Menu
Go to WPS
Playback Control
Settings
Return
Quit
But in my case there is no Playback Control.
And in the Settings there is a suspicious option called WPS Integration that is missing from the Manual. There are three choices:
Via Track list
Direct
Off
Although none of them fix my problem I'm curious what they are.
Thank you for your patience.
(Oh, and the PictureFlow plugin is demo in this build, could be this the cause?)

[skip252]

I'm uncertain where those menu items come from. What build do you have installed? I have the current build and all the menus are just as described in the manual. I don't use PictureFlow much but when I have I've never seen a screen called WPS Integration.

Whenever I'm in doubt I install the current build and check to see if that straightens things out. It usually does. Try that first. If you go to the Rockbox site that's usually the first question.

Because a plugin is a Demo doesn't mean it's experimental or it's buggy. The Demos should work as well as any other plugin. If not the problem needs to be documented and a bug report filed.

[benji01A]

I had the 3.7 stable release, installed the most foolproof way, with RockBoxUtility 1.2.8., Quick Start > Complete Installation. Right now I updated to 3.7.1 with Installation > Install Rockbox. Is it the correct way to update with the Utility, isn't it?
Unfortunately the PictureFlow still doesn't work properly, so my original question is alive. Two questions, actually.

1. Does the music stop when you start PictureFlow?
2. Can you start playback from Pictureflow?

I would really appreciate if somebody tested it for me.
Thanks!

[royr719]

Hi. I install rockbox 3.7.1. with the rockbox utility on my clip+, complete installation too. It seems to me that you can't start the music playback from the demo plugin menu. Instead try this:
Go to the "now playing" windows and play any song, now just keep the center button pressed and in this menu select the PictureFlow option. That should be work. The playback doesn't stop when you start PictureFlow.
Also, I notice that I had the option "Clear playlist" in the PictureFlow Main Menu and you don't. Maybe that is the reason you can start the playback, since you don't have any song in the current playlist.

[benji01A]

Thanks royr719, good to hear that it works with your clip+.
I tried it from plugins and from WPS context menu too, the result is the same: music stops and can't start playback from PF. You colud be right about the playlist, but I can't do anything with it, my playlist is not empty when starting PF, but it's possible that it gets cleared by the PF somehow, I don't know.
I have a suspicion that it's because I have a clip v1, not a clip+.
Further tests welcome