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Olorin
07-25-2011, 19:54
Hello iAudiophiles,

I have been slowly developing a music UCI over the past year, getting bored then continuing months later.
My last attempts at a flash UCI was not a very glamourous one.
I created a circular gestures based UCI for the D2 and released it both on iAudiophile and Naver. Due to the insufficient feedback from iAudiophile forum though, I continued updates only on the Naver forums.
I do believe now though, that it would be very much possible for me to receive more constructive criticism from the iAudiophile community.

I now return with a UCI for the great J3.

Gestures
Circular gestures are now on a whole new level and so are my Flash design and programming skills.
What you will be able to experience in my UCI is what I call, a Dynamic-centre circular gesture system.
Try dragging the bottom right (Volume) and bottom left (Seek/Skip) button and drawing circles. I can guarantee that you will be impressed.

Album Art Turntable
Plasma UCI also incorporates a turntable type of displaying album arts.
The turntable-format is not only pretty, but also works as one would expect it to work.
You can scrub, seek by rotation (flick/turn), tap the left/right sides to skip, etc.
Your disc will also slowly turn to arrive at the exact position at which your music is being played.

Design
It's an interesting UCI which I have designed for optimal music listening purposes.
From bottom up, Plasma was designed for ease of use, implementing the circular gesture system to allow users to control their J3s without needing to look at the screen.
Optimisations to the key attractive features such as the turntable and circular gestures have been performed so many times that I cannot remember how often I have had to plug and unplug my J3 from my laptop.
Basic and commonly expected functionalities are not forgotten as well, such as hardware buttons and the classic drag-the-seeker feature.
The design is also unobtrusive, allowing for the different elements to blend in, giving a unified interface.

Why don't you give the UCI a spin?
http://cdn.swook.net/Plasma_Old/Screenshot.jpg
Download (Right Click - Save As) (http://cdn.swook.net/Plasma_Old/music.swf)

Installation
Download the swf file and move or copy into (J3 Drive)\System\Flash UI.

Usage
Top Left (Browser): Click to access browser.
Top Right (Main Menu): Click to access Main Menu.
Bottom Left (Next Music): Click to skip to next music. Drag out and draw circles to seek.
Bottom Right (Volume): Click to mute/unmute. Drag out and draw circles to change volume.
Album Core: Click to play/pause current music.
Album Disc: Click left/right half to skip to previous/next music. Drag to seek.
Seeker bar (Red for elapsed content): Click and/or drag to seek.

Some features which have yet to be added.

Cover Flow
Scrolling Titles
Custom wallpapers
Sub-menus for settings control
Top bar for display of current state of the player


Disclaimer: This UCI is still in development at a very slow speed due to the author's day-time job. While it is perfectly fine to use the UCI for day-to-day usage, it is recommended that you install the UCI as picture.swf or radio.swf to allow the usage of a more full-featured UCI in case of frustrations. The author has no responsibility for any discomforts or displeasures although constructive (and non-aggressive) criticism is always welcome. The main purpose of this 'release' is to gain interest and motivation. Please do not criticise the incompleteness just yet.

da1writer
07-25-2011, 20:07
Welcoming new UI's, I can't help but feel this is a bit more of a off beat UI to Turntable by El Maco (w/o coverflow Artist Forced) and C2's music UI which also has a turntable style look and feel...

http://www.iaudiophile.net/forums/showpost.php?p=240951&postcount=55

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPA357YidiQ

Good first try though...

Olorin
07-25-2011, 20:15
I'm sorry, have you even tried using this UCI?

da1writer
07-25-2011, 20:19
I'm sorry, have you even tried using this UCI?

Yes... I would say what it really reminds me of but I don't mention fruit on this forum ;)! Like I mentioned, it's a good ui - tried it for a few minutes and will now await updates [in the future I guess]. It's also great to see a D2 dev on here, we don't get very many that migrate from the D2 to s9/J3/X7...

Olorin
07-25-2011, 20:25
A design is easy to imitate, but not the interactiveness and speed.
I'm sorry if I came off as being rather stiff... it's just that I put quite a bit of thought into optimisation and design without referring to anything and felt uncomfortable having my UI being compared.
Sorry :P

Also, if I may add, the gestures code was very difficult to work on!

da1writer
07-25-2011, 20:38
A design is easy to imitate, but not the interactiveness and speed.
I'm sorry if I came off as being rather stiff... it's just that I put quite a bit of thought into optimisation and design without referring to anything and felt uncomfortable having my UI being compared.
Sorry :P

Also, if I may add, the gestures code was very difficult to work on!

Well If you need any help, a few designers/devs on this forum will be happy to give you a hand if you need it. Of course some devs want to do it on their own to learn it themselves. Within time, you'll get the features that you want (mentioned in first post).

I won't post anything in the chatbox for the rest of the night, hopefully gaining your link at the top as long as possible for as many people to see [yes]! The funny thing with making a UI for J3 is that it's most likely compatible with the S9 and X7 as well - so welcome to the big leagues, you now support three devices with your UI (theoretically)

NFS-974
07-26-2011, 04:08
I like it but, where's the "previous track" button ? xD
The "browse tracks" gestures need more accuracy imo :)

Olorin
07-26-2011, 05:00
Usage
...
Album Disc: Click left/right half to skip to previous/next music. Drag to seek.
...


For now, the skipping to previous and next tracks are done by clicking on the left and right side of the CD.
Would you mind explaining what you mean by the "browse tracks" gesture and how it is inaccurate? Thanks.

holdingHand
07-26-2011, 08:44
SUPER INTERESTING UCI!!

love the gesture follow feature after touching & holding the bottom buttons!

LukesRamen
07-26-2011, 17:33
It's good to see other people developing.

Ever since Kizune put a stranglehold on the UCI front, no offense to him of course, everyone's stopped making their own.

The UCI looks good man.

Olorin
07-27-2011, 07:43
Thank you guys :)

It is slightly true that it is more daunting for one to start a UCI now that Kizune has created such beautiful and featureful UCIs.
The standards and expectations are very high indeed.
At the same time though, it is great that people like Kizune and El Maco have set such high standards since it allows others to create more polished UIs.

Oh and kudos to all of the users as well who allow for more development to happen! :)

Kizune
07-27-2011, 08:52
Thanks man. :)

I want to return the compliment as I'm happy to see when people make own, creative UCIs for the J3 (or S9, X7,...).
It was never my intention to demoralize other UCI developers (as Lukes indicated in his post). I just want to make good UCIs. Also, I don't think I was reason for the ebbing of UCI development, it's just lack of interest.
I miss the days when every week a new UCI was released for the S9, each being creative and different.

So I'm happy that there's now another workmate who makes UCIs which are different from mine.
This music UCI has something no other UCI has - circular gestures. Simple, yet creative. And to be honest, I'd have never thought of such a gesture system.

Olorin
07-27-2011, 09:43
A big thanks to you Kizune :)
The compliments really do help, especially since my UCI is rather basic atm.

And yeah, I forgot to comment on Lukes' implied message but yeah, the main reason wouldn't be Kizune's contributions but the fact that it has been a while since the S9/J3 were released.

mixa24
07-27-2011, 10:24
I wish I were a developer!!!:)

NFS-974
07-27-2011, 10:34
For now, the skipping to previous and next tracks are done by clicking on the left and right side of the CD.
Would you mind explaining what you mean by the "browse tracks" gesture and how it is inaccurate? Thanks.I was talking about the circular gesture which begins from the left-bottom button. It changes the current track but I can hardly make it change only one track at a time.

Olorin
07-27-2011, 11:09
Oh.... you mean, when you're paused!
That's actually an unintended bug which occurs because one cannot retrieve play and total times of tracks without having played it once.
This makes it think that the current pos is 0:00 as well as the length of the track and sends you along to the next or prev one.

I left it alone though to add in some effects in the future so don't worry!

NFS-974
07-27-2011, 17:14
Yeah sorry, I forgot to mention the player has to be paused.

dalezjc
07-29-2011, 20:19
Does this work with Sense already installed?

Kizune
07-29-2011, 20:22
Just replace Sense's music.swf file with Plasma's one. ;)

chickenbellyfinn
07-29-2011, 21:41
Just replace Sense's music.swf file with Plasma's one. ;)

Kizune is one of the nicest, noble, helpful person i've ever come across.

Olorin
08-01-2011, 17:17
I was hoping to be more productive with the UCI after making my original post, but alas I have become much too busy...
The only thing I have added is 'flick-to-seek' which works with the album art disc.
It's actually quite fun!
(There's also a very slight improvement with disc-scrub-seeking)

I promise I'll add more interesting features next time :)

Download link is still the same: http://swook.net/music.swf

dalezjc
09-11-2011, 07:59
Tried your UCI, but the album spin animation is very jerky.

Olorin
09-12-2011, 10:55
The spinning is jerky for high quality files such as OGG/FLAC files.
This is because seeking in general is very slow and spinning the album does many seeks a second.
In the future, I will be adding a check so that the seeking updates less frequently for non MP3 files.
In the meanwhile though... there isn't as much progress as I hoped for...

Bill726
09-15-2011, 21:06
This is actually pretty cool :)

dumdum12
09-16-2011, 04:25
Is it possible to add some customisation options?

For example the possibility to turn off the spinning disc animation during playback or the option to change the arrangement of the buttons for the main menu etc...

I don't know if somebody mentioned it before but when you start playing a new title the on screen information about the duration of the track is off the screen which looks some kind of stupid :-P


But in general I really like the UCI but personally I would prefer a more minimalistic approach concerning buttons and style.

Olorin
09-18-2011, 12:43
Thanks guys.

Customisation is planned for the future and the seeker is also going to be changed to be circular around the disk.
I constantly think about new design ideas and such but haven't had time to get around to coding them.
Sorry!

dumdum12
09-25-2011, 14:19
Concerning the customisation options I guess it would be quite neat for most people to get an option to change the background of your UCI. I dont know if its difficult to implement such an option but I for myself would be very pleased to get it...

Btw dont be sorry about anything cause your offering sth for free and "waste" your spare time for it....just my humble opinion

eswa
10-06-2011, 05:39
I'm looking for a turntable musicscreen (already tried ElMaco's), so this thread makes me curious! However, the download is not working..

dumdum12
10-06-2011, 06:53
For me is the download embedded in the first post just fine. Try it as described with a click on the right mouse button and choose "save link as..."

Olorin
10-07-2011, 06:54
@eswa: My DNS host was down for a while which is why you could not access the link.

As a brief update to the development situation, I have resumed development but not for the Plasma UCI mentioned in this post. I have started working on a UCI framework for S9/J3/X7 which will be hosted on GitHub (https://github.com/) once basic music functionalities are implemented. I hope to get a basic version out soon, after which I'll continue with this UCI.

eswa
10-11-2011, 03:58
Just to let you know, the download is indeed working now. Thanks! I like your work on this one so far! For me, I only miss a shuffle button in a possible submenu with the main functions (repeat, eq, etc.) present, as mentioned in the startpost, so I assume you'll work on that later.
Keep up the good work! Nice:-)

Streator
10-12-2011, 23:27
Hey Plasma,

I've been trying out your UCI the last couple of days. I like it. Especially the fact the text is large enough for me to easily read. Two suggestions, if I may: 1) I was unable to locate any information about what was playing other than the title info. No song 1 0f 10 or whatever or what type of song mp3 or wav and at what rate, etc. And 2) it would be nice to have a skip back button like the skip forward button you already have. I realize you can back spin, but a button would be nice.

Anyway, it is still a fun UCI and thanks for sharing!

Streator

Olorin
10-21-2011, 05:42
@Streator: Try clicking on the left/right side of the CD. I'll be adding stuff in the future but atm, I'm reluctant to work on design and would rather work on my framework. (I suck at design :P)

I have ported most of this UCI over to a new framework and have just added device detection which I'm hoping is working for the S9, i9, J3, X7 and C2.

Could some S9 and X7 users confirm whether my UCI is detecting correctly?
You will be able to see a message at the bottom of your screen once the UCI is loaded.
The updated UCI is at: http://swook.net/music.swf