SmallTune

Hi everyone,

it's been a while since the last post on this page - but SmallTune is still alive. I'm currently writing on it again. ;)

Nothing brand new to tell here at this point - sorry.

Hmm...

I've got three news for you, as the title already stated out:

The Good

Development of SmallTune went quite well the last weeks. I've implemented most of the necessary interfaces, and it already plays MP3-Files.

The Bad

Unfortunately, flexibility has it's prize: The size of SmallTune was doubled, it has about 400kB in size now.

The Ugly

I have to work on a commercial project now, because I can't only live from love and air. Therefore, SmallTune will be slightly delayed. You may expect the new version between March and April this year. Sorry for that, but what's first goes first.

Please, take a look at the picture above. I'm currently thinking about the GUI. It should be something unique. Something no mediaplayer has yet. I like the idea of this pretty small display. You could use hotkeys to control the app. But there must be an alternative, because some of you won't like this kind of interface. There a some possibilities:

• a) Controls will be integrated into the display. Pro: Window stays small. Con: It's not really barrier-free, because I wouldn't use standard-controls.
• b) Hide the controls on request. You can show them if you need them. Pro: Barrier-free, easy to control. Con: Window would be large.
• c) No controls on the window, only controlabel via TNA/Popup. Pro: I can keep the idea of this small display, without loosing "barrier-freeness". Con: If you don't like hotkeys, you'll need an additional click.

If you have any suggestions concerning these three ideas, please, feel free to write a comment. You can also write me a mail,

me ATT smalltune DOT net

I'm looking forward. ;)

I'm currently reworking the GUI. It get's smaller and smaller. Without loosing functionality, of course. Please, feel free to take a look:

On the left, you can see the current version. On the right, you can see the new version. First of all, I removed the SmallTune-Logo. Of course, that's a pretty hard cut, but, honestly: Do you miss it? I'don't.
Second, I removed the reflections. They were pretty nice and somehow an "Eyecatcher", but you don't really need them. With this said, I could even remove the vis, but... nope, I like it... :)

The Itemdisplay ("1234 / 4567") will only show up if you use the playlistmodule and if the module provides the necessary information (Current position and itemcount). The color will be not as bright as seen on this screeny. It will be pretty much the same like the old one.

As you can see, some of these icons are gone. The "Previous" and "Next" - Buttons will disappear also. What will come back is the folder icon, as seen on the left. If you have a playlist module installed, it will open the playlist. Otherwise, it will open a Filedialog.

The icons will be pretty much divided into categories, where modules can add there own icons. E.g., a playlist-module could add their "Previous" and "Next" - Buttons to the "control"-category, so they would appear next to the playicon. I think, this is pretty neat. ;)

I would like to give you a small update, so you can get to know what's happening behind the scene. I'm currently rewriting the whole program from scratch. The reason is simple: I switched from Delphi to Free Pascal (Lazarus). Why? Well, obviously Embacadero (or CodeGear, Borland, Inprise, whatever) doesn't care about hobbiest. There is no free version of Delphi any longer. Rumor has it, that there will be a new, free (or cheap) version this year, but I won't wait.

With Free Pascal, I'm using a quite powerful compiler. Where Delphi can only compile for native Win32, FPC supports Win32, Win64 (wuhuuu), MacOS, Linux, Windows CE ... damn, even Game Boy Advanced, Nintendo DS, Haiku aaaand iPhone.

So, yes, this compiler is quite powerful. Of course, this costs something. Size, to be precisely. An empty FPC app is about 40 kB larger than an Delphi app (17 kB compared to 55 kB). I guess, this is prize I have to pay. And I will, of course.

I closed the latest poll about the module system. It seems as if almost 98% of you really like the idea, so I'm going to implement the system in Free Pascal. Because I have to dig into the new language and IDE, the release of the new version might get a bit delayed. I'm thinking of end of february, begin of march. We will see... ;)