It's now nearly exactly 2 years ago that I started with this project and I'm nearly ready for the first stable release. This release, however, is another beta that contains a lot of bugfixes and a small surprise. More about that later.
I think this is one of the best releases I've ever done. Especially since I was able to get rid of a couple of rather unpleasant hacks that had to do with the way playlists were handled internally. It's now much better. And it fixes the bug where boxen wouldn't find the next track if you closed a folder in the browser.
I've also scored a significant victory against my old nemesis - the redraw bug in the Metainfo display. It's much better now. Still not perfect, but I'm confident that I can fix it in the next release.
Now, for the surprise: boxen now has an Android app! You can download it directly from boxen to your phone/tablet (the app is not available in the market).
Note: You need to enable "Unknown sources" in Settings/Applications on your Android device or you won't be able to install the app. And your Android device needs to be on the same network (basically behind the same router) as your PC, since the app is using WiFi for transmitting commands. Minimum supported Android version is 2.1.
Installing the app:
- Start boxen
- Go to the wrench menu. There's a new tab called "Android app".
- Enable the server there (please note: your firewall will alert you that boxen opens a network connection if you do that. That's normal. This connection is needed for the Android app to work.)
- Scan the left barcode with Barcode Scanner from your Android device
- Press "open in browser". Your phone now downloads the app from boxen.
- Open the notifications, there you will see a notification that the download of boxenremote.apk has finished. Click on that notification. You're now installing the app.
Using the app:
- Open the app.
- Click on "Scan QR". boxen now starts the barcode scanner automatically.
- Scan the right barcode in boxen's Android app tab.
- You should now be able to control boxen remotely
There are a couple of reasons why I'm not distributing the Android app via the market but rather via this method, but mainly because it makes it easy to convert any Android device with WiFi into a boxen remote control instantly, even without Internet access. If you can install the app you can also use it. And I don't need to care about app compatibility this way, which makes development much easier.
Anyway, I hope you like it! I already have a couple of planned improvements for the Android app, and I'm looking forward to implementing them.
From the change log:
15 Aug 2011: Version 0.1-beta2
[+] Added Android app
[+] Remote access for Android app
[+] Small HTTP server for Android app
[+] Added libqrencode (used to create barcodes for the Android app)
[*] Fixed: An issue where information from ID3 tags would be empty
[*] Fixed: Reenabled VorbisComment and fixed an issue where the parser read too much data
[*] Fixed: If you closed a folder while a track in it was playing boxen wouldn't find the correct next track
[*] Fixed: One source for the Metadata display redrawing bug is fixed for good this time. However, there's another problem still present.
[*] Fixed: Clip preview would not update when playback was paused
[*] Folders in the browser now automatically update when you delete/rename/create files outside of boxen (note: this feature isn't 100% finished yet)
[*] When you play a file from the browser boxen now automatically advances to the next track only if the the file type is mp3, m4a, flac, ogg or wma
[*] Changed default theme to Matthias Neuhauser's theme (thanks again!)
[*] Stop button is now constantly enabled
[*] Fonts are now rendered using a custom render loop rather than cairo_show_text, this should make boxen's UI much more resistant against character conversion issues
[*] VU meter and spectrum analyzer are a bit less jittery now
[*] Updated disclaimer and acknowledgments
[-] Removed settings for stop button
Download: boxen download page