Prostheta Posted April 6, 2020 Share Posted April 6, 2020 I absolutely love Poweramp integration within Android Auto and Auto Mate, but I do find the general interface too finely scaled and option-heavy for safe use whilst driving. A bare minimum feature mode with larger friendlier hotspots would be a game changer. For example, whilst in the EQ/tone tab the currently playing track status strip is less than easy to stab at with a finger. We have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the centre console of our Chrysler 300C, landscape mode. Double sizing the important elements in a stripped back sort of mode would help greatly. I'm unsure whether this could be handled in the skin SDK yet. Perhaps somebody could illustrate whether this is so? I've a reasonable programming background and if this isn't a dead end from the get go, I'd be happy to start developing a skin for this purpose. If not, I'd like to put the suggestion out there. Anybody else use Poweramp in the car? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotleyG Posted April 6, 2020 Share Posted April 6, 2020 24 minutes ago, Prostheta said: I absolutely love Poweramp integration within Android Auto and Auto Mate, but I do find the general interface too finely scaled and option-heavy for safe use whilst driving. A bare minimum feature mode with larger friendlier hotspots would be a game changer. For example, whilst in the EQ/tone tab the currently playing track status strip is less than easy to stab at with a finger. We have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the centre console of our Chrysler 300C, landscape mode. Double sizing the important elements in a stripped back sort of mode would help greatly. I'm unsure whether this could be handled in the skin SDK yet. Perhaps somebody could illustrate whether this is so? I've a reasonable programming background and if this isn't a dead end from the get go, I'd be happy to start developing a skin for this purpose. If not, I'd like to put the suggestion out there. Anybody else use Poweramp in the car? @flyingdutchman has a bare bones interface skin in his free version of YAPS in the play store that should work for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 7, 2020 Author Share Posted April 7, 2020 Thanks for the input @MotleyG - I'd passed over the YAPS skins on the Play Store as the icon looked somewhat "less than swish". A bit of book cover judgement for an attention deficit world ;-) The YAPS big skin looks like a suitable starting point but has some deficiencies in the context of an auto-friendly skin, which I am still unsure as to whether are in the domain of skinning or a fundamental baked-in aspect of Poweramp. Take these examples: The currently-playing track strip at the bottom of the screen isn't adjustable in size by any skin I've seen as of yet, so I have no good conclusion on whether this can be modified as part of a v3 skin. I've found myself stabbing at this strip several times (and missing) whilst driving, which is problematic to say the least. I might be missing some other sort of UI gesture to go back to that screen of course! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 7, 2020 Author Share Posted April 7, 2020 More or less the same applies to the currently playing track control screen. Simplicity is top notch in the YAPS skin, however the lower icon strip and track number information could be far larger. I would suspect that the track info is skin controllable, whilst the vis/timer/repeat/shuffle icons may not be. I'll reach out an contact the YAPS skin dev for an opinion, and I'll feed back into this thread to bring everything into place. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewilley Posted April 7, 2020 Share Posted April 7, 2020 The sizes of almost everything are configurable in $YAPS$. However I don't think you can adjust the vertical size of the grey bar that the icons sit in, so there's a limit as to how big you can make them. You could always use the Android Auto app, although it's music interface is perhaps a bit too minimalist (as it is designed for diving use, so basically offers about five button controls) Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 7, 2020 Author Share Posted April 7, 2020 Oops, brainfart. I didn't realise that Theo ( @flyingdutchman ) was tagged in on this thread already. His input would be invaluable in this sort of venture, especially when it comes down to what we actually have available to skin within the Poweramp SDK. I think that once I get back from un-distancing myself to get winter tyres swapped over to my summer wheels, I'll open up the example Poweramp v3 skins in Android Studio and see if I can figure out what sort of learning curve and knowledge load I'd need to take this one on. I do like to task myself....hahaha Here's a very early photo of the tablet install (bezel needs opening out to full screen size with 15 degree draft angle) to give you an idea of scale in the PA default dark skin. YAPS' modifications seem to bring this more into line with usability, so let's see where we go from here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 7, 2020 Author Share Posted April 7, 2020 Just now, andrewilley said: The sizes of almost everything are configurable in $YAPS$. However I don't think you can adjust the vertical size of the grey bar that the icons sit in, so there's a limit as to how big you can make them. You could always use the Android Auto app, although it's music interface is perhaps a bit too minimalist (as it is designed for diving use, so basically offers about five button controls) Andre Thanks Andre. That's good to know. As with most things, the rabbit hole runs deep and I'm kind of needing to know whether we've got rabbits at the bottom 😉 I tried Android Auto, but was happier with the configurability of Auto Mate when it comes to power management, screen on/off and generally making it more seamless. Theo's Playlist Manager looks like something to explore as well. I've a 1TB SSD going into the USB hub next week, so this looks promising. I digress. Wheels won't change themself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdutchman Posted April 7, 2020 Share Posted April 7, 2020 @Prostheta, both miniplayer bar and navbar (inluding icons) can be resized. In fact almost everything can although i have so far not managed to enlarge the li rary category icons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 8, 2020 Author Share Posted April 8, 2020 Thanks Theo - I think that this will be a steep learning curve, however challenges aren't meant to be simple. Learning Android Studio just to skin the tablet in our car sounds a little crazy when you stack it up 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdutchman Posted April 8, 2020 Share Posted April 8, 2020 The best I can do for the main UI. If I set larger navbar icons they get clipped. These buttons, together with the 4 buttons at the top, seem to be constrained by some container. I have not (yet) found how to change these containers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewilley Posted April 8, 2020 Share Posted April 8, 2020 7 minutes ago, flyingdutchman said: These buttons, together with the 4 buttons at the top, seem to be constrained by some container Ah, sorry, I thought you said earlier that both the icons and the bar could be resized, I didn't check further though. Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdutchman Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 end result: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 Oh wow, yes. That's the sort of scaling that makes more sense in this context, and there's much more of that AA/AM vibe there as well. With Poweramp being one of the few audio player apps that plays ball with AA/AM, I'm surprised that there hasn't already been more specific development along these lines either in skins or directly within the app itself....hence the feature request/query line I came in on. I have to admit that I haven't quite advanced as far into producing a skin as I would have liked thus far. I managed to incorporate an external font and a few simple things such as that, but nothing more. I take it that with your example being very much a direct development upon your commercial YAPS skin that you'd be somewhat averse to sharing the source, even privately? It would certainly be a great springboard to take what I've learnt from the Poweramp sample skin and build something more comprehensive. Also, note to mods: I think that this thread now serves a more positive use elsewhere in the forums rather than Feature Requests 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdutchman Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 @Prostheta, happy to share if have specific issues or cannot resolve something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 You're a gentleman Theo. I think I'm going to try and take a break from this hectic being stuck at home affair for the weekend by staying at home, then pick up where I left off with staying at home next week to work on this 😄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.