empegVNC-0.6 has been released. v0.5 was a pointless internal-only release.

The new feature in this version is the display of the fascia along with the screen and the ability to press the buttons on the fascia. No way to turn the knob via the mouse yet. If you have a good idea for a mouse UI for that function, let me know.

Note that this version's binary is much larger due to the embedded bitmap of the fascia. The RSS seems to be a little larger, but not extraordinarily so. I'll see what I can do in future releases to reduce the size.

Bitt,

The best way to do a rotary control is for a left click and drag to send the knob left code and a right click and drag to send a right knob left code, the more you drag it, the more codes it sends. Anything else is overkill (like those knob controls that make you actually move the mouse in a circular direction.. those bite.)

I would have it left-click drag left goes left, and left-click drag right down goes right..

D'oh that's what I meant. I didn't mean left and right mouse buttons, I meant left and right as in direction...

I admit, I had a couple beers tonight...

Thinking about it, I would have left click do the button press, and right click-drag do the rotation.. or swap em depending on if you think rotation is the major function, and pressing is the alternate function..

I'm a KISS person myself, how about a button for clockwise and one for counterclockwise?

-Zeke

Ahh, but then we wouldn't have the pristine image of an unadulterated empeg fascia! What do you mean your eyes can register more than 256 colors?

Buttons don't work for me running the java client from within Netscape Communicator (Linux).

And my native Linux client fails to connect:

[/home/root] vncviewer empeg

VNC server supports protocol version 3.3 (viewer 3.3)

No authentication needed

Desktop name "empegVNC"

Connected to VNC server, using protocol version 3.3

VNC server default format:

  8 bits per pixel.

  True colour: max red 7 green 7 blue 3, shift red 0 green 3 blue 6

Using default colormap which is TrueColor.  Pixel format:

  16 bits per pixel.

  Least significant byte first in each pixel.

  True colour: max red 31 green 63 blue 31, shift red 11 green 5 blue 0

Using shared memory PutImage

vncviewer: read: Connection reset by peer

ShmCleanup called

-ml

...but buttons in the java client *do* work when running it within konqueror.. so it's just some oddity. I have used the VNC java client to access other VNC servers just fine from Communicator, though.

Hand your Linux client the -bgr233 switch and see if it works. Not sure about the Netscape thing. I'll take a look the next chance I get my hands on a Linux Netscape. What version are you running? Oh, and does the Java Console say anything useful? (I didn't write the Java client at all. I just got the Java client source from the VNC folks and hacked in defaulting to BGR233 and hacked out the password screen.)

Oh -- I should point out that while the fascia bitmap increases the size of the binary and the RSS, it shouldn't have a significant impact on network usage. The fascia is only sent occasionally, perhaps even only once, depending on your client. The vast majority of screen updates are updates only to the screen, not the fascia.

>Hand your Linux client the -bgr233 switch and see if it works.

[/home/root] vncviewer -bgr233 empeg

VNC server supports protocol version 3.3 (viewer 3.3)

No authentication needed

Desktop name "empegVNC"

Connected to VNC server, using protocol version 3.3

VNC server default format:

  8 bits per pixel.

  True colour: max red 7 green 7 blue 3, shift red 0 green 3 blue 6

Using default colormap and translating from BGR233.  Pixel format:

  8 bits per pixel.

  True colour: max red 7 green 7 blue 3, shift red 0 green 3 blue 6

Got 256 exact BGR233 colours out of 256

Using shared memory PutImage

vncviewer: read: Connection reset by peer

ShmCleanup called

Ouch. I'll take a look into it.

I like the display of the Fascia.

It is better like that.

Please excuse my "greenhornness" but I seem to be doing something wrong!

empeg:/empeg/bin# cd ..
empeg:/empeg# cd ..
empeg:/# ls
bin drive0 empeg etc lost+found proc swapfile usr
dev drive1 empegVNC-0.6 lib mnt sbin tmp var
empeg:/# chmod -v 755 empegVNC-0.6
mode of empegVNC-0.6 changed to 0755 (rwxr-xr-x)
empeg:/# empegVNC
bash: empegVNC: command not found
empeg:/# empegVNC-0.6
bash: empegVNC-0.6: command not found
empeg:/#

What should I be doing to cause empegVNC to execute? I have VNC running fine between my Mac and a PC.

Thanks,

Lynn

Greetings!

If the file is not in your path, you might need to run it with the directory (i.e., dot slash), so it knows where you are looking for it:

empeg:/# ./empegVNC-0.6

Thanks, that did it. I thought I was already in then correct directory but I guess not.

Lynn

Greetings!

You were in the correct directory. Unix, unlike windows / dos, does not have the current directory in the PATH list by default. So you just needed to specify which directory the file was in.

Thanks! So the next question is, how to make EmpegVNC launch at start-up when the Empeg is on AC power only. Or, do you have to run it from the shell prompt each time?

Lynn

You can replace stock init file (a program that starts all other programs, more or less) with a shell script which would first start VNC server, and then original init. AC/DC info is in one of files in /proc. The trouble is that one of init's jobs is to mount /proc (and music partitions). However, people were doing such things before (performing necessary mounts etc themselfes). Search the board a bit for custom init scripts (or wait untill somebody more knowledgeable chirps in here )

Great work! VNC works very well for me. Although I have not real *need* for it, it's sure fun to play with.

Suggestion: The color scale on the empeg is not 0%, 33%, 67%, 100% which is what it looks like through VNC. This causes the anti-aliasing to look a little off, but it's only a cosmetic issue. I noticed that Tony's logo editor has close matching brightness values, maybe he can tell us what they are?

Unfortunately, the color index that VNC uses when in 8-bit mode is not well balanced. Those were the only two colors that were grey. Any others wandered very far off into being colored. That being said, I intend to implement a way to get it to show your colored faceplates (definitely blue, red, green, and amber in addition to white -- and maybe some others, just for fun, too) sometime in the near future. Those might come close to the original values, except for blue.

Hi.

Why should blue be an exception?

cu,
sven

The encoding scheme used uses 1 8-bit byte. That byte uses 3 bits for red and 3 bits for green, but only 2 bits for blue (it's referred to int the VNC/RFB spec as BGR233). That gives seven discrete values for red and green, but only four for blue. There is some vestigial support for colormaps, but I'm pretty sure it's never been completed. I could use 24-bit colors, but that seems like a lot of overkill(including network bandwidth) for a 2-bit display (no pun intended).

If you care, the levels are:

255 219 182 146 109 73 36 0

255 222 181 148 107 74 33 0

255 173 82 0

for green, red, and blue, respectively, on a 0-255 scale. At least that's how I read it from WinVNC client->Win screenshot->clipboard->paste->Photoshop. Seems to match up on other clients that way, too. I don't really understand the discrepancy between red and green, but there you go.

Just wanted to tell you that you got a nice program going on. Much nicer then the html version I drew up. I noticed you had "Images stolen from Drakino's empeg status page", I actually drew up those images for the html version, no big deal though. hehe

Keep up the good work,
-Greg

I'll modify it. I tried to follow the chain back, but I gave up because I'm lazy.

Edit: Modified. Would you like me to point the credit somewhere?

Hey thank, you didn't need to do that. Its no big deal or anything. I have a site up but I don't plan on putting a page up for a while. http://www.empeg.tk

-Greg

Like I have something better to do.

Heh, same here. I do have a job, but I get maybe a call a month to do some work ; (

-Greg

This was actually easy. Sorry for the delay. Run ``vncviewer -bgr233 -encodings raw''.

Yup, that works fine, thanks.

Can you incorporate that into the client/server VNC negotiations?

Any progress on using /proc/empeg_screen.raw as the display source?

Cheers

I can't, unfortunately. The Unix VNC client tries to be overly fancy when doing the negotiations. It notices that you're running a truecolor visual, and, therefore, tells the server that it knows about the truecolor visuals it knows about, leaving out the BGR233 visual. Same sort of thing happens for the encoding, except it leaves out raw encoding when it sees that you're not connecting to localhost. There is no real reason for either of these to happen, since the server tells the client that it wants to use BGR233, and the client can specify encoding preferences. I'll see what I can do, though. (Actually, I reread the spec just now, and I feel certain I can solve the raw encoding problem. Not so sure about the color issue.)

This is actually the first time I've had to play with it in a while. Wife's been a little overly clingy lately.... I might get to something tonight.

>Wife's been a little overly clingy lately....
>I might get to something tonight.

Yeah, but when do you think you might get back to EmpegVNC ?