Time for a Change

I've been rolling out new iz2jffs5 updates at a fairly rapid pace for two weeks now, so I figured maybe it was time for a change of pace.

So I checked the todo list, double checked it, and decided to finally do something about that flipclock app that's been languishing there for quite a while now.  The first thing I had to do was track down the problem with the display.  It was way too flickery to leave on all night.  I tried it once and it drove me nuts.  So I reorganized the code a bit to give the SDL software double buffering a chance to do it's thing.  Now I can leave it running without fearing for my sanity.

After spending all that quality time in the code I finally felt more confident adding some command line options to do various messaging functions in the blank space below the actual clock.

It's now got 4 lines of text using the png font file that I borrowed from slug's gmenu2x a while back.  I could've fit 5 lines, but it seemed kinda tight.  So far I've got code to put up simple static messages, strftime formatted time and date messages, and messages that can be updated on the fly by polling a file.  I'm planning to use that one someday to feed it a real live weather report.  It integrates pretty well with the iz2jffs alarm script so I included a sample implementation of that too.  Here's the usage message to give you some idea how I intend to use it.


Usage:  fc [-1|-2|-3|-4][D|f][w|d] [message|file|timeformat]

Displays a flipclock and up to 4 lines of text messages underneath.

  f = Display message from a file.  Updates whenever the file does.
  D = Display the date/time by passing timeformat through strftime().
      Line 3 defaults to a date using "%b %d, %Y  -  %l:%M %p".
  w = white text (default = grey)
  d = darker grey text.

eg:  fc -1d "Nice weather." -2D "%b %d, %Y" -3 "" -4 "Wake at 7 AM"

This should work on either IZ2S or the iz2jffs, although I haven't yet tested the alarm script in the bash shell on IZ2S.
fc-iz2jffs.zip

Source code:
fc-iz2s-src.zip

I'd still like to see if I can get it to use the gmu font files in addition to sfont files and the modified gmenu2x sfont file.  I suspect gmu uses only fixed width fonts because the fonts lack the "magic pink" spacers on the top image line.

Update:

I added a -t option for 24hr time in the main clock display, and -p for padding the upper hour digit with a zero for folks who need to see 4 digits all the time.  I also experimented with various options for the  date string to see what could be done with that.  Here I tried it with a bigger message font and this command for an ISO 8601 date with 24 Hour time.

   fc -tp -3w "%F - %R %p"

I forgot sfont files can come in colors, so I think I probably need to change the w option to b for bold and remove all mention of grey from the usage message.  I'll package up a new executable and the code real soon now, depending on how far I get with the gmu font file.  Here's what that looks like so far.  I added a -w<size> option just in case it can't figure out the font width from the png image size.

I have to say, I definitely prefer the layout of the GMU font file to the gmenu2x "sfontplus" file.  The GMU font files are quite small because they use fixed width characters.  The magic pink spacers don't seem to compress so well in the sfont files.  But what I really like about the GMU file is that it's a simple 256 character latin1 font, which works quite well with the latin15 setup of the iz2jffs.  The gmenu2x sfontplus file has the glyph order scrambled all willy-nilly.  Who came up with that?  If I ever do get back to working with the openwrt-zipit version of the gmenu2x code, the first thing I'm gonna do is re-order the glyphs in the font file.  It's unicode so I'll just put them in unicode standard order with the gaps for missing characters compressed.

Now if only I could convince gimp or mtpaint to generate a decent png font file, I'd be all set with the flipclock app.

Maybe this microfontmaker thing will do it for me?  I just gotta find me a PC that still has java on it.

Or maybe I can hack the code from that tiny sdl font previewer to save a png file.

Or use one of the many Windows texture font makers like bmfont.  Something's gotta work.

Or maybe I should just come to terms with the fact that libfreetype and libSDL_ttf actually fit on the jffs with plenty of room to spare.  I really should be using ttf fonts for everything.  In fact, the best change I could make to the jffs would be to chop the huge png font outta links and replace it with some nice ttf fonts that all the apps can use.  I really need to take another look at that plan9 ttf version of links...

Update 2:

I managed to modify the dingux gmenu2x font generator program gen_sfont_image.py to create a latin1 png font instead with gen_sfont_latin.py.  I used it to create an sfont file with the same latin1 glyph order as the gmu font file, except this one uses a proportional spaced 15 point DejaVuSansCondensed font. The file is a bit larger than I'd like so maybe the gmu font makes more sense for the jffs.  I might do some more experiments generating fonts, but more likely I'll start converting the flipclock to use a ttf font.  Heck, even the tiny imgv program uses the ttf font.

I did a quick latin test on puppy linux and it seems to work, maybe.

Here's the new flipclock release.
fc3-iz2jffs.zip

Source code:
fc3-iz2jffs-src.zip


Meanwhile, since I'm still waffling over then benefits and drawbacks of libfreetype I should probably mention stb_truetype.h over at http://nothings.org.  It replaces libfreetype with a small C header file.  You give up some quality (hinting) and performance for the tiny size but you also lose the dependency on the huge shared lib.  I probably can't use it on the zipit because I really want the hints for the smaller fonts.  But I'm gonna have to try it.  And some of the other code there too.

iz2jffs v5

Note, there's a bunch of releases here.  The most recent is down at the bottom.

It took a while, but I finally came to my senses and realized I was never gonna get around to everything on my todo list.  So I decided to patch together whatever good stuff I could find from the last 9 months and roll a new iz2jffs release.  It still looks a whole lot like like the v4 release, but there are actually quite a few changes under the hood.  Thanks to the new upx many of the executables are smaller, and quite a few have also been updated or improved in some small way.  I used up a little bit of the extra space so I could include dvtm and my sel file selector based "album" script for handy command line mp3 playing.  There's currently about 640K free on the jffs, which is plenty big enough to experiment with some more new goodies.

Here's a quick picture.  Hey look, is that 30GB free on the SD card?  Nice!  The 32GB class 10 Sandisk card I recently acquired seems to work just fine so far...

Here's my first try:
iz2jffs-e5.tgz

Heh.  That one didn't last very long.  I updated a few more programs for about 800K free:
iz2jffs-e5.1.tgz

And then I fixed the gmenu2x battery monitor, changed the input.conf file to include key bindings from slug's jffs, and made it a wee bit smaller so I now have 820K free:
iz2jffs-e5.2.tgz

And if anyone else actually tries it out, feedback can only make it better.  Based on Dronz's feedback I made yet another build with my forgotten LED fix, even more upxed executables, and a smaller (DejaVuSans) font file that I also found to be more readable.  The jffs now has over 900K free!
iz2jffs-e5.3.tgz

I replaced the useless gmenu2x touchscreen code with a semi functional wifi indicator and switched to the smaller Bepa-Roman.ttf font file for 920K free.
iz2jffs-e5.4.tgz

Uh oh.  I think I may have left out the font from that last one.  Yikes!  Hopefully I got it into this next one.  I also added an updated imgv viewer and patched the gmenu2x file explorer to let me select a directory with the spacebar and pass that to imgv.  Then I can quickly cycle through all the pictures in that directory with imgv using the n and p keys, or s for a slideshow.  And while I was working on the explorer code, I also removed the restriction that would only let you run programs with certain gp2x executable file extensions.  So now you can launch anything.  Be careful with that.
iz2jffs-e5.5.tgz

For the next build I made some overdue cosmetic changes.  I replaced the ugly SD card and Speaker icons on the bottom bar, and tweaked the wifi script so the wifi bars will show up right after you connect.  I also added slightly modified versions of Dronz's new alarm script and micro SD refresh app.  I'd still like to fix the Ctrl-c handler in the alarm app and figure out how to make it use the space-bar to quit in addition to the q key.
iz2jffs-e5.6.tgz

After testing the alarm script this overnight I decided to tinker with the display.  Now it's centered, with the current time up top where it's easy to find since that's what I want to check in the middle of the night.  I also figured out how to use the space and esc keys to quit.  Afterward I experimented with flipclock for the display.  It works, but I need to tweak it to display and possibly control the alarm setting.  Altogether it's not yet enough to warrent another release, but here's the current incarnation of the alarm script if you want to try it.

All the nice internet radio options got me wanting an easy way to change the volume without leaving gmenu2, so I finally decided to fix it up right for the zipit.  I replaced the broken volume and cpu speed settings with separate working headphone and speaker controls using the zipit volume buttons (ctrl-volume for the speaker).  I also replaced the start and select button images so the help messages almost match the zipit key bindings.  Check out the cute little zipit key in the Radio selector.  I added an AudioCheck selection that you can use to turn off the radio, or test the alarm beep volume.

iz2jffs-e5.7.tgz

I was on a bit of a roll there for a while, but all good things must come to an end.  I made a few more changes and then got distracted by the flipclock app and an SDL file manager program, so this next one may be it for a while.

I noticed the gmenu2x volume controls were starting up at -1, and all of the audio scripts contained "alsa started" tests.  So I decided to waste another second during startup and launch setup-alsa-sh from the Zcovery script.  I also added some commented out gmu and rockbox launchers in Zcovery to show how to tweak the jffs for a dedicated internet radio device that starts playing right away, or a car audio player that's easier to get going while you're behind the wheel.  I have one of each myself.

While I was in the Zcovery script I decided to pre-rotate all 4 of the consoles during startup.  This got me thinking about the mpg1234tty4 script and the way it works in gmenu2x.  The radio app launches mpg123 into a background process (on tty4) so I thought it might be better to use the gmenu2x dontleave option.  I tried it, and it came out looking much cleaner, but I noticed I could no longer change the channel.  It turned out the gmenu2x dontleave code had a bug that would add params (the new channel) to the end of the existing command line instead of starting over from scratch.  Thus mpg123 would always start up working on the first channel selected and not the new channel.  I fixed the bug and now the radio app is better than ever.

However rockbox and gmu were now more difficult to use because they use internal software volume controls and expect the main volume (or Headphone volume) to be set high.   So I edited their startup scripts to temporarily set the Headphone volume to 95% so they can maintain their own internal volume settings from session to session.  The scripts restore the gmenu2x headphone settings when the apps exit.

In addition, I made a few more cosmetic changes.  Dronz supplied the Black Gloss theme, and I read the mtpaint documentation on layers and transparency so I could clean up the button images I made earlier.  I also decided to reuse the old about icon for the new help app since it was a bit cleaner and they were quite similar otherwise.

iz2jffs-e5.8.tgz

Did I just say 5.8 would be the last one for a while?  Oops.   Apparently I was mistaken.  I was reviewing all the new help text when I suddenly remembered that gmenu2x has it's own set of help functions that might also have some utility.  So the first thing I did was pipe the mpg123 messages from the radio app through a tee and into a log file.  I hooked the log file up to the help info function on the radio app, so now I can check the recently played song list without ever leaving gmenu2x.   Since the help icon that appears on the bottom bar has an i (for info?) I added the i key to the input.conf file.  And while I was in there I also added the missing inc and dec keys so I can twiddle the color numbers in the skin settings dialog.

The next thing I tried to do was to hook up the rockbox help file to the rockbox app, but that file is html and all the tags made it nearly unreadable in the readme dialog.  So I patched gmenu2x to pass .html help files through a sed filter and strip out most of the html tags before opening up the readme dialog.  Hmm, maybe someday I'll replace the odd gmenu2x manual file support with some limited html support instead...

Anyhow, once that was working I attempted to use the full help.html file.  But that file uses latin15 character coding and gmenu2x only likes utf8, so I whipped up a simple on the fly converter and also fixed it to expand tab characters into  multiple spaces.  It's not perfect.  The html sed filter mangles the euro character (it looks ok in a .txt file).  The help text for the < and > keys also gets mangled by the html sed filter.  Plus the expanded tabs will never look quite right with a proportional space font (maybe I'll implement a pseudo fixed width font mode for the readme files).  But overall I'd say it's readable, and possibly even somewhat helpful.

I also replaced the clunky gmenu2x onscreen keyboard code with slug's patch supporting the real zipit keys, and then enhanced that with the pspmaps code for the Latin15 keymap.

I'll post the new stuff soon.  Gotta play with it a bit more and then wrap it all up.

Then maybe I'll start digging into links again.  I couldn't find the back button in text mode.  So I'd like to match up the text mode and graphics mode keys better, maybe pull in slug's zoom patch, and see if I can possibly replace the built in png font with ttf.

iz2jffs-e5.9.tgz

I made a few small changes to make sampling internet radio work better with the links browser.  Then I merged Dingux Commander into gmenu2x and decided it was enough of an enhancement to roll one more release.  You can read that story in a more recent post above.  Meanwhile, here's the goods.

iz2jffs-e5.10.tgz

Unfortunately the old manual install instructions are now obsolete, unless you can obtain the IZ2S 2.05 zip from the internet wayback machine.  However you can install this on a stock zipit the easy way with flashstock.

If you're looking to install this from a uboot zipit, or one with the openzipit kernel, check out the readme file in the flashback package for instructions.  You can find flashback in Dronz's stuff near the bottom of the goodie bag.

Update:

After some time away, I couldn't resist and made another release:

iz2jffs-e5.11.tgz

Fun and Games

Sometimes it seems like the one thing everyone wants to do on the zipit is recreate their cherished childhood memories playing various ancient video games.  I suppose I did that myself for a while when I finally got the rockblox plugin working in rockbox.  I still remember passing the entirety of a particularly long airport layover ages ago in New Oreleans, playing Breakout on the purchasing power of a single quarter.  I was actually saddened when the time finally came to board the plane because I still had 5 or 6 free game credits racked up.

While it's not exactly from my childhood, I do have some cherished memories of playing Super Mario and Link on the NES.  Link was a particular favorite because I never really finished it until the kids were old enough to try it, and they pushed me to complete the mission.  I think we still have the old NES box and a pile of cartridges tucked away in a closet somewhere...

Anyhow, the topic came up for like the millionth time on the zipit IRC channel and this time I made up my mind to try and build an NES emulator.  After reviewing the multitudinous choices, I eventually settled on the FCEU Rerecording emulator.  It's been built for the zipit before, but not yet for IZ2S or openwrt, the two zipit distros I seem to be using these days.

I got it working on IZ2S, but just like everyone before me I failed to get decent working sound out of it.  Plus the key binding configuration requires me to launch it from an ssh session so I can see the config instructions.  That's just weird.   So I thought I might try this gpfce variant of fceu.  It's got some ARM assembler optimations and a nifty SDL menu system borrowed from the picodrive emulator.

I got that working too, and the menus do look nice, but the emulation runs even slower.  Oh well.

After building both of these for IZ2S I decided to try and attempt an openwrt build.  This was more of a challenge.  I didn't feel up to wrestling with the weird openwrt Makefile and patches build system so I opted to compile it on the zipit itself.  This took longer that I'd have liked and probably wore a groove into my SD card, but eventually resulted in an fceu executable.  I launched it from ssh and configured the keys only to discover it had some sort of graphics bug, perhaps due to some quirk in the particular gcc version used by the native compiler.  Drat!  That forced me back into the openwrt Makefile that I was hoping to avoid.  

I eventually wrangled the Makefile into a working build, but it wasn't exactly easy.  The openwrt configure junk wouldn't even run until I figured out how to make it reduce the fceu folder depth by one level.  And autoconf absolutely refused to find the lua lib no matter what weird openwrt hack I threw at it, so I had to make a cheesy patch to trick the autoconf files into skipping the liblua check.

Goodies were posted to the zipit IRC channel.  I'll track them down and post them here when I get a chance.

Here's the iz2s build of fceu;
fceu-iz2s.zip

The fceu Makefile and patches are on the openwrt-zipit github now.
https://github.com/openwrt-zipit/openwrt-zipit-packages/tree/master/fceu

Here's my openwrt build of fceu:
fceu r67-1 pxa.ipk

Just in case the one from the nightly build has problems:
http://mozzwald.homelinux.net/zipit/openwrt/pxa/packages/fceu_r67-1_pxa.ipk

I also spent some more time on tinyirc.  The MirOS variant has a working SIGWINCH  handler which I've tested by resizing it in dvtm.  The executable it 1K bigger because they   added all sorts of improved random number generator code for the private messaging.  Whatever.  I do like the resize code.

I also built the recent Finch release for openwrt and compiled a notification plugin at Slug's request.  We'll have to wait and see just exactly what that does for the zipit.

Here's the libpurple ipk, the new finch ipk to go with it, and  the ultra generic command-execute.so plugin. It does a system call on whatever command string you want so you can make your own special notification.