Database Develop

WP7/Zune music player running on Nook Color

Followed the instructions from this link and I was able to download and install a Zune/WP7 style music player on my nook color. It's awesome!
Made my day!
http://www.stuff-review.com/2011-05/zune-and-windows-phone-7-styled-music-player-for-android/
[30 May 2011] Alpha 4 now out with widget and custom add to playlist!

Awesome thanks!

Will check this out.
Sent from my Incredible with the XDA Premium App.

NICE! Thank you much.

It'd be nice if it had an actual name and icon.

Like the article says...
I Am Marino said:
It'd be nice if it had an actual name and icon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"We did run into an occasional bug and forced closures but otherwise it’s quite functional, despite its alpha status".
A name and icon are in the works. Give it some time.
The app worked great...just looking forward to it's further development.
Ron

Yes I saw that, I was just stating.

sibyy said:
Followed the instructions from this link and I was able to download and install a Zune/WP7 style music player on my nook color. It's awesome!
Made my day!
http://www.stuff-review.com/2011-05/zune-and-windows-phone-7-styled-music-player-for-android/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's the file I downloaded after following all the links. I guess its ok to post it.

If you're on Twitter, it's probably worth following the guy for updates. I did.

Same here, following dev on twitter.
As indicated above next alpha should include an icon.

probably not the right place, but I'll post my short blurb anyway.
like:
- clean uncluttered, only necessary information and buttons.
- fast, flipping between pages are nice.
- the typography
- how artist, album, etc is organized using alphabetical/large font is refreshing.
dislike (mostly related to smartphone to tablet screen scaling)
- I know this is for smartphone player, but when in "play mode" screen, the progress bar is only the size of small album cover. It's too small for practical use. Everything clumped together at bottom screen leaving huge empty space up top. (looks like something is wrong when there is no background image.) Maybe load a "default blank" image when there is no album image?
- bigger play/pause/next screen buttons? button size is too small for comfortable clicking for tablet. I think it's also mis-aligned. or at least the placement of buttons is spread out of context, not below the album cover in tablet screen. (maybe slice the screen into 4 quadrants, and fit all album/players controllers on bottom left corners)
- (setting is still blank. yeah I know work in progress)
- when inside "play screen", once getting out to browsing screen while playing, it's not possible to quickly get back to play screen without retracing path from song title. Also How about if I double/triple tap on the big image in play screen, It will bring me back to main browsing screen. How about scroll side to side? (play screen -- side swipe - browsing screen.)
- back button only bring me to previous screen. (so if I jump out of player, and back into play screen, if I hit back button, it will throw me out to external screen. and I have no way to get back to main browsing screen without relaunching the player.)
wish list ( I post one anyway.):
- button and font color option?
- in tablet, the super low rest/huge background image looks really blotchy for a lot of images. (for human face, it looks like somebody has bad skin disease or something. just ugly.) Can we have option, not downloading external images? force use internal default images.
- less aggressive use of wireless.
- equalizer
- widget
- playlist creation (I think it's still being build)
- a way to alter mp3 file label. (hey, not my music comes from stores. and a lot of my record label promo material has wrong labels. )
- I really liking this as a universal media file manager. How about video, ebook, "social" (as in libre.fm, last.fm, or whatever other social music), simple mp3 blog RSS.

Agreed with you bigbird.
Functionally my biggest issue is going back, especially when you are on a playlist you have to exit to get back.
An on screen back button + a way to get back to main screen quickly I think would be best.
Playlist creator
Scaling stuff could take longer to materialize but yes:
+ Bigger progress bar for Jumping/skipping song on + Bigger buttons
Why don't you send your recommendation to the developer via twitter?

I wish it did what Doubletwist does. If it's at the lockscreen, it shows the primary buttons and makes it click to unlock.

Alpha 3 just out and some of the issues above have already been dealt with. Back button from now playing screen, icon for the app, etc.
Download and what's new here: http://bit.ly/k0ZuU9
Instructions to install and screenshots here: http://www.stuff-review.com/2011-05/zune-and-windows-phone-7-styled-music-player-for-android/
Enjoy!!!

Good to see this is being worked on constantly.

how about the sound quality? Is it better than original music player?

Alexsandra said:
how about the sound quality? Is it better than original music player?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could be wrong but:
1. On the software side audio quality would depend primarily on the encoding quality, i.e. compression type, bps or lossless.
2. Then it would depend on your hardware, mainly the DAC chip inside your device.
3. Your earphones
I would guess on hardware (2) that the Zune since it's a dedicated MP would have a better DAC and audio line path. On the other two it should be the same.

Is anyone else getting audio dropouts on CM7 (beta nightly)
Love everything about this app, but seem to have some audio dropouts and pauses during playback.. Using the beta CM7 build with Dalingrinators OC.
PS. im using DSP to boost volume via eq settings.

norkoastal said:
Love everything about this app, but seem to have some audio dropouts and pauses during playback.. Using the beta CM7 build with Dalingrinators OC.
PS. im using DSP to boost volume via eq settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've noticed a couple of tiny pauses at the start of tracks but nothing too distracting. I'm loving the app though (the Zune interface is simply one of the best I've come across) and it complements Launcher 7 perfectly.
Sent from my NookColor using XDA Premium App

I know many of you out there have been waiting for a widget for this, myself included.
The developer has just posted this as a preview for the upcoming next release.

Firefox extension to create ePub from webpages

Background (skip if you just want the link):
I really like reading with my Nook Color (CM7) but I usually read at night and even with Cyanogen's red Night Mode, browsing the web to read is still way too bright. (looking at bright stuff while trying to set yourself up to go to sleep is a recipe for bad sleep quality). I tried looking for a browser that has a real night mode (aka invert colors so webpages default to dark background, white/gray text), but as far as I can tell, none exist. I installed a fork of Stylish/Greasemonkey ("Scriptish) that is compatible with Firefox Mobile, and tried to use some of the "dark" themes/scripts. But that wasn't really much better because every time I click a link to a new page, I get a huge bright white flash of light that lasts until Firefox Mobile has completely finished rendering the page (10 seconds+). I can read eBooks fine in the dark because FBReader has a good functional night mode and you can custom set the background and text colors.
Anyway, TLDR I just found a solution that's almost as good and perhaps even more useful in certain use cases. It's a Firefox extension/add-on called GrabMyBooks: grabmybooks.com
You can have GMB grab full webpages, links that you've right-clicked on, or selected text. You can do multiple pages at a time and each one will show up as an article (chapter). It'll stick these in a file, let you give it a title, a cover, etc, and then you can download an ePub with each page as a chapter. You can also do some basic editing within the browser/GMB, or save the ePub to your computer and edit in Sigil.
The best part is that for power users who regularly want to download articles from certain sites, you can create "Detection Rules" to automatically retrieve the content enclosed between two HTML tags that have a particular ID or class.
I'm planning to use this as an alternative/complement to ReadItLater (which I love, but it doesn't work with most sites that require logins)

I use Screen Filter to adjust the brightness.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.haxor&hl=en
I set my NC at 0% in android settings, then I apply a screen filter at 40% of that.

colorado_al said:
I use Screen Filter to adjust the brightness.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.haxor&hl=en
I set my NC at 0% in android settings, then I apply a screen filter at 40% of that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that too but it's not good enough, it's still a white background even if it is dimmed.

colorado_al said:
I use Screen Filter to adjust the brightness.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.haxor&hl=en
I set my NC at 0% in android settings, then I apply a screen filter at 40% of that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I hadn't heard of this
Sent from my NookColor using xda premium

Documents to go font too small on qhd screen

Because of the note's qhd screen, text in MS Word documents are difficult to read with Documents to go (even at largest zoom - 200%). Are there any tweaks that people have found that work to increase the zoom? I have played around with xposed app settings and it did not make any difference. I know that there are other document apps out there, but i prefer docs to go.

Impression.

I just used the phone for half a day and thoroughly enjoy it. On first impression, the phone is very light for the size and they give nice accessories considering the price; earphones, screen protector, case. The phone have an RGB notification light.
Interface:
-The interface is not stock Android, it's more like a modified version of MIUI. It's very usable once you install your choice of stock launcher, replace the default keyboard, and disable some of the bloat apps.
-Since it's not stock Android, I find it take a bit of time to get used to finding things in the Settings menu.
-The swipe up hardware toggles (Control center, similar to iPhone toggles) are pretty useful and more well organized than stock Android imo.
-Screen off gestures, you get many different commands (double tap on, camera, flashlight, customize your own, etc) and it work pretty good.
-Feature to display network speed on the notification bar
-"Close all" button in the recent apps menu.
-There is a feature to modify apps permissions called "Permissions of App".
-I can not find the shortcut to "Smart Lock" window anywhere, even though it is supported in the OS, if you pair a bluetooth device it will display the notification to enable it. But there seems to be no way to get to the actual Smart Lock window to enable other smart lock features, or I miss it somewhere.
Performance:
I installed all my programs pretty quick. I don't see any lag issues. All the apps launches fast and run smoothly. I don't intend to play any heavy games on a $100 phone, all the light games I play like Subway Surfer and Horizon Chase have no lags.
Connection:
Cell: The dual sim feature seems to work good. I still have to to test the signal quality, but I have to say the data speed is average. I get about 10 to 12mbps down for T-Mobile LTE speed test.
Bluetooth: I'm happy to report the Bluetooth have good performance, the motion of people lips in videos are in synced with the audio from the bluetooth speaker.
WiFi: Can reach high speed, no problem.
GPS: No problem.
Storage:
There is a strange quirk with the phone which is by default your microSD is acts as the main 'internal storage' of the phone (sdcard0), and the actual internal storage act as external (sdcard1). So it would help if you use a fast microSD. I think this is because I have the microSD inserted the first time I set up the phone. Maybe this problem can be prevented by not inserting the microSD for the first time you boot up the phone. I don't know, but I'll just live with it.
Display:
The screen is very nice for a 5.5" 720p AMOLED display. It's not going to be sharp, but it the pixels are smooth so you don't get so much of that pixelation effect. Pretty much deep black, saturated colors and good viewing angles you expect from AMOLED. It's definitely not the brightest of display though, so you might have some problem under direct sunlight.
Camera: I haven't used it too much, but it's pretty average. Like all lower end camera, it have issue with under/over exposure, also the white balance is really off on auto mode. I like the manual mode that let you control the ISO and shutter speed. It's no where bad in good lighting condition, I'd say it takes good enough details for a budget phone.
Speaker: Very average, don't expect much here.
Charging: I used my Anker quick charger and it seems to charge the device fast and safely.
Ringtones selection:
The only thing I don't like is that if you have music in your phone, when you go to change the default ringtones, it will display every single songs in your phone and you have to scroll through it. The way to remedy this is to use the file manager in the phone and create a file called ".nomedia" in your music folder, so the phone will not recognize songs in it. Once you set your desired ringtone, you can remove that file. Or you can simply use a third party app to do the job.
Aside from some quirks, I honestly have no complaints so far, I would have no problem paying the full $150 for this device. I definitely like it better than the Moto G3, except that Motorola phones tends to have superior signals and call quality compared to most other brands. I definitely will not use this phone without a case though since it's on the light side.

Couple of things I noticed
1. The navigation buttons at the bottom (Home, Back & Option) does not have backlight. Not sure if there is a LED there that can be enabled in settings. I couldn't find any setting for that.
2. The data connection drops from 4G LTE to 'H' (HSPA) when on a call.

One of thing I notice about the Gallery app in this phone is there is an "Encrypt" option. If you press it accidentally it encrypt the file and move it into the "Pictures\.GallerySafe" folder. To access the encrypted photo, you have to "pinch outward" in the app.
No Smart Lock support: I tested and even though the smart lock feature turned on when you paired a bluetooth device, it actually doesn't work.

Here are some photo samples. The main problem are over exposure, white balance detection and some lost of saturation. The quality suffers when you're indoor with less lights.
https://goo.gl/photos/j9BrJ7gcbDCXBQgD6

The LED notification light seem like its set a ways under the glass and has this really bright shining affect versus a little glow other devices have.
I must say, the amoled screen on this is quite impressive for $100 phone..
wifi and data speeds are very similar compared to my oneplus 2 (both running Tmobile)

I noticed that the user cannot remove home screen icons. Like when you press and hold there's no option to remove the icon. Some apps show an option to uninstall. But for some pre installed apps there is no option to remove the icon.
Like Google chrome, opera browser, BLU help, amazon etc....
I don't want to uninstall the app, just remove from home screen.
Yea I noticed the LED light being very bright. I could read a book under that lighting.

hamilLewiston said:
I noticed that the user cannot remove home screen icons. Like when you press and hold there's no option to remove the icon. Some apps show an option to uninstall. But for some pre installed apps there is no option to remove the icon.
Like Google chrome, opera browser, BLU help, amazon etc....
I don't want to uninstall the app, just remove from home screen.
Yea I noticed the LED light being very bright. I could read a book under that lighting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just use another launcher. google now, nova

eksasol said:
One of thing I notice about the Gallery app in this phone is there is an "Encrypt" option. If you press it accidentally it encrypt the file and move it into the "Pictures\.GallerySafe" folder. To access the encrypted photo, you have to "pinch outward" in the app.
No Smart Lock support: I tested and even though the smart lock feature turned on when you paired a bluetooth device, it actually doesn't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The smart lock is really baffling. It prompts to turn on smart lock but never works after that.

tlxxxsracer said:
just use another launcher. google now, nova
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, that's what i finally did

so i found that there is an option on the desktop settings to 'hide' apps that you don't want to see on the desktop. it will hide the apps, with a password / pin. i'll post a guide later.

I've been using the Honor 5X a bit today so here is a comparison.
Things I prefer on the Vivo XL:
-This is a faster device. Everything about the Blu is more responsive and I don't think it's down to just the 720p display. It seems that this Mediatek CPU is actually pretty decent, games are smoother on it as well. In comparison, Honor 5X is slightly sluggy, not just in the interface, but in apps as well. This is probably due to the EMUI OS on the Honor 5X.
-Blu's UI is actually easier to understand and getting used to, especially if you're not accustomed to MIUI style interface on the Honor 5X.
-I'm not sure if it's due to the screen protector preinstalled on the Honor 5X, but the Blu touchscreen is a bit more sensitive and responsive to touch. Though it's not bad on the Honor 5X.
-The slide up "Control Panel" on the Blu is more useful with lots of options. Hate to admit it, but I prefer this slide up behavior more than Android's default because it's faster being close to your thumb. The notification toggles for the Honor 5X is missing a few options, but not a big deal.
-Blu is thinner and more light weight.
-The USB Type C connector is god sent.
-Removable battery.
Prefer on the 5X:
-Sharper screen that is very bright, its actually brighter than some highend flagship devices. The viewing angle isn't great however, but that is non-problem because it's a phone, not a TV.
-The camera is (only) slightly better. It have a bit more details and much better handle at white balance. Although the Blu camera's tap to focus is faster and more responsive. At this price range, it's not a big difference between the two phones.
-While their EMUI interface takes time to learn, it have some useful features, such as network control for apps. This let you disable data or wifi access for any apps you want, which is a very useful security feature.
-Very nice metal body.
-Finger print scanner, which I don't use.
It's a bit hard to choose which phone I would use as the daily driver. I think that if you go with the Blu, the software is good enough that you don't need to install custom roms. If you go with the Honor 5X, I believe you will need to install custom roms if you want the most out of the performance. I would have to pick the Blu Vivo XL as better value for the money, since it performs better for $50 less, and may last longer due to removable battery and USB Type C connector (more durable than microUSB). Also I like it when companies throw in free phone case and headphones, which is lacking in the Honor 5X packaging.

hamilLewiston said:
so i found that there is an option on the desktop settings to 'hide' apps that you don't want to see on the desktop. it will hide the apps, with a password / pin. i'll post a guide later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wheres the guide?

Thanks you for this app

Google Play Books: Any modules to tweak it?

I'm a huge ebook reader and love to read on my phone. As a general rule I like to use the Google Apps if they do the job I need 'em for. Google Play Books has failed me though. (Queue the image of a guy in a hood speaking with a deep voice: You have failed your user!)
Okay, stupid reference aside, here's my biggest three areas where I find the app lacking:
1.) In-ability to NOT use immersive mode. I often will read on my lunch break at work. During this time, as well as other times, I really like to have the clock visible just by a quick glance at the top of the screen. Further, it's nice to be able to see new notifications coming in and read 'em without having to exit the app.
2.) Ability to tweak visual settings. I prefer to have a light grey background vs. white. And at night I prefer to have a slightly blue hue to the letters as this makes it less bright.
3. I'd love a quick and easy way to switch between night and day display modes. Right now it's a four tap processes. Right now it's a four-tap process to do this.
So yeah... these are all of course "first world problems" in that I could easily live without them. Alternately, I could just use Moon Reader+ (which I do right now) which solves all of these problems. But I do like the clean interface and easy of syncing/accessing my books through google, so the question:
Is there any modules that can handle any or all of these tweaks?