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[voodoo5_6k]

Quick intro:

The IdPi is great! I really like it. A lot.

However, I see some minor issues and potential enhancements. To have the information easily available I have moved this list to the first post...

Potential issues:

• (Official) Touchscreen:
  
  • As mentioned, the display layout config doesn’t stick for the (official) touchscreen, even after saving it (btw: how can I delete the useless file?). *
  • lcd_rotate=2 in config.txt is ignored halfway through the boot process. That doesn’t seem right. *
• Occasionally, the IdPi will boot and not have a network connection, for no specific reason (wired connection, and working after reboot without touching anything).
• IdPi can't run offline for more than a few days before it needs the internet. If not connected, it'll suddenly become slow to load MC and also Panel.
• Related to the above point: Raspberry Pi doesn't have an RTC module, so time & date is off, when the device is offline. What does it use for NTP? I could allow that through the firewall, UDP on port 123. Or would it accept local NTP when pushed through DHCP?

* Workaround: Disable dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d and the HDMI stuff in config.txt

Potential enhancements:

• Panel:
  
  • There is an option within Media Network —> Panel, to launch Panel in a browser (when clicking on it). Works great. It would be a neat feature if this (existing option/function) could somehow also be an autostart option, like "start MC and then launch Panel in a browser“.
  • Could the tracklist in the playback details (don't know the correct name of that view) "autoscroll" with the active track highlight once it wanders "off screen"? Currently, the list scrolls to that position only manually or when leaving and re-entering the playback details view.
  • As in previous posts: Please make the Panel view fully configurable. Currently, there are fixed items, that can’t be removed or at least be hidden (e.g. something with waves, a radio etc.). Implemented with MC 31.0.46 (Linux) & available with MC Id 31.0.48
  • Could the options menu (three stacked dots) where you can switch between show playback and show volume always be available in the playback bar at the bottom? Right now, it is only shown once you click on the album art in the playback bar and enter the playback details (don't know the correct name for that view) Implemented with MC 31.0.68 (Linux) & available with MC Id beta channel .
• Maybe include an onscreen keyboard (https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/accessories/display.html#how-do-i-get-an-on-screen-keyboard)
• Could the OS allow for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to be turned off when not needed? This reduces power usage and unnecessary radio emission (and attack vectors). On other Raspberry Pi I have running the regular Pi OS, I do:
  sudo echo “dtoverlay=disable-wifi” | sudo tee -a /boot/config.txt
  sudo systemctl disable wpa_supplicant
  sudo rm /etc/profile.d/wifi-check.sh
  sudo echo “dtoverlay=disable-bt” | sudo tee -a /boot/config.txt

<Original Post>
I'm currently testing my new IdPi. I really like it so far, thanks for making it possible

Easy to set up, easy to access & control, nice work!

However, I do find the configuration for Panel to be somewhat incomplete. Maybe I missed something (wouldn't be the first time), so I thought I'd bring up the topic.

I want to use the IdPi in the living room, using another input of the speaker set supporting the TV etc. It is solely for music playback, and offline in that (i.e. accessing media on my server). MC is running in audio only view, and everything that I don't need is removed under General --> Features.

Therefore, I started cleaning up Panel. But I can't get rid of the Radio tiles (one with waves on it, and one with a radio). How do I make them disappear? Also, all radio features have been removed/deactivated already. There is no obvious option to remove these via Media Network --> Advanced.

Also, I'd like to have configuration for the Panel defaults. For instance, it keeps reverting to hiding stacks. Also, it keeps defaulting to "Here" instead of "Player" and keeps reactivating the ratings which I don't want to have available there. Can the Panel defaults be made configurable via MC?

Summarizing, a great product (thanks again), but Panel could be improved in terms of configurability.

- Make the Panel tile area fully configurable (i.e. let the user remove everything). There's no reason, why e.g. Radio should be a non-removable tile. Please consider this.
- Make the Panel defaults configurable (e.g. the default zone, the stack behaviour, etc.pp.) via MC's options dialogue.

I'd say that these changes could vastly improve the Panel usability.

Thanks for looking into this!
</Original Post>

Edit: Moved list into this post and separated the original post, changed the thread title to better reflect the topic evolution.

[BradATIMA]

Right now, some of the home page buttons are static, such as streaming. An option could probably be added to the settings page to hide the static buttons.

Panel stores the settings in a cookie, and if the settings are reverting, it sounds like the cookie is being removed.

[voodoo5_6k]

Right now, some of the home page buttons are static, such as streaming. An option could probably be added to the settings page to hide the static buttons.

That’d be cool, indeed

Panel stores the settings in a cookie, and if the settings are reverting, it sounds like the cookie is being removed.

That makes sense and explains it (I have all browsers set to clear all data upon closure). However, I think it could be beneficial for the usability to have default settings configurable. What do you think?

[JimH]

Probably not.

[voodoo5_6k]

I assume you refer to the latter part. Fair enough, less complexity, I can understand that point of view. Maybe I’ll try a cookie exception for the IdPi’s IP address.

However, having an option to at least hide the static tiles for Radio and Streaming (or whatever it is) would be cool, if they can’t be included in the customization part of the options. Without that, Panel feels somewhat unfinished (functionless tiles in the menu of a released product that can’t be removed or hidden) and that doesn’t do MC or the Id justice. Is this something that could be put somewhere on the to-do list?

[voodoo5_6k]

I bought a second IdPi, for my office/guest room

Usually, when listening to music, I use a PC, running MC, playing to a Henry Audio USB DAC 128 Mk 3, while doing other stuff on the PC. But oftentimes, the PC is basically just idling the entire time, except for running MC. I thought about how to just listen to music without having all this stuff powered on. While playing around with my first IdPi, and reading in the forum here, I decided to try to solve the problem with another IdPi.

I have a Pi 4B 4GB with the official touchscreen, in the OneNineDesign case. Had to disable dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d and the HDMI stuff to make the OS stick to the touchscreen and honor the lcd_rotate=2 (needed because of the case). Without that, halfway through the boot, the lcd_rotate is reverted/ignored. Display layout changes (saved!) are also ignored after power cycles. No idea why. Maybe this needs fixing.

Anyhow. I have added a link to localhost:52199 to the MC view (configured to open via external browser) and launch Panel via that link once MC has loaded. Controlling the IdPi via Panel and the touchscreen works pretty good. The IdPi is directly connected to the USB interface of my active speakers. Now I can listen to music just by powering on the speakers and the IdPi, no PC, display, keyboard, mouse, DAC… Great

Some thoughts…

Issues:
- As mentioned, the display layout config doesn’t stick for the (official) touchscreen, even after saving it (btw: how can I delete the useless file?).
- lcd_rotate=2 in config.txt is ignored halfway through the boot process. That doesn’t seem right.

Potential enhancements:
- There is an option within Media Network —> Panel, to launch Panel in a browser (when clicking on it). Works great. It would be a neat feature if this (existing option/function) could somehow also be an autostart option, like "start MC and then launch Panel in a browser“.
- As in previous posts: Please make the Panel view fully configurable. Currently, there are fixed items, that can’t be removed or at least be hidden (e.g. something with waves, a radio etc.).

Except for the above I’m very happy with my purchases, a really great product! Thanks for making it possible

[voodoo5_6k]

While reading the release notes for the latest Windows version of MC I suddenly realized that Panel has already been updated allow for hiding the fixed button, and it's also already in the Linux version.

31.0.46 (8/18/2023)

6. NEW: (Panel) Added options to the Advanced settings page to show/hide the fixed buttons on the main page, such as Streaming, Cloudplay, etc.

Wow, thanks Now it's just a matter of time before this version becomes available for the IdPi.

I've been using the IdPi regularly and it has become my preferred way of listening to music, I really like this device

A few more things to note:

- I had to deactivate Audio --> Disable display from turning off (useful for HDMI audio) because this would also prevent the non-HDMI touchscreen from turning off...
- From time to time the IdPi will boot up and not have a network connection. The connection to the switch is wired of course, so no reason for that happening. Also, after a reboot, it works, without even touching anything but the touchscreen.
- I tried to use the IdPi offline, i.e. working network connection but no internet, as I prefer for all LAN-only devices (my two IdPi are supposed to just play music from my server), but that didn't work that good. After a few days, it becomes slow to start MC, and also Panel. Obviously, it tries to get some stuff from the internet, but I'm not sure why and what.

Updated list from previous post:

Issues (the first two are only related to the official touchscreen, and can be worked around as described in the previous post: disable dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d and the HDMI related stuff in config.txt):
- (As mentioned, the display layout config doesn’t stick for the (official) touchscreen, even after saving it (btw: how can I delete the useless file?).)
- (lcd_rotate=2 in config.txt is ignored halfway through the boot process. That doesn’t seem right.)
- Occasionally, the IdPi will boot and not have a network connection, for no specific reason (wired connection, and working after reboot without touching anything).
- IdPi can't run offline for more than a few days before it needs the internet. If not connected, it'll suddenly become slow to load MC and also Panel.
- Related to the above point: Raspberry Pi doesn't have an RTC module, so time & date is off, when the device is offline. What does it use for NTP? I could allow that through the firewall, UDP on port 123. Or would it accept local NTP when pushed through DHCP?

Potential enhancements:
- There is an option within Media Network —> Panel, to launch Panel in a browser (when clicking on it). Works great. It would be a neat feature if this (existing option/function) could somehow also be an autostart option, like "start MC and then launch Panel in a browser“.
- As in previous posts: Please make the Panel view fully configurable. Currently, there are fixed items, that can’t be removed or at least be hidden (e.g. something with waves, a radio etc.). Implemented with MC 31.0.46 (Linux)
- Maybe include an onscreen keyboard (https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/accessories/display.html#how-do-i-get-an-on-screen-keyboard)
- Could the OS allow for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to be turned off when not needed? This reduces power usage and unnecessary radio emission (and attack vectors). On other Raspberry Pi I have running the regular Pi OS, I do:
sudo echo “dtoverlay=disable-wifi” | sudo tee -a /boot/config.txt
sudo systemctl disable wpa_supplicant
sudo rm /etc/profile.d/wifi-check.sh
sudo echo “dtoverlay=disable-bt” | sudo tee -a /boot/config.txt

[voodoo5_6k]

Haven't used any other device for listening to music for weeks now. Really love this IdPi with the touchscreen!

Today, I checked for updates and yes, MC Id is now on 31.0.48, giving me access to the additional Panel configuration regarding the "fixed" buttons...

Thank you so much This really gives it a way more refined look and feel

Any thoughts on the other items on the list?

[voodoo5_6k]

While listening to music using the IdPi I found another potential enhancement.

Disclaimer: I don't know the official names of the GUI parts, so please excuse incorrect naming

There's this playback bar at the bottom of the Panel window, with the play/pause, skip etc. buttons. When you click on the album art (left corner), Panel will show the playback details, where it shows the large album art on the left, and all the songs on the current playlist as a list with tiny album art for each song. The playback bar is still on the bottom, but no longer has the album art etc. The playback controls have been moved to the left, and an additional item, three stacked dots, has appeared. With this, you can, among other things, switch between showing the playback progress and showing the volume slider.

It would be cool, if this option could also be available outside of the playback details. Is that possible?

[voodoo5_6k]

Bump

Any thoughts? See also first post for summary of potential issues/enhancement...

Thanks!

[voodoo5_6k]

Bump 2

See above or first post for details. Thanks

PS: Still love the IdPi! Haven't used anything else for music in weeks!

[bob]

You can make changes (at you own risk of course) to the config.txt.
Just do a normal shutdown and put the SDCard into any Windows or Mac machine and the boot partition will show up. It is a dos filesystem after all.
Then just use your favorite text editor to modify the config.txt.
Make SURE it's saved as ascii text, not rft or anything else.
At some point we may add some of that to the system menu.

[cncb]

It would be cool, if this option could also be available outside of the playback details. Is that possible?

This will be available in the next build.

[voodoo5_6k]

You can make changes (at you own risk of course) to the config.txt.
Just do a normal shutdown and put the SDCard into any Windows or Mac machine and the boot partition will show up. It is a dos filesystem after all.
Then just use your favorite text editor to modify the config.txt.
Make SURE it's saved as ascii text, not rft or anything else.
At some point we may add some of that to the system menu.

Thanks Bob! Yeah, I did that already to work around the touchscreen issues, the lcd_rotate=2 stuff etc.

This will be available in the next build.

Wow, cool! Thanks I think this'll be a nice quality of life update, looking forward to it coming to MC Id!

[bob]

Thanks Bob! Yeah, I did that already to work around the touchscreen issues, the lcd_rotate=2 stuff etc.
Wow, cool! Thanks I think this'll be a nice quality of life update, looking forward to it coming to MC Id!

Should be up later today.
You'll need to use the beta version.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,135355.msg937547.html#msg937547

[bob]

31.0.68 is up now using the beta install option detailed in the message linked above this one.

[voodoo5_6k]

31.0.68 is up now using the beta install option detailed in the message linked above this one.

Thank you, Bob! But I've kept my IdPi on "stable". So, I'll be waiting, no big deal.

I've thought about another minor improvement for Panel. (Like I said before, I love the IdPi, I don't use anything else anymore for music )

When adding an album to the playlist and then hop into the "playback details" by clicking the cover art in the playback bar, I see the large album art on the left, and, for each track in the list on the right, a tiny cover art. The active track is highlighted. When the next track is played, the highlight moves down accordingly. Now, at a certain point, it'll wander "off screen" because the list is longer than the available space in the window. It would be cool if the list would automatically scroll with the highlight, once it moves "off screen".

When I leave the "playback details", and then move back to it again, the list will be scrolled down so the active/highlighted track is in view. So it sort of works already, but just not when staying on that screen.

Is this possible? Thanks again

[JimH]

That "beta" is quite stable.

[voodoo5_6k]

Today, I finally found MC Id on 31.0.83 and thus containing the latest upgrades for Panel.

First, one thing I noticed again today. Looking for upgrades via Panel doesn't work. Why is that?

Second, the three stacked dots button is now available outside the playback details. Thanks!

However, this now leads to another issue. The three stacked dots button overlaps with the volume or playback controls (depending on which of the two is selected). That makes it unusable. At least below a certain resolution. Shouldn't there be a check or something to make sure there's no overlap in the GUI elements? And if one is detected, then shrink the elements as required?

[voodoo5_6k]

Happy New Year

Also, bump

Like described above. Once the browser window is resized to a certain threshold, the UI elements will begin to overlap (e.g. the "three stacked dots" element will sit above/below the leftmost part of the volume/playback progress element), making them partially unusable. This seems like a bug.

Also, running the update search via Panel (on the device itself) didn't yield a result, but it did via the menu options. Bug?

Had another episode of the IdPi booting up without network... (OS issue?) Then I have to connect a keyboard, as there's no onscreen keyboard to enter the reboot command into the main menu (running touch screen only). Could one be integrated (link to official Raspberry Pi documentation in first post) with the OS package? Or a "touchable" reboot option on the desktop?

Thanks again, for such a great product

[voodoo5_6k]

Bump

And congratulations for releasing MC32
(of course I also have an annually upgraded master license, but honestly, it doesn't see much use since I deployed the two IdPi )

[bob]

Happy New Year

Also, bump

Like described above. Once the browser window is resized to a certain threshold, the UI elements will begin to overlap (e.g. the "three stacked dots" element will sit above/below the leftmost part of the volume/playback progress element), making them partially unusable. This seems like a bug.

Also, running the update search via Panel (on the device itself) didn't yield a result, but it did via the menu options. Bug?

Had another episode of the IdPi booting up without network... (OS issue?) Then I have to connect a keyboard, as there's no onscreen keyboard to enter the reboot command into the main menu (running touch screen only). Could one be integrated (link to official Raspberry Pi documentation in first post) with the OS package? Or a "touchable" reboot option on the desktop?

Thanks again, for such a great product

I'm not seeing an issue with resizing the browser with Panel. Can you post a picture?
We could add a reboot command to the right-click context menu I think.

[voodoo5_6k]

Attached is a picture of how it looks on the IdPi. The "hitbox" of the three stacked dots and the speaker symbol overlap, so one of them becomes unusable, and it looks kind of odd.

Regarding the restart option. I'll have to check whether I can access that menu with the touchscreen. By default (with no access to the CLI etc.) it just left clicks, if I recall that right. Having access to an onscreen keyboard might be easier then...

Thanks for looking into this

[voodoo5_6k]

A few additions to the above.

Just updated the IdPi MC Id 31.0.87, and the issue persists.

Also, I noticed while updating via Main Menu (for some reason the IdPi will never find updates when searching via Panel - is this a known bug/limitation?) that the legacy trusted.gpg keyring is still being used. I'm sure you're well aware of this, but still thought I'll let you know, for good measure.

Finally, I noticed that Panel exhibits a strange behavior from time to time. In the list of Artists, after selecting one, especially the "later" ones (i.e. "Various Artists"), it'll show nothing instead of the albums. Sometimes, closing Firefox and waiting some time will fix this. The actual MC applications does have all the artists/albums and has no issues at all. Also, this is on the same machine, i.e. Panel is called via localhost, no network involved in the MC <--> Panel communication. Is this something logging would capture (in case this is not also a known issue)?

[voodoo5_6k]

Bump

Thanks for looking into this

[bob]

The layout issues look like generic panel issues.
We'll give them a look as time allows.

I'm thinking that the update function in Panel is only functional for windows.

[voodoo5_6k]

Thank you!

[voodoo5_6k]

Apart from the somewhat cosmetic issues (overlapping symbols etc.) and missing on-screen keyboard, I'm currently experiencing two main issues with the IdPi, that happen quite often, unfortunately.

• Boot-up without network connectivity... There is no apparent external reason for this. The network connector signals activity, and the DHCP service is running. It also shows the corresponding MAC address as online. Therefore, I have to assume an internal issue (i.e., the IdPi OS distribution). A reboot resolves this. The frequency of occurence seems to have increased since I first observed this, a few updates ago.
• Panel not finding all data... This is a somewhat strange issue. Panel is called on the IdPi (i.e., localhost:52199), to ease working with the touchscreen. So, Panel will start, and then I select Artists, and the view will populate with the respective Album arts, sorted by Artist. However, in case the issue occurs, selecting a random artist (most of the time "later" ones like e.g. Various Artists) will then show an empty page instead of the albums. This is not a network issue, as Panel runs on localhost, and MC itself has no issues at all accessing the files. Using MC itself to navigate to the same set of albums and playing them works without an issue. So it seems more like an MC <-> Panel communication issue. For this one, I have no real workaround. Restarting Firefox rarely helps. Clearing the Firefox cache doesn't help. Restarting the IdPi often helps, but the issues keeps coming back. I cannot recall having seen it in the beginning of using the IdPi, but recently, it occurs annoyingly often.

[bob]

Apart from the somewhat cosmetic issues (overlapping symbols etc.) and missing on-screen keyboard, I'm currently experiencing two main issues with the IdPi, that happen quite often, unfortunately.

• Boot-up without network connectivity... There is no apparent external reason for this. The network connector signals activity, and the DHCP service is running. It also shows the corresponding MAC address as online. Therefore, I have to assume an internal issue (i.e., the IdPi OS distribution). A reboot resolves this. The frequency of occurence seems to have increased since I first observed this, a few updates ago.
• Panel not finding all data... This is a somewhat strange issue. Panel is called on the IdPi (i.e., localhost:52199), to ease working with the touchscreen. So, Panel will start, and then I select Artists, and the view will populate with the respective Album arts, sorted by Artist. However, in case the issue occurs, selecting a random artist (most of the time "later" ones like e.g. Various Artists) will then show an empty page instead of the albums. This is not a network issue, as Panel runs on localhost, and MC itself has no issues at all accessing the files. Using MC itself to navigate to the same set of albums and playing them works without an issue. So it seems more like an MC <-> Panel communication issue. For this one, I have no real workaround. Restarting Firefox rarely helps. Clearing the Firefox cache doesn't help. Restarting the IdPi often helps, but the issues keeps coming back. I cannot recall having seen it in the beginning of using the IdPi, but recently, it occurs annoyingly often.

Not sure why you should have bootup network issues but the Id logic is:
Look for a DHCP server
Get an address
Look to see if there was a gateway specified by the dhcp server
Make sure it's reachable
If not after around 2 minutes the Id goes into host mode and presents a wifi network that you can connect to with a phone to select a network to connect to.
If a no network is selected, after 5 minutes or so the Id reboots and restarts the process.

I noticed a similar issue with panel recently. I don't use panel often so I don't know if it's new or not.
When I refresh the page the entries show up. I'm also using firefox. It may be an issue with firefox.

[voodoo5_6k]

Thanks Bob! That made me re-visit the network manager. I wanted to setup a static IP (although it has a static lease in pfSense, but well...) for testing, but when entering the menu (I recalled this being text-based, but maybe that's only during setup), I saw the IdPi also has slight WiFi reception. I found a setting to turn off WiFi. I'll test with this before also setting up a static IP (from the IdPi's perspective). It would be cool, if I could also configure NTP (i.e., local NTP, because why would each device need to reach out into the internet for time when there's an NTP server on the LAN, right?), but maybe I overlooked that?

Also good to know that you've seen the same Panel issues recently. I'll try refreshing the page next time to see whether the items also show up here.

[bob]

Thanks Bob! That made me re-visit the network manager. I wanted to setup a static IP (although it has a static lease in pfSense, but well...) for testing, but when entering the menu (I recalled this being text-based, but maybe that's only during setup), I saw the IdPi also has slight WiFi reception. I found a setting to turn off WiFi. I'll test with this before also setting up a static IP (from the IdPi's perspective). It would be cool, if I could also configure NTP (i.e., local NTP, because why would each device need to reach out into the internet for time when there's an NTP server on the LAN, right?), but maybe I overlooked that?

Also good to know that you've seen the same Panel issues recently. I'll try refreshing the page next time to see whether the items also show up here.

The Id does have an NTP client. It's the only way to get a current time value on most RPi's. It uses ntpdate on start and run chrony to keep it updated.
On an orderly shutdown it saves the current value so it's not starting from 1969 the next time it boots.

[voodoo5_6k]

Yeah, I realized it has an NTP client, as it would update date & time during the wait-for-the-system-to-be-configured period. What I meant is: I'd like to configure it to use my local NTP server instead of one in the internet.

[voodoo5_6k]

I noticed a similar issue with panel recently. I don't use panel often so I don't know if it's new or not.
When I refresh the page the entries show up. I'm also using firefox. It may be an issue with firefox.

Today, I encountered this issue again, and refresh did indeed bring up the missing item.