Rockbox: Add shoulder button support or not?

[thomasjfox]

Hello,


a frequent request for the Rockbox Pandora port is to add support for the shoulder buttons


to skip to the previous/next track.


Let's assume someone uses the Pandora as primary music player and keeps it in the pocket/bag.


Would it be nice to skip to the next track without opening the lid?


Or would it cause distress because of accidentally hitting the shoulder button


while the Pandora is in the pockekt/bag (f.e. just through walking)?


Cheers,


Thomas

 

[Darkknight512]

I absolutely, that is one of the reasons I am still using GMU for my music. Though I think the Rockbox port really needs the capability to run in a window, or is that already in there and I just can't find it.


I absolutely loved Rockbox on my iPod Nano 2g, oh the great days of typing an essay in morse code

 

[Mr_Loon]

It would be great to see a version of Rockbox designed to work a little better with the Pandora controls. For instance I'd like to R & L on the Dpad to skip to the next track when playing songs via the file browser (not sure if this works with playlists).


Another minor request would be to use Fn-Q (Esc) to quit rather than Select.


It's a great player but the user interface is far from straightforward, it would be a real 'killer app' for Pandora if a few changes were made.


It would also be great to be able to run it in a window.


Please don't see this as a moan, your hard work to bring Rock Box to Pandora is much appreciated.

 

[larry]

I would specifically not want that. As you say, it'd bump into next/prev track in my pocket.

 

[Darkknight512]

I would specifically not want that. As you say, it'd bump into next/prev track in my pocket.

Maybe 2 builds then?


Or if possible an option in the settings?

 

[PokeParadox]

Well I think... the hold key should be checked by all media playing software to see if the L+R buttons should do anything... do we know how to even check it?


If we can in fact check it this would solve the accidental in bag track skipping problem as you would flick the hold switch on!

 

[thomasjfox]

Well I think... the hold key should be checked by all media playing software to see if the L+R buttons should do anything... do we know how to even check it?

That sounds like a good plan, if possible.


Configurable buttons is a controversial topic among other Rockbox devs, so we better solve this with the "lock" switch.


Window mode is a bigger change and still on my TODO list. It will happen sooner or later but requires


quite some big code changes (dynamic screen size adaption etc.).


But let's stay on topic with the shoulder buttons here.

 

[Mr_Loon]

Just noticed that I completely forgot to add my support to the idea of using the shoulder buttons in my post above.


Great idea from Poke Paradox, it always struck me as a bit of a shame that the hold button on the Pandora remains unused. My guess is that it would not be too difficult to implement hold button support (if rockbox has this already) as if you look at the Pandora input tester you can see that the OS does recognise when the hold button is engaged.

 

[thomasjfox]

if you look at the Pandora input tester you can see that the OS does recognise when the hold button is engaged.

Thanks for the hint. I added a dump of the key codes to Rockbox. I can easily detect the shoulder buttons: Left shoulder button is "RSHIFT", right shoulder button is "RCTRL". Unfortunately the Hold "key" doesn't map to a known scancode, no "SDL_Event" sent at all. SDL also doesn't seem to get notified when the lid closes.


So either we find a way to check the hold key in SDL or it would mean to write a new Rockbox input handler...

 

[Mr Rob]

Um, can someone explain the 'hold key' to me? I have no idea what we're talking about.

 

[slaeshjag]

Um, can someone explain the 'hold key' to me? I have no idea what we're talking about.

The power switch has a third position that currently does nothing.

 

[PokeParadox]

Unfortunately the Hold "key" doesn't map to a known scancode, no "SDL_Event" sent at all. SDL also doesn't seem to get notified when the lid closes.


So either we find a way to check the hold key in SDL or it would mean to write a new Rockbox input handler...

Ugh... that's what I was afraid of... it's these little niggles that need cleaning up to cement the Pandora as the greatest gadget ever...

 

[Neelix]

Unfortunately the Hold "key" doesn't map to a known scancode, no "SDL_Event" sent at all. SDL also doesn't seem to get notified when the lid closes.


So either we find a way to check the hold key in SDL or it would mean to write a new Rockbox input handler...

Ugh... that's what I was afraid of... it's these little niggles that need cleaning up to cement the Pandora as the greatest gadget ever...

There is a third alternative... create a daemon which eats all other input while 'hold' is on, and prevents SDL from ever knowing a key was pressed. i.e. actually properly implement the hold feature at the OS level... just a thought...


- Neelix

 

[Dark_Link]

this is a must as i perfer using my pandoa to play my audio files

 

[thomasjfox]

There is a third alternative... create a daemon which eats all other input while 'hold' is on, and prevents SDL from ever knowing a key was pressed. i.e. actually properly implement the hold feature at the OS level... just a thought...

Nice idea. It would have one rather annoying drawback: The emulators f.e. can't pause the emulation on "hold" key press. I think it's better to fix it in the SDL library for the Pandora.

 

[Neelix]

There is a third alternative... create a daemon which eats all other input while 'hold' is on, and prevents SDL from ever knowing a key was pressed. i.e. actually properly implement the hold feature at the OS level... just a thought...

Nice idea. It would have one rather annoying drawback: The emulators f.e. can't pause the emulation on "hold" key press. I think it's better to fix it in the SDL library for the Pandora.

I don't think that would necessarily be a drawback. (Don't most emulators have pause functions built in? I don't use many emulators so I don't really know.) To my mind, pausing the emulation would be more in the realm of a sleep function than the hold function. (I do believe these should be separate functions.) The hold function on the other hand shouldn't be pausing any software, because in this case for example you would want Rockbox to keep working in the background without being affected by stray key-presses.


That way, for example, when you wanted to skip to the next track you could flick the hold switch, press the right shoulder button and flick the hold switch back. - Track changed without opening the pandora and no risk of accidentally skipping tracks when you put it back in your pocket.


Also, implementing such a feature specifically in the SDL library would have the drawback that it would only be effective on applications that only rely on SDL for their input. Having such a feature with such limited effects *would* be a drawback IMHO.


- Neelix

 

[Dark_Link]

or we could have button presses like press the right sholder button twice and let go for the next track, press the right sholder button twice and hold to fastfowared, pause media by pressing left then right sholder button. there should be no issue with the pandora being in the pocket with those combos as how on earth are you going to push those buttons twice their hard to push alone

 

[slaeshjag]

I have noticed that the hold position does trigger a X event, so you could probably do some evil Xlib hack for the pandora version to support it.

 

[Grench]

Why should the buttons be treated as simple toggles?


Right button once - next song.


Right button double click when more than 3 secs into a song - go to start of song.


Right button double click when less than 3 secs into a song - go to previous song.


Left button once - Play/stop.


Left button double click - next play list.


Both buttons together - send Pandora into standby mode (like pushing power switch over).

 

[thomasjfox]

Why should the buttons be treated as simple toggles?


Right button once - next song.


Right button double click when more than 3 secs into a song - go to start of song.


Right button double click when less than 3 secs into a song - go to previous song.


Left button once - Play/stop.


Left button double click - next play list.


Both buttons together - send Pandora into standby mode (like pushing power switch over).

Interesting idea. Rockbox already has support for "prev/next" gestures like you can skip to the next


album/folder. From the manual:


Short Next + Long Next -> Skip to the next directory.


Short Prev + Long Prev -> Skip to the previous directory.


Anyway, the latest rockbox pnd has L/R shoulder button support