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RNOWidgets

Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 6:34 pm
by jPV
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Desktop widgets are small single-purpose utilities placed on your desktop and RNOWidgets is a single application incorporating several of them. RNOWidgets contains widgets for calendar (ISO standard only), analog clock, digital clock, notes, pictures (local and net), and RSS feeds (http only).

Features:
- All widgets are freely re-sizeable and moveable
- Stylish user configurable widgets (graphics, fonts, colors, etc., can be freely swapped)
- Pre-defined themes
- Supports alpha channel transparency and has an option to create window drop shadows automatically (with or without compositing/accelerated layers)
- ARexx support

Please visit the RNOWidgets homepage for more information and download options.

The program is currently available for MorphOS only, but OS4 version will follow a bit later... and more promotion at that point.

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Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 11:06 pm
by airsoftsoftwair
Congrats, looks very stylish!

Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 5:31 pm
by jPV
Version 1.2 was just released, changes are:

- New weather widget
- New sticker widget
- New alarm system
- Widgets can be set to stay on top of other windows
- Iconify options (menu item, ARexx, and startup)
- Calendar: Switch back to the current month with MMB or Enter
- Calendar: Scripts can be launched when clicking on dates
- Calendar: ARexx commands for calendar event handling
- RSS: Support for RSS enclosure element
- RSS: Stripping of extra spaces in RSS texts
- RSS: Added WArMUp and BoingsWorld Podcast RSS feeds
- New example scripts for alarm and calendar
- Incorrect compositing setting no longer leads to a crash
- Other small changes

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Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 5:40 pm
by airsoftsoftwair
Cool!

Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 11:55 pm
by emeck
Thanks jPV! Very nice and useful tool.

I noticed a bug maybe... If RNOWidgets is running, when opening a video in gmplayer audio is muted. Closing RNOWidgets and opening the video again makes audio work in gmplayer. Previous version didn't mute audio in gmplayer.

BTW, the audio works using hollywood's video player example while RNOWidgets is running.

Edit: this is with MOS 3.10.

Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 8:26 am
by emeck
Hello again.

Youtube audio doesn't work either with RNOWidgets running. After closing RNOW, resuming play of video works with audio.

Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 5:25 pm
by jPV
emeck wrote:I noticed a bug maybe... If RNOWidgets is running, when opening a video in gmplayer audio is muted. Closing RNOWidgets and opening the video again makes audio work in gmplayer. Previous version didn't mute audio in gmplayer.

BTW, the audio works using hollywood's video player example while RNOWidgets is running.

Edit: this is with MOS 3.10.
Whoops, you're right, it can block audio in certain cases. Seems that Hollywood opens AHI device Unit 0 immediately when you load a sample, even when you're not playing it. And I was loading a default "beep" sample for the new alarm system with the @SAMPLE preprocessor command, which makes the program open AHI device immediately at startup and keeps it opened as long as the program is running.

Low-level access to AHI through its Music Unit doesn't work if any other unit is already opened, and this is what you found. It happens if you use a program that outputs its audio to AHI Music Unit and if your AHI Music Unit is configured to use audio hardware directly. And this happens with the default configuration of MorphOS and MPlayer. There are two solutions to get MPlayer work while RNOWidgets is running: 1) Set MPlayer output to AHI device unit instead of AHI Music Unit (MPlayer Preferences -> Audio Driver -> ahi_dev), OR 2) Set AHI output its Music Unit to Unit 0 instead of direct accessing (MorphOS Preferences -> Audio -> Music Unit -> Unit 0: HiFi 16 bit stereo++).

But of course it isn't acceptable that I'd require users to tune their system/program settings when running RNOWidgets, I'll have to find a solution for this and release a quick-fix update, so thanks for reporting this quickly :)

I probably have to use some external way to play samples, because it seems that current Hollywood behaviour doesn't work for this kind of program which is running on background always. It would be little better if I would load the sample later when it's actually needed, but it would still block the audio from other programs from that on, so it isn't a good solution either. Maybe I'll have to use some playback command from OS, or learn how AHI's AUDIO: device would work... in any case it'll be harder to avoid simultaneous playback if there are several samples played in a row, how to stop previous playback etc... hmm..

@Andreas
Do you happen to have any good ideas if something could be done with Hollywood itself? Is there any way to release AHI device after playback? While LoadSample does open the device, FreeSample doesn't seem to close it at least. Should Hollywood generally keep AHI device/unit open only when you actually play something?

Youtube audio doesn't work either with RNOWidgets running. After closing RNOW, resuming play of video works with audio.
Hmm.. I don't think this is the same issue.. at least for me OWB's internal video player uses AHI Unit 0 and not the Music Unit. How many channels you have set in MorphOS Preferences -> Audio -> Unit 0 -> Channels? Maybe you run out of these with too many programs outputting audio?

Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 7:16 pm
by emeck
jPV wrote:...There are two solutions to get MPlayer work while RNOWidgets is running: 1) Set MPlayer output to AHI device unit instead of AHI Music Unit (MPlayer Preferences -> Audio Driver -> ahi_dev), OR 2) Set AHI output its Music Unit to Unit 0 instead of direct accessing (MorphOS Preferences -> Audio -> Music Unit -> Unit 0: HiFi 16 bit stereo++).
Thanks, 2nd solution solved the audio problem with mplayer and youtube in OWB :)
Hmm.. I don't think this is the same issue.. at least for me OWB's internal video player uses AHI Unit 0 and not the Music Unit. How many channels you have set in MorphOS Preferences -> Audio -> Unit 0 -> Channels? Maybe you run out of these with too many programs outputting audio?
I had set it to 32 channels. And no other program running, just OWB.

Hope you can find a way to fix it. For now, it seems to be all ok with the quick fix from above. I'll report if I notice anything else.
It is nice to have those widgets in Ambient's desktop. Thank you!

Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 7:32 pm
by jPV
emeck wrote:Hope you can find a way to fix it. For now, it seems to be all ok with the quick fix from above. I'll report if I notice anything else.
It is nice to have those widgets in Ambient's desktop. Thank you!
Yeah, please let me know if you find anything else. I'll try to fix this audio issue ASAP (=next day(s)), because it's too annoying if people won't notice it's because of this when they are having audio problems with other programs.

Re: RNOWidgets

Posted: Fri May 18, 2018 4:34 pm
by airsoftsoftwair
jPV wrote:@Andreas
Do you happen to have any good ideas if something could be done with Hollywood itself? Is there any way to release AHI device after playback? While LoadSample does open the device, FreeSample doesn't seem to close it at least. Should Hollywood generally keep AHI device/unit open only when you actually play something?
Opening and closing the sound device often leads to clicks and quirks that's why I don't want to do it too often, especially not automatically. But maybe I could add a command that allows to you manually close the audio device so that you have better control over it.