Inspired by the TouchEverything application I decided to create my own little remote control app for the NMT. It's called MediatankController and is build in Adobe AIR and should run on Windows, Mac and Linux. Telnet should be enabled on the NMT.

The main screen of the application is little more than a basic remote. You can use it to navigate around in the interface, start playing a file and basically every thing you would also do with a normal remote.

If you click on the Browse button a second window will appear which will show the contents of your NMT. You can navigate to one of your media files and click on it to start it on your NMT.




How to start
Make sure the Adobe AIR runtime is installed. Otherwise download it from adobe.com and install it.
Download the AIR package and install by opening it: MediatankController.air
Run the app and click on the 'settings' button. Fill in the IP address of the telnet enabled NMT.

This application requires the busybox26 binary for starting media files. If you already have it installed on your NMT you can enter the location into the settings window. If you don't have this binary installed, no worries: If you leave this setting empty, the MediatankController will automatically download the binary for you and install it on your NMT.

After playing a file the NMT will automatically load the standard user interface again. If you are running one of the Jukeboxes and want to return to your jukebox you can also configure this in the settings window.

Jukebox connector
Version 0.6 of MediatankController introduces a new feature called Jukebox connector. This feature allows you to browse your Jukebox instead of the plain files on NMT. At the moment it is still useless, because it is not supported by any of the available jukeboxes. I implemented it in my own homemade Jukebox and it works perfect!. I will soon publish examples of how this can be implemented in other Jukeboxes.

Keyboard shortcuts
I've also added keyboard shortcuts to make navigation even easier: arrow keys to move around, enter to select, backspace to return to the previous screen, esc to stop, space to play and p to pause.

Updates
Version 0.1

• Initial release
  

Version 0.2

• Added automatic update mechanism
• Setup window could only be opened once
• NMT logo now lights up when properly connected
• Reconnect by clicking on the NMT logo
  

Version 0.3

• Browse the contents of your NMT
• Start files from build-in file browser
  

Version 0.4

• Automatically download and install the required busybox26 binary
• Completely rewritten the telnet controller... which is much more stable
  

Version 0.5

• Support for browsing and starting DVD rips
• Support for browsing and starting audio files
• Hide certain unwanted directories such as 'lost+found', etc.
• Run the transparent busybox26 installer just-in-time, when the user selects a file to run
  

Version 0.6

• Improved response time of commands send to the NMT
• Jukebox connector support - browse your jukebox instead of the hard disk of you nmt
• Rewrote settings, changes are now applied immediately
• Settings made in previous versions are not automatically migrated to 0.6, please make sure the settings are correct after upgrading
• Make browsing compatible with future versions of NMT firmware
• Clicking a directory during browsing immediately clears the list, preventing users from clicking on a folder twice while the content is being loaded
• Renamed button "source" to "browse" and "setup" to "settings"
• Added a dialog to tell the user when the busybox26 is installed.
• Changed icon to a mini-remote
  

Version 0.7

• Fix issue which could make the remote lock up after starting a movie.
• Added a timeout to make sure the app doesn't lock up when the NMT fails to respond to a command.
• Debug enabled: click with the Ctrl key down on the NMT logo to open the debug window.
• Remove busybox26 install dialog again, it is now logged in the debug window.
  

Version 0.71

• ASCII control character filtering
• More robust ANSI escape character filtering
• Actual implementation of the telnet protocol and telnet control character filtering
• Pevent ls from outputting ANSI codes
  

Version 0.72

• Refactored the telnet controller into a protocol handler and command controller
• Handle non-ASCII characters
  

Version 0.8

• Add UTF-8 detection to handle inconsistent charsets on the NMT
• Add a second panel with buttons which can be opened by clicking on the NMT logo
• Reset the connecting clicking on the NMT while holding the Shift key
• Added the ability to play a whole directory of audio files
  

Version 0.81

• Added better detection of busybox: the app now looks for /bin/busybox and /bin/busybox26. It also checks if those binaries support the required functions. If one of them does, it will use that one. Otherwise it will download busybox26 transparently and install it as /tmp/busybox26.
  The settings screen now tells us which version of busybox has been detected and which one itwill use.
  It is still possible to override the detection of busybox and specify the location yourself.
• When starting a file, the filename is now properly escaped which caused some problems before with names that contain for example a quote, an ampersand or other special characters.
• When playin a whole directory, the quotes in the filename are now escaped which caused the playlist generation to fail.
• When browsing, the directory list now also contains symbolicly linked directories
• It is now possible to browse to unmounted network shares. It will automatically mount the share if it has not yet been mounted.
• Renamed "Queue music files" to "Play all music files"
• Bring the Browse window back to the front if the user clicks on the Browse button while the window is already open but overlapped by other windows, or minimized
• Prevent garbled character from being send during connecting
  

Version 0.82

• Escaping the playlist playlist should now work properly
  

Version 0.83

• Fixed yet another escaping problem when starting playback of a file
• Added a right-click dropdown menu with a few common commands
• Added keyboard mode - accessible throught the dropdown menu - which turns your computers keyboard into a remote keyboard for your NMT. No more messing about with the numeric keys to enter all characters. Very useful for setting up your network shares on your NMT or even things like searching in the Youtube channel.
  

Version 0.9

• Added 'About' screen
• Rewritten the browser window logic to make it easier to expand the functionality
• If you quickly go back in the directory tree while browsing, it is no longer possible that the contents of deeper nested directories is shown together with the current directory.
• Replaced the buttons and dropdown menu with a new graphical header with a custom popup menu.
• Play music files button is now hidden when there are no music files present in the current directory.
• Added a 'Loading...' page if you click on a media file to indicate that the app is busy starting your file on the NMT.
• Increased the default size of the Browse window
• Windows now open centered on the screen
• Split the 'Settings' window into three seperate panels
• Added four new shortcut buttons to the main remote. Use these for quickly playing the audio stream of your favorite radio stations, video streams or web services designed for the NMT.
• Added the ability to start an audio or video stream from the remote. The feature is accessible from popup menu when you right-click on the remote
• Add '$recycle.bin' to the list of hidden directories
  

Version 0.91

• Fixed a small bug in the telnet result filter which in some cases could prevent the first file or directory in a directory from appearing in the 'browse' window.
• Fixed 'Play all music files'
  

Cheers,
Niels

And it works !

It's also working for me ! (A-100) Thank's.

nice!!

Works first time for me

Just installed it on my Mac OSX 10.5.5. Looking forward to the progress!

it looks pretty!

Nice App - Thanks a lot for sharing with us!

Quote:Version 0.4
- Automatically download and install the required busybox26 binary

That did not happen to me. Upon pressing Setup, the text field of the "Location of the directory which contains your media files" was empty. I've tried with empty, /share and a couple of others but to no avail. Upgraded the app from 0.2 to 0.4, if that makes any difference, on Mac OSX 10.5.5.

(01-08-2009 01:07 AM)dc11ab Wrote:  That did not happen to me. Upon pressing Setup, the text field of the "Location of the directory which contains your media files" was empty. I've tried with empty, /share and a couple of others but to no avail. Upgraded the app from 0.2 to 0.4, if that makes any difference, on Mac OSX 10.5.5.

Strange that you don't get the default value for that field. The default value of the "Location of the directory which contains your media files" field is "/opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives", but "/share" should also work.

You can leave the "Location of the nohup or busybox26 binary on your Mediatank" empty.

The default value of the last field is "http://localhost:8883/start.cgi".

What happens if you click on the "source" button?
- Do you see the new window?
- Is there a file list visible on the window?
- Could you manually log in using telnet and check if the busybox26 binary is present in the "/tmp" directory.

Niels, awesome app!! Thank you so much for your work on this!

-Jim

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I was just thinking...how cool would it be to load MediatankController up on an Eee PC (or similar) with an SSD drive (no noise) and use it to play music while sitting in front of your Popcorn Hour-equipped stereo? No need to turn on the TV! Sounds good to me!

-Jim

(01-08-2009 02:03 AM)Niels Leenheer Wrote:  Strange that you don't get the default value for that field. The default value of the "Location of the directory which contains your media files" field is "/opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives", but "/share" should also work.

You can leave the "Location of the nohup or busybox26 binary on your Mediatank" empty.

The default value of the last field is "http://localhost:8883/start.cgi".

What happens if you click on the "source" button?
- Do you see the new window?
- Is there a file list visible on the window?
- Could you manually log in using telnet and check if the busybox26 binary is present in the "/tmp" directory.

I recall the file list being empty. I'm at work, will check when I get back. Thank's for the pointers.

How do you see if it's downloading Busybox? I'm afraid that nothing happens.

(01-08-2009 11:00 AM)dinauktion Wrote:  How do you see if it's downloading Busybox? I'm afraid that nothing happens.

You won't see it downloading busybox26... it's all completely transparent. Just leave field empty in the settings window and browse your NMT. Click on a video or audio file to start playing it. If it starts, busybox26 has been properly installed.

If it doesn't start, could you manually use telnet to check the /tmp directory. If it has been downloaded properly it should be installed in that directory.

One thing though... the NMT must have a proper internet connection for this work. If you don't have your NMT connected to the internet, you must manually install it.

Hm, nothing happens when trying to browse. Drives empty. I don't have telnet installed from the beginning. I have a working internet connection. Any other thing to check if busybox been installed or not?

The IP of the PCH, should it be xxx.xxx.x.x or http://xxx.xxx.x.x?

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Ok now it's working. The IP should be xxx.xxx.x.x the the blue light on the remote indicates contact. Nice!