Bugzilla – Bug 9319
Emulate AM/FM radio user interface
Last modified: 2010-05-07 10:16:39 UTC
It would be kind of cool to emulate an AM/FM radio with Boom. The display would could either look like a 1970's style AM/FM tuner dial with numbers and vertical line that would move from left to right, or a 1990's style which would have ascending numbers (530-1710 AM and 87-107.9 FM) to choose your station. The user could pick either style. Of course, all of this would be coordinated with your settings in RadioTime. That would allow the display to correspond to your local radio stations. Of course, if you set it in RadioTime to another city, like New York City, you would be able to spin the AM/FM dial as if you were in New York City! This would possibly be a plugin for SqueezeCenter or something support by SqueezeNetwork.
This could be a plugin that hooks into the RadioTime database. A clever idea, Mickey.
Targeting Enhancement bugs
Dean: please target and assign this bug, I don't know who would work on it
To expound on this idea: The screen would look and act exactly like an AM/FM radio. It would not simply be an ordered list of RadioTime stations, but also play static on points on the radio band which didn't have stations. The display would list the frequency, but not the name of the station. For example, the frequencies would ascend as follows: 88.3 88.5 88.7 88.9 89.1 ... When you twirled the front knob and landed on a frequency which matched a RadioTime station for that area, the station would play after 500-1000 msec of inactivity with the knob. Optionally, you could display the call letters next to the frequency. Another option would be to alternatively display the logo for the station if the hardware allowed it. A third option would be to display genre (jazz, rock, talk, etc.) using a one-word description.
This would be a great plugin/app. Not a great idea as the default interface IMO. Off the top of your head, can you actually name every radio station in your metropolitan area? Probably not. The nice thing about our current system (warts and all) is it actually gives you a full list of all the stations. Of course there are tons of other things we could improve in our internet radio interface...
Knowing all the stations in your area is what RadioTime does for us. The current Local section under internet radio already sorts by frequency (FM, then AM, then named stations), but doesn't put a slick UI on it. So, I guess, Mickey, that you are just looking for a slick skin on this same data?
I'm just saying that you can't have both at the same time - a classic-radio style AM/FM band (visually) AND a scannable list of all your local stations. By definition, the classic look would hide the stations until you scan to one of them, if that makes sense. Unless I'm missing something. Again, not opposed to the idea, but in terms of usability, our current implementation is actually better, and therefore should be the default...
In the mean time, addressing the main issue is primary ... too many users dont know that they CAN get their local radio stations because the menus are confusing. A bug has been opened to address this, hopefully the changes can be implemented quickly. (ps, im all for a nifty am/fm-radio type of UI... but I agree with Weldon, it is probably not the most functional UI experience).
Matt Weldon isn't available to us any more. Please vote for this bug to make sure it appears in our priority list!
All new Squeezebox products are likely to be based on the SqueezePlay platform. We do not plan to implement any further enhancements to the ip3k firmware or which are targeted specifically at ip3k-based products. In the case of this feature, a community contribution would be considered.