Nova Media Center

NovaMC.net

2006-05-29T17:13:00.000-07:00

We now have a real website set up for NovaMC. The blog and all things NovaMC related will now be located at http://novamc.net

Check it out and download the lastest version.

Beta Release 4 - NovaMC 1.99.3-RC4

2006-04-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

- Fixed bug: visualization thumbnail didn't resize properly
- Fixed bug: DVD and Video didn't scale correctly
- Fixed bug: Searching in artists or albums yielded weird results
- Fixed bug: Scrolling through files quickly while fetching external data crashed the program
- Fixed bug: Coming back from full screen on main page left nothing selected
- Fixed bug: OSD wasn't located correctly
- Fixed bug: Visualization disappeared when loading plugins

Beta Release 3 - NovaMC 1.99.2-RC3

2006-04-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

- Fixed bug: OSD doesnt scale right
- Fixed bug: Cant search in Picture DB
- Fixed bug: Cant search in Video DB
- Fixed bug: General settings redraws always
- Fixed bug: Still get empty button containing "ALL" results when searching for something in albums
- Fixed bug: The panel border stays on the screen for a few seconds after the visualization is gone.
- Fixed bug: visualization box in Internet Radio doesnt go away when leaving Internet Radio panel
- Fixed bug: Memory leak when changing the theme in the settings gui
- Fixed bug: OSD has a focusing bug when changing to full screen
- Fixed bug: Internet Radio list is 100 long but only 30 some are filled in (shoutcast no longer does top 100)
- Fixed bug: Audio Picture and Video thumbnails in Tile mode arent working (Audio quasi-works)
- Fixed bug: Adding pictures to db doesnt work
- Fixed bug: Pictures DB O menu was wrong
- Fixed bug: Picture viewing didn't loop
- Fixed bug: Enqueueing a folder didn't make it to the playlist

Beta Release 2 - NovaMC 1.99.1-RC2

2006-04-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

- Fixed bug: Browsing database was too slow
- Fixed bug: Searching in albums didn't yield correct results
- Fixed bug: Searching in artists didn't yield correct results
- Fixed bug: Search terms were being ORed not ANDed
- Fixed bug: TV didn't scale
- Fixed bug: IMDB wasn't working
- Fixed bug: Sort by wasn't working
- Fixed bug: Settings wasn't rescaling correctly
- Fixed bug: With no bookmarks empty buttons showed up
- Fixed bug: Changing themes/sizes in settings wasn't immediately effective
- Fixed bug: Using menus to do certain actions made form lose focus
- Fixed bug: Got internet radio to work

- Eliminated Top 100 and Most Recent playlists
- Add ability to sort by rank or access date in the database
- Add ability to remove bookmarks

New Version NovaMC 1.99.0.1

2006-04-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

- Created a new theme called "NovaBlue" (renamed previous theme to "Classic"). Both themes are present by default. New theme's native resolution is 1600x1200 (vs the old 800x600 theme)
- Fixed several bugs that hindered a new theme from bring introduced
- Made settings start with the General panel displayed

Beta Release 1 - NovaMC 1.99.0-RC1

2006-04-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

NovaMC is feature complete for version 2.0

- Created an empty class called NovaWidget to hold all widgets
- Created a NovaWidget called NovaTextEntry which is fed a name and value and creates a label with Name: Value and a NovaSmallerButton next to it called "Change". When the user hits Change a NovaKeyboard pops up allowing them to edit the Value
- Split NovaCheckBox into a NovaWidget(NovaCheckBox) and a NovaButton (NovaCheckButton)
- Made NovaDropDown a type of NovaWidget
- Added an object SettingsPanel
- SettingsPanel can dynamically add NovaWidgets to the screen
- Created a NovaPanel called SettingsControl which is able scan all the plugins for SettingsPanels and make a NovaMenuList for them
- Created a conf key LoopSongs which controls whether or not AudioControl repeats songs
- Created a conf key StartFullScreen which controls whether or not the program is in full screen mode

Download the Beta Now!!

New Version NovaMC 1.4.2

2006-04-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

- Added the ability to search the database
- In music added the ability to search by artist, album, or song
- Created actual theme support, i.e. a "themes" folder that themes are dropped into. Themes consist of a folder with several images and a Settings.theme folder which specifies the theme's native resolution
- Added a conf key "DefaultTheme" which is currently set to NovaBlue800x600 (the name of the current theme)
- Fixed a bug that prevented album art from displaying
- Fixed several rescaling bugs
- Fixed a bug with device plugins causes FilePlayer to fail after use
- Changed all hard coded references to 800x600 to refer to new variables Utils.ThemeWidth and Utils.ThemeHeight. These variables are set by reading in the Width and Height keys of the Settings.theme file in the Default Theme location
- Got rid of Display.currWidth/Height and replaced it with Utils.ThemeWidth/Height
- Gave support for the texture engine to support any folder within images

New Version NovaMC 1.4.1

2006-04-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

- Created a NovaKeyboard widget which is an onscreen keyboard
- Fixed a resizing bug
- Fixed a scaling issue with the shuffle button in FilePlayer

New Version NovaMC 1.4.0

2006-04-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

- Added a Drop Down widget
- Added a Check Box widget
- Created the ability to have device plugins, Device mode in FilePlayer searches the plugin folder for compatible device plugins
- Made the CDPlayer Device Plugin
- Made the DVDPlayer Device Plugin

New Version NovaMC 1.3.4

2006-04-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

- Added dynamic resolution scaling to most remaining widgets and objects with the exception of the TV Module
- Fixed a focusing bug with the menu
- Fixed a long standing bug where the menu un-highlighted the selected button
- Fixed a text-wrapping issue with NovaOSD

New Version NovaMC 1.3.3

2006-04-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

- Made the F5 key call the Redraw() function of the current panel
- Started writing Redraw() functions for all GUI elements, allowing them to scale resolution dynamically
- Finished about 50% of the Redraw functions, most things scale, though there are still some significant bugs (Menus, pop ups, OSD, etc)

New Version NovaMC 1.3.2

2006-04-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

- Finished all Location and Size scaling issues
- Wrote a function to scale fonts
- Scaled all fonts

New Version NovaMC 1.3.1

2006-04-04T23:50:00.000-07:00

- Deleted the old TextureHandler (which didn't do anything at all) and created a completely new TextureHandler
- New TextureHandler keeps track of all textures in the system and rescales it to the appropriate size
- Finished scaling most of the location and sizes of the widgets and objects in NovaMC

New Version NovaMC 1.3.0

2006-04-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

- Started working on Resolution Independence for NovaMC
- Made the sizes and positions of most buttons and widgets scale to the current resolution
- Fixed an empty directory bug
- Fixed the bug where NovaMC would crash if internet was down while trying to check the weather.

New Version NovaMC 1.2.11

2006-02-18T23:58:00.000-08:00

- Split MediaFile into MusicFile, PictureFile and VideoFile
- Made PictureDataBase and VideoDataBase
- Made Picture and Video modules work using new DataBase and MediaFile classes
- Made FilePlayer work with the new MediaFile classes
- Made album art fetching ignore All Albums options
- Threaded ByLine1 fetching in its own thread so browsing the harddisk won't slow it down
- Fixed a bug with duplicate DB items
- Added the ability to immediately play an enqueued playlist with the Play button

New Version NovaMC 1.2.10

2006-02-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

- Made scrolling much much faster
- Fixed a bug where an error message popped up when hitting a key on Music Home
- Fixed a focusing bug when refreshing DB
- Fixed a bug where refreshing the DB wasn't saved
- Added a message about cleaning up the database
- Fixed a bug with cleaning up DB
- Fixed a bug when refreshing DB
- Made sure only unique paths get stored in conf file
- Had the "All" Album option only show up if there was more than 1 album

New Version NovaMC 1.2.9

2006-02-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

- Added a function RetrieveInfo() that grabs all the serializable info for a file making the Save() function instant
- This enabled the ability to show how many files have been added in refreshing DB info box
- Added the Remove from DB feature to artists, albums, and songs
- Fixed all known focusing bugs
- Fixed a bug where directories weren't sorted in Browse mode
- Added back the small music note icons to list view

New Version NovaMC 1.2.8

2006-02-13T09:01:00.000-08:00

- Added a conf key "MusicDBDirs", which takes the place of bookmarks for Databases. Bookmarks are still there, but they are not how the DB is generated
- Wrote fast sorting algorithms for sorting MediaFiles by Rank or Name, tested on 17000 songs with instant results
- Implemented a name sort for song view so songs are now alphabetically sorted
- Fixed menu in Song view
- Fixed an error that would highlight the wrong thing in the list when GoingBack was set
- Fixed a big focusing error that would focus nothing on an empty list

New Version NovaMC 1.2.7

2006-02-12T16:27:00.000-08:00

- Fixed bug that showed null DB items in Song view
- Added the "Add Dir to DB" and "Add song to DB" feature
- Refresh DB option now tests if each file in the DB exists and removes it if it doesn't
- Fixed a bug with going back and viewing bookmarks

Known Issues
- Devices still doesn't work
- Remove from DB in DB mode doesnt work
- Many focusing issues (they must all be documented though)

New Version NovaMC 1.2.6

2006-02-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

- Fixed a bug that crashed NovaMC when a shortcut was in a directory
- Added an overlay to the Home view of music (headphones)
- Fixed "Unknown" Artists and Albums
- Added an "All" feature in Album view to view all the songs from a particular artist
- Added a menu for Artist and Album view to enqueue and play entire artists or albums
- Fixed a bug where in Tile mode re-entering a section would make the left button say "View: List" instead of "View: Tile"
- Fixed a bug that would play a DVD if attempting to play a CD

New Version NovaMC 1.2.5

2006-02-09T22:10:00.000-08:00

- Threaded Tile mode so there is no more lag for downloading the art
- Fixed Directory menu (except Add to DB)
- Got Radio list to show up, doesn't play. Oddly, niether does version 1.0.1 anymore which implies shoutcast changed something
- Fixed Playlist Load mode as well as Top100 and Most Recent

Known Issues
- Devices still doesn't work
- Add to DB in Directory options doesn't work
- Song view shows even null db entires
- Unknown Albums or Artists don't show their songs yet
- Top 100 shows 100 songs minimum even if less than that exists in DB
- Many focusing issues (they must all be documented though)

New Version NovaMC 1.2.4

2006-02-05T12:42:00.000-08:00

- Fixed a bug where playing the first song in a folder with both songs and folders didn't work
- Fixed pop-up menu's for Dir's and File's, Directory options still don't work, File options do
- Made playlist mode work all but the Load button
- Fixed a bug where the "Updating DB" dialog disappeared before it was finished updating the DB

Known Not Working
- Internet Radio mode
- Devices mode
- Directory Pop-up menu options
- Load in Playlist mode
- Tile info is still not threaded (causes lag)

New Version NovaMC 1.2.3

2006-02-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

- Eliminated the NovaDirList object
- Integrated the ability to display and browse the directory structure into NovaObjList
- Recoded the remaining bits of NovaObjList to support a unified structure
- Added classes Dir, Artist, and Album, all types of File
- Added attributes to the File class such as Art (for Tile mode), Icon (for List mode), that enable the NovaObjList to get info from the File object itself. This means data such as the artwork shown and the icon is now part of the file itself, not the list
- Changed MusicDB to return Artist[] and Album[] objects instead of string[]
- Also added a ByLine1 and ByLine2 attribute to File class. This enables specific info for the file to be used during Tile mode. i.e., for an Album object ByLine1 says "Album" and ByLine2 says "Artist: artistname"
- Fixed Tile mode for all views. No longer does NovaDirList only support Tile mode, all NovaObjLists can support Tile mode
- Fixed the shuffle button bug where the dot wouldn't change based on the status of the playlist's shuffle mode
- Fixed browsing and playing files from the Browse mode
- Added attribute "ID" to File which is used for comparison of uniqueness. For example, for a MediaFile, the ID is it's path attribute.
- Made Database only store unique elements by checking the ID of the added file to the entire database for a match
- Clicking on Bookmarks now takes you to them

New Version NovaMC 1.2.2

2006-02-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

- Got rid of the 5000 hard-coded max limit for playlists as we can now display a boundless amount
- Made a ListInfo struct that holds *all* (yet minimum) information to make the current view in FilePlayer
- Push and pop the ListInfo object onto a history stack to allow backspace to work again
- Backspace code is now short and simple and should work regardless of what mode we're in

New Version NovaMC 1.2.1

2006-01-31T09:33:00.000-08:00

- Integrated the list position label (4/6, 3/82, etc) into the NovaObjList so it no longer needs to be worried about
- Readded the ability to play a song in DB mode
- Allows the list position label to update itself while holding down or up or pagedown and pageup, allowing the user to see how far he's scrolling

New Version NovaMC 1.2.0

2006-01-31T00:38:00.000-08:00

- Added the ability to view artists, albums or songs when clicking on the appropriate button in home view
- Added the ability to click artists and show their albums, and then click them and show their songs
- Added side menus to database views
- Added the ability to automatically scan and refresh the database
- Added the ability to bookmark directories
- Added the ability to view said bookmarks in browse mode
- Music directory is refreshed by scanning bookmarked directories
- Rewrote large sections of FilePlayer and NovaObjList

- FilePlayer changes:
- Got rid of DList and PList
- Got rid of LeftMenu and PLLeftMenu
- Added a mode enum variable to determine what mode we're in
- Streamlined Left, Up, Right, and Down code
- Got rid of refresh_list and refresh_playlist
- Added List and Menu to replace DList, PList, LeftMenu and PLLeftMenu
- Added UpdateList(bool) to replace refresh_list and refresh_playlist
- UpdateList switches on the mode enum to determine what to show

- NovaObjList changes:
- Displays only 8 items at a time
- Wrote a function FocusButton which sees if the desired button is shown, if it isnt, show the group of eight it would be included in, and then focus it
- Rewrote Down and Up code to utilized FocusButton
- Therefore eliminated the 650 button overlapping panels we had
- Increases speed exponentially as the number of buttons scales up
- order to create NovaObjLists is now closer to order O(1) vs O(n)

New Version NovaMC 1.1.0

2006-01-19T08:53:00.000-08:00

Until the release of NovaMC 2.0 in April, all releases until then will be considered beta-quality as we're making major changes to the code

- Completely restructured code, abstracting out all libraries into libnovamc.dll, Audio into AudioPlugin.dll, etc
- Wrote in the ability for the main exe to scan a plugins folder and load any it saw that were of a compatible type
- Made empty classes for future v2.0 widgets (Keyboard, Checkbox, Dropdown, etc)
- Rewrote DataBase to be a collection of MediaFile's
- Modified MediaFile's to be serializable
- Made a class to hold the database info called DBInfo, also serializable
- Made the save function of Database serialize the DBInfo object and save it to the disc as a binary file for speed
- Cached ID3 tags in MediaFile for speed
- Converted most functions in MediaFile to properties for consistency
- Added MediaDataBase which inherits DataBase and adds the ability to see Top100 and MostRecent lists
- Added MusicDataBase which inherits MediaDataBase and enables views of artists and albums
- Started work on a NowPlayingPlugin to be completed before v2.0
- Added an IModule interface for simplicity in writing and implementing NovaMC Plugins
- Fix some bugs
- Created many more

New Design Idea

2006-01-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

Needs lots of work before it's ready...

Working on NovaMC 1.1.0

2005-12-20T07:04:00.000-08:00

Work has already gone underway for the next version of NovaMC (1.1.0)

In fact, the code base is done and all that is needed now is regression testing. The main new feature this version brings is plugin support. The modules of NovaMC have been abstracted out to plugins and placed as dll's in a plugins directory. If you wanted to not see the Television option in the main menu, all you'd have to do is remove TVPlugin.dll from the plugins folder. Likewise, adding plugins will give you more options. Right now, work is underway for an RSS News Reader plugin, and after that perhaps a web comic plugin.

Version 1.1.0 is due out within the month.

New Version 1.0.1

2005-12-17T23:58:00.000-08:00

- Fixed a focusing issue with enqueueing directories
- Fixed a fullscreen bug in weather module

A New and Improved Icon

2005-12-16T12:10:00.000-08:00

NovaMC 1.0.0!!

2005-12-13T20:12:00.000-08:00

The first official release of NovaMC is out. Grab it while it's hot!

Requirements
- Microsoft .NET
- DirectX 9
- Windows Media Player 9+

Download Now!!

New Version 0.99.99.3

2005-12-07T23:01:00.000-08:00

- Fixed a focusing bug with pictures
- Finally got rid of the source problem for all the bugs in TV Guide
- Tightened up some code
- Nearly complete documentation phase

New Version 0.99.99.2

2005-12-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

- Added a background image for OSD and increased the contrast as it was too hard to read
- Fixed an OSD bug in video
- Continued massive documentation effort

New Version 0.99.99.1

2005-12-06T08:26:00.001-08:00

- Fixed a time-out bug in weather
- Fixed the progress bar overrun bug in the OSD
- Fixed recording bugs in TV
- Fixed scheduling bugs in TV
- Made ErrorHandler use current widget set
- Started the massive documentation phase

Beta Release 5 - NovaMC 0.99.99.0-RC5

2005-12-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

All code is frozen until release unless a major bug is found

- Added a conflict manager to Scheduler and support for it in TVPanel
- Added ability to view scheduled shows in TVPanel
- Added ability to view and watch recorded TV shows in TVPanel
- Made default action for future shows bringing up the menu
- Fixed navigation bugs in TVPanel
- Fixed fullscreen bugs in TVPanel
- Added XML support to scheduler
- Added ability to remove recordings in scheduler
- Added CleanUp() routine which cleans up old scheduled recordings
- Fixed a ton of bugs in TV
- Cleanup up the UI, fixed lots of little bugs
-

Some New Screenshots

2005-11-24T20:05:00.000-08:00

Here are some new screenshots showing off all the changes made in the past few days:

Current Feature List

2005-11-24T08:10:00.000-08:00

General
- Consistent UI throughout the program
- Continuing playing and controlling any type of media in any section of the program
- View all media types in both list mode and tile mode
- Database support for all sections of the program
- Access any drive on your computer, regardless of where your root directories are set
- Recursively playback any folder
- Enqueue entire folders recursively
- Create custom playlists
- Save and load custom playlists

Music
- Play any and all music on your computer
- Watch visualizations already installed on your computer while listening to music
- Play CD Audio
- Listen to Internet Radio
- View the most recently played tracks
- View your Top 100 tracks
- Sort by file name, size, date, artist, album, or track
- Load Winamp playlists (.m3u's)
- Turn shuffle mode on or off for playback
- Watch visualizations in fullscreen or thumbnail mode
- Grab and Display (in Tile mode) album art and info from Amazon.com
- Generate a rank based on frequency of played music
- Display Size, Date, Album, Artist and Rank in Tile mode

Video
- Play any and all videos on your computer
- Play all your DVDs
- View the most recently played movies
- View your Top 100 movies
- Sort by file name, size or date
- Watch movies in fullscreen or thumbnail mode
- Grab and Display (in Tile mode) movie poster art and info from IMDB.com
- Generate a rank based on frequency of played movies
- Display Size, Date, Duration, Rating and Rank in Tile mode
- OSD in full screen playback with progress bar and current state

Pictures
- View any and all pictures on your computer
- View your pictures as a slideshow
- View the most recently viewed pictures
- View your Top 100 pictures
- Sort by file name, size or date
- Grab and Display (in Tile mode) picture thumbnails
- Generate a rank based on frequency of view pictures
- Display Size, Date, Resolution, and Rank in Tile mode
- OSD in full screen playback with current picture name

TV
- Watch TV from your TV Card
- Pause, Rewind, Fastward and Play live TV
- Record Live TV
- Schedule TV recordings
- View recorded TV
- With XMLTV get a TVGudie as well as a description for the currently playing show
- View the TVGuide while still watching TV in a thumbnail.
- See a description of any show hovered over in TVGuide mode
- OSD in full screen playback that shows current channel, show, and state

Weather
- View the current weather for your zip code
- View the three day forecast
- Pictures for quick reference of the current weather

New Version 0.99.3.1

2005-11-24T07:52:00.000-08:00

- Fixed a pretty nasty bug that exploded errors on the screen if a user clicked on TV w/o XMLTV
- Fixed most (all but one) of the focusing bugs TV had
- Fixed an error that wouldn't let you exit TV unless you were playing TV
- Lots of little GUI touchups and changes
- Fixed some random small bugs

Beta Release 4 - NovaMC 0.99.3.0-RC4

2005-11-22T20:51:00.000-08:00

- Continued the restructuring of code, moving all TVControl code over to IControl format.
- Merged TVCU and TVGCU
- Fixed a ton of bugs created by the new restructure
- Redid the look of the TVGuide
- Added details at the bottom of TVCU

New Version 0.99.2.1

2005-11-19T13:37:00.000-08:00

- Huge restructuring of Libraries.Controls code:
- There is now an IControl interface which all the controls inherit from
- IControl exposes all of the common elements of media control, play, pause, duration, etc
- Allows for several improvements by its very nature, including:
- Video, Audio, etc work much more similarly now. There is no more code checking if it's audio or video
- Much more code is merged into ControlUnit, AudioControlUnit is down to only 6K, VCU down to 4K.
- Allowed for the merging of CDControl with AudioControl
- Allowed for the merging of DVDisplayUnit and VideoDisplayUnit
- Allows for the playback of Video anywhere in the program
- Allows for a currently playing tracker to display the currently playing music, video or TV show anywhere in the system
- Allows for the ability to control currently playing media anywhere in the system.
- Fixed a bug where playing an entire directory in video didn't actually play past the first video
- Fixed a bug where a playlist in video didn't play all of the vidoes automatically
- Fixed a bug where slideshow mode wasnt turned on for recursive directory plays and playlists
- Added a small visualizations window that plays whenever there's music

Beta Release 3 - NovaMC 0.99.2.0-RC3

2005-11-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

- Finished the parsing of Shoutcast Internet Radio xml file.
- Finished the parsing of Shoutcast .PLS files to get the proper URL for the streaming radio

New Version 0.99.1.4

2005-11-15T23:18:00.000-08:00

- Made audio play through WMP instead of DirectX which allows for visualization support
- Added visualizations to Audio
- Added initial support for grabbing a list of radio stations on Shoutcast
- Eliminated the channel list in TV
- Made the TV functions a side menu like other CUs
- Fixed a few TV bugs

New Version 0.99.1.3

2005-11-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

- Fixed a lot of bugs with TV
- Added a class IMDBParser which will grab IMDB info for a given search string
- Added support for the IMDB info in Video
- Replaced Amazon DVD art with IMDB cover art

New Version 0.99.1.2

2005-11-10T19:47:00.000-08:00

- Up/Down in TV Guide now work properly when a channel has no information. Allows for the possibility that there might be 2 of these channels in a row.
- Backspace from TV Guide now goes to TV, not main.

New Version NovaMC-0.99.1.1

2005-11-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

- Fixed a bug where playlist mode was broken
- Fixed a bug where playlist menu was broken
- Fixed a bug where playlist/templist would clear upon reentering a control unit, now playlists are static and never clear until the program shuts down or the user clears them
- Fixed a bug where playlists wouldn't work in full screen video

Beta Release 2 - NovaMC 0.99.1.0-RC2

2005-11-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

- Added a weather module that presents weather data from Yahoo! Weather

Download NovaMC-0.99.1.0-RC2

New Version 0.99.0.5

2005-11-07T23:32:00.000-08:00

- Added seperate menu for directories vs files
- In place of Resume for directories is "Set Root" which sets the root to the selected directory. Works on shortcuts too
- Made back in shuffle mode on playlist go to the previously played song, vs going to a random song
- Fixed bug in HistoryManager

New Version 0.99.0.4

2005-11-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

- Shortcuts are now sorted in their proper location
- Shortcuts are now only listed if their target ought to be listed
- .m files are no longer listed due to their matching .mp3 and .mpg(same for any other substring entries)
- Created function to convert a string of file types to an array of filetypes
- Created function to determine whether a given extension was in the array of filetypes

New Version 0.99.0.3

2005-11-06T21:05:00.000-08:00

Ability to remember position in list when going "back"
Following shortcuts works now.

(I do what I want)

New Version 0.99.0.2

2005-11-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

- Added ability to select logical drives

New Version 0.99.0.1

2005-11-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

- Fixed bug: TVDU Broken completely
- Fixed bug: Need hover icons in tvcontrolunit
- Fixed bug: Navigate in TVCU broken
- Fixed bug: Directory item count needs to be blank on empty dirs
- Fixed bug: Scrolling Up past 0 and down past last broken in TVGuide
- Fixed bug: Playing files in playlist should be a slideshow
- Fixed bug: Slideshow with 0 images fails
- Fixed bug: Playing CD should display current track

Beta Release 1 - NovaMC 0.99.0.0-RC1

2005-11-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

- Fixed Directory Sort
- Clicking on things in playlist mode with shuffle on now fixed
- Fixed bug: Backspace in playlist mode shouldnt go back to the main menu
- Did massive cleanups of code in CU, changed variable names to more logical ones which affected ACU/VCU and PCU
- Fixed Bug: TV didn't have sound upon reboot
- Fixed the issue with null channels
- Redid TVCU
- Made TS work correctly
- Made recording work always
- fixed the issue with o menu not selecting properly upon closing.
- fixed the issue with TVGuide items not being selected initially.
- fixed the issue with hitting left to go to new TVGuide page not
selecting the proper show.
- finished fixing the issue with null channels.
- partially fixed the issue with scrolling quickly(same as was previously experienced in audio and video)
- Created a left continues button for tvguide (same as forward continue
button, but reversed)
- fixed the issue where the first item selection would fail if there was
not a show right now on first channel
- Fixed the issue with video killing the window upon skip

Download NovaMC 0.99.0.0-RC1

New Version 0.8.5

2005-10-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

- Added a menu for TV Guide containing:
* Watch This Channel
* Record This Show
* Refresh TV Guide
- Implemented the ability to refresh TV Guide from within NovaMC (invisibly)
- Happens automatically now if there is no TV Guide data available
- Fixed Up and Down buttons in TV Guide
- TV Guide time zone data is now recognized(no longer assumed to be -4 hours)
- TV Guide Scheduler now works with DateTimes rather than strings
* TV Guide Scheduler is now working

Fixed Bug: null channels no longer cause fatal errors

New Version 0.8.4

2005-10-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

- Added full Audio CD Support
- Added a visible rank feature that displays the rank of a file (in tile mode) as shaded in bubbles (i.e. a mid-rank shows up as 3 shaded bubbles and 2 unshaded, high rank would be all shaded in)
- Fixed Bug: Video didn't exit when finished
- Fixed Bug: Up and Down sometimes broken in CU
- Fixed Bug: Playlist mode wasn't being turned on for Audio
- Fixed Bug: Directories weren't sorted
- Fixed Bug: Pictures had a resume button

Six Months Progress

2005-10-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

The first version of NovaMC ever compiled was compiled on April 5, 2005. It could only play videos. You typed in the path of a video, hit play and it would play it. That was it. The GUI was a text box with a play button. Within a few days we had a preliminary GUI up which we kept for a couple months. The picture below compares a build of NovaMC 0.0.6 compiled on April 27, 2005 with the current build of NovaMC, exactly 6 months later. The amount of progress far extends what one can see, with support for TV, timeshifting, pictures, database support, amazon support, etc etc being added in those 6 months. It's been a rough ride, but we're at the final stretch...

New Version 0.8.3

2005-10-26T16:50:00.000-07:00

- Used the new DataBase in order to implement the following:
- Ability to view a top 100 list in all modes
- Ability to see a most recent list in all modes
- Ability to resume position in music and video
- Abstracted out audio functions to AudioControl
- Now possible to continue playing Audio outside Audio, for example, to listen to music during a slideshow. Space Bar universally toggles the audio

New Version 0.8.2

2005-10-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

- Added an xml "library" for music video and pictures
- For each entry in the library the following data is tracked:
- Play Counts
- Skip Counts
- Last Played Time
- Position upon stop (for videos only)
- These are all threaded to allow for optimal execution time and minimal delay to the user.
- Also the ability to parse this library was deemed necessary and thus added.

Potential Icon Design for NovaMC

2005-10-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

New Version 0.8.1

2005-10-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

- Added DVD Thumbnails for Video
- Added picture thumbnails in Tile mode
- Added details specific to Video (Duration) in Tile mode
- Added details specific to Pictures (Resolution) in Tile mode
- Added ability to sort music by artist/album/track and song name

New Version 0.8.0

2005-10-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

- Added Amazon.com Support for Audio
- Added Amazon generated cover art album support and ability to cache them
- Added a tile mode for ControlUnit in order to see details and album art in the button
- Redid NovaOSD to make it much prettier
- Added a top bar to NovaOSD with it's own label. So now NovaOSD supports up to 3 labels
- Added a progress bar to NovaOSD that is off by default but can be turned on with a method and updated with a different method
- Added preliminary support to support remembering position in video

New Version 0.7.2

2005-10-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

- Fixed Bug: Got rid of major memory leak in Audio
- Fixed Bug: Left and Right didn't work in Control Units
- Fixed Bug: Sort by was broken
- Fixed Bug: Playing multiple songs was possible with Play in drop down
- Fixed Bug: Page Up and Page Down wrapped when they shouldnt
- Fixed Bug: Navigation error in menu on CUs
- Fixed Bug: Returning from Slide Show mode didn't turn off slide show mode
- Fixed Bug: Enqueue Menu didn't auto highlight Cancel button
- Fixed Bug: Enqueue Menu didn't disappear after it was done
- Fixed Bug: Returning to main screen didn't highlight any buttons
- Add the ability to dynamically make slide shows faster or slower with ff and rr buttons

New Version 0.7.1

2005-10-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

- Added icons to shows in the tv guide if they go over the edge to the next screen.
- Fixed text so that it does not overrun this new icon
- Added the ability to escape from TV Guide - you no longer have to quit the program once you enter TV Guide
- Fixed TV Guide so that control buttons can be pressed even if no TV show is selected
- (Up and Down are still broken in TV Guide)

New Version 0.7.0

2005-10-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

- Added DVD support, almost fully complete, only lacking a few cleanups
- Added classes DVDControl to control the DVD, DVDStream to render the stream from the disc and DVDDisplayUnit to display the stream onto the screen
- Added an icon for pictures
- Fixed a bug with control unit navigation
- Fixed a few other bugs

New Version 0.6.3

2005-10-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

- Added a shuffle mode for playlists
- Added a shuffle option to main menus and playlist menus
- Replaced buttons with NovaSmallButtons in TVControlUnit
- Relocated a lot of code dealing with controllin the TV out of TVControlUnit and into TVControl
- Added the ability to expand past 1000 items for playlists
- Rewrote the TVControlUnit keyboard handler
- Rewrote TVGuidePanel from scratch, right, left and scrolling work. Down and Up broken again
- Added thread support for enqueueing directories in the background for playing them, i.e. if one clicks on "play" for a directory it starts playing immediately and begins enqueueing up the rest of the directory in a seperate thread so the user doesnt notice
- Added a message popup for enqueueing items to the Playlist for later playing
- Capped the playlists at 5000 due to enormousness of them
- Added support for NovaMessage to change it's text w/o recreation
- Rewrote how NovaLists are handled past 680 to fix a bug that wouldn't show images past a certain point. We now support infinite length lists
- Fixed a bug that created lag between directories. Opening a directory is now instant

New Version 0.6.2

2005-10-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

- Huge fix in the scrolling speed of the program. It now speeds fast, as fast as it should as opposed to slow
- Took out the minicontrols all together on AudioControlUnit, realized its pointless with a remote control
- Made a class NovaNullButton as placeholders to make all pages divisible by 8
- Put the functionality of the minicontrols into the keyboard handler
- Added lots more functionality to VideoControl class
- Abstracted out Keyboard event handler from the individual control units and placed it in the ControlUnit class
- Added virtual functions for the individual control units to override in order to have specific control over key presses
- Migrated all changes and bug fixes from Audio into Video
- Created a class PictureControl whos function is similar to VideoControl, to control pictures
- Completely rewrote the Picture classes, now both are fully working and complete (including slide show support), with a few minor bugs

New Version 0.6.1

2005-10-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

- Added the ability to enqueue folders recursively
- Added the ability to play folders recursively
- Added the ability to save playlists as WinAMP playlists (.m3u's)
- Added the ability to load WinAMP and saved playlists
- Added class NovaMiniControl which adds a minicontrol (back, pause, stop, forward) to any panel. It uses NovaButtons so the Audio minicontrols are now NovaButtons as they should be
- Added variable icon support (i.e. now video's have video icons, audio has audio icons etc)
- Split up NovaButton into 4 new classes: NovaLongButton, NovaSmallButton, NovaSquareButton and NovaMiniButton. They all inherit NovaButton. It was getting ridiculous having conditionals in the constructor logic
- Cleaned up a lot of code
- Added the ability to do multiple levels of RR and FF in AudioControlUnit
- Abstracted out the final bits of code common to Video and Audio ControlUnits
- With Chris: Finally fixed the evil scrolling bug we've had since version 0.0.1 where buttons scrolling fast wouldn't update fast enough cause the display to look crappy.

New Version 0.6.0

2005-10-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

- Created a preliminary PictureDisplayUnit and PictureControlUnit which doesnt really work yet
- Created a class VideoControl which abstracts the Video object from the GUI
- Fixed the way we do the video thumbnail to retain the same instance of the video object, vs recreating it every time the user switched views
- Fixed a memory leak in Audio, ran audio for 9 hours straight to ensure no further memory leaks exist.
- Continued restructuring code:

New class: File
very simple class, has only a type and a name, MediaFile inherits it now

New class: NovaList
inherits Panel, has only the ability to Add buttons to it with Add(NovaButton button) function and keep track of where it is (property: int currSel)

New class: NovaMenuList inherits NovaList
Adds to the basic functionality of NovaList by adding a few properties and functions specific to a menu, not much, mostly just specifying the button widths and what not

New class: NovaObjList inherits NovaList
Creates a NovaList with an array of File objects and puts them in a NovaList, it also has support for a pop up menu using NovaMenu.

New class: NovaDirList inherits NovaObjList
Adds to the ability of a NovaObjList of adding File Objects by now accepting a path variable. It goes through the directory, sets the File.Type to Dir if its a direcotry, and File if its a file and then sends the entire File[] array to NovaObjList's draw function

- Moved all the new OO changes over to VideoControlUnit

New Version 0.5.3

2005-10-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

- Created a class called Utils to hold basic utilities used anywhere. includes RoundTime, DateToDouble, and IsNumeric
- Completely restructured code into directories for easy access. Renamed ButtonList to NovaButtonList and MenuHandler to NovaMenu
- Created a NovaMessage class that handles info boxes
- Implemented the Information functionality with NovaMessage in Music/Video control units
- Created a class NovaOSD
- Created a class DisplayUnit which VideoDisplayUnit and TVDisplayUnit inheret from
- Implemented NovaOSD into VideoDisplayUnit for paused, ff, rr and general duration showing
- Implemented NovaOSD into TVDisplayUnit
- Standardized keymappings
- Added rtune support to TVDisplayUnit
- Finished keyboard handlers for both TV and Video DisplayUnits

New Version 0.5.2

2005-10-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

- It is now possible to move around tv guide intuitively.
- Up and Down work as you would expect from an optimal tv guide(i.e. much better than watching channel 3 over and over)
- Added a method to TVShow to store the rounded start and end time of the show(makes life easier for displaying tv guide and for moving around it)
- fixed a bug where try catch was failing, changed to an if and works... (so that I can use tv guide without a tv card)

New Version 0.5.1

2005-09-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

- Fixed yet another audio bug, the last of the known bugs
- Made a GUI for the XMLTV data
- Made a class TVGuidePanel which houses the TVGuide info in a button-list-esque structure
- Made a class TVGuideControlUnit which houses the TVGuidePanel
- Made a class TVControl which has the XMLTV parsing functions and properties
- Made a class NovaLabel which has standard labels

Welcome to NovaMC

2005-09-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

NovaMC is a .NET application designed specifically for the Windows Operating System. It's goals are to produce a full multimedia environment, including the ability to play music, videos, watch, record, and timeshift TV as well as other features. It is currently in beta and in heavy production. Version 1.0.0 is due December 1st.