Control Amarok from Android Phone

[SeanHodges]

Well a blank username and password won't help, as the phone needs to connect to your running desktop session over Wifi. You need to enter the username and password for your PC so it can connect remotely.

Having said that, the error message your getting suggests that it cannot even ping your computer. Can you confirm that Wifi is enabled on your phone, and successfully connected to your router's network? This can sometimes be the tricky bit, as connection problems can be a bit difficult to diagnose.

It sounds like you have set everything up right, openssh-server is the only dependency you should need. If we can crack what's causing this connection problem, it'll definitely help me to improve the process... Thanks for giving it a try!

[abhiroopb]

Ok...I was being really stupid. I put in my username and password and CORRECTED my IP (I was putting in 192.168.0.101 instead of 192.168.1.101).

I started openssh as well by doing: "sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start".

So, I connected fine.

Now I'm getting the following error (from connection to VLC and Amarok):


Could not send command to device: dbus-send --session --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.vlc --type="method_call" /Player org.freedesktop.MediaPlayer.Pause :- Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.mpris.vlc was not provided by any .service files
Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.mpris.vlc was not provided by any .service files

[SeanHodges]

Aha, now I've had this before. It should only be a problem for VLC (and I suspect Amarok consequently isn't working because you are running 1.4).

Basically, VLC won't allow you to remote control it until you add a switch to turn it on. These steps should fix that:

1) Right-click on your Applications menu and go to "Edit Menus"
2) Navigate into "Sound & Video" on the left panel
3) Right-click on VLC, and select Properties
4) Change the "Command" box so it reads as this:

vlc --control dbus %f

Restart VLC, and Tesla should work correctly after that. It's a really annoying problem, I plan to ask the VLC maintainer on Ubuntu if they can make that a default setting.

[abhiroopb]

Ok that worked perfectly !

Only problem is that I assume when vlc is updated this will be erased and I'll have to add the "control dbus" again.

Anyway, again great app. I find that most open source apps are great functionall, but not the best designed. I am in love with Tesla's simple interface!

A couple of suggestions (at least for VLC):
1. Something to show the name of the video playing.
2. Bar displaying how much of the video has been played (I think its called a "seek" bar). This would also be useful to fast-forward and rewind the video.
3. A master volume control would be useful (instead of the volume control for just the app).

Otherwise the app is perfect!

Great job.

[abhiroopb]

Also do let me know if you do add support for 1.4.

Thanks

[SeanHodges]

Ok that worked perfectly !

Great! This has helped me with some ideas on improving the instructions as well.

Only problem is that I assume when vlc is updated this will be erased and I'll have to add the "control dbus" again.

Yeah, it's not the ideal solution. I'll have a think about how I might circumvent this problem more permanently...

1. Something to show the name of the video playing.
2. Bar displaying how much of the video has been played (I think its called a "seek" bar). This would also be useful to fast-forward and rewind the video.
3. A master volume control would be useful (instead of the volume control for just the app).

All great suggestions. I'll put them on my TODO list, and I will try and get Amarok 1.4 support added this weekend (I will post on this thread so you know when it's available).

Thanks for your encouraging comments!

[ptviperz]

Hey,

I've been working on a project exactly for this purpose. It's not officially released yet as I'm preparing it for a competition, but an early release of the app can be downloaded and installed directly onto your phone (let me know if you don't know how to do this already).

Hi Sean,

Can you provide instructions?

[SeanHodges]

I will write up some proper instructions soon, but for now if you follow these you should be able to get it working:

1) Follow my steps for enabling unknown sources here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...69&postcount=5. You can turn this setting back off after you have installed Tesla if you like.

2) Type the following URL into your Android Browser: http://bit.ly/tesla0-3

3) Once the app is downloaded, open it and follow the on-screen instructions to install it.

4) You need to install OpenSSH on your PC so it can connect, click on this link to install it within Ubuntu: apt://openssh-server

5) Follow these steps if you want to use it with VLC: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...9&postcount=13

The username and password are the ones you use to log into your PC. I recommend using your IP address for the host, because I've had problems myself getting it to connect with the host name. Let me know how you get on. I plan to put this on the Android Market soon so installing and updating it will be easier.

[abhiroopb]

One other thing I'd like to add. I'm not sure if this is required, but I started openssh by doing: "sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start" on the PC.

[SeanHodges]

Hey abhiroopb,

I've released a new build with Amarok 1.4 support, you can download it from the Tesla project site, or directly here. You should be able to select "Amarok" and it will work out which version of Amarok you are running.

Please let me know if you encounter any issues, I'm using Amarok 2.1 over here, so between us we should catch any problems


ptviperz,

Please let me know if you get chance to try Tesla out, I could really use the feedback in the run-up to the Android developer challenge.