Possible to change how PB responds to HU input?

[dscline]

Now that I've gone into the INI and done some minor adjustments to voice prompts, etc., I'm hungry for some real customization.    Is it possible to actually remap some of the buttons on the head unit to perform other functions?  One thing that I'm not yet all that crazy about on the phatbox is the concept of changing between track mode, and the other modes.

I have an an Audi Concert I head unit.  It has direct preset buttons for discs (modes) 1-6.  But it also has forward/back buttons that scan through the modes, seperate from the track forward/back buttons.  I'd really prefer to choose the mode using the direct buttons, and use the disc forward/back buttons to scan between albums/artists, etc., and have the track skip buttons ALWAYS skip tracks.  Therefore, a track mode wouldn't be necessary... it could just stay in "album browsing" mode, or whatever, and play directly from that mode.  Using the track skip buttons would skip tracks, and using the disc skip buttons would go to the next album w/o the need to put it back into album mode.

Surely something like this has been discussed before (I missed out on the phatnoise forums)... anyone know if it's possible?

[judb]

depending on how far we get with our hacking project we may be able to start modifying the code loaded into the controler that talks to the head unit.  Unless one of the phatboiz wants to chime in about the posibility of helping us make customized firmware options..

Although I rate that slightly above hell freezing over as a posibility.  They are good people but too busy or whatever to deal with our requests...

[sbingner]

depending on how far we get with our hacking project we may be able to start modifying the code loaded into the controler that talks to the head unit.  Unless one of the phatboiz wants to chime in about the posibility of helping us make customized firmware options..

Although I rate that slightly above hell freezing over as a posibility.  They are good people but too busy or whatever to deal with our requests...

if you can come up with the right code, we could already reprogram the CPLD

[sbingner]

Can also re-write 51d to do those things using whatever buttons ARE supported by the headunit... somebody just needs to document to communication between phatd and 51d... I have the majority of the info between 51d and the 8051 already down

[dscline]

Can also re-write 51d to do those things using whatever buttons ARE supported by the headunit...

FWIW, the buttons I’m speaking of already are recognized, they just work the same way they did with the CD changer… they incrementally go from one mode to the next.  There’s a setting in the phatbox.ini that says something to the effect of “use disc scan buttons”.  I’ve enabled this… I’m not 100% sure, but I THINK before I enabled this, pressing one of the disc scan buttons would immediately skip to the next mode.  So if you were listening in mode 2 (playlist), it would be the equivalent of pressing 3:  it would jump immediately to album mode.  Now, when I hit one of the disc scan buttons, it’s the equivalent of pressing the button that corresponds to whatever mode you are currently in:  if you are in playlist mode, it will just say “the current playlist is”, then allow you to use the track skip buttons to change modes.  Subsequent presses change modes.  In other words, IF this setting made a difference (since I can’t remember for sure how it was before), the only difference that I can see is that the first press keeps you in the mode you were in before, as opposed to skipping immediately to the next one.

But the main point here is, it does recognize those buttons, AND it seems to be able to alter the function of those buttons (I was afraid there might have been something hard coded into the head unit that made those buttons be the same as pressing the next incremental direct disc button).

Personally, I think if the track skip buttons could ALWAYS be track skip buttons, and the disk skip buttons could become (playlist/album/artist/genre) skip buttons, operation would be much more intuitive, and faster.  Hopefully someone much smarter than me can figure out how to make that happen.