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glass-evo

This wiki describes glass-evo 0.10.33 with Glass 0.10.33, the latest releases. What changed and when is in the changelog.

The Glass interface: a face for Volumio players, drawn by Glass's engine on the player's own screen, with no browser on the device. Part of the evo framework family.

The Glass Manager gets it and hands the player's screen to it, the Manager's Face tab and Anymote show it in a browser, and its releases carry a bundle that puts it on Glass's remote displays.

What it is

Volumio installs and runs as it always has, its Node backend and every plugin included. The Glass plugin is the driver, and the Glass interface is a choice: the Glass Manager gets glass-evo on its System tab, and its Screen tab hands the player's screen to it, with the kiosk browser off while it holds the screen, and back when the screen is given back. A player that keeps Volumio's kiosk keeps it, with Glass as the display it is today. Phones and computers keep Volumio's web interface in their own browsers.

What is on the screen today

Glass's display, the theme and its meters, with the face over it:

A bar of controls: previous, play or pause, next, volume down, volume up, and More. While music plays the bar is away: a touch brings it, and it leaves by itself six seconds after the last touch. While the player stands still the bar stays, unless the look says it leaves the idle screen too, the same way.
More opens a sheet above the bar: three rows of tiles with words, the themes at the top (the previous theme, the next theme, each applied at once in the Manager's order, and the gallery), the player's modes under them (repeat, random, mute, and the player's power) and the library below (the heart, lit while the playing track is one of the player's favourites, a press adding it or taking it out; browse, the queue and search). A tile that is on wears the accent.
Themes opens the installed themes as a gallery over the theme, three a row, each with the Manager's own preview of its first variant, its name and how many variants it has, the one on show framed in the accent; a drag scrolls the rows. A tap on a theme opens its variants the same way, the one on show framed, with Apply theme at the header's right end, which sets the theme as the Manager has it, random, a list or one variant; a tap on a variant sets the theme to that variant alone. Nothing else is offered there: no deleting, no cutting, no editing. The previews come as the engine fetches them, the first of a page before the rest.
Power opens a page over the theme, in the shape the look names for lists: Power off and Reboot as large tiles, and Standby where the board has it, each through Volumio's own action, the plugins' hooks first, as the player's own menu does. Nothing happens on one touch. As the look says, a second screen asks with a large Power off and a Cancel and cancels by itself after eight seconds, or the tile is held for two seconds while a ring fills around its glyph; the second screen is the one a look starts with, since a finger held while driving is unlawful on a car dash. On a remote the page acts on the player, never on the remote's own machine.
Volume moves five points a press. A finger resting on volume down mutes; while the player is muted that button shows it and unmutes.
A clock and a date when the player stands still, each in a pattern of the user's choosing. The clock is set in type or drawn: in seven or sixteen segments, as a flip clock, or as a dial with hands in four styles.
A face size for the whole face: normal, large for a hand at arm's length, car for a glance while driving.

While music plays and nobody touches the screen, the face shows nothing and costs nothing: the theme is the picture.

Browsing and search

The player's library, playlists, radios and every other source the player shows on its own Browse page are browsed over the theme, in the shape the look names for lists (lists.shape, as the queue). The Browse tile opens the sources as tiles of glass, four a row, each with its own picture or an icon and its name; a tap opens one, and what it holds comes as rows with a cover where the player has one, the title, the artist and the album, a length for a track and a chevron for what opens further. A tap on a folder, an album, an artist or a playlist opens it; a tap on a track plays it, with the rest of its list after it, as the player's own interface does. Every row carries the player's three verbs at its right end, a collection and a track alike: the play triangle is clear and play, the queue emptied and the thing played whole, a track's list from the track; the play in a circle is add and play, the queue kept, the thing going in after what is there and playing jumping to it; the plus is add to queue. The way back at the header's left goes up a page, and out at the first; every page below the first also has a way out at the header's right end, so one tap leaves from any depth; a tap beside a sheet or a drawer shuts it. The covers come as the engine fetches them, the first of a list before the rest.

The Search tile opens a keyboard the face draws: four rows of keys with the digits, backspace, space and go. Go asks the player, and the answer comes as a list with the player's own headings between songs, albums, artists and the rest; the way back returns to the keyboard with the words kept.

The queue

The queue is a list over the theme. The More sheet's Queue tile opens it: the tracks with their numbers, their covers (fetched around the playing track, a note where none has come), artists, albums and lengths, the playing track marked in the accent, a tap on a row playing from there, a drag scrolling, and the way out before the title shutting it, pointing where the shape leaves (down for the sheet, right for the drawer, left for the whole screen); a tap beside a sheet or a drawer shuts it too. A drag to the left on a row swipes it to a bin, and a tap on the bin takes the track out of the queue; a touch anywhere else lets the row back. Clear, at the header's right end, empties the queue and asks once: the header says how many tracks, a second press does it, a touch elsewhere withdraws it. The list takes the shape the look names, by the screen or as chosen: a sheet rising over the theme, a drawer at the right, or the whole screen; Face-Themes has the key, and the Manager's look panel has it under Lists. The same list is on the player's screen, in the Face tab and on the remotes.

What is to come

Browsing across every source a plugin provides, search, the settings pages, and idle faces beyond the clock. The changelog has what lands.

The look

The look follows the artwork: the controls sit on glass over the theme, frosted where the player has room for it, and the glass and what is lit take their colours from the cover, so the face changes mood with every album. Four more looks ship to choose from (Dark Glass, Clear, Warm, Night Drive), each can be adjusted in plain words in the Manager, and a look is a text file anyone can write: Face-Themes. The design language is Artwork One's, credited.

Where it shows

Where	How	Page
The player's own screen	The Manager's Screen tab hands the screen to glass-evo, and back. On a Raspberry Pi it draws on the screen itself; on x86 on a plain X server brought up for it.	Choosing-the-Glass-interface
The Manager's Face tab and Anymote, in any browser	The same face, compiled for the browser. A setting on the Screen tab says when the pages carry it.	Choosing-the-Glass-interface
A Glass remote display	The bundle from glass-evo's releases, in the standalone remote's place, on Linux, Windows and Android.	On-a-Remote-Display

Relation to Glass

glass-evo is built on Glass's crates rather than beside them: the renderer, the theme engine, the channel and the fonts. The screen itself, its rotation, pointer and touch, is one model shared by both and set in the Glass Manager's Screen tab, so a player set up for Glass is set up for the face: The-Screen.

What goes with what

Everything on this page is of the current pair: the Glass on the player and the glass-evo it names as the least it works with, kept in step by the Manager, which brings glass-evo along with an upgrade of Glass and does not install a glass-evo that needs a later Glass. What changed and when is in the two projects' changelogs.

Glass and glass-evo each name the least of the other they work with, and the Manager keeps to it. The Manager's switch Offer test releases covers glass-evo's test releases as it does Glass's.

It is verified on a Raspberry Pi 5 with a DSI screen and on an x86 player; other screens are untried.