Skylark 5.2 for Dreamcatcher 3

Skylark 5.2 for Dreamcatcher 3 (Ku-band) is up on archive

lcdui

Highlights:

  • Debut of LCD touch UI
  • Reader app bugfixes: drill down into html documents should now work (e.g, Rachel) - no need to “save” first.
  • Can now connect to open (i.e blank password) access points
  • Display autoblanks after a few minutes (and turns back on on touch)
  • About 40% faster bootup and near-instant shutdown
  • Power button can again be used for shutting down - this was broken in earlier 5.x releases
  • Support for Audio out and Sdcard2 activity indicators (these indicators exist on DC3.03 hardware only)

It is not necessary to clean your sdcard if you burn this over an older 5.x release.

Please post any bugs/problems etc in this thread.

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Can now connect to open (i.e blank password) access points

I presume this is why I had problems in Santa Barbara connecting to a hotel mesh WiFi network that had no password??? Ken

correct. open APs were not being correctly handled.

Please just remind us how to upgrade without loosing all the existing downloads and settings. You say it is not necessary to do a clean install. (meaning which partition do I write to.)

just write the image, as you would normally, over your 5.1 sdcard.

no partitions - just use etcher/dd/win32imager etc to write the un-gzipped image on your sdcard. don’t try to repartition/reformat your sdcard etc.

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Excellent Job, The screen usage is just what I’ve been looking for. !!!

I am now going modify my plastic case to take advantage of the display.

One question: Is the physical size/layout of the v3.03 the same as v3.02q ??

the size is exactly the same. most of the layout is same too, but some of the LEDs have been moved around/added/deleted, and the sdcard slots and audio ports have moved slightly.

Looking good! Thank you for the update.

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Not sure if more updates will follow with the display, but I find it is easier to use the display with a stylus.

The hardware is a resistive touch screen, so it will remain easier to use with a stylus - nothing can be done about that.

That said, I have deliberately designed all the interactive elements to be rather large, so it should still be fully usable without a stylus. Atleast I have myself not needed to use a stylus at all - and I have been using the UI for weeks.

Stylus-free usability continues to be a goal.

If you are making a wish list for the future items for the display screen: I’d like to see the equivalent of “what’s new” or the files currently being downloaded or processed.

Maybe a start would be a bottom row item under the download tab. Showing something similar what the skylark tuner status bottom row.

The main screens are fine. I just find scrolling around in the settings window kind of jumpy. If in the future you add a feature to select streaming stations or audio/video a stylus might be more user friendly.

There’s too little space on screen and the more stuff I put on it the more difficult it becomes to use the UI. I have tried to find a balance between important pieces of info that are useful to have on screen vs minimizing how “busy” the tiny screen is.

Is there a printer option implementation for items displayed in Skylark. For example, if I want to print a news item to a wifi network printer?

no, not something built in, but there are a couple of options:

  1. Open the corresponding html file from the file manager in a new window.
  2. At least on firefox, you can right-click in the News App third pane, where your chosen story is open, and select “Open Frame in New Tab” - this opens just that story in a browser tab by itself, and then normal browser printing options can be used.

I am looking into adding a button for this function right into the app. But it might be some time before that happens.

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Works like a charm - - Ken

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would it be possible to get a build of the outernet software on top of armbian so that apt exists and the outernet software still works? also @Abhishek i found one Bug if the outernet boards display has been off for more than like a day it wont turn back on.

No. The Skylark system is complex and made up of dozens of parts - software servers and hardware device drivers, custom/out-of-tree kernel modules even. Providing them as debs isn’t going to work, will be impossible to setup and use for vast majority of people, will constantly break whenever some dependency updates, and the effort is completely out of proportion to any value it might offer. Also, generic armbian systems (or other distros for that matter), are VERY fragile on sdcards. And a full blown armbian system uses up way too much of the system RAM and CPU to serve as a useful base for skylark.

I am unable to replicate this - I have had boards up for days. Is anyone else seeing this as well? Is the board otherwise fully operational - are you able to interact with the skylark UI, for example?

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