What's new
By:
Filters

Naomi Pi 'WiPi Netbooter' - compatible with Pi 3&4

Bit of an update, been playing with the screen and swiper.js for a few days and while I can get a really nice clean looking interface that works great in a browser over wifi using a phone or PC, the accuracy and responsiveness of the touch controls on the 3.5 inch LCD just aren't good enough and I think anyone using them would end up smashing the thing to bits! Any attempt to tap the screen with a stylus was seen as a click and drag movement which just changed the game selection on screen. I tried using overlays with static links and got it working much better, one downside is you have an extra press to launch a game, another is the complexity of using nested swipers to get the menus to work. I've shelved it for the time being and may come back to it later.

I tried using web interface I created for the wifi and while it displayed quite nicely on the screen, there was no way to scroll the page. The Pi sees the touchscreen as a mouse control and not a touch interface like a phone or tablet so there is no way to grab the screen and drag it by touching it. Not to be defeated I tried a few things and managed to find a javascript method that worked - disclaimer at this point, I'm not a developer by trade so please excuse any obvious mistakes or stupid assumptions! I'm just a hobbyist and my skills are far from advanced! I've managed to tweak the interface to fit better on the 3.5 inch screen and everything seems to be there functionally, one difference using the touchscreen is speed of navigation, on a phone you can quite easily jump screens of links with a flick but this is way slower with a stylus. I've written some extra code to help which adds a quick navigation menu at the top of the game list that is hidden by default but when you open the game list and scroll up you'll see it. I've indexed all the available games in the rom folder then checked that against the current enabled game list in the CSV file and produced an alphabetical display with hyperlinks to jump straight to games beginning with that letter and only letters that have associated games are linked.

Next steps are to clear up the image, remove all startup text and probably add a logo on boot and make sure it can switch safely between the various modes, wifi only, wifi + 16x2 LCD, wifi + 3.5 LCD etc
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20200728_011330606.jpg
    IMG_20200728_011330606.jpg
    72.2 KB · Views: 125
  • IMG_20200728_011404899.jpg
    IMG_20200728_011404899.jpg
    79.5 KB · Views: 130
  • IMG_20200728_011425928.jpg
    IMG_20200728_011425928.jpg
    101.5 KB · Views: 132
  • IMG_20200728_011458044.jpg
    IMG_20200728_011458044.jpg
    71.8 KB · Views: 129
  • IMG_20200728_011527739.jpg
    IMG_20200728_011527739.jpg
    74 KB · Views: 117
  • IMG_20200728_011543777.jpg
    IMG_20200728_011543777.jpg
    77.5 KB · Views: 122
  • IMG_20200728_011306001.jpg
    IMG_20200728_011306001.jpg
    83.5 KB · Views: 125
I applaud your efforts.

This is different (re the phone side of things) to the web based PiForce thingy? Interface looks different on yours, cleaner, better. :)
 
I'm trying to keep them both in sync, just to save on development time, the back end python scripts are universal thankfully. I'll pretty up the various pages, they are really basic looking and I've done nothing with them since I wrote the code 3 years ago! I'll also add a dark theme so save on the back light.

I haven't used the PiDimBoot yet, what are your thoughts on it? any features that would be useful? I'd like to add a favourites tag, anything to speed up navigation is good with these screens
 
Looking good! How do the videos currently look/play on the LCD. It’s a function currently missing from PiDimBoot I would like to see.

A feature that I would like added is if games were able to be filtered by genre.

The PiDimBoot also has a function which eliminates the need for a ZeroPIC. I believe it emulates it on the RPi, perhaps something you could look in to?
 
They don't look too bad, a little bit choppy but way better after changing the settings - I'll do a little video tour and link it back here so you can see. I've got genre filtering covered already along with system, screen orientation and control type. Again, that is really basic looking so could do with a spruce up, I'll play with the css styling to add some rounded edges and animations, maybe I could add them above the hidden nav menu rather than via the main menu at the top right ... Interesting they have got the zero pic feature, I'll have to load it up and see how that is working, I guess they keep a script running in the background and somehow ping a regular message to the netdimm board or something?
 
The screen orientation feature sounds good. Can use both monitor and selector in TATE mode.
 
Just been researching brightness control and came across this: https://github.com/juj/fbcp-ili9341 - looks like a much better driver for these screens, will test it later on if I get a chance

Edit: no touchscreen support, forget that then!
 
Last edited:
Looking solid @chunksin

I've still only got the initial release, but I'm wondering if you could possibly put the progress bar from left to right, instead of middle to edges? (unless this is just me :D)
 
Nice update and video, looking forward to this.

One suggestion. Perhaps when jumping back into the game list, it could start back at the top of the list, that would save scrolling up to find the genre, system, etc. buttons.

Alternatively perhaps these buttons could be in their own frame so always visible from that menu.

Nice work, I like the no frills approach.
 
This is so awesome, thank you!

Much needed too. There are a few variations of the netboot software and whilst they are all good, none encompass all the features I wanted. So it was always a trade off.

The fact that you've modernised it and rolled all the features into one solid build is brilliant, have yearned for this for ages. Well done and thank you!
 
Hoooo, that's excellent!
As said, looking forward to integrate it with my pi4/dietpi and openJVS.

I will have a look next week.
Do you plan to have a sort of package (i.e. girhub repo) for the installation in the future or will it be always a full image, please?

Many thanks again, it was really time to have a better user interface. (I plan to use the web interface with smartphone)

Best regards

Fred
 
Finally finished the image off after fighting for a day or two with Linux filesystems! It's set by default to use the 3.5 inch touchscreen and Wifi, if you need to switch to the 16x2 LCD, connect to Wifi and switch screen type in the Options menu, the Pi will shutdown, unplug it and install the screen.

I've updated the download link in the first post, any and all feedback welcomed! It seems to boot fine and works on the Pi 2/3B/3B+ and should work on the Pi 4, the Pi 2 is really only good for the 16x2 LCD screen, it loads up using a 3.5 inch screen but it's too slow to be usable.
 
djsheep said:
Looking good! How do the videos currently look/play on the LCD. It’s a function currently missing from PiDimBoot I would like to see.

A feature that I would like added is if games were able to be filtered by genre.

The PiDimBoot also has a function which eliminates the need for a ZeroPIC. I believe it emulates it on the RPi, perhaps something you could look in to?
Click to expand...
The triforcetools original script has a "time limit hack" which removes the need for a 0 key. I opt to use a 0 key and remove the time limit hack. This way if the pi or host pc crashes, the game stays running on the Naomi.
 
That's how this runs, I can add in an additional option to support the time limit hack if it's requested
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top