This document describes how to use tRio via a thin text-based web-browser. It was designed to be easily used on smaller screens (like a PocketPC or equivalent). Click here for instructions on how to use it via the Front Panel and Remote Control and here for the applet-based web front-end.


Getting Started

To start the thin text-based web front end, point your web-browser to the following address:

http://xxxx:8090/trio-html

where xxxx is either the ip address or host name of the machine that is running the tRio server.

If this does not work, see the trouble shooting section below.

 

The Navigation Area

The tRio icon on the upper left corner designates the navigation area of the screen. To the right of the tRio icon are several clickable text links – one for your server settings, and one for each of your Receivers. Click on the text to switch between each of the items.

 

Server Settings

  • The Master Off button allows you to power off all connected receivers with on press.
  • The Restart button allows you to remotely restart the tRio server
  • Any changes you make to the Restart Frequency, Day and Time can be applied via the Apply button. Use the Reset button to cancel any changes.

 

 

Unit Settings

Each Receiver has a Settings link which shows its connection status and allows you to:

  • Remotely power-down a Receiver via the Power Off button.
  • Reboot a Receiver via the Reboot button.
  • Toggle a Receiver between Active and Standby modes via the Standby / Activate button
  • Change the name of a Receiver by changing the Unit Name field and clicking the Rename button. Use the Reset button to cancel the update mid-way through.
  • Check the IP Address, Hardware (MAC) Address, and connection status (connected or not connected) of a Receiver

Playing Music

When a unit connects the Player button becomes usable next to the Settings button:

  • Use the “slider” to adjust the volume settings. The slider isn’t a widget, but a clickable picture – clicking towards the left of the slider will lower the volume, clicking towards the right will raise the volume.
  • The Stop/Clear, Play/Pause, Prev and Next buttons do what you'd expect.
  • The Repeat and Random buttons bring cycle through the repeat and random modes available for the current Playback Mode when pressed. For example, clicking on Repeat will change the icon from “Repeat off” to “Repeat one” to “Repeat all”.
  • Change Play Mode: The clickable links next to Mode will change a Receiver’s Play Mode from Queue ‘n Play, to Jukebox, to Radio, to Listen (to another Receiver).
  • Below the Mode buttons are clickable links appropriate for the current Play Mode – viewing the Queue, adding to the Queue, choosing a Receiver to Listen to, etc..

Queue 'n Play Mode

In Queue 'n Play mode, the Artist, Album, Genre and Playlist links are used to add tunes to the Play Queue. These can then played with various repeat and random settings.

  • Press the Sel link to bring up the entries under the Selected Artist, Album, Artist, Genre or Playlist.
  • Press the Add and Rem link to add or remove all the entries under the selected item to or from the Play Queue.
  • Press the Show Range link to shorten or expand the list from the server to a single number / letter. Each selectable letter is to the left of the show range link. This speeds things up considerably if you have a large music collection.

The Play Queue link shows the contents of the Play Queue and allows you to skip directly to a particular entry:

  • Clicking on any play link will jump to that point in the playlist and immediately play that song.
  • Press the remove link to remove the selected item from the Play Queue. Playback will stop if the item was being played.
  • Press the remove all link to remove all tunes from the Play Queue.

Jukebox Mode

Jukebox mode allows you to position yourself anywhere within your music collection and start playing from there onwards. Powerful Repeat and Random modes allow you to repeat within the current Genre, Artist, Album or Tune.

The By Artist link presents your collection by Tune within Album within Artist. The By Genre link presents Tune within Album with Artist within Genre.

  • Click on the By Genre link, you will be presented with a list of Genres – clicking on the sel link will expand that list by Artist and clicking the sel link will expand the list by Album, and then on to expand by list of songs within that album.
  • Use the play link on an item to start playing with first tune beneath it.

 

The following Repeat Modes are supported:

Genre Repeats all tunes within the current genre.
Artist Repeats all tunes within the current artist.
Album Repeat all tunes within the current Album
Tune Repeats the current tune endlessly
All Repeats the entire music collection
Off The repeat function is turned off

 

If Random Mode is on then the next tune to be played will be chosen at random from within the Repeat scope.


Radio Mode

Radio mode allows you to tune into SHOUTcast internet radio broadcasts.

  • Click or press the Play button to start listening to the selected station.

 

Stations can not be edited, added, or deleted from the thin web interface. You will need to add each of these stations to the trio.xml file, or use the Applet Front-end to edit the stations.


Listen Mode

Listen mode allows you to synchronize playback between multiple Receivers. Place the Receiver in Listen mode by clicking on the Listen link in the list of Modes.

  • When in Listen mode, click on the Listen To link to bring up a list of available receivers.
  • Click the Listen link to start synchronized playback with the selected player (if available).

The availability of the Receivers in the Listen To tab is indicated by the following icons:

not connected the Receiver cannot be synchronised because is not currently connected to the tRio server.
not accesible the Receiver cannot be synchronised because it is on a different network.
circular the Receiver cannot be synchronised with because it is listening to this unit
standby the Receiver cannot be synchronised with because it is in Standby mode
private the Receiver cannot be synchronised with because its access level is set to Private
protected the Receiver can be synchronised with, but not controlled by this Receiver
  public the Receiver can be both synchronised with and controlled from this Receiver


Troubleshooting

Getting "The page cannot be displayed" error.
  1. Check that the tRio Server is running.
  2. Check that the xxxx part of the address points to the correct host name or ip address.
  3. Check that you have not missed out the :8090 part of the address.
Taking ages to show the Music listings

Try using the Show Range link to the right of the A-Z banners. This will download just the selected letter on the alphabet from the server.

Provided that cookies are enabled, tRio should remember this after you choose it the 1st time.

Doesn't look good on my PDA The thin interface has been designed around a 320 by 240 screen size. If your PDA has a different screen size, then try setting the html-width and html-height attributes in trio.xml (see Advanced Configuration below).

Advanced Configuration

The following attributes can be edited in trio.xml to change the defaults used the the web front-end.

WARNING: Do not change these values unless you know what you are doing. Always shutdown the tRio server before editing trio.xml or your changes may be overwritten.

Attribute Parent Element Description Default
port http-server the port on which the tRio http server runs 8090
root http-server the root used for locating documents, archives and images the tRio install directory
html-width http-server the screen width to optimise the display for 240
html-height http-server the screen height to optimise the display for 320
cache-stylesheets http-server

controls xsl stylesheets cacheing:

  • defaults to true for best performance
  • can be set to false while modifying stylesheets (see Customising below)
true
trace-xml http-server traces the XML which is transformed by the XSL stylesheets to the tRio log files false

Customising

tRio uses XSL stylesheets to produce the web pages for the thin front-end. If you know what that means (if not, have a look a the XML and XSL tutorials at W3Schools) then you can customise the look of the web pages.

Here's what you'll need to know:

  1. The stylesheets are stored in the TRIO_HOME/xsl directory.
  2. Use the trace-xml setting to see the structure of the input XML (see Advanced Configuration above).
  3. Set cache-stylesheets to false to pick up stylesheet changes on-the-fly (see Advanced Configuration above). This will slow things down a bit, but otherwise you'll have to restart tRio to see what your changes look like.