I recently found a minor bug in MxTube2 that I have been unable to fix. The new sdk has great debugging tools but because I am currently using the toolchain I cannot use them. Therefore I will be coding the rest of MxTube2 in the sdk, this means that only people with iPhone/iPod Touch firmware 1.2/2.0 or greater will be able to run MxTube2 on release. If it becomes an issue I plan to move it back to the toolchain for people on 1.1.4 and below.
Max
UPDATE – 5/2: I’m going to spend this weekend looking for the cause of that bug, if found I will keep coding for 1.1.4. Just for those who do not realize, just because I make it on 2.0 doesn’t mean it will never be on 1.1.4. Also 2.0 will be released by apple by the time MxTube2 is released which will make all 1.1.x and below obsolete. Finally, comments like this: “You are a fucking idiot and should go suck cock. Thank you.” (76.18.216.222) are going to make me start charging for this app. I put many hours of my free time to build this application and disrespect isn’t going to make it any better for end users.
MxTube2 dev has been going great! Just like before everything is just falling into place perfectly. So far MxTube2 has not crashed once and doesn’t have a single bug. Also, one small but cool feature I have been able to build is dynamic thumbnail loading for the search function. Just like the youtube app, mxtube2 will only load thumbnails in view after scrolling has stopped. This improves the speed of the application considerably.
During the time that I cannot work on MxTube2, I have been playing ParkingLot. By far this is the most addicting iPhone game I have found. For those who haven’t seen it yet, go check it out at freemyiphone.com or download it from BigBoss’s community source repository.
MxTube v2 dev has been good for the past week. I’ve been working on it on and off, and the gui is coming along well. It will probably take me a month or so to finish because I am rewriting it from the ground up to remove all bugs. For now, here is a screenshot of the new search function:
Before starting a search you will be able to choose between YouTube Mobile, YouTube.com and Video ID. YouTube Mobile is what MxTube v1 and YouTube.app use, which has preconverted videos. For videos that do not show in YouTube Mobile, a YouTube.com option is available to download and convert videos straight from YouTube.com. Last is Video ID search which allows you to enter the Video ID to find a specific video. I’m very excited to get this app finished and released asap, when I know the date of release you will be able to find it here on mxweas.com.
After hearing nothing but wonderful reviews of the WordPress 2.5 update process, I decided to do it myself. It couldn’t have been easier! After uploading the contents of their tar.gz, I opened the upgrade page and it was done. All of my plugins, themes, comments, posts are all intact and functioning perfectly.
In addition, I have started MxTube 2. I have updated the features post to reflect what I plan to put into MxTube 2. I have not been able to get reverse sync working, this functionality appears to be hard coded into the iTunes Store application. Therefore videos will still be played through MxTube, but there will be an option to send videos to the iPod app. These will stay in the iPod app until the database is replaced upon syncing with iTunes.
This has come to be a problem recently so I feel I should explain it. Francis, head of the DRP Dev team was the original developer to come up with the idea of an automatic Installer source refresh app. After getting carried away with other projects such as iLibertyX and other more important applications, I decided to make my own app that solved the Installer refresh issue. I had a great time being apart of that team, and wish the best for it. I would like to apologize for not giving credit to the francis and his team for this wonderful idea, it will definitely be there in the next update.
After getting a break between developing and school, I started to get back to my old habbit of downloading tons of applications from Installer. Now that there are so many repositories, I found my self becoming frustrated with Installer refreshing sources when I would go to open it. That is why I made InstaFresh. InstaFresh allows you to set the lastRefreshDate effectively disabling Installer’s automatic refresh for that day. Not only that, you can tell it to automatically refresh installer’s sources at a given interval. InstaFresh is available from BigBoss’s repository (http://iphone.sleepers.net/repo.xml) under the Utilities category.
I am about to start MxTube 2, I would like to know what new features you all want. Please post all feature requests in a comment of this post. Features I like, will be added to this post and will be included in MxTube2.
——————– Update 4/6/08: I am NOT able to put reverse sync into MxTube 2. Videos will still be played through MxTube, but an option to copy them to the iPod app will be available. Therefore, video reordering & renaming will be included features of MxTube 2.
—– Update 4/5/08: I have updated the feature list below. Keep feature requests coming, it will only make MxTube2 better! Features that will most likely not make it into the cut are video reordering and audio only downloads. I cannot request audio only from youtube’s servers , and as for video reordering, if videos show in the iPod.app MxTube won’t have control over their order.
——————–
New Features:
Search:
Mobile YouTube (What the YouTube.app & MxTube 1.0 use) and YouTube.com Search. Videos from the YouTube.com search will be converted after download, Mobile YouTube will act like it did in MxTube 1.0.
Video descriptions.
“Play in YouTube app” button – Watch before you download.
Video id lookup (youtube.com/?v=maxWVCW-Lqs).
Videos:
Videos in the iPod.app.
Reverse sync if possible.
Video renaming.
Video sharing (Email, and other options).
Video reordering (In MxTube only).
Downloads:
Pause & Resume Downloads.
Download Videos from YouTube.app Bookmarks.
Max
PS: Support for other movie sites will not be possible. Also, all bugs will be fixed in MxTube2 including the premature download bug, there is no need to post about these in the comments section.
I have been getting some emails about how to put images on the phone for ThemeBuilder to use. Here is a Windows and Mac tutorial for doing so.
EDIT: Here is a tutorial video by Blaqkie:
Mac:
1. First we need some way to access the phone. If you have not done so already, install BSDSubsystem from Installer under the System category. Then from the same category install OpenSSH.
2. Next download and install CyberDuck on your mac.
3. Get your iPhone’s IP Address by going to Settings>Wifi and tapping the blue circle-arrow to the left of your wifi network. Take note of the number next to IP Address.
4. Open CyberDuck and click on Open Connection. Change the protocol to SFTP and type in your iPhone’s IP Address in the Server box. The default username and password is u: root p: alpine or u: root p: dottie if on 1.0.x.
5. Click Connect, If a dialog box appears asking to accept the hosts key, click Allow. In the drop-down that says /private/var/root, select / at the bottom.
6. You should now see a list of items like Applications, bin, System, etc… click on var at the bottom. Then if you are on 1.1.3 or 1.1.4 click on mobile otherwise click on root.
7. Go to Library > ThemeBuilder (If you do not see the ThemeBuilder directory, try starting ThemeBuilder once. Also make sure you went to the correct home directory root/mobile). You should now see Dock, Icons, StatusBar and Wallpaper. These are the directories to put images in. You can now drag images from Finder into these directories, or make a folder inside of them to make an image category in themebuilder.
Windows:
1. First we need some way to access the phone. If you have not done so already, install BSDSubsystem from Installer under the System category. Then from the same category install OpenSSH.
2. Next download and install WinSCP on your computer.
3. Get your iPhone’s IP Address by going to Settings>Wifi and tapping the blue circle-arrow to the left of your wifi network. Take note of the number next to IP Address.
4. Open WinSCP and type in your iPhone’s IP Address in the Hostname box. The default username and password is u: root p: alpine or u: root p: dottie if on 1.0.x.
5. Click Login, If a dialog box appears asking to accept the hosts key, click Accept. Just above the file list is a blue bar that says something like /private/var/root, click on the folder that says .. right below the blue bar until the blue bar shows / only.
6. You should now see a list of items like Applications, bin, System, etc… click on var at the bottom. Then if you are on 1.1.3 or 1.1.4 click on mobile otherwise click on root.
7. Go to Library > ThemeBuilder (The ThemeBuilder directory is created upon first opening themebuilder). You should now see Dock, Icons, StatusBar and Wallpaper. These are the directories to put images in. You can now drag images from the left pane into these directories, or make a folder inside of them to make an image category in themebuilder.
Recently Gates from #iphone on irc.efnet.net proposed the idea of a native summerboard theme builder. After a day or so of conversing I decided to code ThemeBuilder (Also know as WinterBoard, ThemeBoard). It is now available from BigBoss’s installer repository (iphone.sleepers.net) which is also a Community Source. It supports editing current summerboard themes as well as creating new ones. To use your own images put them in /var/mobile/Library/ThemeBuilder (1.1.3 & 1.1.4) or /var/root/Library/ThemeBuilder (1.0.0 up to 1.1.2) in their respective directories.
Max
PS: If you would like to make an Image Pack for installer, follow this simple guide. ThemeBuilder supports four different image types: Wallpaper, Dock, StatusBar, and Icons. To make categories on the image selection list, make a subfolder with the category name. If there are no subfolder categories, ThemeBuilder will skip the category display list. If there are any categories ThemeBuilder will place all images not in a category into an Others category. For a sample, install TB Demo Image Pack from installer, and see how it places images.
