Slim Devices Adds Support for xPL

[John B]

Hi all,

The xPL Project Team are pleased to announce that the SliMP3 and SqueezeBox
Ethernet music players manufactured by Slim Devices now have native support
for
the xPL protocol.

Support for xPL allows the players to integrate seamlessly into the home,
allowing all aspects of the player to be controlled and monitored by any
xPL-aware device.

Previously, those wishing to integrate a SliMP3 or SqueezeBox into their
xPL
environment required an additional connector application. Such applications
are
usually platform-dependent, and offer far less in the way of status
reporting
than a fully integrated solution.

Integrating xPL support directly into SlimServer makes it instantly
available to
all platforms that the server software supports, including Windows and
Linux,
and enabling xPL support is as simple as selecting an option in the
SlimServer's
web interface*.

AUDIO CAPABILITIES

All aspects of audio control are achieved using the audio.slimserv schema,
which
is derived from the audio.basic schema and offers the full set of commands
that
are available through the command-line interface, in addition to a few that
are
exclusive to xPL.

ON-SCREEN DISPLAY

The players will respond to standard osd.basic messages, allowing
information
ranging from caller ID to news headlines and weather information to be
easily
displayed.

INFRA-RED

The infra-red receiver can be configured to operate in a variety of ways.
It can either report each recognised button press as an xPL message,
or it can be configured to act as a general-purpose infra-red receiver,
transmitting every infra-red signal that it
receives as an xPL message.

REMOTE CONFIGURATION

The SlimServer xPL implementation supports the full set of xPL Plug-n-Play
configuration facilities,
allowing configuration of all xPL-related options via a centralised
Configuration Manager.

MORE INFORMATION

xPL support will be available in SlimServer v5.0.3, which is still under
development.
Those wishing to try out the xPL support immediately can download a copy of
the
latest nightly build
by visiting:
<a href="http://www.slimdevices.com/downloads/nightly/latest/";>http://www.slimdevices.com/downloads/nightly/latest/</a>

If you have any suggestions on how the xPL support within SlimServer can be
improved,
please post them to the xPL Yahoo! discussion group:
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ukha_xpl/";>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ukha_xpl/</a>


* Requires installation of an xPL Hub.
See the downloads section of <a href="http://www.xplproject.org.uk";>http://www.xplproject.org.uk</a>
for
a suitable xPL hub for your platform.