I started work on the jukebox in May 2004 and it was fully operational by August 2004. Since then it has been gradually improved.

This site was launched in February 2005. Every now and then I update the site to reflect recent improvements. Updates so far are as follows:

• September 2005
• December 2005
• January 2007
• October 2007
• November 2007
• October 2008

Many improvements, some major and some minor, have been made.

• In the Player section, clicking the album name or cover art puts the Details tab into "AutoDetails" mode, in which the display changes automatically when the player moves on from one track to the next or to a new album.
• In the Player section, "more tracks" is now a link to the Queue tab.
• In the Player section, there is a new thermometer-style track progress indicator below the player controls.
• On the Index tab, the name of the index (e.g. Popular Albums, by Artist) is shown at the top left.
• On the Index tab, there are links to switch quickly between the Popular Album and Artist indexes ("All Artists" / "Albums Only") for any initial letter.
• On the Index tab there are the new "Top 20" and "Year" indexes.
• On the Index tab, lists of albums can alternately be viewed as an array of covers.
• On the Details and Queue tabs, the "check/uncheck all" control has been redesigned.
• On the Details tab, the album information footnote has been redesigned.
• The new Lyrics tab displays song lyrics (see also Plus: Lyrics).

The improvements listed above can all be seen and explored in the Remote Control simulator. To start the simulator in a new window, so that you can easily refer back to the list, click here.

Also (not visible in the simulator):

• The Experimental server's Player tab has a distinctive watermark to avoid confusion with the household server (illustrated below).
• On the Details tab, the upper part remains fixed while the track listing scrolls (illustrated below).
• The browser window's title bar contains music symbols (♪) to make it easy to pick out in the Windows task bar (illustrated below).
• A second "zone" is available (see Plus: The Third PC).

This site has been given a new look. I hope you like it. If the site doesn't look right to you, it might be a compatibility problem with your browser. I'd like to hear about it — please e-mail me.

The main remote control is now a Psion Netbook Pro instead of a Mobinote (see The Minimal Jukebox: Remote Control). I've had to redesign the screen layouts to cater for landscape format rather than portrait. At the same time I've improved the overall appearance and cross-browser compatibility.

Other improvements include:

• In the Player section, below the album cover, there is a new display showing the track number, time elapsed, and time left. Also, you can now click on the thermometer-style progress indicator to jump to any point in the track.
• On the Details tab there is an alternate "Sampler" view, which provides a "Play Now" button for each track, and uses colour to show which tracks have already been sampled.
• On the Details tab for classical albums, tracks from alternate pieces are shown with a shaded background, to highlight the divisions between the different pieces on the album.
• On the Details tab, when it is displayed by clicking track or piece name on some other tab, the relevant track(s) is/are shown in bold, to enable it/them to be more easily located.
• The "Queue" tab has two views available. In "Track View", each track is shown separately. In "Album View", any complete album is shown as one line (and one check box for removal).

The improvements listed above can all be seen and explored in the Remote Control simulator. To start the simulator in a new window, so that you can easily refer back to the list, click here.

Also (not visible in the simulator, but illustrated below):

• Whenever a grey button ("Play Now", "Next track", etc) is clicked, a message confirming the action taken is displayed for two seconds.

Both remote controls are now Psion Netbook Pro instead of Mobinote (see The Minimal Jukebox: Remote Control).

Other improvements include:

• On the Index and Details tabs, the "Amazon" and "Google" web page facility has been replaced by a more general-purpose web search facility. See page Our Jukebox: Web Browsing.
• On the Index tab, music by groups and their members is now cross-referenced. So, for example, the Index page "Albums by The Beatles" has links to pages "Albums by John Lennon", "Albums by Paul McCartney", etc. (You can see some of these links in the Remote Control Simulator — for example Paul Simon has a link to Simon & Garfunkel).
• On the Player tab, the number of upcoming tracks is displayed more clearly. So, instead of "Next track: <whatever>; then 5 more tracks" it reads "then 6 more tracks; Next track: <whatever>".
• Backing up the music files is now carried out automatically every night, to a remote disk drive. See page Our Jukebox: Backups.

The KAT5 distribution units have been replaced with CAT5 Blaster QC units, which have the advantage of not needing power supplies.

I've added Monitor Screens to show the details of the track currently playing in large letters so that they can be read throughout the room.

The "Newcomers" tab now has a "covers" view as well as a list view. You can it in the Remote Control Simulator.

No changes to the jukebox itself, but I've been taking a good look at SlimServer, and that caused me to rewrite the Jukebox Lite page.

The arrival of the Asus eee PC on the market earlier this year is very welcome news. This looks to me like the perfect platform to replace the Psion Netbook Pro as a remote control. The eee PC and other similar "netbooks" that have appeared on the scene are cheap and easily obtained. They are also much faster than the Psion, have a "proper" operating system, and have higher resolution (1024x600) displays. The only thing I haven't found (yet) is one with a touch-screen display.

The software that I use for the Psion works perfectly on the eee PC. However I'm rewriting the user interface to take advantage of the improved screen resolution and the experience gained using the existing software. Life is busy at the moment so I don't expect the rewrite to be finished for a while yet, but here's a preview: