Control Software
All of the music that is played is stored as a midi file. The problem is that midi files are written such that many types of instrument sounds can be used, much less only written for bells. To solve this, we are using a midi software called MidiOx. What MidiOx does is intercepts the midi signal as it is being sent from our midi player, and forces the only sound to be bells on one channel and ignores the signals from the other channels. With this, a user can download almost any midi file from online and it will play on the bell tower.
User Interface
Using MidiOx can be very overwhelming if you don't know what you are doing. We also needed something that could mimic the control functionality of the current system. Our solution is to create a very simplified program so that anyone could operate the tower. This software is being written in Nokia's Qt IDE and will control MidiOx through its COM server. When completed, the user will be able to add new music, create playlists, and schedule when those playlist play. One proposed idea is to have the computer monitor displaying this program to have touch screen capabilities. With this in mind, the buttons where made very large so the operator could easily change system setting while playing the tower.
Below is an image of the control program.
Below is an image of the control program.
Control Panel for current system
Control Panel for our proposed system