Centrafuse 3.5 Release

We decided to switch gears a bit for our next Centrafuse update. Instead of going from 3.1 to 3.2, we're jumping all the way to 3.5, yep THREE FIVE! The Centrafuse 3.5 update, swollen with over 200 changes is so drastic, that you'd half expect it to be a full paid upgrade. This update is absolutely free to all of our loyal users and available for download today from your account page. New users should download the latest version from the Trial Download page here. We thank you for your patience with this release, and hope you enjoy it!

Here are the major changes:

Centrafuse Market - We’re pleased to announce the inclusion of Centrafuse Market with the 3.5 release. This represents a major step forward for Centrafuse and its ever-growing developer community. The benefits to this new built-in app store are many-fold. First, we were able to remove some of the lesser used plugin apps from the Centrafuse base installer which makes for a more modular and lightweight installer with a smaller memory footprint and quicker load times. If you find yourself without something like OBD-II or Email, or need support for a particular radio, just open up the Market browser and download it.

Secondly, the Centrafuse Market streamlines and standardizes how plugin apps are created, deployed and updated. This means as a developer, you can quickly and easily push updates out to your users, avoiding the hassle of relying on detailed instructions, minimizing end-user install issues. Developers will be notified with instructions to sign up to submit Market applications later this week.

Attention End-users: To use Centrafuse Market, simply enter your Centrafuse.com My Account username and password into the Settings for the Market plugin app. Then start browsing the Market by pressing the Market icon from the home screen. Note: For those without vehicle internet access, you will soon be able to download these CFAPP packages directly from our website, and save them to a USB thumb drive for easy installation.

Attention Developers: Watch your inbox later this week for the official Market announcement and developer signup. We need everyone to convert their plugin apps to version 3.5 and submit them to the Market. The 3.5 SDK including the beta for Centrafuse Studio is almost ready and we should be announcing that towards the end of this week.

The next phase of the Market will allow PAY-FOR apps, allowing developers to set prices, which we feel will bring a much broader selection of apps as we attract more developers to the Centrafuse developer community. This is planned tentatively for release with the 3.6 update.

See our video overview of Centrafuse Market - VIDEO

• Built-in support for Centrafuse Market – the all new Centrafuse “app store”
• New lighter, more modular installer – Download and install apps directly from the Market

• Enhanced overall ease of usability; increased contrast with the default skin
• Unified user interaction in Settings, Library and Market
• Restructured and organized "Settings"
• Improved user-friendliness when selecting audio record and playback devices
• Added visual voice recognition prompt
• Quickly find items in long listviews with the new “jump-to-letter” indexer
• Improved listview and “throw-scrolling” performance
• Enhanced Navigation by increasing readability, usability of UI
• Almost 100% "advanced list views" throughout providing a more informative user experience
• Library album view now supports 3 different views: 3-up, 6-up and list mode. Click the disc icon to toggle
• Added Start menu shortcuts for enabling logging and exporting a system log report.

• Supports as many screens as OS allows (over 3 screens requires a very powerful machine)

• Import contacts from your phonebook *requires handset Bluetooth PBAP support
• Listen to content on your phone using Bluetooth Audio *requires handset Bluetooth A2DP support
• Improved voice dialing of phone contacts

• Improved DVD/Video playback support for Windows 7
• Full compatibility with Windows 7 Aero
• Improved support for Windows 7 UAC (User Account Control)

• The much anticipated Gesture recognition has returned
• Aux input support. Listen to an external device through your line input. *available on Market
• General improvements to Email, Voice Notes, OBD-II, AM/FM Radio and more
• Centrafuse self-update mechanism in place for 3.6 (no more reinstalling until next major build, 4.0)

• Fixed issues with license files and Windows 7 UAC
• Fixed major postcode bug for UK navigation users
• Fixed issues with bad ID3 tag characters affecting voice music search
• License files are now deployed to Application data, not Program Files for improved Windows 7 UAC compatibility
• Fixed bug in Email related to certain IMAP issues

• Centrafuse Studio Beta 1 – open and edit a skin, drag and drop, change and export as new skin
• Code templates for Visual Studio for creating plugins, radio modules and more
• Plugin application code examples complete with documentation

• Plugin apps can now define their own voice commands and hotkeys
• Exposed events for handing system navigation voices
• New Voice Record API allows developers add voice recording to their apps
• Added deprecated CF_pluginCMLCommand() method call back from 3.1 API

• Lots of new CMLActions and CMLText have been added to enable even more skin customizations for CML developers – see Centrafuse Studio Beta in 3.5 SDK
• New dynamically resizing “autoscale” feature for Labels, add autoscale=”true” to any label
• Integrated advanced listview templates directly into CML, no more separate listview files
• Added hotkey for Now Playing function (top left audio source button)
• A plethora of CMLActions and CMLText have been implemented to enable even more skin customizations

• Voice recognition will not work when using both Mic input and Line input (any radio) on the same sound device. Must get a USB sound card for voice rec, if you use the line-input for anything.
• Transition issues with multi-screen dialogs (track details and volume)
• Dialing a POI not working in Navigation POI screens
• Aux input plugin won’t work until you enable audio passthrough (Listen to this device) on the Line-input in Win7 (may be necessary on some Win7 systems)
• Voice dialing doesn’t work on some contacts w/ special characters (isolated)
• Known issues with “High” effect profile (any issues, try different effect profile. Default is now Medium)
• Voice dialing while actively using Radio or sometimes BT audio causes the Answer (Yes/no) dialog to appear unnecessarily.
• Selecting/viewing the last item in a advanced listview is sometimes not possible. Throw scrolling/scroll bar bug.
• Not possible to scroll up or completely navigate the UI completely with a scroll wheel, or similar device (Powermate, SpaceNavigator), must use touchscreen.

a. Open Control Panel, locate Programs and Features (or Add/Remove Programs on XP)
b. Locate any previous version of Centrafuse including any old map installers and uninstall each. Note – removing BlueSoleil should not be necessary
c. When prompted to keep user settings, be sure and answer NO. (We’re sorry, but you may not keep your user settings)

a. Open My Computer and locate your system drive (usually C:\)
b. Open the C:\ drive and find the \Program Files\ folder
c. Under the \Program Files\ folder, locate the \Centrafuse\ folder
d. Under the \Centrafuse\ folder, locate the \Centrafuse Auto] folder
e. Right-click on the \Centrafuse Auto\ folder and select Delete to remove it

a. Download and run the new Centrafuse_3516.exe installer file available from your account page
b. This will install the base version of Centrafuse. At this time of writing, you will need to manually get the Destinator navigation engine plugin app from the Market in order to use Navigation maps. You can also get it from your GET INSTALLER FILES download page at your My Account page. Very soon this will be available on your account page as custom base installer that includes the Destinator package included.
c. If you have the Navigation edition, you will need to download your map installers from your My Account page.