Ideas for Music Section 1.3 (3 Viewers)

[jameson_uk]

..it would require some tags to know that the song is not a real song, but instead some audio book for example.

Not really... It could be done automatically: Tracks which are longer than (for example) 10minutes are started from the last position.

OR: Every track is started from last position without a question. If i don't want that, i have to press the play button again. Just add an option to activate/deactivate this feature in the configuration tool.

Won't be done. There is enough music that is over 10 mins that you would not want to restart. Fundamentally I would not want to see audio books in music section anyway; I would want to see them in a different set of screens (surely you would want to browse books by different categories than music? Eg. author, actor... To me audio books are closer to videos than music)

In fact as a thought you could probably use the video plugin and this would restart and resume

 

[Klez]

There is enough music that is over 10 mins that you would not want to restart.

10min was an example. I don't want a restart... i want a start from the last ending position.

This is much more important than a start from beginning all the time. No matter if it is an audio book or not. Take a 1h30min DJ Set for example... Who wants to hear it right from beginning all the time? Or seek forward all the time? I think: no one.

Those who want to hear it from beginning just have to push "play" again.
But those who needs to find the last position have to seek forward all the time. Comfort is something else...

Resume from last position is a standard basic feature. Even the radio in my car can do that.

 

[tourettes]

10min was an example. I don't want a restart... i want a start from the last ending position.

You have such need, but do the majority of music listeners have such (we should exclude the audio books since they are different "media" type and should have own plugin - Jameson_uk did already list few reasons for that).

This is much more important than a start from beginning all the time. No matter if it is an audio book or not. Take a 1h30min DJ Set for example... Who wants to hear it right from beginning all the time? Or seek forward all the time? I think: no one.

Starting a song in the middle is something I (and probably the majority) wouldn't ever want.

What comes to DJ sets, they should be split to song basis (with CUE sheets if they are provided as a single audio track).

ps. there simply is no suitable lenght for "resume at stopped playback". Just few examples from my own collection:

Yanqui U.X.O. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Barghest O' Whitby - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In short, someone should write a plugin to handle the audio books.

 

[Klez]

You have such need, but do the majority of music listeners have such.

Let us start a vote...

Starting a song in the middle is something I (and probably the majority) wouldn't ever want.

Well... In this case u have to press "play" for exactly 1 time. Not a real problem. A history of 1-2 tracks would be enough, so if u play a different song, it would be played from beginning anyway.

In short, someone should write a plugin to handle the audio books.

I really can't see the problem. We need a "start from last position" only. Just build in a "enable / disable" option, and everyone should be happy with it. Those who want it, can enable the feature, those who don't want it, can disable it.

 

[robbo100]

Hi Jameson,

Sorry to ask this again, but is multi-room (multi-client) playback on the list at all for MP 1.3? If it isn't I was thinking of asking if anyone in the plugin forum wanted to have a go at it.

Thanks

Robbo100

 

[jameson_uk]

Hi Jameson,

Sorry to ask this again, but is multi-room (multi-client) playback on the list at all for MP 1.3? If it isn't I was thinking of asking if anyone in the plugin forum wanted to have a go at it.

Thanks

Robbo100

Sorry won't be in 1.3.

Plan is to rewrite the player code so that ASIO works and WASAPI is supported. Then add things like replay gain and some of the id3 2.4 tags.

The two of us working on music are both really busy at work at the minute so I can't commit to more than this at the minute

 

[robbo100]

OK, no problem.

I will ask in the plugin thread to see if anyone is interested in looking at it.

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

Robbo100

 

[Edalex]

Is it possible not to add zero-length tracks to playlist?

 

[doveman]

Where can I see this "list of what is playing" that tracks get added to when I press OK then? I'm confused because when "Show current playlist" is ticked, OK does add the tracks to the list shown on the playlist screen, but when "Show current playlist" is unticked pressing OK the playlist screen doesn't show these tracks, so it seems that as far as MP is concerned pressing OK adds the tracks to the "current playlist". I also don't understand the difference between a playlist and a "list of what is playing" either!

And that is the issue.... mp currently only has a single screen to show any list of tracks (collective term for the playlist and now playing screen)

So there is only one list and no way of switching. As you can see you can either see the now playing list but then you can "audition" tracks whilst building a playlist or you can see the playlist and not see tracks you queue up (which is actually how mp was working before)

This is what I want to improve if I ever get time

OK, I understand the problem with only having a single place that can only show either the playlist or the now playing list. I'm not sure I understand why there needs to be a now playing list (or a visible one anyway) though. To my mind, if I audition (press play on) a track or album I just want to listen to that track/album and don't need to see it in a list. Sure I might want to skip to the next/previous track in an album, but wouldn't the skip forward/backward remote buttons suffice for that without needing to see a list?

If instead I want to add the track/album to my playlist, I should press OK and it would be added to the current playlist (and not played), which should be what's shown when I select "Show current playlist". There may be times when I've already got a playlist loaded and forgot to clear it before starting another one, but then I can just clear it and start again (perhaps it would be possible to warn the user the first time they add something to the playlist if there's already one loaded?).

So it seems as if the usability could be greatly improved by a) make "Show current playlist" always show the playlist, b) make the now playing list hidden (or perhaps it can be shown, in part at least, on the Now Playing screen but I don't think this is particularly necessary) and c) make OK add a track/album to the playlist without playing it.

I don't know if this is already covered, as I haven't got much experience with playlists, but perhaps it would be possible to make the "Save playlist when exiting" option add a suffix to the name if it already exists, so that if the user's accidentally messed it up there's the previous version to fall back to. If the user manually saves the playlist this is probably not necessary as they're likely to be happy with the playlist when doing that, whereas with auto-save the user might have accidentally messed up their playlist without realising and thus it might be better not to overwrite it when auto-saving.

I do appreciate your time spent on this and that you're rather busy and only offer these suggestions for you to consider when you do get round to looking at these parts of the plugin

 

[jameson_uk]

So it seems as if the usability could be greatly improved by a) make "Show current playlist" always show the playlist, b) make the now playing list hidden (or perhaps it can be shown, in part at least, on the Now Playing screen but I don't think this is particularly necessary)

This is what un-ticking the "Playlist screen shows current playlist" option in config does.

c) make OK add a track/album to the playlist without playing it.

I am not going to make OK add to playlist. I will add an action so you can map whatever remote button you like to add an item to the playlist but OK will do what it does now.