Ideas for Music Section (2 Viewers)

[el_gato]

AW: Re: AW: Re: Ideas for Music Section

it IS a Global Command.
But if no Music is playing, why should we invoke an empty Now Playing screen?

And you are wrong with the Red Button.

The Red Button on Remote Control, or "X" on the keyboard, is used to toggle between MP GUI and Fullscreen Visualisation.
Now, when you DON'T have any Vis set, it doesn't show you a blank screen, but it invokes "Now Playing".
So the functionality is already there.

The "Z" button is there for people who use Visualisation. They use "Red" and "X" to toggle between GUI and Full Screen Vis and
the "Z" is used to invoke Now Playing.

I know that now we're immediately asked to have some round robin using "X" or Red Button, like GUI -> Vis -> Now Playing, but i don#t think that it can be easily done and we most probably won't do it.

i wasn't aware that this function has been added already someday but i must admit that i didn't check this again for a long time... sorry for that. the rest is redundant now...

 

[jrichards52081]

Re: AW: Re: AW: Re: Ideas for Music Section

Some of the responses here make sense. I didn't realize the "fullscreen" button would take you to Now Playing if no Visualization is set, so in some ways it is a solution to my problem. I do like jameson_uk's solution though. Because it gives a user a way to get to the Now Playing screen in one button from anywhere else in MP. If 'x' toggles Full Screen and GUI I assume if I am browsing MP and switch to FullScreen music Vis, then hit 'x' again, I'll go back to whatever menu I was in, so there still is no way to get straight to Now Playing if visualization is on. His solution seems to solve this.

My real question though was this: Is there a way to make a global "Go to Now Playing" button? That way no matter what was playing: Music/Movie/TV/Streaming Video/Streaming Audio/etc. You would go the Now Playing screen for that if it was playing and go nowhere if it wasn't playing. It seems that only one thing can play at once, (no video on mute with music in bg) so I was asking whether one button could do this for all of MP no matter the plugin that was currently playing something.

Honestly, I'd really like Visualization and Now Playing to both be different views of the same screen, but that doesn't sound possible from within MP.

 

[wonkyd]

I think the play button should play and the enter button should play also... removes any confusion.

 

[jrichards52081]

Right ok started work on the enter/play conundrum....

I will attempt to have two modes which you can flick between so keep that in mind but I don't want to colour your view too much and just want feedback on what you think should happen.

Take into account that

• You have multiple levels of views (and enter will only ever be used to go into folders)
• You may have music playing at the time (should be stop and replace that, queue our song up next, queue our song up at the end of the current list?)
• You may have TV or video playing. (Should that stop)
• You may only multiple tracks in a view

So ignore whatever I have said before just say what you think the buttons should do

My 2 cents (pence?):

Mode 1: Identical function on song.
- 'Enter' would drill down into the folders until a song was encountered. If 'enter' was pushed while a song was highlighted, anything currently playing would stop, Music would go to Now Playing (if selected in config) and any song after that in the folder would continue to play as well.
- 'Play,' would stop anything currently playing and, when pressed on a folder, would play the contents of that folder in order and immediately jump to Now Playing. If pressed on a song, it would play that song and any song after it in the folder and jump to Now Playing

Mode 2: Playlist mode, similar to current mode.
- 'Enter' would drill down into folders until a song was encountered. If pressed while a song was highlighted, it would stop what was currently playing, and play the selected song, plus everything following that in the folder. It would switch to Now Playing when doing so.
- 'Play' would not stop the current song from playing. The song or folder of songs (whichever is highlighted when the button is pressed) would be added to the current playlist. It would do so according to the settings in MP config whether it is added as next song or at the end of playlist.

One thing I might change about the above is that the "Switch to Now Playing" setting currently in the config could be 2 settings. So you could check or uncheck it for both the Enter and Play buttons according to your taste.

Can't wait to see other people's input! I'm going out of town for a few days, so you'll have some discussion time without any of my opinions

 

[mpsam]

Visualizations and Fanart are good. How about a link to pictures to view a slideshow ?

 

[jameson_uk]

I think the play button should play and the enter button should play also... removes any confusion.

But what does this actually mean? What if there is already something playing, should both stop whatever is playing and start playing what you have selected? If you were in the middle of an album and click on a track from a different album what should happen? should MP forget about the first album?

Play can mean a lot of things....

 

[jameson_uk]

Visualizations and Fanart are good. How about a link to pictures to view a slideshow ?

I don't really feel the need for that but it is quite simple to achieve inside a skin so you could ask your skin developer or hack your existing skin if you want to add this shortcut

 

[wonkyd]

I think the play button should play and the enter button should play also... removes any confusion.

...should both stop whatever is playing and start playing what you have selected? ...should MP forget about the first album?

I think so yes, if you click play/press enter on a track it plays. I don't think that the play/enter/ok button should have different functions.

If a song is playing and you choose a different track then press enter/play it should stop playing the previous song and start the new song.

As I've said before perhaps one of the colour buttons on the remote to queue songs or if no songs are playing add to a playlist.

Edit...

Perhaps if you are playing back an album and you go to a different album and select a track it should change to that album and play through that instead, as if you'd changed CD's on a CD player or albums on an iPod.

However if you are playing from a playlist it should add+play, so add the song either to the bottom or after the currently playing song (user defined in music config) then play it immediately.

 

[Dadeo]

wonkyd Can you describe step by step in your method how I should create a playlist?
Am I correct in understanding you wish to use an entirely separate remote key to add an artitst/album/track to a playlist?

Remember many users do not have remotes with coloured buttons. So your solution would require them to re-program their remotes and god knows what mouse and touch screen and other input devices are supposed to use.

emphatic - we have rewritten the music section of the new wiki and incorporated kiwikjunglist's music guide. We still have some plans to make it even better, but when the new wiki is available for public beta test in a few days, I will look forward to your feedback and suggestions. We have not updated it for the 1.2.0 changes yet, since they are not complete and since jameson_uk and hwahrmann are still busy trying to get all our requests into 1.2.0. But we will as soon as those are available (i.e. in 1.2.0 beta I assume).

 

[wonkyd]

@wonkyd Can you describe step by step in your method how I should create a playlist?
Am I correct in understanding you wish to use an entirely separate remote key to add an artitst/album/track to a playlist?

Remember many users do not have remotes with coloured buttons. So your solution would require them to re-program their remotes and god knows what mouse and touch screen and other input devices are supposed to use.

I dont believe that if I enter the music section and start playing music it should not start a playlist. I've not asked it to make a playlist so there shouldn't be one. Therefore enter/play should maintain the same function ie play.


What I'm suggesting is that if I select to create a playlist say menu>create playlist then pressing blue/green/yellow will add the selected track to the playlist. Perhaps with a small notification in the corner, NOT one which steals focus or stops other tracks being added. Then Enter/play will still play the selected song.

I see what your saying about users not having coloured buttons, maybe in this situation, or as a compromise of my suggestion enter could add a song to the playlist but only when your creating a playlist or in playlist mode. Again a small notification like "SongA added to playlist...". Play should always function as play.

I think it's like the iPod, if I play a track from an album it plays the track then the next song from that album. If I change to a different track from another album it changes to that album.

If I create a playlist, any song I choose is added to the playlist until I press play.

I think tha makes sense...