- November 22, 2010
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Thanks for the heads up, One Button Music = brilliant.
Ideas for Music Section (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter jameson_uk
- Start date
- Status
Austria
AW: Ideas for Music Section
Hi,
maybe this is also a new plugin, but I would love to have a "Party Mode myMusic".
What do I mean:
Having on the left side a sliding Playlist which is currently played and on the right side a powerful search and selection UI, maybe similar to a box of CD's where I used to flip through to find a cool next song to play.
Also, the right side should support a "Preview" possibility on a different Audio Renderer than the main renderer (e.g. I have a USB Headset). Once a cool next sound is found, I can insert it to the playlist on the left side and re-arrange it (e.g. the playlist has all the fast songs but there is the nee for having 2-3 romatic songs mingled in right now).
So the USe case is:
- I setup a cool Playlist for my party
- when I feel the need for it, I can go to my MP and search for a special song and insert it to the playlist so I can adapt the music to the party mood
- The search for the song should be intuitive, so that also other (instructed) party guests can do so - just like in the old days when they went to the CD box, flipped with the fingers through it, found something interesting, turned it over to look at the songs and gave the CD to the DJ
just an idea
cheers
EST
Hi,
maybe this is also a new plugin, but I would love to have a "Party Mode myMusic".
What do I mean:
Having on the left side a sliding Playlist which is currently played and on the right side a powerful search and selection UI, maybe similar to a box of CD's where I used to flip through to find a cool next song to play.
Also, the right side should support a "Preview" possibility on a different Audio Renderer than the main renderer (e.g. I have a USB Headset). Once a cool next sound is found, I can insert it to the playlist on the left side and re-arrange it (e.g. the playlist has all the fast songs but there is the nee for having 2-3 romatic songs mingled in right now).
So the USe case is:
- I setup a cool Playlist for my party
- when I feel the need for it, I can go to my MP and search for a special song and insert it to the playlist so I can adapt the music to the party mood
- The search for the song should be intuitive, so that also other (instructed) party guests can do so - just like in the old days when they went to the CD box, flipped with the fingers through it, found something interesting, turned it over to look at the songs and gave the CD to the DJ
just an idea
cheers
EST
I'm afraid I haven't managed to make a mock-up, but I wanted to share my suggestion quickly.
I think the Music section would be much improved and more intuitive if it showed the Library on the left of the screen and the Playlist on the right. Then, when users added a track to the Playlist, they would see it appear there, would be able to see what songs were already in the playlist, and would be able to switch to the Playlist pane to re-arrange tracks.
I would also suggest that the coloured remote buttons are used to make things simple, so for example pressing Blue adds the currently highlighted song or folder/album in the Library to the playlist and, when in the Playlist pane, pressing Blue removes the currently highlighted song from the Playlist. Pressing Yellow in the Playlist pane could "grab" the currently highlighted song and then the arrow/cursor buttons could move it to a new place in the Playlist, at which point pressing Yellow again would "release" it.
There could also be a line at the top of the screen showing which coloured button does what, IE:
Blue - Add/Remove song Green - Switch between Library and Playlist Yellow - Grab/Release song in Playlist
You tend to see this sort of thing on Media Players/PVRs, and it makes it a lot easier for users, not having to remember which button does what.
I think there's plenty of room on the screen to do all this, as currently the left-hand side of the screen is given up to displaying cover art (which I can do without, I can always see that on the Now Playing screen) and the top-fifth maybe of the screen is used for nothing much.
I think the Music section would be much improved and more intuitive if it showed the Library on the left of the screen and the Playlist on the right. Then, when users added a track to the Playlist, they would see it appear there, would be able to see what songs were already in the playlist, and would be able to switch to the Playlist pane to re-arrange tracks.
I would also suggest that the coloured remote buttons are used to make things simple, so for example pressing Blue adds the currently highlighted song or folder/album in the Library to the playlist and, when in the Playlist pane, pressing Blue removes the currently highlighted song from the Playlist. Pressing Yellow in the Playlist pane could "grab" the currently highlighted song and then the arrow/cursor buttons could move it to a new place in the Playlist, at which point pressing Yellow again would "release" it.
There could also be a line at the top of the screen showing which coloured button does what, IE:
Blue - Add/Remove song Green - Switch between Library and Playlist Yellow - Grab/Release song in Playlist
You tend to see this sort of thing on Media Players/PVRs, and it makes it a lot easier for users, not having to remember which button does what.
I think there's plenty of room on the screen to do all this, as currently the left-hand side of the screen is given up to displaying cover art (which I can do without, I can always see that on the Now Playing screen) and the top-fifth maybe of the screen is used for nothing much.
I wish I had seen this post earlier.
I love Music in Mediaportal, but there are a lot of opportunities for improvements. Here's my wishlist:
FIXES:
- In Playlist view, there is no "Now Playing" in the bottom right. All the other screens (shares, Now Playing) have this "Now Playing" notification area.
- In Playlist view, when the track advances, the new track is automatically selected. This is very annoying when you are browsing the playlist, the track changes, and you lose your place. Instead, nothing should happen to the cursor when the track changes.
- When you open an M3U or PLS file that has invalid paths (i.e. paths that do not exist), the file is not loaded and nothing happens. Instead, it should give an error message, saying something like "Error: x file(s) not found"
- For album artwork, have MP load the ID3 art before folder.jpg.
Use Case: In my music collection, I have a folder.jpg in each artist folder that has a photo or logo of that artist/group. In each artist folder, I have loose tracks & singles, and folders for each of their albums. Some of the loose tracks have ID3-embedded artwork, but it is not displayed because all the loose tracks inherit the artist's folder.jpg. My workaround has been to delete the artist folder.jpg's. I'd like MP to display the ID3-embedded artwork if that exists, and use the folder.jpg artwork if the ID3 art does not exist.
NEW FUNCTIONALITY:
- While browsing shares, the ability to browse a playlist file as if it were a folder.
Use Case: I have a playlist with 1700 songs, and I want to cue up a song from it. I would like navigate to the M3U file, go to the context menu, select "Browse Playlist", and view the playlist in the Shares view as if it were a folder, where I can play a song or add it to the current MP playlist, without loading the entire M3U as a playlist.
- While browsing shares, add a context menu option for M3U and PLS files: "Play & Shuffle".
Use Case: I have some playlist files that I want to play in order, and others that I always want to play in a shuffled order. Because of this, I don't want to enable the option for "Auto shuffle playlists after loading". I'd like to be able to browse to an M3U or PLS, go to the context menu, and select "Play & Shuffle".
- Add a context menu to the Playlist view, with the following options: Play, Play next, Play now, Move to top, Move to bottom, Remove track.
- Add support for ReplayGain volume normalization. PLEEEEEASE! I hate monitoring the volume of music, and RG does such a good job of this.
- Ability to view .nfo files
I love Music in Mediaportal, but there are a lot of opportunities for improvements. Here's my wishlist:
FIXES:
- In Playlist view, there is no "Now Playing" in the bottom right. All the other screens (shares, Now Playing) have this "Now Playing" notification area.
- In Playlist view, when the track advances, the new track is automatically selected. This is very annoying when you are browsing the playlist, the track changes, and you lose your place. Instead, nothing should happen to the cursor when the track changes.
- When you open an M3U or PLS file that has invalid paths (i.e. paths that do not exist), the file is not loaded and nothing happens. Instead, it should give an error message, saying something like "Error: x file(s) not found"
- For album artwork, have MP load the ID3 art before folder.jpg.
Use Case: In my music collection, I have a folder.jpg in each artist folder that has a photo or logo of that artist/group. In each artist folder, I have loose tracks & singles, and folders for each of their albums. Some of the loose tracks have ID3-embedded artwork, but it is not displayed because all the loose tracks inherit the artist's folder.jpg. My workaround has been to delete the artist folder.jpg's. I'd like MP to display the ID3-embedded artwork if that exists, and use the folder.jpg artwork if the ID3 art does not exist.
NEW FUNCTIONALITY:
- While browsing shares, the ability to browse a playlist file as if it were a folder.
Use Case: I have a playlist with 1700 songs, and I want to cue up a song from it. I would like navigate to the M3U file, go to the context menu, select "Browse Playlist", and view the playlist in the Shares view as if it were a folder, where I can play a song or add it to the current MP playlist, without loading the entire M3U as a playlist.
- While browsing shares, add a context menu option for M3U and PLS files: "Play & Shuffle".
Use Case: I have some playlist files that I want to play in order, and others that I always want to play in a shuffled order. Because of this, I don't want to enable the option for "Auto shuffle playlists after loading". I'd like to be able to browse to an M3U or PLS, go to the context menu, and select "Play & Shuffle".
- Add a context menu to the Playlist view, with the following options: Play, Play next, Play now, Move to top, Move to bottom, Remove track.
- Add support for ReplayGain volume normalization. PLEEEEEASE! I hate monitoring the volume of music, and RG does such a good job of this.
- Ability to view .nfo files
I love MediaPortal for viewing TV-episodes and Movies, but for listening to music (MP3), I prefer Windows Media Center.
I'll try to explain why.
I have a 7" touchscreen and a TV connected to my htpc, I prefer to use only the touchscreen when listening to music (Love MPDisplay2!!!).
Why Windows Media Center:
It's fast, I have about 70 GB of music files and it's still lightning fast.
It is very intuitive: Music --> choose view --> choose what you want to listen to, my kids (2 and 4 years) can (an do) use it. Same with the difference between listening to one song and adding it to a playlist.
Searching a song (or artist): choose the view (ex artist) and begin typing on your remote like texting on a cell phone: NICK will get you to nick cave, nickelback, ... I do not have to scroll all the way, flip pages or turn to a search screen just going to the artist I want to hear.
Could be (probably) there are features in MediaPortal I don't know about, my apologies then :sorry:
One other thing I am missing is the integration with MusicIP (being able to set a "mood" for the evening, automated playlists) although "one button music" is great, there should be more possible.
(In Meedios, before it was MeesicIP, now it is the plugin MixMee).
What don't I need: a lot of eye-candy: I want to listen to music
Thanks for your efforts to get the music section more up to date!!!
Sam
I'll try to explain why.
I have a 7" touchscreen and a TV connected to my htpc, I prefer to use only the touchscreen when listening to music (Love MPDisplay2!!!).
Why Windows Media Center:
It's fast, I have about 70 GB of music files and it's still lightning fast.
It is very intuitive: Music --> choose view --> choose what you want to listen to, my kids (2 and 4 years) can (an do) use it. Same with the difference between listening to one song and adding it to a playlist.
Searching a song (or artist): choose the view (ex artist) and begin typing on your remote like texting on a cell phone: NICK will get you to nick cave, nickelback, ... I do not have to scroll all the way, flip pages or turn to a search screen just going to the artist I want to hear.
Could be (probably) there are features in MediaPortal I don't know about, my apologies then :sorry:
One other thing I am missing is the integration with MusicIP (being able to set a "mood" for the evening, automated playlists) although "one button music" is great, there should be more possible.
(In Meedios, before it was MeesicIP, now it is the plugin MixMee).
What don't I need: a lot of eye-candy: I want to listen to music
Thanks for your efforts to get the music section more up to date!!!
Sam
Jameson,
Hopefully this isn't too late to suggest ideas for improvements (I know you are well into 1.2.0 Dev work), but I was thinking that a "Client Link" music function would be a nice feature.
Effectively it would be nice if you a playing music on one client to be able to command another client in a different room to connect (in some way) to the other client that is already playing music so you effectively have multi-room music setup (i.e the same music playing on both clients).
If there are already two clients playing music (if you are lucky enough to have more than two), then the user could be prompted to choose which one he/she wanted to connect to.
I am not sure if this is feasibly possible and whether any data transport lags might cause problems of the music being slightly out of sync between the two rooms (which might be a problem if you have two rooms close to each-other and you can hear them both at the same time).
What do you think? Possible? Useful? Cool?
Robbo100
Hopefully this isn't too late to suggest ideas for improvements (I know you are well into 1.2.0 Dev work), but I was thinking that a "Client Link" music function would be a nice feature.
Effectively it would be nice if you a playing music on one client to be able to command another client in a different room to connect (in some way) to the other client that is already playing music so you effectively have multi-room music setup (i.e the same music playing on both clients).
If there are already two clients playing music (if you are lucky enough to have more than two
), then the user could be prompted to choose which one he/she wanted to connect to.I am not sure if this is feasibly possible and whether any data transport lags might cause problems of the music being slightly out of sync between the two rooms (which might be a problem if you have two rooms close to each-other and you can hear them both at the same time).
What do you think? Possible? Useful? Cool?
Robbo100
- Thread starter
- #197
Too late really for 1.2. We are just finalising 1.2 beta so nothing new will be going in.
Still lots of ideas for 1.3 though
I will probably create a 1.2 beta music feedback thread after 1.2 beta is released and then a 1.3 improvements thread
- Thread starter
- #199
There is a plan for 1.3 but the plan is for this to mainly be patches submitted by community and a few bug fixes.
Not sure about your idea.... Anything is possible but this would probably be quite a lot of work... will come back to this thread once 1.2 is out and go through it again
May be this idea can be adressed by using the Squeezebox protocol(it's open source.. and allows multi room setups). The main problem is the way to sync the playing... Another possibility would be a PlayTo like feature which is much easier to implement...
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