Ideas for Music Section (3 Viewers)

[el_gato]

AW: Re: Ideas for Music Section

How do you differentiate audiobooks from other audio files?

I currently use the genre Tag(e.g. Genre == "audiobook") to differentiate audiobooks, but it's not the best solution cause also audiobooks can have genres...

So there is no "official" way of telling what is an audiobook and what is a standard music file?

Only thing i could think of is, that for songs > 10 minutes length, the Stop Time is saved, if there was a manual stop.
And that we either ask, "Do you want to continue" or have a flag saying "Continue were stopped".
With the second option we would not interfere with classical type of music,[/QUOTE]

---

i have only few audiobooks but 2 of them come into my mind which are not one long file but seperated into small parts which are less long than 10 minutes. illuminati for example consists of about 155 files with 6 to 7+ minutes playtime each... same for charlotte roches feuchtgebiete which is not only seperated into smalll files with variable playtime but also divided into 5 chapters...

so this is not the best solution to call every file with playtime 10min+ to be an audiobook which can be continued...

 

[emphatic]

Only thing i could think of is, that for songs > 10 minutes length, the Stop Time is saved, if there was a manual stop.
And that we either ask, "Do you want to continue" or have a flag saying "Continue were stopped".
With the second option we would not interfere with classical type of music,

This would be a very nice feature regardless of Audio Books. I listen to lots of DJ mixes, and I always save them as one file, sometimes with a .cue file. Regarding Audio Books, would it be possible to make the player create a resume point depending on a specific tag? If so, then users with Audio Books could tag their files (in "Comments" perhaps) with "Audio Book".

Of course, theoretically there are music albums titled "Audio Book", but I don't think it's a big deal if ONE album would ask you to resume should you stop it manually some time.

Emph

 

[hwahrmann]

But, if you have such short files, where every chapter is between 3 - 5 minutes, what's reason to stop between?
It shouldn't be a problem to listen again to those few minutes.

as jameson_uk said abovem there is no official way of detecting an audio book.
Some may use a genre, but what is it then "Audio book", "eBook", "Hörbuch", etc.
Tell me a reliable way to identify an audio book and we can discuss it.


was referring to one posting further above

 

[jameson_uk]

Only thing i could think of is, that for songs > 10 minutes length, the Stop Time is saved, if there was a manual stop.
And that we either ask, "Do you want to continue" or have a flag saying "Continue were stopped".
With the second option we would not interfere with classical type of music,

My thought is actually to separate out audiobooks. I mean in reality there is no point including them with the rest of your music collection.

Just thinking something like having a second list of shares that are audiobooks. We could then import these and flag them somewhere that they are audio books (or even store them in a different table)... kind of sounding like a new plugin but perhaps a second list and only store stop point / ask to restore for those shares?

 

[el_gato]

AW: Re: Ideas for Music Section

1. When entering the music section, I think 1 of 3 things should happen, as a user-selected option. A. Have a pop-up list of Playlists/Artist/Album/Genre, etc. so the user can choose which section to go to. B. Assign a standard section that music always jumps to (i.e. I would automatically jump to Genre always) or C. Have it always go to the last-used section.

A. i don't understand this one. whats the aim of an overlayed menu asking you the same you can already do by switching to another view in the menu?
B. Config MP to start always in a view showing you genre...
C. there should already be an option in mpconfig to go to the last used folder...

2. I do not like how it is playlist focused. If I hit play on an album, then I want to play that album only. I do not want it to create a playlist with that album in it. It should jump straight to the now playing screen, then when the album is done playing go right back to the album list or previous page I was on. Same thing with hitting play on a genre or artist, etc. I mostly own albums and never create playlists on the go. If it already does this, what am I missing?

kinda agree with you, if i select an album to play, i mostly want to play this one only. the creation of a playlist doesn't disturb me, but possibly scrobbled tracks which get added to it... but this can be stopped with some more clicks and disabled scrobblefeature

3. Shuffle!! Mediaportal physically shuffles the playlist when I hit shuffle. This should be something that can be turned on or off while keeping the list in the same order. An algorithm should just jump around the songs in that list without changing the listing order. Also, it should be a persistent on-screen option whenever I am listening to music. I'll often listen to a select genre, then when I get to the now playing screen I want to choose shuffle (maybe it is in the menu of the now playing screen on Blue3 and is just missing from StreamedMP skin?)

don't get the advantage if the order is kept and mp jumps around in the playlist...

4. Speaking of on-screen controls, I'd love to always have on-screen play/pause, skip/back, shuffle/repeat buttons on screen. I won't always use them because the screen is usually off, but it's nice for visitors who don't know which buttons on the remote to use or can't find the hidden menu.

i don't know any remote designed for the use with a htpc which has no buttons like play, stop, pause etc. so why do the visitors know these one on the screen but not the ones on the remote although the icons on them are the same standard ones?

5. Enter and Play seem to have different functions on a song. I don't understand why. If it is an actionable item, it should do the standard action, which is play that song. Again, I'd prefer it immediately jump to the now playing screen (maybe enter plays just that song, and play would play that whole list? I am unsure on this point).

yes there are differences, i had to figure this out too and it took some time but you get used to it. play starts a playlist and adds the song(s) to it while enter just plays that specifically song... but don't ask me why this is as it is^^ i think this is something that should be reworked. i know how to handle mp, but the "visitors" sometimes screw up the playlist and everything because they don't know the difference between play and enter when they play around with the music and click some songs...

6. This is minor, and actually applies to all of MP, but I want the ability to remove the back arrows in lists. I have a button on my remote that says "BACK" and the arrows are visually ugly.

it's an global mp issue but i totally agree! mp (a mediacenter in general) is mostly designed to be navigated via remote and i hope that the remote designers (which oriented on mce mostly) gave every remote a back and info button. so i think these back arrows are outdated (at least in mp2 i hope^^)

7. Another minor one that I know can be changed, but the default of grouping by letter should not be the default. It took me a lot of searching to figure out how to get rid of that.

it took me some time too, to get the view as i want it in those days (artist (with full name)/albums/tracks) but after some playing around i had it and the views are quite flexible, you can design them as you want... back then, the wiki could not help me much, the new one will be better i think...

8. As an extra feature, Smart Playlists (like iTunes Genius) would be pretty nice, if possible.

last.fm and the possibillity to scroble your music is kind of itunes genius... and it has been there before apple "invented" it^^ give it a try...

But, if you have such short files, where every chapter is between 3 - 5 minutes, what's reason to stop between?
It shouldn't be a problem to listen again to those few minutes.

as jameson_uk said abovem there is no official way of detecting an audio book.
Some may use a genre, but what is it then "Audio book", "eBook", "Hörbuch", etc.
Tell me a reliable way to identify an audio book and we can discuss it.


was referring to one posting further above

there is no reason to stop between them. just got the audiobooks in this way they are produced... added all files to a playlist and started listening. with smaller files respectively some more file it is easier to continue if you don't listen to all of them in one session. so this may be the reason why these 2 audiobooks from the example are produced this way.

i also thought of the way jameson_uk still said to have it tagged as genre "audiobook". "hörbuch" would be the german equivalent. ebooks i think are (pdf)files with text/pictures not audio... it should be possible to filter out the files tagged with either audiobook or hörbuch or anything else? i have no better idea since there is no standard for files to mark them as audiobooks...

 

[jameson_uk]

First off thanks this is exactly the sort of feedback I am looking for

1. When entering the music section, I think 1 of 3 things should happen, as a user-selected option. A. Have a pop-up list of Playlists/Artist/Album/Genre, etc. so the user can choose which section to go to. B. Assign a standard section that music always jumps to (i.e. I would automatically jump to Genre always) or C. Have it always go to the last-used section.

I am assuming you have imported your music into the database? If so MP will always default to the last view you used and you can easily swap between genre, album artist, year etc (you can setup what views you want)

2. I do not like how it is playlist focused. If I hit play on an album, then I want to play that album only. I do not want it to create a playlist with that album in it. It should jump straight to the now playing screen, then when the album is done playing go right back to the album list or previous page I was on. Same thing with hitting play on a genre or artist, etc. I mostly own albums and never create playlists on the go. If it already does this, what am I missing?

In config there is an option under music on the misc settings tab called "jump on play now". You can set this so it will jump to now-playing when you either select a single track or multiple tracks. The idea about jumping back when finished is quite interesting but I can't quite decide whether I would want to do that or not.

As for playlist focused I would say the opposite If you highlight and album and press play on the remote that album will play (and if you have set the jump on play now option it will jump to non-playing. If in the middle of that album you select a different album and press play that album will start and everything about the last one is forgotten. To add to playlists you need to go into the context menu and the click the add to playlist option

3. Shuffle!! Mediaportal physically shuffles the playlist when I hit shuffle. This should be something that can be turned on or off while keeping the list in the same order. An algorithm should just jump around the songs in that list without changing the listing order. Also, it should be a persistent on-screen option whenever I am listening to music. I'll often listen to a select genre, then when I get to the now playing screen I want to choose shuffle (maybe it is in the menu of the now playing screen on Blue3 and is just missing from StreamedMP skin?)

There is a shuffle option?? seriously I have never used it and it just took me a fair while to find it (that is the playlist screen). As to whether it is on screen on or not on various pages that is a skin issue but it looks like it is only available in the playlist screen. This certainly seems a candidate to make this available in the now-playing screen too.

As for ordering I think it will stay as is. We shuffle the list and then it moves down it (I have feeling this is relatively deep rooted in the code)

4. Speaking of on-screen controls, I'd love to always have on-screen play/pause, skip/back, shuffle/repeat buttons on screen. I won't always use them because the screen is usually off, but it's nice for visitors who don't know which buttons on the remote to use or can't find the hidden menu.

The top bar does this but I don't know of anyway of brining this up other than a mouse which is not too helpful. Never realised this until now... Will look at this

5. Enter and Play seem to have different functions on a song. I don't understand why. If it is an actionable item, it should do the standard action, which is play that song. Again, I'd prefer it immediately jump to the now playing screen (maybe enter plays just that song, and play would play that whole list? I am unsure on this point).

This is what I don't like when browsing anything except tracks enter will take you down a level play will stop whatever is playing and starting playing what is selected. When browsing tracks it is a little more odd...

Pressing enter (ok on remote) will start playing the track and then it will continue playing through the rest of the album. Pressing play does the same as it does elsewhere, it will clear what is playing and add what is selected to the playlist (ie. the single track)

This is actually quite complicated to get right as you need to be able to navigate as well as play files and then some people want playlists and some people want to start from scratch. I do have some ideas on this but I am not sure we will be able to implement them for MP1

6. This is minor, and actually applies to all of MP, but I want the ability to remove the back arrows in lists. I have a button on my remote that says "BACK" and the arrows are visually ugly.

We can't remove the ".." entries but you may want to have read through this. It is possible for skins to not show any icons associated with the back links but the actual ".." entry has to remain

7. Another minor one that I know can be changed, but the default of grouping by letter should not be the default. It took me a lot of searching to figure out how to get rid of that.

For what? The views are user customizable so you can set them how you want. If you are talking about artist, I have a large collection and it only makes sense to browse via letter first and then artist

8. As an extra feature, Smart Playlists (like iTunes Genius) would be pretty nice, if possible.

Yeah not sure how possible this is. I am thinking a lot of this is driven by massive amounts of data that Apple are not going to let anyone else look at and I am not sure how else you can do it. I did look at doing a local last.fm type thing where you select a song and then by going through similar tracks on last.fm you match one of those to your local collection and play but I found that it always ran out after several songs (even with my collection which is about 900 CDs)

I am relatively new to MediaPortal and still figuring things out, so maybe some of this is already happening and I am not understanding things correctly, if so I am sorry!! I am using the StreamedMP skin also, so maybe it functions differently than the standard skin. But basically, I want it to work almost exactly like an iPod...nice and simple. There is a standard now playing screen that you jump to when playing a song/album/whatever with the ability to turn on and off shuffle. And an easy way to get back to the Now Playing screen from any other screen you are at.

I think part of this is missing documentation which is being worked on a lot now and there is a new wiki on its way which should help a great deal. I am going to add a way to toggle the now-playing screen from anywhere within MP (possibly only is music is playing) and I will look at the shuffle stuff

I just re-read my long post and realized I never said thank-you to those who have made MediaPortal. It is a great program, and you've done a great job! Didn't want my first post to sound like I only had complaints.

No worries as I said, this is exactly what I am looking for

 

[Mike Lowrey]

But, if you have such short files, where every chapter is between 3 - 5 minutes, what's reason to stop between?
It shouldn't be a problem to listen again to those few minutes.

Well there are many different ways to store audiobooks, i use one file per chapter, so the files are sometimes 3 mins long, but sometimes 12 mins.

Only thing i could think of is, that for songs > 10 minutes length, the Stop Time is saved, if there was a manual stop.
And that we either ask, "Do you want to continue" or have a flag saying "Continue were stopped".
With the second option we would not interfere with classical type of music,

My thought is actually to separate out audiobooks. I mean in reality there is no point including them with the rest of your music collection.

Yes it's a good solution to separate those media files, may be together with the podcasts?

Just thinking something like having a second list of shares that are audiobooks. We could then import these and flag them somewhere that they are audio books (or even store them in a different table)... kind of sounding like a new plugin but perhaps a second list and only store stop point / ask to restore for those shares?

Sounds good, with a new table it should also be possible to add a column for the position where the playing stopped.

 

[emphatic]

1. When entering the music section, I think 1 of 3 things should happen, as a user-selected option. A. Have a pop-up list of Playlists/Artist/Album/Genre, etc. so the user can choose which section to go to. B. Assign a standard section that music always jumps to (i.e. I would automatically jump to Genre always)

A: In MediaPortal 1.2 Alpha, it's possible for a skin to jump straight to a plugin's category from the Basic Home. I see you're a StreamedMP user, have a look at their Basic Home designer. Maybe it's possible for you to setup a sub menu item for the Music menu item with Playlists/Album/Genre/Etc. I've setup my Basic Home to allow jumping straight to Latest added/Unwatched/Favorites/Etc for my TV Series menu item. If these categories in My Music is available to skin controls, then this should be quite easy (for a user to setup). And for B you can just choose to link to Genres for the main choice in your Basic Home.

Emph

 

[jrichards52081]

Wow, this is an active thread! I'm glad there is a healthy discussion here I hope I am using the quote tool right:

A. i don't understand this one. whats the aim of an overlayed menu asking you the same you can already do by switching to another view in the menu?
B. Config MP to start always in a view showing you genre...
C. there should already be an option in mpconfig to go to the last used folder...

I am assuming you have imported your music into the database? If so MP will always default to the last view you used and you can easily swap between genre, album artist, year etc (you can setup what views you want)

A. I have 2 reasons for this. 1 is that it simply isn't intuitive to have pull up a menu to choose this and it is an extra button press. I think people are used to iPods and other mp3 players, and that is usually your first selection option. It just doesn't feel natural as a menu selection to me, since I browse "top down" Genre->Artist->Album->Song. And 2 is partly semantics. I always forget if I am supposed to select another view or another layout in the menu as those are both options.
B. Thanks, I guess I overlooked that or couldn't figure it out. I'll double check
C. Isn't this a global option though? I would want to set it in Music, but not in TV.

I have imported my music into the database. I know I can swap between genre, artist, etc. I just don't like accessing this through a menu option. Truthfully, I'd like Playlist, Genre, Artist, Album to be permanently along the top in the UI to easily switch between them, but am not sure how that would work with remote control arrows very well instead of a mouse.

3. Shuffle!! Mediaportal physically shuffles the playlist when I hit shuffle. This should be something that can be turned on or off while keeping the list in the same order. An algorithm should just jump around the songs in that list without changing the listing order. Also, it should be a persistent on-screen option whenever I am listening to music. I'll often listen to a select genre, then when I get to the now playing screen I want to choose shuffle (maybe it is in the menu of the now playing screen on Blue3 and is just missing from StreamedMP skin?)

don't get the advantage if the order is kept and mp jumps around in the playlist...

Well for me it is because I'll often hit shuffle in a genre. Sometimes if a song pops up, I'll decide I want to listen to that album so I'll unselect shuffle and let it keep playing. With it now I have to go back to album view, select the album and hit play again. I guess I can't think of another real reason, but the important part is to be able to select it from the NOW PLAYING Screen, which I can't do now.

4. Speaking of on-screen controls, I'd love to always have on-screen play/pause, skip/back, shuffle/repeat buttons on screen. I won't always use them because the screen is usually off, but it's nice for visitors who don't know which buttons on the remote to use or can't find the hidden menu.

i don't know any remote designed for the use with a htpc which has no buttons like play, stop, pause etc. so why do the visitors know these one on the screen but not the ones on the remote although the icons on them are the same standard ones?

Maybe this is a personal one, but my remote control isn't set up perfectly and I use the channel up/down buttons to skip tracks which isn't always intuitive. I'd say this is relatively minor though.

8. As an extra feature, Smart Playlists (like iTunes Genius) would be pretty nice, if possible.

last.fm and the possibillity to scroble your music is kind of itunes genius... and it has been there before apple "invented" it^^ give it a try...

I know Apple didn't invent it , it was just a frame of reference. I never really liked the social aspect of Last.fm so I've always avoided it. I guess I could give it a try sometime though.

In config there is an option under music on the misc settings tab called "jump on play now". You can set this so it will jump to now-playing when you either select a single track or multiple tracks. The idea about jumping back when finished is quite interesting but I can't quite decide whether I would want to do that or not.

As for playlist focused I would say the opposite If you highlight and album and press play on the remote that album will play (and if you have set the jump on play now option it will jump to non-playing. If in the middle of that album you select a different album and press play that album will start and everything about the last one is forgotten. To add to playlists you need to go into the context menu and the click the add to playlist option

I've selected that option to jump on play now and it doesn't always seem to work. Maybe it goes back to the different actions for Enter and Play because I often tend to hit the enter button instead of play...does it not work with the Enter button? Could the "jumping back when finished" be an option. Maybe I am the only one who still mostly just listens to albums, but when an album is done playing it is done. There is no reason to still see the Now Playing screen, and I want to be right back in my album list to select the next one I'd like to listen to.

Maybe my problem is just the OSD then...not really the functionality. Because it will list that music I am listening to as my current "playlist." While that may be true, mentally I am thinking that it is just an album, so I don't want it to be called a playlist at all. Its possible that MP is doing what I want in this case, but calling it something slightly different and simply confusing me.

This is what I don't like when browsing anything except tracks enter will take you down a level play will stop whatever is playing and starting playing what is selected. When browsing tracks it is a little more odd...

Pressing enter (ok on remote) will start playing the track and then it will continue playing through the rest of the album. Pressing play does the same as it does elsewhere, it will clear what is playing and add what is selected to the playlist (ie. the single track)

This is actually quite complicated to get right as you need to be able to navigate as well as play files and then some people want playlists and some people want to start from scratch. I do have some ideas on this but I am not sure we will be able to implement them for MP1

Could you explain this a bit more? I think part of my confusion is that I know something different is happening with those 2 buttons, but still am not fully sure what it is.

We can't remove the ".." entries but you may want to have read through this. It is possible for skins to not show any icons associated with the back links but the actual ".." entry has to remain

Good insight. Thanks, I'll see if I can understand the stuff at that link!

7. Another minor one that I know can be changed, but the default of grouping by letter should not be the default. It took me a lot of searching to figure out how to get rid of that.

For what? The views are user customizable so you can set them how you want. If you are talking about artist, I have a large collection and it only makes sense to browse via letter first and then artist

I think this goes to what you mentioned about lack of documentation. I know it is user changeable, and I have done so, but it took me a while to figure it out. That section of the music options is not intuitive to your standard user. Also, it seems that most people's default preference would be to simply see a list like most music players on the market. I can't remember off the top of my head if I have an artist that begins with Q or not I'd think the people that would like to see the lettered folders would be the more advanced users and it would be easier for them to figure out the configuration.

A: In MediaPortal 1.2 Alpha, it's possible for a skin to jump straight to a plugin's category from the Basic Home. I see you're a StreamedMP user, have a look at their Basic Home designer. Maybe it's possible for you to setup a sub menu item for the Music menu item with Playlists/Album/Genre/Etc. I've setup my Basic Home to allow jumping straight to Latest added/Unwatched/Favorites/Etc for my TV Series menu item. If these categories in My Music is available to skin controls, then this should be quite easy (for a user to setup). And for B you can just choose to link to Genres for the main choice in your Basic Home.

I tried this in XFactor but it didn't work in the Music section. I haven't tried it yet in StreampedMP.

Thanks everyone for the replies, and I hope I can be of help in this conversation. I would say most of my input is coming from 2 places: As a standard user without a lot of technical expertise who desires the most straightforward of usability options, and as a designer who is used to organizing information into ways that have the proper hierarchy and are easily accessible to the audience. I'd love to design a skin some day but it is much more technical than my print background allows me to do right now!!

 

[emphatic]

I tried this in XFactor but it didn't work in the Music section. I haven't tried it yet in StreampedMP.

I just checked and the music categories etc can't be hyperlinked to (yet). So that's a request from me as an improvement to the Music Section.

Emph