My Music - need your thoughts on how to improve and enhance (1 Viewer)

[SteveV]

I found a small issue with My Music in a recent CVS release (not sure if it has been fixed yet). For some reason I can no longer scan for cover art for one of my shares (I only get the Menu options Scan and File menu). The other share comes up fine with the correct menu. Previously I could scan the same share just fine.

Also, this issue exposed another small bug. When I was going through this share scaning each folder for coverart separately, MediaPortal got "stuck" in the Music screen, pushing escape would go nowhere. I figured out that whenever you scan for coverart and then return to the share view it seems to add the share view to the "stack" that you then have to reverse through when pressing escape. For example, if I scan for cover art once, I need to press escape twice to get back to the Home screen. If i scan for cover art twice, I need to press escape three times. Eventually, I presume, I filled up the stack and thus was unable to get out of the Music plugin at all (not sure how deep the MediaPortal previous screen stack is) and pressing escape would do nothing. I had to Alt-F4 out of MediaPortal and restart it to get to Home.

Neither are a big deal, but I thought you might like to hear about them.

Thanks for the report. Unfortunately, I was unable to duplicate the problem. Does the problem only occur with this share or with all shares?

 

[SteveV]

To make the Now Playing view easier to get to - i've done this mockup:

I like it! Should be an easy skin change.

 

[SteveV]

I agree! After the recent improvements of My Music I have tried to start using it instead of WMP but I get lost lots of the time and my girlfriend thinks it is very hard to find her way around the interface. This is a good and well needed improvement. Go for it!

What part of the interface are you/she having trouble with (shares, database views, playlist, figuring out where she is at any given moment, everything :shock

 

[zombiepig]

SteveV - a bug i've noticed for a while is that while in list views, like playlist, mp sometimes misses an icon and displays the default icon instead of a cover... like here:

but after you scroll up and down screens a couple of times the icon suddenly appears:

and if i can put in a feature request as well... i'd love it if mp supported the replaygain standard. replaygain is a way of tagging files so that the player knows what level of preamp to apply to that track so that your whole music collection sounds the same level. it's really useful when playing tracks in shuffle mode to bring them all up to the same volume.

there's some really old info on it here: http://www.replaygain.org/ , and more up to date stuff here: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replaygain .

what's your thoughts?

 

[SteveV]

SteveV - a bug i've noticed for a while is that while in list views, like playlist, mp sometimes misses an icon and displays the default icon instead of a cover... like here:

but after you scroll up and down screens a couple of times the icon suddenly appears:

and if i can put in a feature request as well... i'd love it if mp supported the replaygain standard. replaygain is a way of tagging files so that the player knows what level of preamp to apply to that track so that your whole music collection sounds the same level. it's really useful when playing tracks in shuffle mode to bring them all up to the same volume.

there's some really old info on it here: http://www.replaygain.org/ , and more up to date stuff here: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replaygain .

what's your thoughts?

I've noticed this as well but keep forgetting to fix it. Wierd thing is that IIRC it's always the second item in the list. I'll add it to the bug list -- thanks for the report.

Replay gain is already on the list but thanks for the links I'll look into it.

 

[zombiepig]

To make the Now Playing view easier to get to - i've done this mockup:

I like it! Should be an easy skin change.

Hey Steve - when you make this change can you also add the 'My Playlists' button to database views? atm it's only visible in shares mode (which i never use )

 

[jawbroken]

Thanks for the report. Unfortunately, I was unable to duplicate the problem. Does the problem only occur with this share or with all shares?

Sorry it has taken me a little while to get back to you. It does only happen to this share. When I get some time I will try deleting all the shares from the configuration, deleting the music database, etc and get back to you. Thanks.

 

[SteveV]

While going through the changes suggested by LordMessi I thought it would make a lot of sense if the shares and database views had identical button layouts. Here's what it looks like:

Steve

 

[thechad]

Hi Steve,

Think I located a bug in the list and/or spin control that may have been created with the changes to allow re-ordering of playlists. See bug post here https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/viewtopic.php?t=13506

I tried to have a look myself but couldn't find the cause. This is not just affecting my music and is all list controls. If you would like to point me in the right direction i can have another look.


PS top work on all the my music updates.

 

[AberDino]

I very much like the new 'Now playing' view, thanks for that. I prefer to look at something like that, rather than a visualisation. However, I have a small suggestion. I use the 4:3 BlueTwo skin on my 16:9 widescreen CRT TV, and currently the album art gets stretched in the 'Now playing' view. It would be nicer if the aspect ratio could be preserved for the cover art picture, like it does in the main 'My music' menu, or even in 'My pictures' for that matter.

I have tried the 16:9 BlueTwo skin, but especially the EPG is way too small to read on my TV.