Still... similar enough isn't what XMPlay is about, right?

Ack. If you're looking for sub-$100, you might not find anything that's amazing for everything, but check the Sennheiser 'DJ' line.  I do video editing and *cough* gaming audio research at work on a pair of HD212Pro's. Highs are bright without being dry, bass is actually bass - not just thumpaciousness. Mid's a little wierd, but EQable to be acceptable.

[Playlist Right-Click Function: Resume]

Playlist Right-Click Function: Resume

So, this is another suggestion stolen from a piece of software I use daily, but hey, at least this time it's from an entertainment program and not an animation package. I use XBMC a lot. One thing that it does is remember - even between sessions - the position you left any unfinished video at. Might not seem useful at first, but if you're busy and are often interrupted in a way where you cant just pause the show, it obviously becomes valid.

With music, maybe the viability of this option is negligible (sweet lord god help me, that's actually how that phrase streamed outta my head), but for things like commentaries and podcasts it'd be nice. For this to work, XMPlay should simply remember the last position of unfinished tracks [without closing the program in any special way] and allow a right-click->Resume on those tracks in the playlist to start them back up where they left off.

And for any foot-fungus needs, I prefer using http://tinactin.com.

Remember: Go get the tough actin' relief of Tinactin!

[NOT INTENDED AS A FINAL CONCEPT.]

NOT INTENDED AS A FINAL CONCEPT.

Ok. Listen, there might be a much more elegant way of going about this. I highly welcome that idea coming to light and blowing this one away. Until then, here goes...

Living Playlist: Basically just an easy way of saying "a playlist with special items that contain tracks that are still part of the normal linear playlist track-advance flow but are/can be automatically updated based on [outside] changes other than direct user manipulation with the playlist." But... that's just too damn long for a thread title. And brackets confuse people. And could probably be made more concise. But wasn't.

I'm stating right out that this is not for people who have pristinely organized music collections and/or have lots of time to baby a playlist. This is for everybody else, especially those who have tons of various download directories, archives thrown about, discs that get changed all the time, directories that get moved around, etc. This is a way to have XMPlay keep up with those changes in a logical, controllable way.

Nodes. This is where it starts. You add nodes like you would a track. Nodes can be called something different later, but for the sake of explanation, that's what I'm going with. Nodes do not function like single songs though, they're containers. When XMPlay gets to a node, it'll play its contents just like a normal, everyday sequence of tracks.

Now, for the most part contents are watched, added and changed automatically based on what's actually there. If it's a Device Node (most likely a CD/DVD drive), then it'll be what audio tracks actually exist on that device. If that's a CD, it changes the contents to the appropriate amount of audio tracks - if any - on that disc (and if there are none, XMPlay should not freak out and stop playing, it should simply skip that node). If it's a Directory Node then, aside from a few options I'll explain later, all the XMPlay-known files in that directory will be updated at intervals, added as node/container contents.

Other possible Node types could be Archive Nodes and Playlist File Nodes (yeah, you heard me... playlist files as Nodes).

So, now to the actual use of the thing. Yes... this turns the playlist into a treeview, but a simplified, mostly-flat one. No Nodes-within-Nodes. Nodes will basically look like a little plus-box tree branch on the root labeled with the Node's target name - and maybe a skinned node-type icon. Nodes probably shouldn't be arbitrarily renamed, but hey, if you want it, go for it. For the sake of keeping things less confusing, I'd rather a Directory Node pointing to "I:\Music\Goldfrapp\" simply come up automatically as "[Skinned Folder Icon] Goldfrapp". And in that respect, a Device Node for my DVD drive F: should come up as "[Skinned Drive Icon] Drive F:".

Subdirectories and archives within nodes shouldn't come up as further branching but as a simplified block. All this means is that a little label of the archive or subdirectory name will be shown before the tracks. Clicking that label will select all of its contents that are still contiguous. Right-clicking that label, or any Node label for that matter, will display some options such as Gather, Sort, Refresh and Edit Exclusions.

For any node, the user can declare exclusions. For a Device Node, these exclusions can be disc volume IDs, track hashes (can we do that?), etc. For Archive Nodes, they can be specific files. For Directory Nodes exclusions can be made for archives, specific tracks and subdirectories. Additionally, Directory Nodes can have the options to skip Archives and/or Subdirectories completely.

Issues. Help me fix em!

Now one obvious issue with the whole idea is how to persist user reordering of tracks/subdirectories within wildly changing content, say, MP3s on the root of a DVD that a Device Node points to or even archives in subdirectories of a DVD in that same device. Mixed content could be disallowed from a Device Node, but that's a little heavy handed. Remembering user re-orders and exclusions per Volume ID seems entirely too cumbersome. Reorders in Device Nodes could be disallowed, possibly? Too strict?

I'm sure there's pleny of other huge, gigantic, glaringly obvious problems with this that I'm just blind to. So tell me! Offer solutions!

Mini-mode. Little-ification. Non-gigantor Mode!  =]

Does this option exist anywhere? If not, here's the formal request :

Simple toggle option, defaults to off (so as not to disturb people who like things the way they are), hides extended playlist/library/whatever-else on windowshade mode. Brings em back where they were when the player is put back to normal.

[Edit:]

NoFlashTotal - don't flash list time between total and selected tracks

Ian, your mere existence makes sandwiches taste better, yunno that?

Edit:

Wait! Wait! No! Ack!

I just want it not to flash, I still want it to show selected time.

I am not in love with the precedent the implementation of this feature could set.

Take out the breaks.

(I'm not saying that'll work, just... that it's currently wrong as far as markup goes.)

Your lighting is getting better. But I'd like to see more you and less filter.

See? I'm not alone.

Also, dont screw around with any other single-click [and/or] right-click operations.

Throwing menus in where none should be is a sure sign of a feature that's hacked in as far as usability goes. Conveniences add up. Have enough of them in a piece of software and that makes it a great piece of software. Take them away and so do the annoyances.

Bookmarking is improperly implemented (and is poking my love for XMPlay in the side with a fresh scalpel).

Single-click operations are fast, slick, cool and make my music-listening life noticeably less annoying.

Favor them during design.

Unacceptable are your advancings. Your vegetable are unorthodox and yellow!!!

We shall mince apple peel within an arena of sorrow.

Shame are you.

Shame are you!

[Translation: I love you, this program, you're great, but you still haven't got that thing I wanted workin. But that's ok. I can wait.]

Oddly... seconded.

But not any time soon.

I love skins. I love that XMPlay's skins are slick'n'quick no matter how bigfat-n-busy they are. BUT, in a few years (not joking) when I eventually move to Vista you'd better bet your ass that I'm making my own vector+normals+envimap UI. Why? Because oh baby, when the UI gets put on the graphics card, I'm finally gonna show my goddamn machine what the hell it should look like.

It'd be nice if XMPlay could keep up.

Please try using PNG for the demos.

JPG is gnarlin' up your previews.

That's entirely too much.

1) Open Photoshop.
2) Make skin.

=]

Photoshop. Those are both created with 2D techniques. Drone is just flat out manual painted shading and the other one's just a bunch of filters out of a can.

*grumble* I despise when people "add in" features to established formats, effectively attempting to control them.

[Good]

BASS-based standalone plugin: Good
Plugin-functionality tacked onto XMPlay giving it writhing tentacles that nestle themselves into software I dont want it to: Very Bad

[not]

What are people watching? Or downloading even (hey, the konsumerism-karma nazis can bite me  ).

Right now I'm slightly obsessed with Battlestar Galactica. Has some damn tight storytelling with heaps of production quality and some amazing score work. If you haven't tried it before, it's now in the middle of its second season and you should not jump in - it's a constant continual story so you should start at the original miniseries and head through the first season. It's worth every second of time and none of it will seem wasted.

Also, I'm halfway loyally watching Lost. It's starting to lose me a little mainly because it's starting to exhibit the same signs of failed storytelling that Alias showed by its third season: an inability to pay off setups, resolve story arcs and execute satisfying solutions to mysteries. Although the last one did take a mighty big leap in adding to the scope of the overall mystery - one I found extremely cool and interesting, even if the visual effect was a little simple.

Beyond that... cant bring myself to watch much. I'm patiently waiting for new Deadwood to happen (unless it's been canned, in which case I've missed the news) and might try out Hustle. People keep telling me it's right up my alley.