Suggestions for 3.5

[REVerdi]

I think that if Ian didn't have to waive time programming the queue, then he would have more time to program other things, like better support for cue files.   
Also, I really think a little strange and contradictory XMPlay have a playlist and a queue, but this is just my opinion. Case closed. 

[Ian @ un4seen]

Now how about imitating windows behavior ? keeping left mouse button pressed on the scroller will move up/down the list by one page, then a short delay and then quickly scroll pages?

Here you go...

   www.un4seen.com/stuff/xmplay.exe

[amit]

Now how about imitating windows behavior ? keeping left mouse button pressed on the scroller will move up/down the list by one page, then a short delay and then quickly scroll pages?

Here you go...

   www.un4seen.com/stuff/xmplay.exe

Nice. Thanks. 

[Markus Foti]

Thanks for the standard windows scrolling behaviour!

I've rethought my previous comments (wmp visualizations - because the winamp plugin is very good), especially because they concerned plugins, which wasn't really the point.

But what would be nice would be if the embedded cover art thumbnail could be displayed in the playlist, but only once per album.  (i.e. the album cover in, say, the leftmost column, and the songs on that album listed as now, but with multiple lines per image. Showing the album cover for each song would take up too much space).

It might be too much of a hassle to program, and I am always a bit hesitant to make demands for something I'm getting for free, but it seems to me the nuts and bolts of XMplay's sound capabilities are about as perfect as can be expected, so it's extras I'm interested in...

[xaaran]

Now how about imitating windows behavior ? keeping left mouse button pressed on the scroller will move up/down the list by one page, then a short delay and then quickly scroll pages?

Here you go...

   www.un4seen.com/stuff/xmplay.exe

Ian, I can suggest that on rightclick you can leave old behavior. It would be convenient.

[Tester]

Dear Ian,

When resize (drag) the height of playlist/library window, it seems not really smooth.
It will go with step by step, but this is not happened when resize the width.
I hope You can add a smooth height resize to XMPlay 

I apologize if my explaination are not really clear since my English are very bad 

Thank you.

[piovrauz]

@Tester: when resizing the playlist vertically, it goes step by step by design.
one step = one line of the playlist, to avoid the risk to have playlist lines not readable because covered by the border.

[Ian @ un4seen]

Ian, I can suggest that on rightclick you can leave old behavior. It would be convenient.

Right-clicking is already assigned to jumping to the current track, but here's an update in which you can right-click while the left button is held down to switch to the old scrolling behaviour...

   www.un4seen.com/stuff/xmplay.exe

There are also a couple of queue-related tweaks... When playing tracks from the library or search results, they will now replace the queue; the old behaviour of adding them to the queue would result in the already queued tracks being played between the 1st and remaining tracks, which is a bit silly. Files/URLs can also now be drag'n'dropped into specific queue positions (they were previously just added to the end).

[Cris]

There are also a couple of queue-related tweaks... When playing tracks from the library or search results, they will now replace the queue; the old behaviour of adding them to the queue would result in the already queued tracks being played between the 1st and remaining tracks, which is a bit silly.

Yes, that really was a bit silly.

But can't the old behavior be kept, with the small change that new added tracks be added at the beginning at the queue, not at the end? This way, already queued tracks will be kept, and will be played after all new tracks are added.
This would be like:
- queue tracks = append tracks in queue
- play tracks = prepend tracks in queue

[Ulf kristiansen]

And what do You guys think Ian can improve?

Hi and thanks for a great player, I think it's the best one out there.

I would like to see columns with metainfo in the playlist (like in the library). In that way I could sort the files in track-order. This is the only drawback with Xmplay as I see it; when I load several files at once, the files are scattered seemingly randomly in the playlist and there is no way to order them (except to move each file manually).

[Tester]

Hi Piovrauz, thank you for your above explanation 
Sorry i am new to XMPlay 
But now i understand how the playlist dialog work 

[Dotpitch]

This is the only drawback with Xmplay as I see it; when I load several files at once, the files are scattered seemingly randomly in the playlist and there is no way to order them (except to move each file manually).

Options and stuff > Integration: 'Auto-sort by filename' will help you a bit, but the real sorting options can be found by right-clicking the shuffle-button on the playlist. Sort by track first, and then by album. You can also assign a shortcut to these actions.

[Ulf Kristiansen]

[...] but the real sorting options can be found by right-clicking the shuffle-button on the playlist. Sort by track first, and then by album. You can also assign a shortcut to these actions.

I didn't know about right-clicking the shuffle-button or the shortcut. Thank you Dotpitch, you made my day!

[Ian @ un4seen]

But can't the old behavior be kept, with the small change that new added tracks be added at the beginning at the queue, not at the end? This way, already queued tracks will be kept, and will be played after all new tracks are added.
This would be like:
- queue tracks = append tracks in queue
- play tracks = prepend tracks in queue

That is actually what I did at first ... Then I figured that by playing new track(s), the user is cancelling the playback of the previous tracks, so they ought to be replaced in the queue. But I guess there could also be tracks that the user wants to keep in the queue, so here's an update with it switched back to prepending...

   www.un4seen.com/stuff/xmplay.exe

[Zarggg]

But can't the old behavior be kept, with the small change that new added tracks be added at the beginning at the queue, not at the end?

That would be a stack, not a queue.

[amit]

1.A long time ago we had a short discussion about resetting search criteria (delete the text from the find window) by clicking on right button of the mouse or adding it to its context menu.

Is it possible to set a right click action for this purpose to the text description area next to the search button ?


2. Can you add "queue" option to the "Default action" drop down menu in the integration section?

[Cris]

That would be a stack, not a queue.

Not exactly. It's more like a mixture.

Let's you have in Queue the tracks A B

When simply queuing tracks C and D, they are added at the end (so a real queue): A B C D

But let's say you search for tracks C and D using the Find dialog. You select them and press play. So they will be added at the top of the queue: C D A B (somehow like a stack)
However, as I see it, it's not a real stack, cos in a stack, when adding tracks C and D in this order, their final order would be reversed: D C A B. (C would be pushed first, then D on top of C)


But, for the sake of the average user, let's just call it a queue, even though in reality it's a little more complex than that.

@Ian: Thanks! Works perfectly. It's a long time since I wanted such a behavior, but never took the time to organize my ideas and make a suggestion. 

[Ian @ un4seen]

1.A long time ago we had a short discussion about resetting search criteria (delete the text from the find window) by clicking on right button of the mouse or adding it to its context menu.

Is it possible to set a right click action for this purpose to the text description area next to the search button ?

The search text can be cleared by activating "quick find" (alt+F by default) and then pressing Enter (or Esc), but I have now added a menu option too...

   www.un4seen.com/stuff/xmplay.exe

This update also adds a "rating" column to the library. I think that is possibly the last major addition before the 3.5 release, which will hopefully be within the next couple of weeks, so please report any problems and/or minor things to tweak before then.

Note that the library file format is changed, so it won't be possible to switch back to a previous XMPlay version (and keep the library) after the library has been updated.

[amit]

The search text can be cleared by activating "quick find" (alt+F by default) and then pressing Enter (or Esc), but I have now added a menu option too...

   www.un4seen.com/stuff/xmplay.exe

Thanks , this looks like a decent solution.

This update also adds a "rating" column to the library...

How about adding an option to sort the playlist according to rating or any other library fields for that matter(any file with missing info will be left unsorted at the bottom of the list)?

2. Can you add "queue" option to the "Default action" drop down menu in the integration section?

What about this one ?

[saga]

Ian, can you please share the new library format? I'm using a little tool to clean up the library, so I'd have to update that one.

[piovrauz]

Well, I'd like to remind a thing I asked in the past, and that seems to be forgotten in the avalance of new stuff added lately. I'd like the stop button to have a right clik menu with the option to:

1. stop the playing of the current track (as of now)
2. stop the playing of the current track and unload it (xmplay, when play is pressed, will restart from first track on the playlist)
3. stop the playing of the current track after it is finished playing (that is the "important one")

The 3rd option is not a duplicate of the auto advance playilist on/off. Think of having a playlist (auto advance active or not, it doesn't matter), and you're listening to a track, and decide it'll be the last, but still want xmplay ready (in mini mode for example). Nothing more nothing less.

It's the same as winamp has, which I used some years ago, and the little customization I'd like to see implemented. I don't think it involves much code or bloating the player (well I hope so) so time to time I ask for it, but seems it's not even considered...

[Ian @ un4seen]

How about adding an option to sort the playlist according to rating or any other library fields for that matter(any file with missing info will be left unsorted at the bottom of the list)?

I'm not sure there's any real use for sorting by the other stuff (eg. file size), but I guess a "Sort by rating" option could be useful, so here's an update with that...

   www.un4seen.com/stuff/xmplay.exe

Btw, there was a bug in the last update (with the "rating" library addition), which unfortunately would result in monitored directory settings being lost, in case anyone is wondering where they went to! That should be sorted now, but they will have to be setup again first (if you ran the last update).

2. Can you add "queue" option to the "Default action" drop down menu in the integration section?

What about this one ?

I couldn't really see the point of it, now that the queue is dealing in playlist entries again. Perhaps you can convince me otherwise?

Ian, can you please share the new library format? I'm using a little tool to clean up the library, so I'd have to update that one.

Yep, it's the same as before, but with the "version" incremented to "4" and a "rating" byte added to the end of each entry.

Well, I'd like to remind a thing I asked in the past, and that seems to be forgotten in the avalance of new stuff added lately. I'd like the stop button to have a right clik menu with the option to:

1. stop the playing of the current track (as of now)
2. stop the playing of the current track and unload it (xmplay, when play is pressed, will restart from first track on the playlist)
3. stop the playing of the current track after it is finished playing (that is the "important one")

The 3rd option is not a duplicate of the auto advance playilist on/off. Think of having a playlist (auto advance active or not, it doesn't matter), and you're listening to a track, and decide it'll be the last, but still want xmplay ready (in mini mode for example). Nothing more nothing less.

It's the same as winamp has, which I used some years ago, and the little customization I'd like to see implemented. I don't think it involves much code or bloating the player (well I hope so) so time to time I ask for it, but seems it's not even considered...

The update above includes the "important one"

#2 is achieved by pressing stop twice.

[amit]

2. Can you add "queue" option to the "Default action" drop down menu in the integration section?

What about this one ?

I couldn't really see the point of it, now that the queue is dealing in playlist entries again. Perhaps you can convince me otherwise?

If you want to listen instantly (or after current track) to tracks but without replacing the playlist. Queuing them will add them to the end of the playlist (if not already present) but play them right away.

Does this sound convincing enough?

A couple more ideas to think about :

1.Playlists consist many times various tracks sorted by folder/album/artist etc'. How about a right click menu to next and previous buttons for choosing : Jump to  next/previous album/artist/folder etc'?

This will ofcourse interfere with current use for skipping subsongs. Maybe if subsongs presented as tracks...

2. Now when rating exists is it possible to search and define "lower than" and "higher than" ? Is it even possible to address library fields in the search window? for example : AGE lower  7 (or  604800 second?)

It would be nice if we could then define rules for instance to skip any tracks with lower rating than 2 or skip files shorter than 30 seconds etc'.

[piovrauz]

Well, thanks for adding the option, but sadly it has some issues:

a) it doesn't work, the track won't stop but just loops.
    (I tried both with a 12 track playlist and "one track only" playlist)

b) if I stop the track manually, the setting isn't reset
    (it was intended as a "one time only" thing)

Sorry for the bad news... Is it possible to fix these issues? If you need my xmplay.ini it's on the ftp.

[Dotpitch]

a) it doesn't work, the track won't stop but just loops.
b) if I stop the track manually, the setting isn't reset

Over here, it does stop properly (what are your track looping settings?). You're right on the second thing though, manual stop should untick the new option.