Topic: Suggestions for 2.8

[Pike84]

I think I have come accross standalone programs that do codec detections.

Would you happen to know of any right now? I'd be quite interested .

[Tsorovan]

As I said in a previous post, EncSpot. It's the best I've found.

[Olego]

BobbyB:

DTFT? H(w)? h(w)? Anyone know what they mean?

H(w) is either the Fourier transform of the function h(w) or the frequency response of a system, where h(w) is the impulse response.

Ian:

... to mute, put the volume slider to 0

But then it will mute all sounds in the system.  Here's my suggestion: if amp is 0 then output no sound.  Else, have it be logarithmic.  OR make a right-click menu to mute the sound of XMPlay.  OR make a device in devices that's /dev/null, so that I can save the MP3 stream without converting it to wave or playing it.  Basically, I would like to request the option of outputting no sound from one instance of XMPlay and normal sound from another.

Tsorovan:

Not to piss on anyone, but I don't really see the point in adding such complexity as codec analyzer into a player.

I second that.  
<edit>There are too many <br>s incorporated into <quote>s. </edit>
~Olego~

[Pike84]

As I said in a previous post, EncSpot. It's the best I've found.

Oh, I managed to miss it first, but I've got it now and it seems pretty good. Thanks .

[Alexsource]

How about having multiple info windows at the same time?
I mean, for the sake of viewing the extended playlist and the visualisation at the same time
Or... an option to turn the small playlist into the visual when you change from the visual to another section in the info window (OMG! what a weird thing i wrote! )

[Torkell]

If Lite and Full version of XMPlay is hard to make then there are more ways to make XMPlay Lite. ...

Yes, but I still don't see why it's worth it for a download that's less than 250K. Maybe I'm not seeing things in proportion, having an ADSL connection, but I still don't see a valid reason for this, given that under good (about 50Kb/s) dialup conditions you can download XMPlay in under a minute. Even with a 28.8Kb/s connection, it'll still only take you about a minute. If this was Windows Media Player than it would be a different matter, but for a 40-second download what's the point?

H(w) is either the Fourier transform of the function h(w) or the frequency response of a system, where h(w) is the impulse response.

Still confused What's a Fourier transformation

But then it will mute all sounds in the system. ... Basically, I would like to request the option of outputting no sound from one instance of XMPlay and normal sound from another.

I thought the original thing was that you were recording a stream, in which case since XMPlay will output to only one device at a time (not counting MIDI) you would hear nothing from it. Instance 2, playing the stream thru speakers, can be paused/stopped without affecting instance 1. It could even be playing the file instance 1 is writing. If you have a 3rd copy, then you can just pause/stop the 2nd copy without affecting the original stream-writing copy.
Hope you get what I mean

[Pike84]

How about having multiple info windows at the same time?

This was actually suggested some time ago, before 2.7, and Ian said it would be tricky.. It's a nice idea tho . I'd also like to see multiple playlists added - don't know if that's real tricky too .

[Brightguy]

What's a Fourier transformation

I'm no expert at this stuff, but Fourier transformations are used in data compression, like MP3.  Fourier was a mathematician who proved that any finite function could be represented by adding various sine / cosine waves together.  Now, an MP3 encoder looks at small sections of the original sound, and uses a Fourier transformation algorithm to split the sound into various frequencies, then examines the frequencies and removes data that isn't completely important, or the human ear would have difficulty hearing.

At least that's what I understand...  I didn't go into much detail, and oversimplified things, like I said, I'm no expert.

[Ian @ un4seen]

Ian:
But then it will mute all sounds in the system.

That depends on the drivers... the volume slider will affect only the XMPlay output with some, and all sounds with others.

I think the best idea would be a DSP volume option (ie. XMPlay alters the sample data rather than asking the drivers to alter the volume). That'll enable those with all sounds affected to control just the XMPlay output. The down side is there'll be a delay (the buffer length) in volume/balance changes. I'll add the option in the next update.

[Tsorovan]

Wouldn't it be solvable by just using a preamp stage, and let the volume steer that? Or will that maybe futz with the dynamic range...

[Ian @ un4seen]

That's basically what I said ... XMPlay would modify the sample data, rather than asking the drivers to modify the output level.

[Tsorovan]

Oh yeah. Goddamnit, I'm pretty daft, am I not? :|

Here's a monster post. I know no one will agree with my suggestions but at least I tried, eh?


UI
——————————
— M i s c e l l a n e o u  s —
 • Option to remove the taskbar entry on mini-on-top mode. Oh, and no tray icon either.
   A switch would suffice.
— P l a y l i s t —
 • Optional track numbering. [on|off]
      Maybe settable in skinconfig.txt? Or not.
 • Optional file format column. [on|off]
      Actually, this setting and the one above would probably work to have controlled with hotkeys.
      They're "hardcore" enough for it.
 • Optional bare filenames title formatting. I don't want to see any ID3 tags in the title display thanks.
 • Make track length right-adjusted, not centered.
      (My pet peeve.)
— S k i n n i n g / M i s c . —
 • Optional, alternate sliders. Fillable bar, working sort of like the level meter. Var in skinconfig.txt.
      Would do wonders for smallish skins (especially
      mine, of which I am the only user. Damn. :\ ).
 • Option [skinconfig.txt] for turning off flashing time display when paused.
      The play button already does that, and the polyrhythmic anti-synergistic behaviour with both
      flashing is a tad obtrusive in my opinion.
 • Option [skinconfig.txt] for turning off the tenths of seconds time display.
      I still think this is warranted as it can lower the amount of UI updates by ten times (if you're
      not showing any visualizations).
      I don't see the point in having the tenths displayed at all, to me they are just annoying.

ENGINE
——————————
 • Can't think of anything except 24/44.1 and 24/48 kHz support.
 • Oh, gapless playback. As the latest LAME codecs are the only ones that can make true gapless
   MP3s (and I guess OGG supports gapless mode),
   a pre-buffer option like nullsoft's gapless output would be nice.

————————————————————————————————————————————v

Something for a later major version:

Simple, quick, powerful media library a la STP (Simple Tray Player);

[Options:editlist control]
Directories to Add
[Options:checkbox control]
Sort by Letter

When you right-click the tray icon or maybe a button in the UI (I prefer a tray icon for it + a global hotkey for bringing up the menu) you get a list with the directories that are the direct subdirectories to the ones you entered in [Options:editlist]. The list would contain as many entries as possible, but maybe not covering the whole screen. It would of course have a ">" and "<" scroller if the dirs do not fit on one screen. When you select a directory it adds all the files contained therein to the playlist. Ctrl (or Alt) + click would replace the playlist with the directory's files (think: album) and start playing immediately. Shift + click would do the adding, but wouldn't hide the menu and instead let you add more directories. A recurse subdirectories option could maybe be useful too.



[I purposefully made it small for bandwidth reasons. It would of course take up as much vertical space as possible, but maybe on the horizontal plane, it could be limited, and just chop off the end of the dir and replace it with "..." or somesuch]

The Sort by Letter option would make virtual "directories" containing the first letter in the directory name, for a cascading menu like this:



I think this would rock. Wouldn't be as nice for those not having a well-organised collection though, I guess.

Oh, and to reiterate, the directories in the [Options:editlist control] shouldn't be visible on the menu at all, just as if their subdirs were in fact located in the same parent dir. If you have two identically named dirs in different parent dirs, well...that's your problem :) Maybe the malignant menu entry could be shown with a "*" in front of it or something.

Oh and yes, I'm weird for having the taskbar positioned vertically, I hear that a lot. Thing is, no one's ever made a good, functional, slim GUI to an OS. And don't bring up Gnome or KDE or something because they are even worse IMO.

[Ralesk]

Yes, but I still don't see why it's worth it for a download that's less than 250K. Maybe I'm not seeing things in proportion, having an ADSL connection, but I still don't see a valid reason for this, given that under good (about 50Kb/s) dialup conditions you can download XMPlay in under a minute. Even with a 28.8Kb/s connection, it'll still only take you about a minute. If this was Windows Media Player than it would be a different matter, but for a 40-second download what's the point?

The point is not the size, but more like the features.  Some stuff can confuse some people I guess
Anyway, in Miranda Instant Messenger, you have a checkbox in the Options that makes the settings for advanced users show up.  Which is IMHO a very nice idea.

[Torkell]

Here's a monster post. I know no one will agree with my suggestions but at least I tried, eh?

I'm agreeing with some, and doing a monster reply!

UI
— M i s c e l l a n e o u  s —
 • Option to remove the taskbar entry on mini-on-top mode. Oh, and no tray icon either.

Yes to taskbar icon removal, no to tray icon. I think that there should only be a tray icon.

— P l a y l i s t —
 • Optional track numbering. [on|off]
      Maybe settable in skinconfig.txt? Or not.

Or in the elusive xmplay.ini

 • Optional file format column. [on|off]
      Actually, this setting and the one above would probably work to have controlled with hotkeys.

Again, one for the INI file.

 • Optional bare filenames title formatting. I don't want to see any ID3 tags in the title display thanks.

Try in the general window or toggling the playlist display to see the filename. I think ID3 tags aren't too bad an idea, if they are properly entered.

 • Make track length right-adjusted, not centered.
      (My pet peeve.)

Best would be centered on the ":"

— S k i n n i n g / M i s c . —
 • Optional, alternate sliders. Fillable bar, working sort of like the level meter. Var in skinconfig.txt.
      Would do wonders for smallish skins (especially
      mine, of which I am the only user. Damn. :\ ).

Don't see much point in alternate sliders (as they can be different sizes). Fillable bars would be nice, and are done by WMP. Upload your skin and others may use it.

 • Option [skinconfig.txt] for turning off flashing time display when paused.
      The play button already does that, and the polyrhythmic anti-synergistic behaviour with both
      flashing is a tad obtrusive in my opinion.

Should be INI rather than skinconfig.

 • Option [skinconfig.txt] for turning off the tenths of seconds time display.
      I still think this is warranted as it can lower the amount of UI updates by ten times (if you're
      not showing any visualizations).
      I don't see the point in having the tenths displayed at all, to me they are just annoying.

The UI actually runs at 20fps, to cope with page/frame displays. The option should also be in the INI file.

ENGINE
 • Can't think of anything except 24/44.1 and 24/48 kHz support.

Really it should support any size/rate combination supported by the sound card.

 • Oh, gapless playback. As the latest LAME codecs are the only ones that can make true gapless
   MP3s (and I guess OGG supports gapless mode),
   a pre-buffer option like nullsoft's gapless output would be nice.

Have no views on this, as I'm not entirely sure what it is.

Something for a later major version:

Simple, quick, powerful media library a la STP (Simple Tray Player) ...

Personally I would like the directory structure to be shown, as it usually quite logical (e.g. by artist/album/group). Get it added to the playlist poll.

Oh and yes, I'm weird for having the taskbar positioned vertically, I hear that a lot. Thing is, no one's ever made a good, functional, slim GUI to an OS. And don't bring up Gnome or KDE or something because they are even worse IMO.

I try that ocassionally (sp?) with Win2k. My current layout is autohiding on the bottom of the left screen (multiple monitors rock), with two rows of quick icons/address bar/programs. I might try a vertical layout, on the left of my left screen (right monitor uses lower resolution and has some display problems, right side of left would just be annoying as it't the divider between the screens). The monitor layout is (physical & virtual):

Code: [Select]


/------------\
|            +--------\
|  1152x864  |  800x  |
|            |  600   |
\------------+--------/

And as for GUI, one of my "smart idea that I will do sometime this century"-type projects is an OpenGL-based fully-featured 3D file browser with Windows shell extension support, custom plug-in system and backwards compatability (so it will work with all fancy Windows Explorer stuff).

<edit>I forgot the all-important / in my <quote></quote> tags!</edit>

[Tsorovan]

Thanks for you input. You misunderstood some things though. Maybe my fault.

Yes to taskbar icon removal, no to tray icon. I think that there should only be a tray icon.

Wasn't clear; meant optional. You who want a tray icon can have it, I don't want either (unless the media browser thing get implemented) as I'm using mini-on-top and hence the rest is worthless.

[All instances of "INI instead of skinconfig"]

As there's no such thing yet, I chose what's already there. I think some things should be left to skinconfig.txt though, as for example removing the tenths display will make it possible to make that field smaller, but if you turn it on it'll be shit. But generally yes, an ini option would be better for those things.

Try in the general window or toggling the playlist display to see the filename. I think ID3 tags aren't too bad an idea, if they are properly entered.

Notice the word "bare" in "bare filenames". I.e. no dirs.

Best would be centered on the ":"

I guess it'd work.

Don't see much point in alternate sliders (as they can be different sizes). Fillable bars would be nice, and are done by WMP. Upload your skin and others may use it.

Alternate sliders/fillable bars is the same thing. Fillable bars instead of the present sliders. The skin is there for people to use, but I'm the only one who likes small, unobtrusive mini-on-top things it seems. I want to see what I'm playing. No biggie. I made it for myself.

Really it should support any size/rate combination supported by the sound card.

Of course. I agree.

--------

And as for GUI, one of my "smart idea that I will do sometime this century"-type projects is an OpenGL-based fully-featured 3D file browser with Windows shell extension support, custom plug-in system and backwards compatability (so it will work with all fancy Windows Explorer stuff).

Good luck with that one! BTW, Longhorn and its spawn will be DirectX-accelerated with lots of crappy effects shit. I don't want stuff like that. If there was a way to easily and quickly toggle an OSD to show what programs are running and then lithely switch between them (alt+tab doesn't cut it), I wouldn't have any bars at all anywhere. I already did away with using the mouse to start programs a long time ago by making custom, tersely named shortcuts and starting them through Win+R. It works better than anything else yet, but it's still bad. Oh well.

[Tsorovan]

Oh and the directory structure in the STP-alike thing WOULD be shown, it's just that I don't make subdirs for artists, that works really shittily and I recommend everyone stopping doing that. It's really more time-consuming, and especially bad if you have say,

John Zorn · Filmworks VII - Cynical Hysterie Hour (1997) [160Xn]
John Zorn, Mike Patton, Ikue Mori · Hemophiliac (2002) [hVBRL]
John Zorn's Chamber Music · Live at the Barbican (1999) [192F]

as I have. Are you going to make one dir for John Zorn, or separate dirs for all 3? No good solution. But you're all free to do it I guess. I found it to be deplorable.
Aaanyway, that's moot because what I suggested would show all subdirs (just not the mounting points).

Oh, and 3D browsers/file managers have been made for a long time, checked any of them out? Myself, I see no point in doing it in 3D. Unnecessary speed impacts, hampered usability, resource hogging...I could go on. No benefits. But that's me and I'm a fruit.

[Zarggg]

Oh and the directory structure in the STP-alike thing WOULD be shown, it's just that I don't make subdirs for artists, that works really shittily and I recommend everyone stopping doing that.

The reason I do that is because I refuse to put albums in filenames and I have some files that are remakes, alternate versions, and rereleases of the same songs, all from the same artist.  The track titles are taken directly from the album cover; discriptive works such as [live] do not exist on my files, unless it is marked as such on the alubm cover.

[Tsorovan]

Whatever works for you is good I guess. Couldn't really understand your reasoning though, because I don't put album names in filenames either :) Anyway, this whole discussion is sort of stupid as my suggestion doesn't impair other people much (that I know of). It could be cool to (with some work) make a customizable parser, and it wouldn't need to be advanced. Just a simple input filter like this:

Code: [Select]


Legend:
:A: artist
:L: album
:Y: year of release
:C1: comment no. 1
:C2: comment no. 2
:C3: comment no. 3

This is how mine would look:
:A: - :L: (:Y:) [:C1:]\

This is how some others' might look:
:A:\:L: (:C1:, :C2:)\
:A: - :L:

...and you get the general idea.

[I chose :var: just for some weird reason, could be %var too I guess...not important]

This would extract the variables to use in your popup menu later, which also could be modifiable with this same system.

Pretty straightforward and easy. I don't think it would be that hard to code this at all, the question is: does people want it, or something similar? To get it to work with ID3 tags would add some complexity, and it would probably need to be precomputed as scanning through thousands of files for ID3 tags is way slower than just parsing the dir structure. Of course, maybe the non-ID3 way should be precomputed also or at least cached. Probably. I'm not much of a programmer really.

[Olego]

Still confused What's a Fourier transformation

As Brightguy says, Fourier once stated that every signal can be represented using an infinite sum of cosines.  Of course, it'll never be exact due to Gibbs' phenomenon, but assume that is you do it for a very long time, it'll look almost like an original signal.  So now, instead of dealing with raw PCM data, you have what's called an FFT Data: a double array of floating points.  It is because the equation is like this:

Signal(t) = Sum A * cos (i * w₀ * t + Angle).  Doesn't really make much sense unless you spend a lot of time with it, but basically if you don't care about the quality, this is used to sort signals by frequency, when working on sound data, whether it be for compression on anything else.

I thought the original thing was that you were recording a stream, in which case since XMPlay will output to only one device at a time (not counting MIDI) you would hear nothing from it. Instance 2, playing the stream thru speakers, can be paused/stopped without affecting instance 1. It could even be playing the file instance 1 is writing. If you have a 3rd copy, then you can just pause/stop the 2nd copy without affecting the original stream-writing copy.
Hope you get what I mean

Yea, I know what you mean; but it is the first one that I want to mute without pausing it.  Ian's DSP solution will fix that.

I'll add the option in the next update.

Yay!  But please have it be an option, 'cause I want to switch between DSP volume processing and hardware volume processing.  I'm picky!

~Olego~

[Pike84]

Tsorovan:

I personally disapprove of any kind of media library. I don't know if it would be much of bloating, but I think it's just unnecessary. You can have a file explorer (the one with the directory tree) open, and add directories and files straight to the playlist from there, simple as that. Explorer is enough of a media library, for me at least. The easiness of this, of course, depends on, in how good order your music is laid on your hd.

Thus, I really don't see what you need a media library for. I think it would only make things more complicated for me . It wouldn't matter, of course,  if you didn't have to use it, and it didn't add much to the filesize of XMPlay, but I'm afraid it could go rather complicated, all in all .

I don't know everything about media libraries, so perhaps you should tell me, why you think XMPlay should have one .

[Tsorovan]

Well, it's not really a library per se, just a hook into the file system. The ease of use that it would add is if you have, like me, hundreds of GBs of MP3s divided up on several hard drives. "Splicing" these behemoth MP3 dirs into a virtual one that is easily accessed through the player seems, to me, quite useful.

Dragging and dropping/having to right-click and whatnot is a lot more tedious, but I'm quite anal when it comes to simplicity/as few keystrokes as possible, so bear with me.

I can live with XMPlay not having something like this, just wanted to hear if I was the only who found something like this nice. Sometimes, in weak moments, I find myself harbouring some badly-founded hope for general computer users opening their eyes to lean, quick, simple ways to operate programs, but alas...I think I'm insane. Just look at all internet browsers for example...they all suck. Sure, they suck in different ways, but in the end they still suck.

Oh well...I've been rambling on and on for too long now...
It wouldn't be impossible to make a stand-alone program that does this through DDE calls really. Maybe I should install VS .NET and try to reacquaint myself with C++. Was quite a while ago I programmed; back in those glorious DOS days :\

You can have a file explorer (the one with the directory tree) open, and add directories and files straight to the playlist from there, simple as that.

BTW, I can't make that go uncontested! *slaps Kynes with his glove*
Going by that logic, well...this'll be fun :D

"You can have only buttons and press them instead of having hotkeys, simple as that."
"You can have xmplay running as a console application, simple as that."
"You don't need a playlist, you can add song by song manually, simple as that."
"You can have xmplay running on a computer in another room and a special foot controller which transmits commands over shortwave radio as morse code, thus controlling the xmplay instance, simple as that."

Okay, maybe I went overboard a bit there... :D
The gist of it is: improvements are good. Now, if it's worth spending time on adding those improvements...that's another question altogether.

Oh, and please tell me if I should shut up. I know I can be quite annoying at times. I won't mind.

[Olego]

I think I'm insane. Just look at all internet browsers for example...they all suck. Sure, they suck in different ways, but in the end they still suck.

Just had a conversation with a friend today about how either of us launches IE.  We both agreed that on some computers we do Winkey+R, type iexplore, and press Enter.  Double-click is rare, nowadays.  Good thing I have it in my quick launch!  To open the C:\ drive, I do Winkey+R, \, <Enter>.  Seriously, I abuse the Winkey as much as I can.  Instead of Right Click, on my laptop (yes, everyone, Olego owns a LAPTOP!  W00P!  ) I use Shift+F10.  So you're not the only one who's insane.

And browsers do suck major arse!  Opera has mouse gestures which are just about the coolest things ever, but otherwise, it sucks.  IE sucks but it's supported everywhere.  Mozilla would be much better if we didn't have to make 2 version of the same JavaScript code to run on both Mozilla and IE.  (I don't know if there've been any changes recently.)  I like it, but sometimes it can be a pain in the arse.

But I have found something better than all three: links / lynx.  Yes, a text-only web browser that kicks all others in the shins!    He he.

~Olego~

[Ian @ un4seen]

 • Option to remove the taskbar entry on mini-on-top mode. Oh, and no tray icon either.
   A switch would suffice.

I was considering this for 2.7, but didn't get round to it (it's not a matter of simply asking Windows not to show the taskbar entry)... it may well be done for 2.8

 • Optional bare filenames title formatting. I don't want to see any ID3 tags in the title display thanks.

You could set the "title formatting" to nothing - the filename will then be used (except for MODs, as title formatting doesn't affect them).

 • Option [skinconfig.txt] for turning off the tenths of seconds time display.
      I still think this is warranted as it can lower the amount of UI updates by ten times (if you're
      not showing any visualizations).

Don't forget the level indicator needs updating too

 • Can't think of anything except 24/44.1 and 24/48 kHz support.

They are supported... did your change in drivers not fix that problem for you?


I'll have to look over your main/big suggestion a few times

[Pike84]

BTW, I can't make that go uncontested! *slaps Kynes with his glove*
Going by that logic, well...this'll be fun

"You can have only buttons and press them instead of having hotkeys, simple as that."
"You can have xmplay running as a console application, simple as that."
"You don't need a playlist, you can add song by song manually, simple as that."
"You can have xmplay running on a computer in another room and a special foot controller which transmits commands over shortwave radio as morse code, thus controlling the xmplay instance, simple as that."

You made your point there ok . My point however, was that it's just as easy to just use explorer, drag'n'dropping the files. I know nothing about music archives of hundreds of gigs - maybe it would be a helpful addition to someone like you, but you must admit that not many people have even, say, over 50 gigs of music on their machines.

[Tsorovan]

You could set the "title formatting" to nothing - the filename will then be used (except for MODs, as title formatting doesn't affect them).

Ooh, didn't think of checking that. Smart one.

Don't forget the level indicator needs updating too :)

Yep. But how about if your skin doesn't have one? Or if it does, but not visible in say, mini-mode? :)

They are supported... did your change in drivers not fix that problem for you?

Nope. I get a speaker element-obliterating all frequency-encompassing noise. Hrmm. Weird. I think it has something to do with XMPlay though as all other programs (about 10-15 — for example Winamp (strange, I thought I had deleted it), Wavelab & SoundForge) play those same files just fine, either through ASIO/GSIF or the Windows API.

I'll have to look over your main/big suggestion a few times :D

No rush :D Thanks for putting up with my retardation.