Thread: AMP v1.0 Worklog

I got it loaded this morning (wireless didn't want to have a good signal last night) and played with it on the way in.

A few things I noticed:
1) When importing the Music database, it didn't tell me when it was done so I sat there looking at it like an idiot for a few minutes

2) I couldn't seem to drill down into playlists. Is that how it is, or did I miss something. For my listening tastes (irratic from minute to minute) I need to be able to scan a list to select a specific track to play.

3) Can we have an option to keep the floater that appears when a new song starts on all the time (when in the music player)? Also, can it be bigger (maybe overlay the whole list?)? I don't think my eyes are that bad, but trying to read the song text in the lower right is a bit on the impossible side with a single glance while driving.

Otherwise, i'm really impressed so far. Thanks for the hard work.

-dave

Originally Posted by iamgnat

A few things I noticed:
1) When importing the Music database, it didn't tell me when it was done so I sat there looking at it like an idiot for a few minutes

Oops! A few other people had said this as well. When I tested it I only looked at the Movies import, as the others take so long. It seems I forgot the line of code to hide the window after it's done on the music & photos import. I just located that and fixed it, will be in the next version.

Originally Posted by iamgnat

2) I couldn't seem to drill down into playlists. Is that how it is, or did I miss something. For my listening tastes (irratic from minute to minute) I need to be able to scan a list to select a specific track to play.

This is in the "to do" list.

Originally Posted by iamgnat

3) Can we have an option to keep the floater that appears when a new song starts on all the time (when in the music player)? Also, can it be bigger (maybe overlay the whole list?)? I don't think my eyes are that bad, but trying to read the song text in the lower right is a bit on the impossible side with a single glance while driving.

Check out some of the preliminary visualizations (I can't quite remember which ones are in the current version you guys have). Click on the little "album art" icon in the bottom-right corner once music is playing. The ones in there now are rough; the ones in my current development version of AMP are smoother & better integrated, and I cut some of the ugly ones out. The main goal of one of them is to just have a nice big "Now Playing" screen.

Also, I think on the previous (or two previous) page of this thread has some screenshots of what the next visuals will look like.

- Also, I plan on eventaully making all the visuals "selectable" so that you can turn off the ones you don't like, and only keep on the ones you do.

And thank you!
Aychamo

Originally Posted by aychamo

Oops! ... I just located that and fixed it, will be in the next version.

Cool. Thanks

This is in the "to do" list.

Sounds good. Just checking since I have been known to be the master of missing the obvious

Click on the little "album art" icon in the bottom-right corner once music is playing.

I will play with that tonight.

Thanks,
-dave

Originally Posted by aychamo

Click on the little "album art" icon in the bottom-right corner once music is playing.

I tried this out tonight on the way home.

I really like the one with the rotating CD case, the other couple I saw made the album info to hard to read (color and/or size). Two issues I had with that visual were that A) it did not update when the song changed and B) the timer slider on the bottom didn't seem to relate to the song playing time.

On the visuals in general, what i'm really looking for is to be able to see the info and still be able to control the player. Using the visuals, to change the song, adjust the volume, etc.. you have to break out of it first.

Just some thoughts.

Thanks,
-dave

Originally Posted by iamgnat

Two issues I had with that visual were that A) it did not update when the song changed and B) the timer slider on the bottom didn't seem to relate to the song playing time.

Yeah, I posted a page or two back that in the current version you guys can download the visuals are entirely preliminary and none of that stuff is hooked up. They actually look like ***! It's all fixed in the version I'm going to upload soon. I wrote my own version of the spinning CD one, I thought it was just a little too lame.

I'm delaying uploading this next version because I'm super busy with school until Friday (I had a test Monday, today [Wednesday], and a huge pathology test Friday -- this one is very important I do well, and then a rather large test on Tuesday as well) and I have half-implemented a system where you can selectively turn on and off the visuals you want. So if you don't like one, one click, and you'll never see it again!

It's really close, just a few methods I need to write. I've got them already written in the old noggin, just not on the computer

I'm really anxious for you guys to see it all, now that it takes over the screen [full screen may be a misnomer, it takes over the whole screen, but draws everything outside of 800x480 black, no menu bar, no dock - it should be perfect on the xenarc], with a few updated buttons, layouts, web browser (just waiting on Jakob with some graphics ;-) ), the on screen keyboard for the webbrowser (works great), and to provide a little visual feedback, if you don't have radioSHARK on your mac it will disable the radio button (nothing big, looks nice). I may try to get that view in to see the individual items of the playlist. It shoudl be easy, but it may not happen until after my exam on tuesday.

Originally Posted by iamgnat

On the visuals in general, what i'm really looking for is to be able to see the info and still be able to control the player. Using the visuals, to change the song, adjust the volume, etc.. you have to break out of it first.

Another good idea. I'll have to brush up my interaction with Quartz, but I think this can be done. I'm not sure how it would work regardingi the UI though. Where would the controls be? I can make it if you click on the UI it pops up a menu giving you some access to controls, but then you would have to click a button from there to exit the visual. So it would be two clicks to exit the visual, and one click to bring up the menu to give you access to changing the songs. Vs one click to exit the visualization, then change what you want, then click the visual back on. Hmm..

Hmm..
hmm..

let me think about this.

Aychamo, pardon my ignorance but the RadioShark is simply for FM/AM radio, correct? There is nothing currently out for XM/Sirius for the Mac? I'm working on selling my current CarPC and home computer gear (see the classifieds if you guys want solid windows/linux boxen) to get a couple intel minis, one for home and one for car and may even get a radioshark if its AM/FM + satellite.

Thanks for such an awesome front end (and i can't even use it yet, but i'm so pumped about it).

Hey man!

Yeah, the radioSHARK is only for AM/FM.

You know, I really don't know whats out there for Mac/PC's regarding satelite radio these days. I know XM used to have that XMPCR device for listening to XM radio on the PC. But, from what I understand, they discontinued it. But, I also read you can take a certain model of XM radio and it works almost essentially the same as a XMPCR.

I spent a few minutes yesterday looking around for info on XM & Mac. I found one program (MacXM) that seems to let you listen to XM radio through your Mac. And, it was AppleScript-able, so I could communicate with it by running an AppleScript from within my Cocoa program. (In the same way I communicate with radioSHARK)

Anyone know anything about this?

awesome! i'd prolly look at getting that for the mac. once i get my mac mini if you are needing any UI help, i am a designer and c#/asp.net (does you no good with developing mac apps) developer by trade.