Best browseing method, post your ideas! (long)

**Gruneun** · 08-13-2004, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by lbk

without actually typing in the name of an artist or album which again isn't safe to do while driving.

That depends entirely on how you implement the "typing," but for most equipment/applications I would agree with you. In my current app, the alphabet pad can be scrolled with a left/right buttons on the remote. It's my intention to have the app read the letters as you scroll them (I say intention, because I'm still trying to convince my wife to be the voice). The distinct advantage of a very limited remote and audible feedback is you can operate complex menus and operations without your eyes.

In fact, it took me a long time to be convinced that a touchscreen was valuable. I finally decided that it should be the secondary method of input, but if I was stuck with a larger, non-touch screen, it's something I could live with.

**phatbenny** · 08-14-2004, 12:39 PM

I've tried out Media Car, Media Engine and Frodoplayer. The feature I wouldlike most would be the ability to create an active playlist. i.e. select one file and it starts playing, select another file and it is added to the queue. I think the best was of achieving this would be with a button that toggles the queue mode on and off. What does everyone else think of this idea?

**liquid_smoke** · 08-15-2004, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by phatbenny

I've tried out Media Car, Media Engine and Frodoplayer. The feature I wouldlike most would be the ability to create an active playlist. i.e. select one file and it starts playing, select another file and it is added to the queue. I think the best was of achieving this would be with a button that toggles the queue mode on and off. What does everyone else think of this idea?

Thats exactly how i thought media engine and media car would work, but never did. WIth this method you could hop in the car, load up 4 or 5 CDs and go. I drive 80+ highway miles a day, so what i normally just do now is load up winamp and hit the road. OR load frodoplayer, set to all music with random on.

**Nic** · 08-16-2004, 10:37 AM

just to clarify in mediacar the select button creates a playlist out of all the songs in that directory, and the select + button creates a playlist of all the songs in that directory and the songs within subdirectories (and within subdirectories within subdirectories etc...)

opening up photoshop now to show how audio browsing would work if i ever felt like making a car interface

**Nic** · 08-16-2004, 11:29 AM

ok so these images are an incredibly crude idea of audio browsing, apoligies to frodo and feb for destroying their work.

anyway, my music is arranged with different genres in different folders and within those folders there are heaps of lose files and more folders that contain albums, i like to be able to play the albums but also play full folders or even my full collection.

I think that having a seperate page to chose files would be nice as it becomes difficult to scroll through frodoplayer with small boxes, the list page that i made has a folders column down the left which would basically be the folders in the specified directory, perhaps an all folders option and browsing of directories within directories. the right side is the albums that are in the selected directory, i like the idea of most played albums being up the top like someone said before

there is obviously pleanty of room for improvement, just wanting to get some ideas out for others to expand on, one other note that i forgot to add was a "search" search button on the main page, so that you can search the current playlist

**Alric** · 08-16-2004, 11:38 AM

It should be like the iPod. That is the perfect way to browse by song, album or artist using one finger.

**liquid_smoke** · 08-16-2004, 12:09 PM

like the mock ups, i wish that were in FP too, it would make things a lot easier.
That and the skip CD function would make the perfect player for me.

I dont have an ipod can you explain or post pics of how its done on the ipod?

**Alric** · 08-16-2004, 12:31 PM

For some reason they don't show actual music navigation but you get the idea from the animations at the bottom of the page.

http://www.apple.com/ipod/musicandmore.html

**zPilott** · 08-19-2004, 10:48 PM

we really need a way to navigate quickly, to add items to a playlist. I have my files ordered in directories by artist/album, and it takes me days to scroll to the middle of the list.
Most oem navigations systems (that I have used) have the keyboard that you can navigate with a cursor, with the characters that can't be used greyed out. I would like to see something like this that builds from a master list that has:

each genre
each artist
each album
each song
etc

if you are looking for any of those then you can just start typing the name, and you can add at any time (type in rock and get all songs tagged as rock, type in rolling stones, get all the songs by the rolling stones, etc)

All the software I have seen has two modes, random, and ordered play. I don't like the ordered play, and I assume a lot of other people don't (at least part of the time). The random play implemented usually has two draw backs. 1. it is not a shuffle (though it is usually called that) I want to hear (or skip) every song on the playlist at least once before I hear any song for the second time. 2. You cannot tell what the next song (or next 5 songs) I would like to be able to see what the next few songs are, and remove or reshuffle them in the playlist. I hate having to wait until a song starts playing, or take my eyes off the road each time a song starts playing to see if I feel like listening to it right now. Another small issue with some media players is that in random play you cannot go back to the last song that was player.

and one more thing I hate: making playlists in the first place. I have spent a lot of time thinking about creating a tool that automatically, dynamicaly, generates playlists simply based on how you select, listen, or skip playing songs. I have some time to devote to development of tools, though not as much as I would like. if any of u guys working on media players want an extra hand in that area let me know.

sorry for the long post, this subject is a little near and dear to my heart.

**toadster123** · 08-19-2004, 11:26 PM

zPilott, for a random playlist generator , you can try LyraDJ by RCA.. its made for Lyra HDD mp3 player.. but you can use it on anything i believe.. i havent tried it yet.. but it seems cool..

Also, if u want to play your entire library (either shuffle or in order) u can just make a playlist in winamp or whatever.. then just load that playlist and hit shuffle/random.. (depending on your player).. of course this is only a temporary fix...

Anyways, i have some good ideas for a 'new' browser/interface... if any developers want to change their software or whatever..or create new software

I have a RCA lyra hdd mp3 player and i think some of its features are good.
The main menu allows you to sort your music by:
Artist
Album
Title
Genre
User Playlists
Audio Files
All Files

The all files option is basically a file browser.. that shows all your folders and files , so if u have them set up in certain folders.. u can browse that way

The Artist option, shows the artists (duh) then all the albums of that artist (based on id3 tags), then the songs in that album

THe only problem is , if you want to play all your songs that u have of a certain artist, u cannot do so easly ... adding an option to show albums or not is something that i think would come in handy

Another helpful part of the browsing software on the lyra hdd player is that it allows you to skip from the begging of a list to say the letters 'g-p' , 'q-z' so if u have a long list (of artists, songs, albums) you can broswer faster..

(sorry for my horrible skills at trying to get my ideas across... im just trying to post concepts that i have run across, or thought of myself..that i think are useful)