Vulcanus - an aspiring music streaming app

[Descartes]

It has risen directly from the ashes of Aquarius, something I'd been working on a year or two ago and possibly mentioned around here under a different username.

It's basically a .NET application that embraces powerful MusicBrainz search capabilities and VK.com which contains LOADS of music uploaded by users. With a free account on the latter, you can legally access every single track.

It looks like this:

For now you can download the first preview release from my SkyDrive, at least until I get a decent page up. I've also created a fanpage which I'll update on the new releases and such.

System requirements include .NET Framework 4.0 and Windows Media Player 11 or higher.

A quick list of what works and what doesn't:

In this release, you CAN:

- search for music using the text box to the top-left

- play it by putting it on your playlist (drag and drop doesn't work yet, click your way through)

- control playback by using all of the visible controls in the bottom pane

For now, you CAN'T:

- view the Welcome tab (the site simply isn't there yet)

- remember settings or playlists after shutdown

.

Since I've put a lot of work into this, I'd really appreciate any amount of feedback. Speak your mind!

EDIT: Links are now up. If the auto-login version asks for a number, it's 3052. Alternatively you can download the regular-login version that you can access with your own account.

[andrew_]

Any chance of downloading the tracks in addition to listening?

And I'd love to see Windows Media Player ditched in favor of an open source library. Some alternatives include:

BASS http://www.un4seen.com/

http://naudio.codeplex.com/

http://directshownet.sourceforge.net/

http://www.ambiera.com/irrklang/

Cheers

[Aethec]

Any chance of downloading the tracks in addition to listening?

And I'd love to see Windows Media Player ditched in favor of an open source library. Some alternatives include:

BASS http://www.un4seen.com/

http://naudio.codeplex.com/

http://directshownet.sourceforge.net/

http://www.ambiera.com/irrklang/

Cheers

How are these libs better than Media Player? (real question, not a troll or anything)

[andrew_]

The biggest advantage is that if a user chooses not to install WMP (or remove it altogether) then the app will still work. It's an external dependency that the dev doesn't have to be worried about making sure the user has installed, and it's one less step for the user if they don't have it installed. There'd also be no need to worry about different/future versions of WMP behaving differently.

[Descartes]

Thank you for the links. Indeed the WMP dependency is something I'm struggling with, as it doesn't offer much (I had to extend the class quite a bit, actually) and works really quirky on Windows XP. I'll definitely look into the alternatives you're suggesting.

Regarding the downloading ability - this is something I wanted to do, and I'd have absolutely no problem implementing it. Unfortunately, the VK API usage terms clearly forbid me to do so. :(

Meanwhile, I've just released version 1.2 with further changes:

- You can now look for another mp3 of the same song

- You can now sort all search results (sorting the track list of multi-disc releases by track order still needs some work)

- Reverted to the classic playlist layout due to usability issues

- Fixed a bug where some dates in release lookup wouldn't show up properly

- Fixed a bug where trying to send a critical error report would result in opening another critical error dialogs ad infinitum (oops)

- Reimplemented playback control

- Added proper shuffle and repeat modes

- Lots of cosmetic changes

Download Facebook page (if you like it, help me gather a crowd!)

I'll be working on saving settings and playlists to files from now on, however, I have an important exam on the 17th so I'll be studying for it until then.

Thanks for the feedback!

[andrew_]

great to hear. definitely a fun app, well done so far!