musiX

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

OMG, I'm just now seeing this, and mind=BLOWN! Going to try this out later on tonight when I get off of work. Looks amazing! I'm excited to try this one out A.S.A.P.!

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

In my efforts to improve the out of the box experience of musiX, I've created this welcome screen. In the next build (not available for download yet), the first time you fire up musiX you?ll be presented this simple welcome screen. This should make it easier for new users to add songs to their collection.

 

 

There is also a new "manage" menu under "COLLECTION" which allows managing the collection folders. I won't show you the content of that screen yet, because it looks like cr*p right now :)

 

[:B: Rex]

dont know if its possible but support for last.fm audio scrobbling would be nice

[+Matthew]

I love this player, I have been using it for about a month now and have fallen in love with the minimal design and simplistic options.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

dont know if its possible but support for last.fm audio scrobbling would be nice

 

Added to the wishlist. It'll probably get in there eventually (if you have a lot of patience :)) as I was playing with this idea from the beginning.

I love this player, I have been using it for about a month now and have fallen in love with the minimal design and simplistic options.

 

I'm very glad you like it. My goal is to keep it that minimalistic. The main reason musiX exists is because I find most other players too bloated.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

I got the "manage" screen into a usable state. Here is a preview:

 

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

A new build is available: 1.0 (Build 169) Preview. No big changes in this build, most of the focus went to usability. Here is the changelog:

 

• New welcome screen, new manage collection screen, new help section
• Song play count increases when the song is finished instead of when the song is starting
• minor bugfixes

 

You?ll find this build in the ?Previews? folder in the downloads section on my blog.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I love this player. It's gorgeous. Great job on this! Will update when I get home this evening. (Y)

[Skiver Veteran]

I think I may have found a bug;

 

• Play any song from the collection
• Pause the song
• Do a search that retains no results
• Play button is greyed out and track cannot be resumed.

It doesn't really matter whether you pause or search first, the result seems to be the same.

 

EDIT: another one

Media Keys on keyboard seem to have stopped working

 

It looks like they are triggering the search functionality instead.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

I think I may have found a bug;

 

• Play any song from the collection
• Pause the song
• Do a search that retains no results
• Play button is greyed out and track cannot be resumed.

It doesn't really matter whether you pause or search first, the result seems to be the same.

 

EDIT: another one

Media Keys on keyboard seem to have stopped working

 

It looks like they are triggering the search functionality instead.

 

Thanks for reporting this. I could reproduce both and will fix for the next build.

[tsupersonic]

I think I messed up - I wanted to install this, so I accidentally installed an older build. It started fine, and I pointed it to my music collection. I then got a musiX has stopped working. I restarted the program, but it just crashes on start. So, I saw that it was an old build, uninstalled it, then installed the latest build. The program stops working when you open it. What traces does this program leave when you uninstall it (registry wise)?

 

According to event viewer, it encounters a .NET runtime error, and an application error. This is on W8.1 U1 (w/ latest updates)

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

One thing I can honestly say that I don't like (and it's not a show stopper) is that I can't right click on a random mp3 and have the app play it. Gotta add an entire collection just to hear one song out of that collection. What if I just want to jam to just one quick song on the whim?

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

I think I messed up - I wanted to install this, so I accidentally installed an older build. It started fine, and I pointed it to my music collection. I then got a musiX has stopped working. I restarted the program, but it just crashes on start. So, I saw that it was an old build, uninstalled it, then installed the latest build. The program stops working when you open it. What traces does this program leave when you uninstall it (registry wise)?

 

According to event viewer, it encounters a .NET runtime error, and an application error. This is on W8.1 U1 (w/ latest updates)

 

It leaves no traces in the registry: I'm not saving anything explicitly in the registry (everything musiX needs is in musiX.xml, although I'm not excluding the .NET framework might leave traces). I'm more thinking the configuration file (musiX.xml) got corrupt due to using an older build. Please try to delete it and retry with a more recent build. musiX.xml is located under C:\Users\youruser\AppData\Local\musiX.

 

Let me know how it went.

 

Did you uninstall the previous build when installing the older build (that is not necessary)? Because the installer should not allow installing and older build than the one currently installed.

One thing I can honestly say that I don't like (and it's not a show stopper) is that I can't right click on a random mp3 and have the app play it. Gotta add an entire collection just to hear one song out of that collection. What if I just want to jam to just one quick song on the whim?

 

Do you mean the fact you can't associate file types to musiX and play them in musiX when double-clicking or right-clicking in explorer? If yes, that's coming.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

It leaves no traces in the registry: I'm not saving anything explicitly in the registry (everything musiX needs is in musiX.xml, although I'm not excluding the .NET framework might leave traces). I'm more thinking the configuration file (musiX.xml) got corrupt due to using an older build. Please try to delete it and retry with a more recent build. musiX.xml is located under C:\Users\youruser\AppData\Local\musiX.

 

Let me know how it went.

 

Did you uninstall the previous build when installing the older build (that is not necessary)? Because the installer should not allow installing and older build than the one currently installed.

 

Do you mean the fact you can't associate file types to musiX and play them in musiX when double-clicking or right-clicking in explorer? If yes, that's coming.

Yes sir, that's exactly what I meant, and I think you just made my day! You rock, man!!!  :punk: I owe you a beer!  :beer:

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Yes sir, that's exactly what I meant, and I think you just made my day! You rock, man!!!  :punk: I owe you a beer!  :beer:

 

Thanks :) File association is actually part of other basic stuff I still have to add to musiX: file associations, bulk tag editing, playlist import/export, and other basic stuff I'm forgetting right now. Time is the limiting factor :) But we'll get there...

[Skiver Veteran]

No rush, you have an amazing product with a great roadmap! You've shown you listen to your users as well as doing you're own thing, you're a credit to the development world :)

[tsupersonic]

It leaves no traces in the registry: I'm not saving anything explicitly in the registry (everything musiX needs is in musiX.xml, although I'm not excluding the .NET framework might leave traces). I'm more thinking the configuration file (musiX.xml) got corrupt due to using an older build. Please try to delete it and retry with a more recent build. musiX.xml is located under C:\Users\youruser\AppData\Local\musiX.

 

Let me know how it went.

 

Did you uninstall the previous build when installing the older build (that is not necessary)? Because the installer should not allow installing and older build than the one currently installed.

I deleted those files under that directory, and reinstalled the latest build. It worked, but when I try to add my Music collection, it doesn't appear to do anything. Then, when I close the app and reopen it, it goes into the loop of "Musix has stopped working." It just does not like my music collection for some reason...

 

Yes, I did uninstall the older build when I realized it was old, then proceeded to install the new build. 

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

I deleted those files under that directory, and reinstalled the latest build. It worked, but when I try to add my Music collection, it doesn't appear to do anything. Then, when I close the app and reopen it, it goes into the loop of "Musix has stopped working." It just does not like my music collection for some reason...

 

Yes, I did uninstall the older build when I realized it was old, then proceeded to install the new build. 

 

I'm not sure yet what is happening. Usually when musiX crashes when starting it means musiX.xml is corrupt (this can happen if the process was forced to stop through task manager while writing to musiX.xml) I still have to add some fail safe for this situation.

 

 

Have you also tried to delete the complete C:\Users\youruser\AppData\Local\musiX directory completely instead of just the musiX.xml file?

 

Please try this:

 

1. Uninstall musiX

2. Delete the complete musiX directory

3. Install the latest build

4. Launch musiX and add a folder to your collection (it should show the spinning progress at the bottom of the playlist indicating the songs are being added). Also while adding songs, you won't be able to close musiX (a "please wait" sign will appear, together with the spinning symbol), until it has finished adding all songs.

[tsupersonic]

I'm not sure yet what is happening. Usually when musiX crashes when starting it means musiX.xml is corrupt (this can happen if the process was forced to stop through task manager while writing to musiX.xml) I still have to add some fail safe for this situation.

 

 

Have you also tried to delete the complete C:\Users\youruser\AppData\Local\musiX directory completely instead of just the musiX.xml file?

 

Please try this:

 

1. Uninstall musiX

2. Delete the complete musiX directory

3. Install the latest build

4. Launch musiX and add a folder to your collection (it should show the spinning progress at the bottom of the playlist indicating the songs are being added). Also while adding songs, you won't be able to close musiX (a "please wait" sign will appear, together with the spinning symbol), until it has finished adding all songs.

Did all this, and same result as before. I wish I could do a screencast to show all this hmm. Is there any log files that we can look at/send you? 

[Darrian]

OMG how did I just now find out about this?  Looks fantastic.  Will have to wait till I get home to test it with my music collection, but I have to say I'm very impressed with what I can test right now.  Make a CAD plugin and possibly add a light theme and it'll be perfect.  Thanks for your effort; this might end up replacing the Zune player for me.

[Asharae]

Was just thinking, maybe you could have a way so the software will let us know if there is an updated version available?

 

Rather than having to check here/your blog?

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Did all this, and same result as before. I wish I could do a screencast to show all this hmm. Is there any log files that we can look at/send you? 

 

There is no logging yet. I'm focusing in this issue now and will start adding logging tonight. What you could send me is the musix.xml after you have added the first folder to your collection (from the welcome screen) after your have closed the application. Maybe you can sent it through PM here?

 

Also, could you tell me the version of the builds you installed previously and the exact steps you executed (so I can try to reproduce it)? Did it happen like this?

 

- build B was installed and collection was working

- build B was uninstalled (Did this step happen? Without the uninstall you shouldn't have been able to install an older build, as the installer checks for that, unless there is a bug in the installer)

- older build A was installed, and messed up the collection

 

If yes, which builds were A and B?

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Since tsupersonic's issues, I've made the musiX startup much more stable. During normal operation the collection xml file should never become corrupt (a lot of mechanisms are in place to prevent that), but due to things happening outside musiX (like a forced stop through task manager while writing to the xml) this can happen. Things I did to increase stability:

 

- musiX.xml is backed up each time before it is being written to

- A lot of exceptions are now being caught and handled correctly at startup in case the musiX.xml is corrupt and cannot be loaded

- This screen is shown at startup in case of a corrupt musiX.xml:

 

 

The next thing I'll add is logging to a logfile.

[tsupersonic]

There is no logging yet. I'm focusing in this issue now and will start adding logging tonight. What you could send me is the musix.xml after you have added the first folder to your collection (from the welcome screen) after your have closed the application. Maybe you can sent it through PM here?

 

Also, could you tell me the version of the builds you installed previously and the exact steps you executed (so I can try to reproduce it)? Did it happen like this?

 

- build B was installed and collection was working

- build B was uninstalled (Did this step happen? Without the uninstall you shouldn't have been able to install an older build, as the installer checks for that, unless there is a bug in the installer)

- older build A was installed, and messed up the collection

 

If yes, which builds were A and B?

This is how it happened: 

Build A was 104 from OneDrive, installed that. Started to import my music collection. Crashed during import, and then crashed during each successive start up of Musix. 

 

Went back to thread (to see if anyone else had same issue), saw I was using an old build. Uninstalled Build A (104), then installed Build B (169 - downloaded from blog). Same crashing issue.

 

I've also tried your suggestion of uninstalling the program, deleting the Musix directory in Appdata/Local, and reinstalling the program. This gets Musix to start properly, but when I add my music library to the collection, it crashes during the "Updating your Collection" phase. I haven't gotten the program to work yet - there must be a problem somewhere in my music library. 

 

I hope this makes sense - I really want to do a screen cast to show you what I'm going through. 

 

As I type this, I'm trying to get Build 169 installed on my Surface Pro 2 also running W8.1 U1 (w/ latest updates). I have a music collection of about 9000 songs (yes, over 9000!) which takes up ~43 GB. The only problem with the SP2 is I don't have any music on the device itself, so I have to use my NAS (my music library is kept in sync from my desktop to NAS daily). 

 

I really appreciate all the help! I like developers who interact with people to troubleshoot issues :)

 

Edit: It really is my music collection, even the SP2 crashes now on Musix startup. 

[Darrian]

There seems to be some issue with reading subfolders.  I pointed it to my music folder, but out of the thousands of albums I have it was only able to detect one single folder and a couple of stray ringtones.