Dopamine

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

just to update you on the progress. i didnt stop it and is still indexing the files. it has now been 36 hours and so far has indexed 126,000 tracks and still going.

the cache in my app data is now just over 1gb with the album art it has copied there. i cant say this is a good thing as my OS is on a SSD which is not large (win 7 pro)

why does it need to make its own cache of album art? i dont think other players do this.

 

i think on AIMP3 i can make a playlist of all tracks in less than 2 hours. its been awhile i will try again. and i have not been using Foobar in quite some time so i guess i could try that again and see how long it takes.

i might also be able to test it on Winamp, i think i have an old one like version 5.3. ill post back when ive checked the other players

 

Because of the list of albums. Other players using a list of albums cache album art. Quick look on the internet for itunes: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2352643?start=0&tstart=0

The problem lies in how organizing files into albums is done. Album information is saved in tags in every file (as is album art, for those using embedded art). This is not optimal and is very annoying when building a music player. To have a usable UI you have to build your own database which organizes this in a more optimal way. That database generates it's own list of albums, based on what it found in the files. There is quite some logic required to translate the file info into an actual usable list of artists and albums. Another example, which might be a little off topic, but illustrates this dificulty: if you wish to organize you albums by year in the UI? How would you do it? What year should you take? This info is also stored per file. For albums with only 1 artist, the year will be the same in all files. For compilations, it gets harder... You have to make compromises.

 

To display the albums in the way Dopamine does it, I cache album art. If I didn't, I'd have to execute the logic to structure files into albums everytime you open the player, everytime your scroll down the list of albums. That would make it unusable.

 

So you have to choose: either use a library based player with an album view + cache, or use another type of player with no cache.

This is by far one of the best looking music players available on Windows (which is a really bold statement considering it is not even complete yet); I have been looking for something to replace iTunes on my PC (I am using a HIDPI display and iTunes looks horrible on it) and this is exactly what I have been looking for (clean UI, stable [more stable for me than the Xbox Music app which has seen multiple supposed production releases], and provides all needed functionality [should be even more functional as more of the coming soon features are added]); in fact, even if I were happy with iTunes on Windows I would still migrate to this because the UI is wonderful. I cannot wait to see what the Songs and Playlists view will look like, and I am already trying out your other apps. Wonderful work Raphael.

 

Thanks! A lot of time and effort went into it.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Nice catch - AC/DC bug affects me too. Mine shows AC, just like Viper's screenshot.

 

Indeed, that has been confirmed by another user some time ago (no problem you guys  report it again ). I've spent a complete day trying to figure that one out. It is actually caused by how ID3V2.3 separates entries in tags which contains lists, like the Performers or JoinedPerformers tags, which contain artist info. The separator for these lists is "/" ID3V2.4 improves this by using null bytes (if I remember correctly) to separate fields.

 

Long story short, because of this flaw, most players use a workaround to display AC/DC correctly. I'll have to do the same.

Select artist and hit play? That is how it works right now unless i'm missing something.

 

It currently doesn't. You have to double click a track to play.

[PNWDweller]

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

just to update you on the progress. i didnt stop it and is still indexing the files. it has now been 36 hours and so far has indexed 126,000 tracks and still going.

the cache in my app data is now just over 1gb with the album art it has copied there. i cant say this is a good thing as my OS is on a SSD which is not large (win 7 pro)

why does it need to make its own cache of album art? i dont think other players do this.

 

i think on AIMP3 i can make a playlist of all tracks in less than 2 hours. its been awhile i will try again. and i have not been using Foobar in quite some time so i guess i could try that again and see how long it takes.

i might also be able to test it on Winamp, i think i have an old one like version 5.3. ill post back when ive checked the other players

 

Does AIMP3 organize your track into artists and albums? Just wondering. Because indexing on dopamine would be a lot faster if I just ignore organizing and just fetch tags from files and show them in a flat list.

You can always think of the shading as a call to action for the end user to click the box.

 

Great thinking

[Skiver Veteran]

Select artist and hit play? That is how it works right now unless i'm missing something.

 

I think its more how MusiX used to work that people are referring to. I used to be able to open the application, minimise it to system tray and then hit play on my media keys and it would start playing, now we have to mouse click on the first or any song in the list for it to start. A minor inconvenience of course, hence why it was referred to as "lazy mode" but I miss it too

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

I think its more how MusiX used to work that people are referring to. I used to be able to open the application, minimise it to system tray and then hit play on my media keys and it would start playing, now we have to mouse click on the first or any song in the list for it to start. A minor inconvenience of course, hence why it was referred to as "lazy mode" but I miss it too

 

I don't like minor annoyances Next time I open Visual Studio will be to handle this, and the AC/DC bug.

[jasondefaoite]

Yet another feature request

 

While in mini player mode, with the window active, is it possible to use the scroll wheel of the mouse to alter the volume up and down?

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Yet another feature request

 

While in mini player mode, with the window active, is it possible to use the scroll wheel of the mouse to alter the volume up and down?

 

Will happen. Volume control is one of those things that still need to be added to the mini player.

[+Zagadka Subscriber²]

I would generally prefer mouse wheel scroll doing previous/next track... so probably something context-sensitive based on where the mouse is on the miniplayer?

[Draconian Guppy]

its looking good Rapha

[:B: Rex]

yes i made an error i have a 4770k processor

 

ok well i stopped the indexing. after 57 hours it only indexed 144,000 tracks and still had quite a few more to go.

yesterday when it was around 100,000 tracks it was scanning about 6 tracks every 15 seconds. today it was down to 1 track every 15 seconds so to get the last 14,000 tracks i had would most likely take many days more.

i have 1.2 gb of album art now in my app data folder.

currently i am making a playlist in AIMP3 so i will tell you how long that took

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

yes i made an error i have a 4770k processor

 

ok well i stopped the indexing. after 57 hours it only indexed 144,000 tracks and still had quite a few more to go.

yesterday when it was around 100,000 tracks it was scanning about 6 tracks every 15 seconds. today it was down to 1 track every 15 seconds so to get the last 14,000 tracks i had would most likely take many days more.

i have 1.2 gb of album art now in my app data folder.

currently i am making a playlist in AIMP3 so i will tell you how long that took

 

Ok, I'm curious to hear about that.

 

I've done some testing to improve indexing. I have a small collection (4000 files). With the version you now have, it took 4 minutes to index. Tonight I have been able to get it down to 1,4 minutes while retaining the same functionality. It is mostly reading the database for existing artists and albums which takes a lot of time. That also explains the slowdown when you get further to the end (there are more artists and albums to check the closer you get to the end of th indexing).

 

I might be able to get the size of the cache down by not caching external art, but keeping a link in the database to the image's location in you music tree. For embedded art I currently have no solution to prevent caching.

[chrisj1968]

Raph, I was able to obliterate the music folder and created a new one. now it seems thus far, that dopamine works. the amazon music folder wasn't being seen everywhere. but nuking the entire music folder seems to have fixed the issue.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Raph, I was able to obliterate the music folder and created a new one. now it seems thus far, that dopamine works. the amazon music folder wasn't being seen everywhere. but nuking the entire music folder seems to have fixed the issue.

 

That's great news! Thanks for letting me know. Your issue was not for nothing what concerns the indexer. I've improved it to continue indexing even if one directory has issues (error are logged too, so we at least know what caused the failure). until now, if an error occured, it just stopped doing anything. It was kinda lazy

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

I think its more how MusiX used to work that people are referring to. I used to be able to open the application, minimise it to system tray and then hit play on my media keys and it would start playing, now we have to mouse click on the first or any song in the list for it to start. A minor inconvenience of course, hence why it was referred to as "lazy mode" but I miss it too

 

I've been struck by insomnia tonight. This feature is ready. I'll test it more. If I don't find any bugs, I'll release a build tomorrow.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

[dancedar]

Just a heads up, 360 Total Security 6.0.0.1140 detects Dopamine.exe as a keylogger and Sysnapse.exe as malware:

 

Detected and intercepted Trojan attacks.

 

Program:    C:\Program Files (x86)\Dopamine\Synapse.exe

 

Name: HEUR/QVM03.0.Malware.Gen

 

I've whitelisted these from my end but thought you should know!

[Thomas the Tank Engine]

[Knife Party]

 

Just a heads up, 360 Total Security 6.0.0.1140 detects Dopamine.exe as a keylogger and Sysnapse.exe as malware:

 

Detected and intercepted Trojan attacks.

 

Program:    C:\Program Files (x86)\Dopamine\Synapse.exe

 

Name: HEUR/QVM03.0.Malware.Gen

 

I've whitelisted these from my end but thought you should know!

 

Yeah, go back a few pages and you'll see we already discussed it. Just whitelist the install directory and ok the program

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Yeah, go back a few pages and you'll see we already discussed it. Just whitelist the install directory and ok the program

 

Threads should have some kind of summary page Actually, if users could just edit the OP...

Or you can use Cameyo, with a tutorial here & here.

Or use Universal Extractor & WinRAR, and follow this tutorial, although a little more indepth.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into that.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

I would generally prefer mouse wheel scroll doing previous/next track... so probably something context-sensitive based on where the mouse is on the miniplayer?

 

I'm not so fond of this idea (no offense intended, every idea is interesting, thanks for posting). Do you know other players who do this?

[Max Norris]

[+Zagadka Subscriber²]

[jasondefaoite]

Most features are subjective (for instance, I have never seen the point of showing cover art aside from on phones, it just seems like a waste of screen real estate) 

 

Yup most features are subjective as you said. Personally I'm very fond of the miniplayer view with dopamine, I think it looks great. But I have dual screens in the office so real estate is there to be wasted

[chrisj1968]

some, like myself like the album covers. I'm not all worried about the wasted space so to speak. I'm sure Raphael, will as he has said before, will work on features later. He's just working on the functioning  of the program right now