Dopamine

[Brandon H Supervisor]

3 minutes ago, Raphaël G. said:

I've long postponed "fixing" this, as the current behavior is the only correct one. But the amount of complaints and questions I get about the current behavior is just exhausting. I've spent already too much time explaining this. So the behavior change will happen, for the sake of my mental health  I'm still brainstorming how I can make this optional though. As I smell trouble already.

a toggle in the settings will probably be your best bet to appease the bulk of the complainers

 

3 minutes ago, Raphaël G. said:

I can't say for sure. I've attempted publishing Dopamine to the store already, but the process is tiresome and includes contact with a Microsoft support engineer. I abandoned it after a few weeks. Maybe I'll try again in the future. Hopefully the process of adding a win32 app to the store will be more streamlined by then.

they've definitely been working to streamline the processes it sounds like; more and more WIN32 apps are starting to appear now. iTunes is the first true large addition I think.

 

if you do ever get it on the store I know a bunch of us would give it great reviews to help it gross

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 6/11/2018 at 8:00 PM, Brandon H said:

a toggle in the settings will probably be your best bet to appease the bulk of the complainers

 

they've definitely been working to streamline the processes it sounds like; more and more WIN32 apps are starting to appear now. iTunes is the first true large addition I think.

 

if you do ever get it on the store I know a bunch of us would give it great reviews to help it gross

A toggle should be helpful. There are only 2 issues:

 

1. The default setting will have to be the "wrong" behavior. Otherwise the number of complains will not go down. People contact me, before checking if there is a setting.

2. There is a (however, very small) probability that a user has "wrongly" tagged albums mixed with albums from different artists, but with the same album title. In that case, the wrong behavior will group these albums together into 1 album. As soon as they want to fix that, they'll have to enable the correct behavior, which will explode their albums into too many albums... Oh boy, infinite loop of problems

 

I'll think about the store  I'm getting this request a lot too.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

2 minutes ago, Raphaël G. said:

A toggle should be helpful. There are only 2 issues:

 

1. The default setting will have to be the "wrong" behavior. Otherwise the number of complains will not go down. People contact me, before checking if there is a setting.

2. There is a (however, very small) probability that a user has "wrongly" tagged albums mixed with albums from different artists, but with the same album title. In that case, the wrong behavior will group these albums together into 1 album. As soon as they want to fix that, they'll have to enable the correct behavior, which will explode their albums into too many albums... Oh boy, infinite loop of problems

oh geez, yeah I see what you're saying.

 

honestly if every other player sorts this way I'd say suck it up and correct your id tags. The better option may be a page on your site that shows how the ID tags should be done in the files and have a link to the page near your 'contact me' link

Link name possibility: 'Albums not sorting correctly?'

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

41 minutes ago, Brandon H said:

oh geez, yeah I see what you're saying.

 

honestly if every other player sorts this way I'd say suck it up and correct your id tags. The better option may be a page on your site that shows how the ID tags should be done in the files and have a link to the page near your 'contact me' link

Link name possibility: 'Albums not sorting correctly?'

Well, the contact page on my site (which users use to contact me about this too), contains this line above the contact form:

 

If you have a question about Dopamine, please first check the Dopamine F.A.Q. (where Dopamine F.A.Q. is a direct and clickable link to the F.A.Q.)

 

The F.A.Q (http://www.digimezzo.com/software/dopamine-f-a-q/) contains this chapter: 

 

Quote

Why are some of my songs not grouped in one album?

 

First, you must understand this: once audio files have been extracted from a record or CD, there exists no such thing as a Album anymore. You just have a bunch of loose audio files, containing correct or incorrect metadata (also called tags) about where these files were extracted from. As a result of this, software audio players need to use some artificial way to define which audio files belong to a same album. The correctness of the metadata influences how software audio players succeed in that task.

 

We’ll take a closer look at 3 of these metadata tags: Artist, Album artist and Album title.

 

An audio file has 2 artist tags: Artist and Album artist.

 

* Artist = the artist who performs the song

* Album artist = the common artist for the whole album

 

For albums where all the songs are from the same artist, these 2 tags will contain the same value: the artist who performs the song. For albums containing songs from multiple artists (also called compilation albums), the value in these 2 tags can be different.

 

Furthermore, a song also has a tag Album title, which is the title of the album.

 

Dopamine organizes albums based on a song’s Album title and Album artist. All songs which have a same Album title AND a same Album artist, are considered to be part of the same album: they will appear under the same cover in the Albums views in Dopamine.

 

People are confused by compilation albums. From lots of e-mails I received, I’ve come to the conclusion that most audio files from compilation albums are incorrectly tagged. Most of them have an incorrect value in the tag Album artist, namely: the artist who performs the song. In such case, Dopamine considers these songs as part of a different album.

 

To resolve this, tag your files correctly:

 

* Artist = the artist who performs the song

* Album artist = some common artist name (e.g. “Various artists”)

 

You can use Dopamine’s built-in tag editor to correct this.

 

I'm not sure where things go wrong. Most likely, the F.A.Q. is never being read.

 

Edit: I added the chapter, to illustrate its completeness on the matter.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

2 minutes ago, Raphaël G. said:

Well, the contact page on my site (which users use to contact me about this too), contains this line above the contact form:

 

If you have a question about Dopamine, please first check the Dopamine F.A.Q. (where Dopamine F.A.Q. is a direct and clickable link to the F.A.Q.)

 

The F.A.Q (http://www.digimezzo.com/software/dopamine-f-a-q/) contains this chapter: Why are some of my songs not grouped in one album?

It explains the "issue" with the tags. I'm not sure where things go wrong. Most likely, the F.A.Q. is never being read.

Generally the case. I'm rebuilding a reference guide website for my workplace for our on-the-phone agents and they will miss info right in their face in large red text so I sympathize with you

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Hey everyone! The first preview of Dopamine 2.0 has just been released. Info and download here: https://www.digimezzo.com/2018/06/14/dopamine-2-0-preview-1/

[dakn]

Wow! I LOVE it!

 

It keeps what's great about Dopamine and takes it to the next level. Scales and loads artwork effortlessly when full screen on my 50" 4K screen. :)

 

Super, super slick. Well done, and thank you. :)

[dakn]

Too early for requests?

 

Would quite like an option for XLarge album art.

 

The possibility of tapping in to Groove's synchronised playlists. - That one is fairly selfish as still use a Windows phone and love being able to make/edit a playlist on my pc and it just being on my phone, but it would also be great for syncing with Dopamine on my pc and Surface.

Guess it might have to integrate your Windows account into Dopamine for that?

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

23 hours ago, dakn said:

Wow! I LOVE it!

 

It keeps what's great about Dopamine and takes it to the next level. Scales and loads artwork effortlessly when full screen on my 50" 4K screen.

 

Super, super slick. Well done, and thank you.

Thanks! And, you're welcome

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

13 hours ago, dakn said:

Too early for requests?

 

Would quite like an option for XLarge album art.

 

The possibility of tapping in to Groove's synchronised playlists. - That one is fairly selfish as still use a Windows phone and love being able to make/edit a playlist on my pc and it just being on my phone, but it would also be great for syncing with Dopamine on my pc and Surface.

Guess it might have to integrate your Windows account into Dopamine for that?

No, not at all

 

Larger album art is in scope for Dopamine 2.0. I've created a feature request here: https://github.com/digimezzo/Dopamine/issues/797 based on another user's request.

I'll have to check for the Groove playlists. I don't know how that feature works. No promises there though. Groove doesn't seem like Microsoft's focus anymore, so it might not be useful to spend too much time on this.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 6/12/2018 at 10:48 PM, Brandon H said:

Generally the case. I'm rebuilding a reference guide website for my workplace for our on-the-phone agents and they will miss info right in their face in large red text so I sympathize with you

Same thing again today. I just got this e-mail via my website's online form:

 

Hallo,

ein schönes Programm, aber bei gemischten Alben mit z.B. 20 verschiedenen Titeln wird das Album 20 mal angezeigt also für jeden Interpreten einzeln. Das ist sehr unübersichtlich. In der Albendarstellung sollte jedes Album nur einmal erscheinen. ich habe nichts gefunden, wo man die einstellen könnte.

 

Translation by google translate:

 

Hello, a nice program, but with mixed albums with e.g. 20 different titles the album is displayed 20 times, so for each artist individually. This is very confusing. In albums, each album should only appear once. I have not found anything where you could adjust the.

 

 

I've been doing some test today. I took an album (files which have the same album title and album artist) and I changed the album artist so that it is different for each file. Dopamine split up this album into multiple albums. As is being complained about.

 

Then, I took a bunch of other players, and verified how this album is displayed. This is the result:

 

- MusicBee: album is split up
- Foobar2000: album is split up
- Winyl: album is split up
- Windows Media Player: album is split up
- iTunes: album is split up

 

The longer I think of it, the more I believe I shouldn't change how Dopamine organizes albums. I think it might be better that I show a warning bar after indexing, which notifies the user that some albums might be split up. Clicking the bar, would show an overview of the messed up albums and allow 2 options:

 

- Option to provide a common album artist

- Option to check a box to group the files which have the same album title into 1 album

[Xenon]

2 hours ago, Raphaël G. said:

Same thing again today. I just got this e-mail via my website's online form:

 

Hallo,

ein schönes Programm, aber bei gemischten Alben mit z.B. 20 verschiedenen Titeln wird das Album 20 mal angezeigt also für jeden Interpreten einzeln. Das ist sehr unübersichtlich. In der Albendarstellung sollte jedes Album nur einmal erscheinen. ich habe nichts gefunden, wo man die einstellen könnte.

 

Translation by google translate:

 

Hello, a nice program, but with mixed albums with e.g. 20 different titles the album is displayed 20 times, so for each artist individually. This is very confusing. In albums, each album should only appear once. I have not found anything where you could adjust the.

 

 

I've been doing some test today. I took an album (files which have the same album title and album artist) and I changed the album artist so that it is different for each file. Dopamine split up this album into multiple albums. As is being complained about.

 

Then, I took a bunch of other players, and verified how this album is displayed. This is the result:

 

- MusicBee: album is split up
- Foobar2000: album is split up
- Winyl: album is split up
- Windows Media Player: album is split up
- iTunes: album is split up

 

The longer I think of it, the more I believe I shouldn't change how Dopamine organizes albums. I think it might be better that I show a warning bar after indexing, which notifies the user that some albums might be split up. Clicking the bar, would show an overview of the messed up albums and allow 2 options:

 

- Option to provide a common album artist

- Option to check a box to group the files which have the same album title into 1 album

Sounds like a good simple solution. 

[Ravensky]

5 hours ago, Raphaël G. said:

Same thing again today. I just got this e-mail via my website's online form:

 

Hallo,

ein schönes Programm, aber bei gemischten Alben mit z.B. 20 verschiedenen Titeln wird das Album 20 mal angezeigt also für jeden Interpreten einzeln. Das ist sehr unübersichtlich. In der Albendarstellung sollte jedes Album nur einmal erscheinen. ich habe nichts gefunden, wo man die einstellen könnte.

 

Translation by google translate:

 

Hello, a nice program, but with mixed albums with e.g. 20 different titles the album is displayed 20 times, so for each artist individually. This is very confusing. In albums, each album should only appear once. I have not found anything where you could adjust the.

 

 

I've been doing some test today. I took an album (files which have the same album title and album artist) and I changed the album artist so that it is different for each file. Dopamine split up this album into multiple albums. As is being complained about.

 

Then, I took a bunch of other players, and verified how this album is displayed. This is the result:

 

- MusicBee: album is split up
- Foobar2000: album is split up
- Winyl: album is split up
- Windows Media Player: album is split up
- iTunes: album is split up

 

The longer I think of it, the more I believe I shouldn't change how Dopamine organizes albums. I think it might be better that I show a warning bar after indexing, which notifies the user that some albums might be split up. Clicking the bar, would show an overview of the messed up albums and allow 2 options:

 

- Option to provide a common album artist

- Option to check a box to group the files which have the same album title into 1 album

When this happens I have been editing the metadata to fix it...  easy enough to do with the Edit option built into Dopamine.  I think you should leave the sorting the way it is, and if people don't like it they need to edit their music files and fix it, don't cater to the lazy!

Edited June 17, 2018 by Ravensky

[dakn]

I strongly agree with this. You shouldn't be having to write code to bend over backwards to help people that simple are unable to organise their music properly. Every other music player would deal with it the same way.

It would take them less time to tag correctly than it would for you to re-write Dopamine for them!

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 6/17/2018 at 7:08 AM, Raphaël G. said:

The longer I think of it, the more I believe I shouldn't change how Dopamine organizes albums. I think it might be better that I show a warning bar after indexing, which notifies the user that some albums might be split up. Clicking the bar, would show an overview of the messed up albums and allow 2 options:

 

- Option to provide a common album artist

- Option to check a box to group the files which have the same album title into 1 album

I like you're thinking; that's why you make a great dev Raphael

[SiCKX]

Been using this for a long time, unsure I said thanks before so.. Thank You.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

4 hours ago, Brandon H said:

I like you're thinking; that's why you make a great dev Raphael

Thanks! I appreciate it  

57 minutes ago, SiCKX said:

Been using this for a long time, unsure I said thanks before so.. Thank You.

You're welcome!  

[Jeivee~]

My issues
- can't sort by album when no artist is selected

- no descending option in album column

- some problems with lyrics

 

 

Suggestions

- dark context menus

- lighter window controls/buttons when window is active (Min/Max/Close buttons)

- option to have accent color as bottom bar background (like Groove)

- drag and drop (from desktop/explorer) to play

- click whitespace to deselect 

- smaller thumbnails in Albums

- resize/rearrange/hide columns in Songs list

- hide rating in Showcase view

- autohide rating in song list

 

 

Looking great so far.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Hi everyone,

 

I changed my mind on the "Folder view" feature (there were too many requests). I've now implemented this feature in a way that I can also enjoy it. This is the result. Note that Dopamine helps you remember which folder or subfolder contains the currently playing file (see red arrow). The breadcrumbs are clickable and allow you to browse through the tree.

This feature is ready, and will be in Dopamine 2.0 Preview 2.

 

 

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Dopamine 2.0 Preview 2 is almost ready. I'm finishing the smart playlist implementation. Actually, Dopamine can already process manually created smart playlists. There is now just a need for a Ui so the user can easily create such playlist by adding some rules. Here is a sneak peek at the new toolbar menu (it replaces the less intuitive hidden hamburger menu from Preview 1). The toolbar menu also allows finding the collection settings (now "Add music") more easily for new users. That is a remark I've got a few times.

 

 

[Xenon]

I hope its not too late to make a request but.......

 

With the new smart playlist feature coming out I was wondering if you can expand the metadata (?) that you can edit on a file. For me personally I would love composer, conductor (They are really useful for classical music) and bpm (I use it for organization. 

 

Thanks!

[threesixtyflip]

Is there any chance this could be made to work on Mac/Linux? Perhaps using Mono or something like that?

 

Use this on my Windows PC and would love to have it on my Mac too.

[Ravensky]

25 minutes ago, ThisIsStockerHD said:

Is there any chance this could be made to work on Mac/Linux? Perhaps using Mono or something like that?

 

Use this on my Windows PC and would love to have it on my Mac too.

This might work under Linux using proton

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by Ravensky

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

8 hours ago, Xenon said:

I hope its not too late to make a request but.......

 

With the new smart playlist feature coming out I was wondering if you can expand the metadata (?) that you can edit on a file. For me personally I would love composer, conductor (They are really useful for classical music) and bpm (I use it for organization. 

 

Thanks!

It's not too late It will be for a next preview however (probably preview 3). This is the feature request: https://github.com/digimezzo/Dopamine/issues/864

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

17 hours ago, ThisIsStockerHD said:

Is there any chance this could be made to work on Mac/Linux? Perhaps using Mono or something like that?

 

Use this on my Windows PC and would love to have it on my Mac too.

I have no idea if it would work in its current version with the used technology. I plan to create a Linux version but haven't decided yet which technology to use. It's simple, there are 2 options:

 

1. Electron framework: it would provide a consistent look and feel across platforms. Dopamine could look exactly like it looks now, on every platform. Unfortunately, users hate Electron apps. It generates large applications and a lot of users keep their task manager open, to continuously monitor an application's RAM usage. 

 

2. Keep .NET: migrate the current back-end Dopamine code to .NET Core and create a UI for each platform. Windows would keep the current look. Linux would get a more native look (due to framework limitations on Linux). Mac would get nothing, as I have no access to a Mac to develop and test. But the project being open source, some Mac UI wizards could always jump in and create a UI.