pMusic 6.0.0

[stevesr0]

installed the latest version of Pmusic yesterday and it didn't work.

I am running Dingo.

The motivation for trying Pmusic was because of problems running a music CD with the other media player programs I had installed (VLC and gxine).

Yesterday I had a problem getting the music CD to play with VLC (it seemed to need to continually rebuffer after an instant of music. So I tried to launch gxine. However, gxine no longer launched.

So, I installed Pmusic and pCD to see if they would work better. Pmusic consistently crashed after displaying the contents of the CD.
pCD just sat there with a message reading the CD...

After rebooting, VLC worked if I tried it before any of the other media player programs.

If I tried gxine, pCD or Pmusic first, then tried to use VLC, I got only mysterious chords instead of the actual words and music of the CD.

Eventually, I removed both Pmusic and pCD.

Today, I was assisted in fixing the problem with gxine by Beem (another thread with title gxine won't launch) and I have been able to play the CD without problems in both VLC and gxine. (playing fine in VLC after playing in gxine first).

Hope that is useful, although the problems with gxine may have contributed in some way to the problems with Pmusic.

Steve

[zigbert]

stevesr0
I'm afraid Pmusic is not to blame here. If neither VLC nor gxine works for you, I am not surprised pCD won't read you audio-CD. Pmusic does not support audio-CD at all. It sounds like your having hardware/driver issue with your cdrom/disc.


Sigmund

[zigbert]

Updated nad theme
See main post

[zigbert]

Version 0.6.5
See main post

Changelog
- Option: Gap between songs (thanks to michalis)
- Auto-restart Pmusic after changed prefernces.
- Reorganized playlist. length in 1. coloumn.
- More space between cloumns in 'default' theme.
- Bugfix: Move song up/down several moves.
- Bugfix: 'Go 30 sec FORWARD' should be BACK.
- NLS: added LOC271
- NLS: removed LOC269

[DaveS]

This is the smoothest playing release yet Zee. I can now play songs without drop-outs WITH the status bar showing. Indexing is really fast, as is song search. Really clever piece of work thanks...........

[ecomoney]

Many thanks Zigbert, pMusic just keeps getting better and better!

Some (little) ways to improve it still further...the "File">"Open Song/Playlist..." dialog opens by default to view /usr/local/pmusic (the applications home directory?) rather than where the user most likely has their music stored (/root/My-Music ?). It would also be nice if songs could be added to the playlist from this dialog by double clicking them, rather than highlighting and clicking the "add" button.

Was glad to see an updated version in puppy 4.2.1 with the shutdown/stop playing fix...this was the major one, the rest is just "trimmings".

Keep up the good work

[panzerpuppy]

Pmusic 0.6.5 by Ziggy - close, but no cigar:

- The progress bar doesn't work as it should. When playing a 62 minute MP3 file, the progress bar fills up completely after just 30 or 40 seconds.

- The progress bar should be disabled by default (it uses a lot of CPU time) and there should be a button beside the playback controls to toggle it on or off.

- It would be really nice if you can add support for displaying images embedded in podcasts (as in Aqualung)

- Every button should have a help message (description) displayed in the prgress bar on mouseover.

- pCD should be integrated into Pmusic

[DaveS]

I like the toggle switch idea for the progress bar.

[zigbert]

panzerpuppy
Thanks for nice feedback. We do not agree on everything, but I'm very happy to get input and suggestions.

- The progress bar doesn't work as it should. When playing a 62 minute MP3 file, the progress bar fills up completely after just 30 or 40 seconds.

This is a known limitation of tracks longer than 59:59. Is placed on my todo list.

- The progress bar should be disabled by default (it uses a lot of CPU time) and there should be a button beside the playback controls to toggle it on or off.

Tell me how much cpu does the progressbar use on your system. Toggle on/off is ok, but personally I like gui as simple as possible.

- It would be really nice if you can add support for displaying images embedded in podcasts (as in Aqualung)

Could maybe be included in some future, but remember - Pmusic - Its target is music-files. I have no intentions making a complex monster supporting all kinds of sound issues. (well, only if the gui remains simple, and it can be done in the already underlying structure of Pmusic.)

- Every button should have a help message (description) displayed in the prgress bar on mouseover.

1. It costs cpu.
2. One of the reasons why I want the progress bar ON by default.

- pCD should be integrated into Pmusic

It would be interesting if we found a neat way to do it. pCD is soooo straight forward.


Sigmund

[panzerpuppy]

Tell me how much cpu does the progressbar use on your system. Toggle on/off is ok, but personally I like gui as simple as possible.

Without the progressbar = 1%
With the progressbar = 6.5%

This is with a 2.6 GHz CPU. Imagine the CPU load on a 450 MHz Athlon Classic

[01micko]

Panzer,

I did that test earlier in this thread on an Athlon Classic... 400MHz, it wasn't Pmusic-6.5 but it was fairly recent (last week, see previous page.). Results were not so bad. 9% cpu ( and that is the current underlying architecture I think Sigmund is using)

Cheers

[tazoc]

Sigmund,
Thank you for your work on Pmusic. Looks like you've put a great deal of thought and time into this. I'm including the latest version in Lighthouse Pup.

The 'nad' theme is my favorite, though I'd like something exactly like it, but in deep/sky blue or black and gold.

Good job!

TazOC

[zigbert]

Thank you tazoc
Glad you find it useful.

When I look back at my apps development, I see that after about 1 year of development the apps has reached a rather useful stage. Pmusic 0.1 was shipped 10. July 2008, so I still have a month left. - More to come....... But most important is that the users are those who push things further. Without feedback, things stall.

Take a look at the 'nad' theme, and evolve it to your own.... edit colours in /usr/local/pmusic/themes/nad/gtkrc. Here you also find the graphics which easily can be recoloured by mtpaint or gimp.


Good luck
Sigmund

[maggotspawn]

Hello, running Puppy 4.2 SMP on my laptop and desktop, the version of Pmusic that comes with it is 0.5.4. Works fine on my laptop. My desktop is a different story. My desktop PC is running an M-Audio Ozone as my audio interface. The Ozone is a USB midi controller keyboard/audio interface. Gxine is able to play sound files through the Ozone but Pmusic is unable to play anything. I upgraded to 6.5 but no joy. Any ideas?

[disciple]

Pmusic is pretty fantastic now

But most important is that the users are those who push things further. Without feedback, things stall.

I've got some feature suggestions
1. Unless I'm missing something there is no way to remove several files at once. Is it not possible to allow multiple-selection?... Otherwise a "remove all" button in the "Open" dialogue would at least allow removing all the files in a folder.
2. Is it possible to start pmusic with more than one file as an argument? Because I can't figure out how . It would also be good if you could run

Code: Select all

pmusic /some/directory

and to open all the files in the directory - it is easy enough to test if something is a directory
3. In the "open" dialogue, as well as the "Add" and "Add all" buttons, it would be useful to have an "Add all recursively" button, which would recursively find all the files in the directory and all subdirectories (and sub-subdirectories etc). This wouldn't be too hard - I put similar code in my joinPdf gui. It would also be good to be able to do this with a -r command line option when you start Pmusic. Also, it would be quite easy to test if the
4. I'm not sure if this is possible, but it would be great if the open dialogue remembered its last location.

[zigbert]

maggotspawn
Sorry, no ideas

disciple
Thanks for great feedback
I will consider all suggestions.
It might take a while, but development is steady


Sigmund

[01micko]

My 2c

I particularly like disciple's ideas #1 and #2

Cheers

PS... Pmusic-6.5 runs sweetly with progress bar, while running MU's Puppy Browser browsing the web in the Dino

[zigbert]

[zigbert]

Alternative Frontends to pMusic
You probably already have alternative frontends available on your Puppylinux. In the Multimedia-menu many Puppies offers the niche-frontends for Radio streaming and for playing/ripping CD-audio. Here follows other alternatives...
Download: (username: puppy - password: linux)


LowPowered [Mirror]
Disable heavy features to minimize the resource hunger.




Wings [Mirror]
For pilots.








________________ Howto make your own window preset ________________

This info is partly outdated



Pmusic 0.7.0 introduce window presets. pMusic can be set up more individual.
Default, pMusic is loaded with the Default graphical theme and the Default Window preset. pMusic shows like this only a small part of the available modules.

Let's say we wish to extend the main window with the toolbar module and the mixer module. In /usr/local/pmusic/presets/ you'll find the 'Default' file. This contains all information to build Pmusics default gui. Lets add toolbar ($GUI_TOOLBAR) and mixer ($GUI_MIXER) and save it under a new name. All new preset files in /usr/local/pmusic/presets/ will be added to the window menu and in the preferences.

Code: Select all

GUI="
<window title=\"Pmusic\" icon-name=\"gtk-media-stop\" default_height=\"$HEIGHT\" default_width=\"$WIDTH\">
 <vbox>
  $GUI_MENU
  $GUI_TOOLBAR
  $GUI_NAVIGATION
  $GUI_PROGRESSBAR
  $GUI_PLAYLIST
  $GUI_MIXER
 </vbox>
</window>"

Now let's be a little bit more advanced. Playlist could be nice to have as a left wing (panel). To do this we must use a deeper level of playlist variables. While $GUI_PLAYLIST contains all info about the complete playlist module, $GUI_PLAYLIST_FIELD contains only the list. - The buttons are defined in $GUI_PLAYLIST_BUTTONS. <hbox> makes a horizontal gui, while <vbox> makes it vertical.

Code: Select all

GUI="
<window title=\"Pmusic\" icon-name=\"gtk-media-stop\" default_height=\"$HEIGHT\" default_width=\"$WIDTH\">
<hbox>
  $GUI_PLAYLIST_FIELD
  <vbox>
   $GUI_MENU
   $GUI_NAVIGATION
   $GUI_PROGRESSBAR
   $GUI_PLAYLIST_BUTTONS
   $GUI_INDEX
   $GUI_MIXER
  </vbox>
 </hbox>
</window>"

Using the 'Nad' theme, the main window will look like this:



For even more complex gui buildings, take a look at the presets 'Manager' and 'Wings'.
If you make a really good preset, that might be good to others too, please share it here on the forum. Thank you!

The main variables are
GUI_MENU
GUI_TOOLBAR
GUI_NAVIGATION
GUI_PROGRESSBAR
GUI_PLAYLIST
GUI_PLAYLIST_MULTIPLE
GUI_INDEX
GUI_LYRICS
GUI_MIXER
GUI_FILEBROWSER
GUI_INFO

Many of these are built of other variables.
Here's the list:

Code: Select all

GUI_MENU="
<menubar>
 $GUI_MENU_FILE
 $GUI_MENU_PLAYLIST
 $GUI_MENU_TOOLS
 $GUI_MENU_PLAY
 $GUI_MENU_WINDOW
 $GUI_MENU_HELP
</menubar>"

GUI_TOOLBAR="
<hbox homogeneous=\"true\">
 <vbox>
  <hbox>
   $GUI_BUTTON_PREFERENCES
   <pixmap><input file>$APPDIR/tab10.png</input></pixmap>
   $GUI_BUTTON_CD
   $GUI_BUTTON_MIXER
   $GUI_BUTTON_LYRICS
   $GUI_BUTTON_PLAYLIST_MULTIPLE
   <pixmap><input file>$APPDIR/tab10.png</input></pixmap>
   $GUI_BUTTON_MUTE
   <pixmap><input file>$APPDIR/tab10.png</input></pixmap>
   $GUI_BUTTON_SONG_INFO
   $GUI_BUTTON_UPDATE_INDEX2
   $GUI_BUTTON_PRESET_MINI
  </hbox>
 </vbox>
</hbox>"

GUI_NAVIGATION="
<hbox homogeneous=\"true\">
 <vbox>
  <hbox>
    $GUI_BUTTON_BACK
    $GUI_BUTTON_REWIND
    $GUI_BUTTON_STOP
    $GUI_BUTTON_PLAY
    $GUI_BUTTON_FORWARD
    $GUI_BUTTON_NEXT
   </hbox>
 </vbox>
</hbox>"

GUI_PLAYLIST="
$GUI_PLAYLIST_FIELD
$GUI_PLAYLIST_BUTTONS"

GUI_PLAYLIST_BUTTONS="
<hbox>
 $GUI_CHECKBOX_LOOP
 $GUI_CHECKBOX_SHUFFLE
 $GUI_BUTTON_PLAYLIST_HISTORY_BACK
 $GUI_BUTTON_PLAYLIST_HISTORY_FORWARD
 <text><label>\"  \"</label></text>
 $GUI_BUTTON_MOVE_UP
 $GUI_BUTTON_MOVE_DOWN
 $GUI_BUTTON_REMOVE
 $GUI_BUTTON_ADD
</hbox>"

GUI_INDEX="
<frame $LOC221>
 $GUI_INDEX_SEARCH
 $GUI_INDEX_MODE
 $GUI_INDEX_FIELD
</frame>
$GUI_INDEX_BUTTONS"

GUI_INDEX_BUTTONS="
<hbox>
 $GUI_INDEX_RADIOBUTTON_AFTER_SELECTION
 $GUI_INDEX_RADIOBUTTON_END
</hbox>
<hbox>
 $GUI_INDEX_BUTTON_ADD_RANDOM
 $GUI_INDEX_BUTTON_ADD_ALL
 $GUI_BUTTON_UPDATE_INDEX
</hbox>"

GUI_MIXER="
<hbox homogeneous=\"true\">
 <vbox>
  <hbox>
   $GUI_VOLUME
   <vbox>
    <pixmap><input file>$APPDIR/tab10.png</input></pixmap>
    <pixmap><input file>$APPDIR/tab10.png</input></pixmap>
    $GUI_BUTTON_MUTE
   </vbox>
   $GUI_EQUALIZER
  </hbox>
 </vbox>
</hbox>"

[zigbert]

Version 0.7.0
See main post

Changelog
- New code structure allows flexible GUIs. New menu: Window
- 2 new more complex GUIs:
--> Manager with integrated 'add from index' and 'filebrowser'.
--> Wings for those who like most options available.
- Simple mixer module.
- Toolbar module.
- Imroved cpu-usage.
- More tooltips.
- Doubleclick in filebrowser adds song. (thanks to ecomoney)
- 'Selection' menu has joined 'Playlist' menu.
- Remember open directory from last time used. (thanks to ecomoney/disciple)
- Reload gui after preferences.
- Menuitem for managing multiple playlist.
- Updated Default and Nad theme.
- Startup splash.
- Bugfix: App killed at startup if xwininfo missed. (thanks to sketchman)
- NLS added: LOC148, 180, 181, 272, 273, 404, 405, 430, 431, 432, 433, 434, 440, 441, 513, INDEX
- NLS removed: LOC130, 263, 265, 266, 267
- NLS changed: LOC110, 132, 133, 134