My plugin - gen_library.dll

[Joonas]

Hi!

Here's my plugin again if anyone wants to try it out...if not I consider it "bug-free" (or at least no critical ones...) and submit it.

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~svph0140/gen_library.dll

/Jonas

[javajunky]

What does it do ?

[Joonas]

You can access it on the main winamp menu or by pressing Ctrl+M. It's a library window that mirrors your mp3 directory.

/Jonas

[inthegray]

Tried it on 5.03, XP Pro machine, and it worked fine. i think you still need to put in some more work into it though, to make it really good.

if i use the keyboard shortcut to close the window (alt-m), it takes a couple seconds before i can bring it up again with the keyboard shortcut.

double clicking on a song enqueues it, and doesn't play it. when i do this in the media library, the song just plays.

more selections needed on right click. the one i'm looking for is "edit selected items."

most people would rather have this all in the actual media library instead of opening a new window, under "local media." i'm not saying you have to do this or go that route, but i know that's where i'd rather see it.

other than that, great work! i hope to see you continue to develop this plugin.

[Joonas]

Originally posted by inthegray
Tried it on 5.03, XP Pro machine, and it worked fine. i think you still need to put in some more work into it though, to make it really good.

Yah...one always can

if i use the keyboard shortcut to close the window (alt-m), it takes a couple seconds before i can bring it up again with the keyboard shortcut.

Probably since it has to rescan the whole directory...guess I should work around that...if the directory hasn't been touched there's no need to rescan it...

double clicking on a song enqueues it, and doesn't play it. when i do this in the media library, the song just plays.

Well that is by choice...I hate it when it mess up my playlist...can make it a choice tho...

more selections needed on right click. the one i'm looking for is "edit selected items."

Edit? Like in edit id3-tags?

most people would rather have this all in the actual media library instead of opening a new window, under "local media." i'm not saying you have to do this or go that route, but i know that's where i'd rather see it.

Well I don't use the media library so I built it to get the functionality for my own petty needs

other than that, great work! i hope to see you continue to develop this plugin.

Thanks, will try to fix that slow load bug and will post the new library here sometime later this weekend...would love if you tried it again then and saw if works out...cause everything works on your own 'puter you know. The tricky part is to get it to work on the other 5 million ppls...

/Jonas

[billyvnilly]

everytime i load winamp i get message:

make sure you have administrator's permissions or try installing Adaptec ASPI driver (WNAASPI32.dll)


This thing is great cause of its tree structure. Ino alot of ppl that would use it just for that.
I would alos hope that this could become a ml plugin and have the tree structure inside ml(just wishful thinking)

[CraigF]

screenshot plz

[billyvnilly]

i did clean uninstall/reinstall and no longer get error...

//would this be bc of conflict between gen_library and another 3rd party plugin?

[DJ Egg]

Originally posted by CraigF
screenshot plz

Heh, this would be (even) great(er) as an ml plugin

[DJ Egg]

ok, a couple of minor bugs...
or at least, this is what's happening for me...

(or maybe these are by design / (un)expected behaviour?)

When closing Winamp with Dynamic Library window open, it's no longer open when reopening Winamp (ie. setting is not remembered).

When rearranging column headers (by dragging), sort method isn't remembered between Dynamic Library / Winamp sessions.
eg. default is: Title | Artist | Album | Path
I changed it to: Artist | Album | Title | Path
but it reverts to defaults on reopening Winamp / DL.

Hmm... is clicking on the column headers meant to do anything?
eg. sort by column/reverse list/etc? 'cos it doesn't appear to do anything for me :/

Winamp Modern skin specific:
Although "Dynamic Library" correctly appears in the main menu, it only appears in "Winamp Modern main window -> View menu" when the DL window is open.

Apart from all that, I'm very impressed. Good work Joonas


btw, what happens if you've got more than one root music dir,
eg. on multiple drives?
Is there any way to select more than one,
or edit the current one to switch views?

[edit] aah! cool! right click in left pane -> set root dir [/edit]

[siebe83]

i like this one, though it would be even better when IN the library

have one problem (i share egg's comments, though), which is: if i right-click a song in the right pane and click 'go to folder', the right folder in the left pane will be selected
BUT: the right pane does not get refreshed...
only when i click on the right (=correct) folder in the left pane, it'll refresh the right pane

[Joonas]

Okay...first, this plugin will not currently be converted to a ML-plugin. I don't use ML myself so I never figured it could be used there. However, once this plugin is finished I guess I don't have anything better to do so I might just try to make a ML-plugin

Secondly, the following things have been fixed:

* The dynamic re-arranging of the columns should be saved now. Try it out and see if it works.

* Automatically open the plugin window if it was open on Winamp close = fixed. This wasn't just broken. It was implemented earlier but must've been wiped sometime...

* Go to folder now correctly selects the folder and refreshes the file list.

* Added View file info... to the popup-menu for the files. This opens the ordinary ID3-tag editor that Winamp uses.

* Hopefully the plugin will load faster now when opened once. If no changes has been done to the file structure it doesn't re-scan the contents of your mp3-folder.

Third,

Although "Dynamic Library" correctly appears in the main menu, it only appears in "Winamp Modern main window -> View menu" when the DL window is open.

I could need some input from anyone as how to access that menu. What is it called in the SDK?

Other than this...please give me more input on things I can improve

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~svph0140/gen_library.dll

/Jonas

[siebe83]

much better!

yeah, i like it
it's faster now

still a couple of comments
- settings not remembered?
when i reopen winamp the position and size of the window is back to default
[edit](just realize, might be my problem cause i have other problems with modern skins as well, so skip this one)[/edit]

- would it be possible to set more than one root dir?

- i like the search bar as well, but am i right it's only searching the filenames? would be great if it'd search name/artist/album fiels in the id3-tag as well
(you implemented id3-info box, which is great... maybe searching id3 is too much to ask...)

- small one: scroll bar in modern skin layout? (as in media library)

- option to show only filename instead of full path (in collumn 'path')

- possibility to sort on artist/title etc. (ie on click on the heads of the collumns)

mmmh..
affraid i'm asking too much, i'm sorry
just see what you can do

[Joonas]

Originally posted by siebe83
much better!

yeah, i like it
it's faster now

Good!

- would it be possible to set more than one root dir?

Of course anything is possible, but in this release I think not...but it's not too hard to implement so if it is something generally requested I will add it.

- i like the search bar as well, but am i right it's only searching the filenames? would be great if it'd search name/artist/album fiels in the id3-tag as well
(you implemented id3-info box, which is great... maybe searching id3 is too much to ask...)

I had this implemented before...and most of the general code still supports it underneath...the problem is that the dynamic library doesn't use a database or anything like I think for example the Media library do...that means scanning all the id3-tags is a very slow process even if you only have to do it once. I figured I might make some quick n' dirty caching since most of the time you don't switch mp3-folder but I still don't know...

- small one: scroll bar in modern skin layout? (as in media library)

If there were an easy way to do this I would jump at it...remember some code I got but it required major hacking which I at the time wasn't up to. Will look into it tho...

- option to show only filename instead of full path (in collumn 'path')

Yes, excellent idea

- possibility to sort on artist/title etc. (ie on click on the heads of the collumns)

Yeah it would be neat, but we're back to the id3-tags...as it is now the library reads the id3-tags of just the items being currently shown. So let's say you fit maybe 10-20 songs in the window, it isn't such a pain to grab those tags and display them. However, in order to sort you have to scan ALL the files, in my case a few thousands (and for most ppl probably more!) which again is kinda slow...but if I figure out a good way to implement search this will come by itself...

mmmh..
affraid i'm asking too much, i'm sorry
just see what you can do

Not asking too much at all...or maybe for my limited experience yes

/Joonas

[Hawk]

I like this plugin. But I have one problem.

When I am playing an folder and I want to play another I get a message saying "this will erase your current playlist are you sure you..."

How can I remove that message? its very anoying.

[Joonas]

Okay...a new update of this plugin.

Added a preferences page where you can set default behaviour for double-click in the listview and decide whether the (annoying?) confirmation dialog should be shown when playing whole folder.

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~svph0140/gen_library.dll

/Jonas

[Hawk]

Thanks

[siebe83]

well, that's what i was thinking of as well (option to set double-click behaviour)
thanks!

[inthegray]

couple gripes:

don't like how ctrl+p with the dynamic library "opens" the currently selected file, when everywhere else it brings up the preferences. maybe a different shortcut, or have a preferences option for this?

resizing for me to make the window larger, pushes the pane-dividers to the left until the left pane with the folders is no longer visible. dragging the divider back to the right fixes this.

closing the window also had a delay for a few seconds (4-5). after the first time though, it closed fine.

what is the text-entry thing at the bottom for? i couldn't seem to get it to do anything.

how do you access these preferences you mentioned? i can't get to them through winamp
s preferences menu.



despite my criticisms, i'm glad you've decided to continue working on this, and i really like the improvements. please keep up the good work.

[siebe83]

@inthegray:
i couldn't find the prefs either
until i found out they were listed under General Preferences (so NOT General Purpose). Just like Media Library, Global Hotkeys, etc...
The text-entry is meant to search, although it only searches the filenames, not the id3-tags.

Btw, i share your comment on the ctrl-p shortcut.

[Joonas]

I can agree that Ctrl+P was a bad choice. What would you guys suggest I take? What seems "natural"?

The resizing has something to do with that the window size is drastically changed when the scrollbars are added to the treeview with the folder-view. The scrollbars doesn't count against the size that Windows report. I will try to work around this though...

The closing of the window has to do with the unloading of the items...guess memory drain isn't too bad though so perhaps it could stay in memory until you close Winamp? What are your input on that?

The text thing is as siebe83 correctly replied a searchbar...should try to mark that somehow...had a text caption stating its purpose before but got a complaint that it wasn't visible with all skins...

And again as siebe83 says..the preferences are under General Preferences - Dynamic Library. This is a bad place? Just put it where the other plugins were...

Any other input is of course welcome!

As long as criticism is constructive I have nothing against it...often I try to fix it, and if I really are against it, I try to explain my reasons for it. Plugins should after all be made to satisfy as many people as possible

/Jonas

[siebe83]

Well, about the preferences:
When you click on for instance the Jump to File Extra plugin in the General Purpose section, it will 'forward' you to the JTFE tab under General Prefs. Double-clicking Nullsoft Winamp Library will pop up a box which tells where to find the prefs.
Double-clicking yours does nothing. So maybe one of the two actions described may be more clear...

And about the search bar: maybe a button next to it that says 'Clear search'? As in the default Media library... I would like such a button anyhow, so you can just clear the search with one mouse-click (instead of selecting the text and press delete).

I really like the 'enqueue and play' action, btw

As alternative to ctrl-p, just enter? And shift-enter is enqueue???
[edit]...and ctrl-enter is enqueue and play? [/edit]

[Joonas]

Okay...new release again.

Changed shortcuts to Enter, Shift+Enter and Ctrl+Enter.
Also made preferences tab jump automatically to the correct place in Preferences.

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~svph0140/gen_library.dll

/Jonas

[Hawk]

Wow! Thanks! You really are quick!

[siebe83]

cool!
i'm pressing ctrl-enter all the time

[siebe83]

got a couple of suggestions again

first a tiny little bug:
when the collumn 'title' is NOT the first one, selecting a file whill look ugly (see screenshot)
in front of the title you won't see the background colour for selection (btw, the other little lines are traces of earlier selection)

second:
maybe make the folders also play on enter, enqueue on shift+enter and enqueue and play on ctrl+enter?

third: (will only work if the path collumn will only show the filename (ie without the path itself), i guess)
when you are in the DL, pressing 'd' will make it jump to the first file starting with a 'd'
(as in explorer )

fourth:
a little one: include 'select all' in the right-click menu (since ctrl-a already works)

fifth: (shame on me )
'enqueue and play' more songs at once makes the last song play (instead of the first, which would be more logical)
might not be easy to fix, don't know...


these are just things I noticed and came into my mind, just look for yourself what you wanna do with it

[Joonas]

Hmms

The first thing I've noticed too, I dunno why it does that really..if anyone got any input on that behaviour please tell me...

Second: been implemented.

Third: Yah, that would be kinda good. Will be added when you get to choose path style. Like do you want <Full path>, <Relative path> or <Filename> or something...

Fouth: Implemented.

Fifth: Implemented. Good or worse?

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~svph0140/gen_library.dll

/Jonas

[WhiteRayven]

I have been reading this and watching everything you have come up with.... I was wondering if you would mind shareing your source code with me, perhaps I can make it a ML plugin

[Joonas]

I got one week of school left and then lots of free time. I will evaluate my own interest in this after that. I might just decide to make a ML-plugin myself. If not, I'll share the source with you. Fair enough?

/Jonas

[WhiteRayven]

Sure!, I just thought I'd offer. That and you seem to know what you are doing with the plugins. I figured that even if I could not get it working, at least I would learn something.

[siebe83]

quick again!
thanks, it's great!

btw: each day a new version when you've still got school!?
what to expect next week!?

[Koopa]

Sorry for my stupid question, but does it also work with .wma, .ogg and .MP4 files?

For now, it just shows MP3 files.

Sorry for bugspam, keep on your good work, the plug-in looks very good.

[Xak]

MAJOR props, Joonas... Very nice work so far on this plugin. And even more impressive is your time between updates! Really great, I hope we can continue to see development by you in the future at this rapid rate!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the Enqueue and play feature. I've been wanting this for a LONG time!

Keep up the great work!

P.S. I have some suggestions/bug fixes I'll post when I'm not so tired... *yawn*...

[Joonas]

Thanks for the kind words

I've added file type selection in the Preferences..

hope it works...kinda did it in a rush, got my last seminar in fifteen minutes

Report bugs and I fix it when I come home!

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~svph0140/gen_library.dll

/Jonas

[Hawk]

Thanks for all those updates. You are doing a really great job!

[Joonas]

Changes:

* Fixed file types so they update correctly (I hope!)

* Instead of a clear button for the search control I have now subclassed the window so it catches clicks in that control and selecting all text. Thus you only have to click in it to have all text selected and can be replaced.

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~svph0140/gen_library.dll

/Jonas

[siebe83]

great!
now searching is much easier

guess it's time for some new requests
well, just some ideas:

- maybe set a shortcut to 'explore this folder' (now you have to right-click the folder first, sorry, i'm a happy keyboard user )

- maybe a shortcut to the dynamic library, for instance alt+d opens it (like alt+e opens the playlist)
adding a hotkey for the global hotkeys plugin would make it complete

- (mentioned earlier) still looking forward to be able to set more than one root directory

[Joonas]

- maybe set a shortcut to 'explore this folder' (now you have to right-click the folder first, sorry, i'm a happy keyboard user )

What would you like then? Windows has no shortcut for this so...

- maybe a shortcut to the dynamic library, for instance alt+d opens it (like alt+e opens the playlist)
adding a hotkey for the global hotkeys plugin would make it complete

Added Alt+D but I think those of you that use modern skins will have some trouble with it...when its visible Winamp put it there itself and then it won't have Alt+D even though the functionality will be there of course...

- (mentioned earlier) still looking forward to be able to set more than one root directory

Yeah yeah...I thought about it and it shouldn't be such a hassle...will look at it this weekend.
Oh and yes, I broke the last release...at least I didn't get it to re-list the items every time I showed the window...hopefully that's better now.
http://www.informatik.umu.se/~svph0140/gen_library.dll

/Jonas

[siebe83]

ok, thanks!

what i meant with 'explore this folder' was:
In the right panel (ie the root directory with subfolders) you can right-click a folder and select 'explore this folder', which opens the folder in explorer. I thought it'd be nice to have a shortcut for that as well, so you don't need to use the mouse (which is why i said i'm a happy keyboard user ).

Hope i was clear now. English isn't my native language, so sometimes i'm sounding a bit vague, i guess... :/

btw, guess the alt+d thing wasn't a good idea, it doesn't work very well
when i press alt+d nothing happens (in classic nor in modern skin)

so maybe ignore my ideas and keep up the good work instead
note that this thread is referred to a lot (in two weeks time)!

[Koopa]

Originally posted by Joonas
I've added file type selection in the Preferences..

Well done!! Thank you very much.

Maybe, you could set a list of default extensions by default, it would be things make a lot easier for most people.

I think: MP3;MP4;AAC;OGG;WMA;WAV would be a good start.

Damn, I love this plug-in.