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[neald]

MJ: Ver - 8.0.388
Plug-in Ver - ? Still says 3.0.16

Three Problems:
1) I'm new to this, so I may be facing problems that have already been addressed.  I scanned the posts, but if I missed something, I apologize in advance.

2) Although I update the IPOD plug-in, the version info still says 3.0.16.  I've deleted the plug-in from my machine and re-installed, but no joy.  I deleted the plug-in from within MJ, but now when I update the plug-in, it doesn't show up under the handhelds in the plug-in manager.  Any advice would be appreciated

3) When I upload files to the IPOD, the playlists don't come across.  I've formatted the IPOD for MJ, and had no luck.  I've also tried the 9.X beta, but it didn't work.  I currently have the 8.0.388 installed.

If someone can advise me, I'd be happy to repay the favor by helping with documentation effort when it gets started.

thanks.

[Kurt Young]

I concur with Adam's list for new features, with three additions:

1.  Play count download from iPod to MC.
2.  Composer tag functionality
3.  Compatibility with an XPlay-initialized iPod.

I'd like to emphasize again the importance of deleting/re-uploading a synched song if it has changed since the last upload, as well as the importance of pretty icons.  

Have a good vacation, Steve.  Seeya Monday!

Kurt

[TimB]

1. Synch by Artist/Album

TimB: IMHO this is very important from a product perspective.  Tho' MC's playlists are incredibly powerful most regular humans aren't going to think about Playlists and certainly won't think of them first..

2. Pretty icons

TimB: Yup

3. It was mentioned about doing a check to see if the ipod was formatted for MJ automatically.  Could this be done by simply adding a file to the iPod when formatting that the MJ plugin checks for?  Then, when the iPod is connected and that file is not present, a wizard could be launched prompting the user to format to MJ.  This is what Xplay does.  It doesn't have to be a big file at all, stick it in an MJ folder on the root.  Just a thought.

TimB: I agree.  You hope most of the users of this are going to be new to MC.  Formatting is not obvious at all.

4. I know this is a biggy, but the UI for interacting w/the iPod is really kind of clunky overall. By that I mean that functions are hidden in right-click menus and not readily evident.  One thing that you might consider is a frame in the bottom of MJ that is displayed when the iPod is selected.  You're already doing it when you display the Upload Files button, what about displaying that whenever the iPod is selected and adding Sync, Format, and "Advanced Tools" there.  Some of the Advanced tools to add would be ones available in Ephpod (probe for lost music, rebuild iPod database, check for dupes etc.)  

TimB:  Another big yes.  This functionality isn't obvious unless you know to right click.  I like Adam's idea.

5. Another shout out for improved syncing w/respect to tag changes.  This is the functionality where if you edit a song's tags in MJ, and you do a sync, that song should be updated on the iPod.  Right now the only way to do this is to delete the song from the iPod and reupload it.  Sync needs to check for last updated date, if it's newer than the version on the iPod then it should be changed.

TimB: Nice to have but IMHO this is less important compared to the other ideas above.

OK now for the good news.  I've done a lot of ephod & Xplay recommendations on Apple's Site and ipodlounge.  I've held off for recommending MJ until things are stable:  well, they are stable!!!!  I'll be pushing MJ bigtime!!

TimB: Me too, sometimes I think Adam and I are tag-teaming which is cool too.

Thanks for the awesome work guys.

TimB: Yup

[SteveG]

Neald,

Make sure you delete all copies of hh_portable.dll and then try downloading the Plugin directly from the website (not within MJ). YOu should have version 3.0.25. If not, you are not getting the correct Plug-in.

[TimB]

Make the move to Media Center...resistance is futile.  

-=Tim=-

[TimB]

Neald,

Make sure you delete all copies of hh_portable.dll and then try downloading the Plugin directly from the website (not within MJ). YOu should have version 3.0.25. If not, you are not getting the correct Plug-in.

With MC9 I also have to quit it before I get the plug-in to install correctly.

-=Tim=-

[AMG]

I have downloaded MJ 8 and installed the latest plug-in.  No dice.  I installed MC 9 and installed the latest plug-in, no dice.  How the heck do I format my iPod with MJ?  How do I do anything?  Do you have to have a Plus version to use Handheld plug-ins or something?

Some beginner direction will be nice if you intend on people using this...whether it's a beta or not.  Especially considering I'm hardly a beginner...

[JimH]

It will work.  V9 is your best bet.  It doesn't require the paid version.  Did you try reading through this thread?  It might help.  Steve's message a couple back, for instance.

This week things may be slow because tomorrow is a holiday in the U.S.

[ashawley]

Hey AMG, maybe I can help.  

Sorry, but what do you mean by "no dice"? Is MC crashing or is it just that you don't see the iPod.

Here's how it *should* work.  Open up MC/MJ.  You should see a tree item, CDs and Handhelds.  Expanding this should show you your iPod w/i'ts drive letter.  Like "I:\ipod".  If it doesn't try renaming your iPod's volume name to IPOD in explorer.  Once you see this, you can click it, and expand it to see Artists/Albums/Genre's and Playlists.  To format your Ipod for MJ, just right-click the root of the ipod and select the reformat option.  This is also where synchronize is.

To upload files to your iPod there are a couple of ways to do it, but I'll give you the simplest:  Select the files you want, then right click, select Send To>CDs & Handhelds>I:Ipod (your drive letter may vary).  Then click the iPod tree item, and in the main pain you should see the files to be uploaded.  You'll also see any songs that are on there.  You can right-click the iPod and select Show Queued Files to only display files that are pending upload.  Click the upload button and your set.

I must say that Sync works better IMO right now. There's a transfer all files option that works great.

Hope this helps, I agree that there needs to be much work done on the UI.

Adam

[jgourd]

I am away for the next week and a half. I am driving to Chicago to work a tradeshow as an AV consultant. Although I will have my iPod and a few notebooks with MJ on them, I will probably have no time to persue any testing for J River  

I stay up to date while away and if I find anything killer I'll post, otherwise, enjoy a week without me

[TimB]

4. I know this is a biggy, but the UI for interacting w/the iPod is really kind of clunky overall. By that I mean that functions are hidden in right-click menus and not readily evident.  One thing that you might consider is a frame in the bottom of MJ that is displayed when the iPod is selected.  You're already doing it when you display the Upload Files button, what about displaying that whenever the iPod is selected and adding Sync, Format, and "Advanced Tools" there.  Some of the Advanced tools to add would be ones available in Ephpod (probe for lost music, rebuild iPod database, check for dupes etc.)  
Adam

A short-term thought on this, how about a tool tip that comes up when you hover over the iPod or drive letter that says "right click for iPod updating options"?

=-Tim=-

[AMG]

Adam,

Thanks for getting back to me so quick!  Well - I figured it out.  My ipod was a mac ipod.  I have macdrive and thought that would make it work ok, but, once I converted it over to a windows ipod MJ/MC began to work ok.  no real complaints from at this point on the interface, but, it doesn't work right when you have a mac ipod (even with the ipod visible in windows).  that's kinda a big problem at this point.  imho the plug-in shouldn't leave alpha without being feature complete in that manner.

[Phil Lee]

MC: 9.0.84
Plugin: 3.0.25
Windows XP Home

I had a slight problem when I did my morning synch to update my random smartlists today. The synch process started and got to around 260 songs and the GUI locked again. The synch progress bar became active again at around 2400 songs and was active until it completed the synch of the 2600 songs in my playlists.

Here are my comments on the other comments:

1. I'd like to echo the request for album/artists synching. At the moment I have smartlists created to do this but like the others say, this isn't intuitive.

2. Pretty icons would be nice.

3. I don't find the right clicking on the plugin a problem but I can understand why less experienced PC users might miss that option.

4. The suggestion for tagging an MC formatted iPod is an excellent one.

5. Synching when tags are updated would be very nice but is less important than the other requests.

I'd like to add that I'll be recommending MC for use with the iPod too. Although I'm nowhere near a prolific a poster at the other iPod forums as some of you guys, every little helps.

Finally, as usual, thanks to Steve for all your hard work on this plugin. It really is great.

[LarryJoe]

Wow...nice job, very impressed.  3.0.25 was my first try at this pluggin and I had no problems at all.  I formatted for MJ and then synched the All Music playlist and I am good to go.  The only thing I noticed as others have stated is that the file transfer count is off.  I think it is counting the songs accross all playlists synched and not the actual file count.

Thanks again, not sure if I will ever fire up Ephpod again.

[Phil Lee]

Time to get promoting the plugin and MC guys. Someone has posted on the Apple forum asking which is the best software for synching an iPod. Both TimB and myself have replied to the thread. If anyone else wants to reply, go to:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?50@171.73kyazckduV.6@.3bbc7eee

[AMG]

Maybe it should have some documentation before you promote it too much.  Otherwise, you're going to have a bunch of people (like me) that were frustrated with their initial experience...regardless of their technical know-how.

[TimB]

Maybe it should have some documentation before you promote it too much.  Otherwise, you're going to have a bunch of people (like me) that were frustrated with their initial experience...regardless of their technical know-how.

I feel this way a little too.  However, and I know I'm nagging, most people don't read documentation and most people aren't going to come into INTERACT.  Something needs to be done UI-wise, even if its a minor thing.

I'm pushing MC to the masses and I'm trying to think of "easy to do" stuff but until you understand how MC works the UI isn't really obvious and you risk turning people off.

Here's another idea, not saying they're alll 100%, just spewing them out...when you download the plug-in or open it the first time maybe auto-open the dox or "read me first" dox.

-=Tim=-

[bmp]

another plugin request to maybe take some of the pain away from not having the artist/album tree during synch.

ephpod does it and does it quite nicely.  is it possible to make an option to create playlists for all albums with more than x songs?  

say i brought over a whole genre playlist, that brought maybe 20-30 albums with it.  now it's a pain to get to them through browse because i have hundreds of mix playlists which makes countless entries in the browse section just have a song or two, and i'd really just love to be able to quickly browse my full albums without having to make a playlist for each.

[Kurt Young]

Quick request and mini-report, Steve...

This thread has been linked in a couple posts over at iPodlounge.com for new users.  When you close it and start a new one, could you link the new one in the final post?

iPod's looking good but still getting skips (a lot of 'em).  I'm not talking about non-standard characters in filenames, plain english ones get skipped too.  

Always the one that I select to play, and often the one right after it too.  The only solution is to use the Previous button on the iPod and back up to the track before the one that I selected.  The only way to hear the first song on a list (Album list, Genre list, Playlist list, etc) is to let it skip the first song or two, pause it, hit Previous to get to the first song, and let the iPod's hard drive finish spinning.  Then, unpause it and the song plays great.

[TimB]

iPod's looking good but still getting skips (a lot of 'em).  I'm not talking about non-standard characters in filenames, plain english ones get skipped too.  

Always the one that I select to play, and often the one right after it too.  

Me too (or that could be me two too!)



-=Tim=-

[SteveG]

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for the comments and suggestions over the long weekend.

Let me do some work on this today.

Kurt and TimB,

Any specific hints you can give me to consistently duplicate this. Any particular file that always skips that you could send me?

[Phil Lee]

I get an occassional file skip too. I think it is a problem with the iPod rather than the plugin though. It happens occassionally on my iPod when I start playing a track using the middle select button rather than the play button. It is not reproducable and I can go a couple of weeks without it happening.

[mclaugh]

From what I've seen around the Net, the Ipod skipping is due to the Ipod loading up its memory when you select a song to play.  So, as it loads up, it ends up skipping the first song and playing the second, despite the fact that the first song was also loaded.  It is not specific to the inferface program you use w/ the Ipod (MJ, ephpod, xplay, etc).
I can't seem to find any quick links to post along w/ this, but I've read it- you'll have to trust me.  One thing they tended to say was that if the first song was kind of "long" that it would get skipped.

Hope this helps- in exchange for this info, can we get artist/album sync? (sorry, couldn't resist).

[TimB]

Kurt and TimB,

Any specific hints you can give me to consistently duplicate this. Any particular file that always skips that you could send me?

The only consistent thing for me is that it ALWAYS happens when I'm starting to play a list of songs, not necessarily a playlist however.  For example after being occupied (long story) this weekend and not using my iPod for several days I went to a playlist and tried to start at song 13, it tried to play 13 and 14 and then played 15.

I too think its an iPod issue.  However I think the word is that EphPod has the problem less than other applications (including MC9).

-=Tim=-

[Kurt Young]

Aye, I'm the same as TimB.

It happens both when the iPod has been "cold" for a while and also while it is playing.  Whenever I go to a new list (an album, a genre, or an actual playlist), scroll to any song, and hit the center button, it will skip the track that I select.  Let's say that I'm trying to play song #5.

The iPod will skip #5 and try to play #6
-Sometimes- (most of the time, but not always) the iPod will skip #6 and play #7.
If I want to hear #5, I must use the Previous button to go back to #4... at which time the iPod will skip #4 and play #5.
If I want to hear the first song on a list, I select it, wait for the iPod to skip it and begin playing song #2...  Then, I'll pause, hit the Previous button until #1 is queued up, and unpause.  The iPod plays successfully at that time.  This is tricky, though, because hitting pause at the wrong time (while the iPod is filling its buffer) can freeze the iPod (known bug).

I can't find any correlation between the issue and the individual songs that I'm trying to play or the characters that are featured in their tags or filenames.  It always happens (that's 100% of the time always), just like described above, when I play a new list of songs.  It doesn't matter if I use the round center button or the bottom Play button to start playback... it does the same on both.

This is "normal" behavior for my iPod since I switched to MJ for 100% iPod interface.  Before, using XPlay, this behavior did not occur... perhaps it has something to do with the way that MJ is writing to the DB?  Would you like a copy of my iTunesDB file?

[fex]

 Skipping: It is not specific to the inferface program you use w/ the Ipod (MJ, ephpod, xplay, etc).

I don't have this problem with the first song using ephpod. With MMJB this problem occurs sometimes, but not only concerning the first file in a playlist (or album).

(winpod 20, win xp)

Greetings from Switzerland, Fex

[SteveG]

Thanks for the tips. I will do what I can. I have to finish something else first today.

Kurt, Thanks for the offer, but to see the skipping, the DB would not be enough, I would need files too.

McLaugh, you got a chuckle out of me.

Seriously, on the topic of Artist/Album synch, I am hesitating on this because everything is stable and to add this is a pretty major change which has the risk of upsetting what we have. I would be more inclined to take this risk if I understood better what the need is, and I plead ignorance, I don't get it.

For example, if in the tree I have Artist - The Beatles with two Albums - White Album and Rubber Soul - if I synch both albums, the iPod will have the files that are on both albums but no Playlist that groups them together. Do you want a Playlist that would group these items so that you could click on a Playlist and get all Beatles Songs from both albums?  If so I would strongly recommend Smartlists to accomplish this, because then the work of the organization of the Playlist shifts to MJ where we do a really good job rather than to iPod where the Playlist structure is only one level deep.

I may be rambling here. If anyone who is a huge proponent of Artist/Album synch is willing to talk about this, email me a phone number where I can reach you during the day and I will give a few of you a call and  maybe you can straighten me out.

Thanks,

Steve (steve @ jriver.com)

[ashawley]

Steve:

As the biggest proponent of this (Artist/Album sync), I'm shooting you an email.  I'll even put together some screen shots!  

[TimB]

For example, if in the tree I have Artist - The Beatles with two Albums - White Album and Rubber Soul - if I synch both albums, the iPod will have the files that are on both albums but no Playlist that groups them together. Do you want a Playlist that would group these items so that you could click on a Playlist and get all Beatles Songs from both albums?

I think there are two issues here:

(1) Some people want to play albums.  Sometimes I want to hear Rubber Soul in its entirety.  After all in many cases this is how the artist originally wanted the piece to be heard.  Tho' I now mostly use playlists I also only use the completealbum argument to control the loading of MP3s to my iPod.

(2) I suspect that for some folks the start is the artist/album perspective and they then move to playlists.  This is definitely true of me.  You're going to miss these folks who I suspect will represent the majority of your beginning user audience and then you'll never get them back later on.

That's my two centsworth.



-=Tim=-

[mclaugh]

For the Artist/Album thing, I'm going to do two things.  First, I'm going to quote a post a made a while back about it, and then after I'll explain my usage so you can see where I'm coming from.
First, the quote-
Like many of you, I came here from Ephpod, looking for a way to better organize my whole collection and easily maintain my Ipod  (10gig).
As such, I had two ways of putting files onto my Ipod in Ephpod- dragging entire albums/artists on, or making playlists in Winamp and dragging them on.  At any given time, my content is a mix of the two.  Additionally, I was very happy using Ephpod to make genre playlists, as well as using their auto-recently-imported playlist function.  Further, when I import a new album onto my Ipod, I would frequently make that album a playlist so that I could easily access it the next day- I would have a rotating list of 5-10 album playlists that would go with the genre playlists.

Second, here's what I did last night in Ephpod-
-Opened up program, went to playlists.  Deleted playlists of albums I didn't feel like having on there- it asks "do I want to also delete songs associated w/ playlist", I answer yes.
-Change over to my "rip" folder, for CD's I've ripped that day.  Choose a few folders & drag them onto Ephpod screen- they auto import.  Once they've imported, I right click on one song from each album and choose "make playlist from album".  These albums are now listed on my playlists screen, and are easily accessible along w/ my custom playlists.  
So, while I can navigate to any album by selecting "browse-artist-album", I can start playing certain albums I want to hear from the playlist screen- it's like highlighting the recent imports.  While I understand that I could probably make a smartlist that would take recent CD's I've ripped and put them on the Ipod, I would rather pick and choose.  
Again, sorry if this doesn't make sense.

[Kurt Young]

Another small update.  Using MJ9.84 and plugin dated the 27th.

I caught a post at the lounge:  "Initially I had problems putting 3000 files into one directory (F00) with the iPod skipping over the first track in an album. By telling Ephpod to share out the collection across all folders this went away"

That got me thinking.  I counted files in the folders and came up with this:

F00      9
F01      13
F02      9
F03      10
F04      10
F05      8
F06      8
F07      8
F08      9
F09      16
F10      6
F11      6
F12      12
F13      8
F14      13
F15      12
F16      9
F17      10
F18      13
F19      2291

I can see now why that'd happen... mebby.  How bout this:  Make folders F00 through F39 baby!  Spread them files OUT!  ;D  Heck, it could set a new standard in playback stability with the iPod.  Or it could break the iPod and make you have to run a restore on it.  I'm game if y'all are.

Even if you don't, chaulk me up for a "my files are all going to F19" response.  ;)

[Kurt Young]

On the Artists/Albums front, I have two different thoughts on it.  

First instinct is "Well, you can make a smartlist that would load up whatever artists and albums, or whatever."  

But after that, I thought that it'd be nice to be able to do that without creating a playlist (on the iPod's display).  I'm very predictable, and I predict that if I had "playlist-less" synch, I'd totally use it.

I could be wrong (and please correct me if I am), but I don't think that playlist-less synch exists in the iPod world at this time.  iTunes, mmjb, ephpod and xplay all synch with playlists, your entire library, or selected files/folders on your computer.  MC9'd be the first to offer "other library item" synch.  Go for it, dude.  

[LarryJoe]

On skipping, definitely not MC9.  I had this problem early on using Ephpod.  I did a hard format through WinXP and the problem never returned.

[ashawley]

Regarding the skipping:

I think it has to be related to the file storage (i.e a predominance of songs in one folder).  We've already proven that foreign characters in file names will cause it to skip, it's not that much of a stretch to see that forcing the ipod to search through a folder w/tons of songs in it could cause it to "time out" and skip to the next song.

I don't know if making more folders is the option, or just spreading out the numbers more evenly into the existing folders.  Apple made the iPod to handle 20 gigs, they must have tested this (yeah right).

I'll report on mine tonight to see what's what in terms of folder F19.  I thought you'd fixed that a while ago Steve.

And on the Album/Artist Front:

When Steve and I talked yesterday he mentioned the difficulty of adding and Artist/Album tree to the sync window as it would require some pretty big changes to the core of MC9.  I had another thought last night.  This might be an even bigger change to the core, but it could be leveraged to support *all* handheld plugins and thus might be an easier sell to Jim et al.

Imagine when viewing your songs in MC's Media Library that there was another column (think another field in MC's db).  This column could be a simple indicator titled "Copy to Handheld" (of course make it product specific, so if you have the iPod plugin it'd say "Copy to iPod" with a pretty logo   ).  Anyway, this checkbox would allow you to mark songs for upload to iPod.  They would stay checked until you unchecked them.  Highlighting multiple songs and clicking the checkbox would allow for whole albums or even artists.  Then when a sync is done, you first add all songs that have a positive value in this field, then you do the playlists.  You wouldn't have to extend the sync dialog box at all, you would have to extend the MC db by one field, but it could be leveraged across ALL handheld plugins.  Nifty huh?  OK, maybe not.  Food for thought I guess.

Of course this field could be hidden from the view under options (for folks that don't/won't use it), just like Year or Genre or Length can be hidden

Hope I'm making sense.  Just a thought I had.....seems like it would be pretty intuitive too.

Adam

[mclaugh]

ashawley's suggestion regarding the addition of a field is good.  If that was to be done, it might be best to add a view where you can see your local content in the top half of the screen, and the ipod's on the bottom?  It would allow you to see both at the same time so you could easily go back and forth to see what you need to move there, as opposed to going back and forth using the left pane tree.

[ashawley]

<snip>
It would allow you to see both at the same time so you could easily go back and forth to see what you need to move there, as opposed to going back and forth using the left pane tree.
</snip>

Ohhhhh, I like, I *like* verrrrrrrry much.......

Steve: don't you just *hate* customers some times.  

[mconnell]

Hi,

I've been watching the development of this plugin with great interest. I use EphPod with a 10GB WiniPod, but I use MJ/MC for my MP3 management and playing. I like EphPod as it is stable and does it's job, but I would really like to use this plugin and only need the one prog - MC.

Whats stopping me switching is all the reports of skipping tracks. I don't have this problem at all with EphPod. From my reading in other forums I also believe it has to do with the file storage. So, I checked my iPod and I get these stats with my 1054 songs (7GB):
F00      50
F01      68
F02      58
F03      66
F04      45
F05      60
F06      54
F07      49
F08      52
F09      53
F10      47
F11      46
F12      57
F13      46
F14      54
F15      48
F16      40
F17      59
F18      51
F19      51

A very even distribution.

Also, EphPod names the files with a four digit number i.e. 2363.mp3, while the plugin uses alpha chars ? This could also be contributing to the problem. Maybe finding a file by alpha name takes longer than numerical name and causes a timeout and skipping?

Sure hope this can be fixed so I can switch to the plugin.

Mark

[fex]

On skipping, definitely not MC9.  I had this problem early on using Ephpod.  I did a hard format through WinXP and the problem never returned.

I have to confirm this. After "hard" formatting the skipping problem was away. I did the following:

1. "hard" formatting (using xp),
2. start iPod-updater (1.2.1),
3. prepare (format) iPod for Music Center,
4. sync all songs (in a first step only 380, then, in a second step, another 4'000).

The skipping problem now is away (almost for the moment ).

Before I did this, every first song from playlists (or albums) skipped after 1 or 2 seconds to the next song. I had this problem in MMJB as in Ephpod (not in this intensity). By the way, the problem with the slow "connecting-time" in MMJB is also resolved with the hard format. MMJB now needs only seconds to connect with iPod.

Hope, this helps (and sorry for my bad english :-/)

Fex

[fex]

By the way, I use a lot of "foreign" characters in file names (as Swiss I use german, french etc.). No problems anymore.

Fex

[Quillo]

Windows 2000
20gb WinPod
1.2.2 firmware
9.0.84
3.0.25

Whilst appreciating this is maybe not the best place for a total newbie, some of the thread I would like to offer my comments hoping they might be helpful.

I come straight to the above which appear to be the latest versions having installed them a couple of days ago, having abandoned MMJB and also had a go with ephPod.  Both these crashed usually GUI lock up which I noticed has been a problem here in earlier versions.

First the install, I found this to be smooth and easy, the need for a plug in for the iPOD wasn't obvious to me but it didn't take long to work it out.  An error message came when I tried to install it through the plug in manager, so I just downloaded the file to my desktop and double clicked, seemed to go in all right.

I agree the format need isn't obvious: I didn't realise you needed to format the iPOD for MJ, so got a strange set of stuff on my iPOD the first time it was used. You soon find the option.  Right clicking should really have been second nature to an old OS/2 hack :-(

On the files all going in F19, I found this too, out of 1400 songs 918 are in there, the other directories all have between 18 and 38 files in.

I have just worked out how to set up playlists and transfer them to my WinPod, not bad considering I'm only on my third day.

I had no problems with the software crashing or locking up whatsoever and I find the interface cool, intuitive and informative.  So far everything either works how I expect it to, or I am able to work out fairly quickly what to do.

Synching is *fast* much more so than it was with MMJB, and it is satisfying to see the songs counting down smoothly.

I have been playing tunes all day for two days on the iPOD - both from playlists and from browsing, and have had no trouble with tracks being skipped that I can notice.

As I have been running ALLMUSIC.COM alongside my player in a web browser, I was especially pleased a few minutes ago when I tried to find out what happens when you click "Artist Info".

For the first time in ages I have got my credit card out and registered a piece of software as I can already see it exceeds my present needs.  

Neat, thanks folks.

[fex]

And on the Album/Artist Front:

... Anyway, this checkbox would allow you to mark songs for upload to iPod.  They would stay checked until you unchecked them.  Highlighting multiple songs and clicking the checkbox would allow for whole albums or even artists.  Then when a sync is done, you first add all songs that have a positive value in this field, then you do the playlists ....

Adam

Sounds like iTunes... The first ideas are not the worst...

Fex

[Kurt Young]

Quillo,

Glad to hear a success story!  When you said "For the first time in ages I have got my credit card out and registered a piece of software as I can already see it exceeds my present needs." I knew exactly what you felt!  That's precisely what I said to my friends when I registered MJ...  if the iPod support had been there when I registered, I prolly woulda wet myself with glee!

Adam, AMG, Larry... Dennis just added a forum for MJ over at the lounge.  How's that for throwing some weight around!    Now one of y'all get over there and type up some documentation!  

[ashawley]

Congrats MJ, you've made it officially to the 'Lounge!!!

And Kurt, nice weight throwing.  Next time I see a dwarf tossing contest, I'm calling you up (and no, not as a tossee, but a tosser).  

Fex: while I've never actually seen iTunes, I thought it did this, but then I read that it only did it with playlists, not in the media library.  Thanks for setting me straight.  Is it still an original idea if I thought of it myself though?  

Adam

[SteveG]

Everyone,

Thanks for the support and comments. I had to spend today getting caught up on some other tasks but will try to get caught up here tomorrow.

Thanks again.

Steve

[LarryJoe]

Good job Kurt, I am on my way over now and will try to post lots of good stuff over the next few days, but mostly on weekends.

Thanks to Steve for this awesome plugin.  You developed it in record time.  I know folks over at the lounge will be soon be MJ'ers...er...MC'ers.

As far as wipping the credit card out, I too have never felt better about paying for software than when I happily register MJ (V7/V8 and now V9).

[willrmc]

well i'm finally back in town, and i see things have prgressed quite nicely!! we got the syncing speed, time remaining and the gui locks seem to be under control. i ran it all last night and everything ran beautifully. although i did have some problems ripping a cd with the new 9 build but thats for a different thread. once i have graphical ratings and playcount updating i will be the happiest podder on earth! great work steve!!  

[SteveG]

Everyone,

I will be out tomorrow so will not check the board until Friday. I have a fix for the folder F19 problem and tag updating during synch implemented, but will have to wait to release it until Friday.

Thanks,

Steve

[LarryJoe]

One thing I noticed and not sure if this is isolated, after I upgraded from MC9 84 to 85 by going over 84, the Ipod plugin did not register, right clicking my Ipod had no plugin menu/features.  I could not reinstall the plugin bacause "hh_portable.dll was in use".  I had to delete hh_portable.dll in the jriver folder and reinstall.  All was fine after.  May want to look into this.

LJ

[ashawley]

Steve:

Welcome back. Kurt asked in the 'lounge that someone step up and write a "user guide" for the plugin.  I sorta did that and a little more (included the basics of MC).  Since there are so many new users, thought it'd be helpful.

If you're interested (or anyone else is) here's where it's at:

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ashawley01/

Oh, and Steve, tell Jim not to sue me or anything, I didn't get permission er nothin' like that.

Adam

[TimB]

Welcome back Steve, we missed ya!  

-=Tim=-