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[Doof]

New build is up. Version 1.2.2

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Lyrics Editor would prevent MC from starting if Playing Now was empty when MC tried to start
• Fixed a bug where you could Preview a track, then click Just Save Data, and the Return button would be disabled
• The refresh button is back!

Screenshot
Download

Version 1.2

New Features

• Moved the Copy, Paste, Select All, and Clear commands into a standard toolbar at the top of the lyrics text box
• Added an "Undo" button that will return the lyrics to the state they were in before you began editing - this isn't as granular as the undo you'd see in a word processer - it will only get you back to where you started on that file in case you really screw up - once you've saved changes undo won't work
  

Bug Fixes

• Next (No Save) is no longer enabled when at the end of the file list - so it can't crash like it was before

New Features Since Version 0.9.5.5

• Added a "Next (No Save)" button that moves to the next file without saving changes
• Added tooltips to the file list that display information similar to MC's tooltips
• Playlist dropdown is now twice as large as before
• Playlist dropdown is now alphabetized (Playing Now is still always the first playlist listed)
• Refresh button now refreshes the list of playlists as well as their contents
• The "Purge Data" button now more intelligently reports how many files are going to have their LTEStatus field purged
• It now restores the playback state when you preview a file
• More buttons are disabled or enabled as appropriate
• Added "Purge Update Data" button that will purge the data stored in the LTEStatus field for all of the files currently in the file list
• Changed it so that it now only timestamps files when you make changes to their lyrics
• Columns should now remember their size and positions
• Options are now functional
• Added the ability to track what files have been viewed in Lyrics Editor - Check the "Save Viewed Status" box and click the "Create Database Field" button. LE will timestamp the file in a "LTEStatus" field
• The file list now has column headers that can be resized and rearranged
• Rearranged the interface a bit more
• You can now choose what colors you want to use for songs that: Have Lyrics, Don't Have Lyrics, Have Lyrics and have been viewed in LE, Don't Have Lyrics and have been viewed in LE
• File List colors now update as changes are made
• Plugin is now always active so you can jump out to another part of MC and come back without losing your place
• File list now shows files with lyrics in blue, and files without lyrics in red
• Rearranged the interface a bit in order to fit the Options
• Changed the "Select Source" text to "Get File List From" to better reflect what's actually going on - the file list is generated from this source, but they're not linked, so changes to the source won't be reflected in Lyrics Editor unless you hit the Refresh button
• Lyrics Editor now reports its build number to MCs Plugin Manager and Add/Remove Programs

Bug Fixes Since Version 0.9.5.5

• Status color is now updated when you just use the "Just Save Data" button
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to de-select any entries in the file list and then cause a crash when some of the buttons were pressed - it's still possible to de-select any entries in the file list, but now everything disables appropriately (appears to be a limitation of the list view control)
• You can no longer try to preview a file if there are no files to preview
• Fixed the bug that was occurring where you'd use the plugin, go to Playing Now and come back to the plugin and it would crash MC

[Mr ChriZ]

Doofs on a roll! 

[Doof]

Thanks to your Template.

I'm mostly just trying to get familiar with the SDK and the C# language. I've got a couple of ideas for bigger things I'd like to try out.

[zxsix]

Doof,

Can we play music in zone 1 playing now and have your plugin use zone 2 playing now so it won't interfere?

[Doof]

Good question. I'll look into doing that.

Ultimately, I think the answer will be to allow users to just browse a copy of their Media Library tree and select songs to edit directly. That's what I'd like to do. I just have to remember my recursion well enough to figure out how to traverse and populate a tree control to allow that.

[dcwebman]

I like it! That's pretty much what I was referring to and works well from what I could tell so far. Of course there are always suggestions. 

Ctrl+A doesn't work inside or inside MC's Lyric Editor either. Not sure if that's a shortcut that needs to be allowed or not in the code.

Suggestion: Make the Artist and Name fields at least selectable to copy to the clipboard. That way if there is no lyrics I could easily cut and paste to either a browser or tool to find them. It would also be nice to have a combination field that had the format that EvilLyrics uses which is Artist - Song. It wouldn't bother me if they were read-only text fields if that makes it easier.

Great job!
Jeff

[marko]

@l@n's plugins allow us to specify a playlist to load. I find this approach a lot more comfortable than using the playing now list.

in the case of the caption plugin, it would allow us to listen to music while we worked away at our image captions.

at the moment, I'm more interested in the captionator, which looks like being a top-drawer addition to MC's image handling.
thanks for your work on it, hopefully I'll be able to give it a road-test over the weekend.

[Doof]

I like it! That's pretty much what I was referring to and works well from what I could tell so far. Of course there are always suggestions.

Glad it's at least partly what you were looking for.

Ctrl+A doesn't work inside or inside MC's Lyric Editor either. Not sure if that's a shortcut that needs to be allowed or not in the code.

I'll take a look and see what I can figure out.

Suggestion: Make the Artist and Name fields at least selectable to copy to the clipboard. That way if there is no lyrics I could easily cut and paste to either a browser or tool to find them. It would also be nice to have a combination field that had the format that EvilLyrics uses which is Artist - Song. It wouldn't bother me if they were read-only text fields if that makes it easier.

I'm thinking there are several ways I could do this.

• Give you the ability to manually select and copy the artist and song title fields manually and seperately
• Present the information in the Artist - Name format and make that selectable
• Have a button in the plugin that automatically copies the Artist - Name text to the clipboard
• Have a button in the plugin that spawns a Google search of Artist+Name+lyrics

The last one the list would be the most helpful to me. Not sure if other people work the way I do, though.

[Doof]

@l@n's plugins allow us to specify a playlist to load. I find this approach a lot more comfortable than using the playing now list.

Yeah, me too. And it's the way I ultimately want to get both plugins working. I just have to figure out how. Maybe @l@n could lend me a hand? Although I was looking at the old VB version of the BusyBox plugin and noticed they're doing the same kind of tree replication I want to do, so it might not be too hard to convert that over to C#. Although I'm assuming that Mr Chriz's C# implementation of BusyBox must have already done that, so if I could get my hands on that... *hinthint*

in the case of the caption plugin, it would allow us to listen to music while we worked away at our image captions.

Definitely.

at the moment, I'm more interested in the captionator, which looks like being a top-drawer addition to MC's image handling.
thanks for your work on it, hopefully I'll be able to give it a road-test over the weekend.

Yeah, after I got done organizing all of my pictures, I started thinking how nice it would be to be able assign captions to them that could be seen during playback in Theater View. But the thought of using MC's built in tag editor for such a purpose really didn't appeal to me. I'm glad I'm not the only one who will find it useful.

[mesue]

Have a button in the plugin that spawns a Google search of Artist+Name+lyrics

A Google search option would be my choice! Even better if it launched in the user's default browser instead of IE, if that's possible.

[Mr ChriZ]

Busybox C# Uploaded.
I'm afraid I'm really quite short of time at the present.
(Wonder where it all goes sometimes...)
Life keeps wanting to get in the way.
I've no idea whether it's currently in a working state or not.
You'll have to play.
But for the most part the codes there.

[Doof]

That's ok. Your contributions to this forum have been phenomenal. Take a break!

[Doof]

Well, I've got the Google search running. Not sure if it'll use the default browser or not. I suspect it will because all I'm doing is spawning a URL. At that point, I think Windows decides what to do with it.

I can't seem to get Ctrl-A to work for selecting all of the text. The same code that works in a standalone Windows app doesn't work in the plugin, so I suspect MC isn't passing it through or something.

The updated version can be downloaded here.

[mesue]

It opened a new tab in Firefox for me… awesome!

Here's an idea… take it or leave it. Maybe put a play and stop button into the plugin, so you can check the accuracy of the lyrics, or in my case, I like to put "Instrumental" into the lyrics tags once I've verified that the song has no lyrics.

Any possibility you could make the plugin open in a free-floating, re-sizable window?

[mesue]

Question: Will I lose everything if I don't hit "Save" after each edit?

[Doof]

Question: Will I lose everything if I don't hit "Save" after each edit?

Nope, it saves automatically when you click Previous or Next. The Save button is just there in case you want to exit out of the plugin without changing tracks. I'm kind of wrestling with how it should behave in this regard. Any suggestions?

[mesue]

Hmmm… maybe make the button label as "Save & Exit" instead of just "Save."

[Doof]

I could do that. But there's no way to really Exit a plugin, so that would be kind of a misnomer.

[dcwebman]

How about "Save and Stop"?

I like the Google search. In the past I have found that sometimes I need to surround the artist and/or name with double quotes so that the exact string will be found for a more specific search instead of the words being anywhere on the page. Any chance of doing that?

Regarding these:

• Give you the ability to manually select and copy the artist and song title fields manually and seperately
• Present the information in the Artist - Name format and make that selectable
• Have a button in the plugin that automatically copies the Artist - Name text to the clipboard

You already have number one listed on the page but they are not selectable. Making selectable so a Ctrl+C could be done would solve that.

I would ignore the second one and since you now have a Google button, the third one would be really nice.

[dcwebman]

Here's an idea… take it or leave it. Maybe put a play and stop button into the plugin, so you can check the accuracy of the lyrics, or in my case, I like to put "Instrumental" into the lyrics tags once I've verified that the song has no lyrics.

Any possibility you could make the plugin open in a free-floating, re-sizable window?

If you want to do this, you can do it with MC itself. Use a Track Info that displays the lyrics. I use "All I Need" that can be found in this forum. Select the first song and press Alt+Enter to display the tag editor and display the Lyrics field. Then just play, verify the lyrics, and if editing is necessary, click the Edit button in the Lyrics field in the tag editor. Everything okay, just hit the Next button to play the next song.

[mesue]

Use a Track Info that displays the lyrics. I use "All I Need" that can be found in this forum. Select the first song and press Alt+Enter to display the tag editor and display the Lyrics field

dcwebman… I made the "All I need" track info template. Glad you like it.  But it is still a lot of clicks to get to the lyrics edit screen, and the lyrics field can be hard to find in the tag info list if you display a lot of fields. But my main reason for wanting it is because I tend to add lyrics in batches, which is what this plugin is perfect for. If I suspect a song is fully instrumental, I like to just sample a few points in the song to make sure before marking it as such.

In the past I have found that sometimes I need to surround the artist and/or name with double quotes so that the exact string will be found for a more specific search instead of the words being anywhere on the page.

I've been finding I get better results not using quotes for exact match. A lot of times I'll put extra stuff at the end of the song title like (Live) or (Remix), etc. When you put the title in quotes it often won't come up with any lyric results if you have anything extra like that, but without quotes you usually still get the lyrics on the first page of results no matter what. For the rare instances when it doesn't come up with lyrics, you can still add the quotes in the browser. I suspect the frequency of not finding lyrics on the first page will be higher with quotes than without.

[@l@n]

@l@n's plugins allow us to specify a playlist to load. I find this approach a lot more comfortable than using the playing now list.


Yeah, me too. And it's the way I ultimately want to get both plugins working. I just have to figure out how.  Maybe @l@n could lend me a hand?

Doof, here is an example of using a user selected playlist or Playing Now.  Warning -- I cut and pasted this code together so there are probably some typos in it.

I hope this helps...  @l@n

Code: [Select]

#region Private Members
private MediaJukebox.MJPlaylistsAutomation m_MJPlaylists = null;
private MediaJukebox.MJCurPlaylistAutomation m_MJCurPlaylist = null;
private MediaJukebox.MJFilesAutomation m_MJPlaylistFiles = null;
#endregion

#region COM initialization
public void Init(MediaJukebox.MJAutomation mj)
{
    m_MJPlaylists = m_MJ.GetPlaylists();
    Debug.Assert(m_MJPlaylists != null, "MediaJukebox.MJAutomation.GetPlaylists() returned null");

    LoadPlaylists();

    //present the user with a list of playlists with Playing Now
    //as the first entry int the list (idx = 0). 
    int idx = 0;  //Playing Now
         
    if (idx == 0)
    {
        m_MJCurPlaylist = mj.GetCurPlaylist();
        Debug.Assert(m_MJCurPlaylist != null, "MediaJukebox.MJAutomation.GetCurPlaylist() returned null");

        m_MJPlaylistFiles = null;
    }
    else
    {
        MediaJukebox.MJPlaylistAutomation playlist = m_MJPlaylists.GetPlaylist(idx);

        m_MJPlaylistFiles = playlist.GetFiles();
        Debug.Assert(m_MJPlaylistFiles != null, "MediaJukebox.MJPlaylistAutomation.GetFiles() returned null");

        m_MJCurPlaylist = null;
    }
   
    int numFiles = GetNumFiles();
    for (int i = 0; i < numFiles; i++)
    {
        MediaJukebox.MJFileAutomation mjFile = GetFile(i);
       
        if (mjFile.Lyric.Length > 0)
            MessageBox.Show("Song #" + i + " has a lyric!!!");
    }
}
#endregion

#region Private Methods
/// <summary>
/// Load cboPlaylist with a list of playlists
/// </summary>
private void LoadPlaylists()
{
    int plCnt = m_MJPlaylists.GetNumberPlaylists();

    cboPlaylist.BeginUpdate();

    cboPlaylist.Items.Add("Playing Now");
    m_playlists["Playing Now"] = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < plCnt; i++)
    {
        MediaJukebox.MJPlaylistAutomation playlist = m_MJPlaylists.GetPlaylist(i);
        cboPlaylist.Items.Add(playlist.Name);
        m_playlists[playlist.Name] = i;
    }

    cboPlaylist.EndUpdate();
}

/// <summary>
/// Get the number of files in the selected playlist.
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
private int GetNumFiles()
{
    int numFilesInPlaylist;

    if (m_MJCurPlaylist != null)
        numFilesInPlaylist = m_MJCurPlaylist.GetNumberFiles();
    else
        numFilesInPlaylist = m_MJPlaylistFiles.GetNumberFiles();

    return numFilesInPlaylist;
}

/// <summary>
/// Gets a MJFileAutomation interface for a file number.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="?"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
private MediaJukebox.MJFileAutomation GetFile(int fileNum)
{
    MediaJukebox.MJFileAutomation mjFile;

    //are we using Playing Now or another user selected playlist?
    if (m_MJCurPlaylist != null)
        mjFile = m_MJCurPlaylist.GetFile(fileNum);
    else
        mjFile = m_MJPlaylistFiles.GetFile(fileNum);

    return mjFile;
}
#endregion

[mesue]

One thing that would be useful is the ability to edit the song title at the same time. I'm finding some typos and misspellings as I search for lyrics.

[Doof]

Ok, new version.

I've added a bunch of stuff...

• The Artist, Album, and Name labels are now buttons, so you can easily copy any of those fields to the clipboard
• A button that copies [Artist] - [Name] to the clipboard
• Buttons that copy text from the lyrics box, paste text to the lyrics box, and select all text in the lyrics box
• Hopefully clearer text about what the Next, Previous, and Save buttons do

I decided not to incorporate the other playback controls because ultimately, you can use MC's standard playback controls to do that.

So give it a try and let me know what you think. The link is here.

[Magic_Randy]

Very nice,

With all of the new buttons in the latest version, is there still a reason to automatically select all when you go to next or previous track?  There is now a button to select all.  It is more readable if all of the text is not selected.

Anyway, great plug-in.

Randy

[Doof]

Ok, new build.

• Got rid of the SelectAll on track change
• Re-worked the buttons a little bit to allow in-place editing of Artist, Album, and Name

Download it here.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Eventually, I want to work in the ability to just choose a playlist to edit instead of always using Playing Now. And I'd like to rework it a bit so it'll resize itself based on the size of the MC window. But keep the suggestions coming!

[Magic_Randy]

I just downloaded & installed the new version.

It still selects all automaticaly when I push the next or previous button to change tracks.

Randy

[@l@n]

Doof, looking good!!!

A little problem.  I pressed the Copy button without selecting any of the lyric text and it crashed.

--@l@n

[Doof]

I just downloaded & installed the new version.

It still selects all automaticaly when I push the next or previous button to change tracks.

Randy

Yeah, I was just uploading a new version because I noticed it was still doing that. Try it again. It shouldn't be doing that anymore.

[Doof]

Doof, looking good!!!

A little problem.  I pressed the Copy button without selecting any of the lyric text and it crashed.

--@l@n

Whoops! Guess I better build in some exception handling, huh?

[Doof]

Doof, looking good!!!

A little problem.  I pressed the Copy button without selecting any of the lyric text and it crashed.

--@l@n

Ok, I took care of that little problem. The Copy button should now always be disabled unless there's something in the lyrics box selected. I'm wrestling with the idea of if the Copy button should handle selected text anywhere in the plugin, like in the Artist, Album or Name boxes. Right now I'm thinking it doesn't make sense, since there's buttons right there that will copy them much easier.

Latest build fixes that particular crash.

[Magic_Randy]

I tried the latest one.

Looks good to me.

Randy

[dcwebman]

The latest version is really good. You've done a fantastic job in just a day!
Thanks,
Jeff

[dcwebman]

Found a little problem. Tried to use the Google Search for the following file (pasted from the big copy button  ):
Blood, Sweat & Tears - You Made Me So Very Happy

Ended up getting just
Blood, Sweat
in the Google search.

Oh, one minor suggestion. When at the beginning of the playing now list, disable the Previous button and when at the end, disable the Next button.

[mesue]

Wow! You've done a lot while I was sleeping. I'm really enjoying this plugin.

[Magic_Randy]

Doof

Now that you've made so much progress, I'd like to suggest a way to allow playing the track while editing it using your plug-in.

I think a simple solution would be to not disable play when you start the plugin.  The track playing would then be the track you are viewing.  If you push the next or prev button in the plugin change the track accordingly.

It is very helpful to hear the song while you are editing the lyrics.  Even if there are restictions in how it works, it would be a nice feature.

Randy

[Doof]

Ok, new build up.

• Fixed the bug where "&" wasn't being sent with the rest of the Google query - although I'm still not happy with this whole thing because special characters aren't being handled correctly and I haven't had much luck figuring out how to handle these.
• Set it so the Next and Previous buttons disable if you can't move to the next or previous tracks - if Continuous mode is on then they will always be enabled
• The layout should now resize itself to match the window size. More or less.

Download

[Doof]

Doof

Now that you've made so much progress, I'd like to suggest a way to allow playing the track while editing it using your plug-in.

I think a simple solution would be to not disable play when you start the plugin.  The track playing would then be the track you are viewing.  If you push the next or prev button in the plugin change the track accordingly.

It is very helpful to hear the song while you are editing the lyrics.  Even if there are restictions in how it works, it would be a nice feature.

Randy

I'm still trying to decide how to implement this. On the one hand, it would be nice if you could listen to the songs, see the lyrics pop up and make quick edits while listening to the song. On the other, it would be a real pain if you were in the middle of making changes and the plugin switched songs on you. I'm sure a checkbox to either follow Playing Now or stay independent of it could work.  But it would also be nice to work on one set of songs while listening to a completely different set. But then what happens if you want to hear the song you're working on?

I'm not sure there's a way to handle all the eventualities.

I wonder how hard it would be to be able to choose between a playlist or Playing Now, where if the user chose a playlist, then you can listen to a completely different set of songs than the ones you're working on, and if you chose Playing Now, then it works with those, and gives you the option to either follow along or stay independent...

I'll play around with a few things and see what it looks like. If you have any suggestions, either about this or other stuff, have at it!

But right now I need to shower and scrounge up some food. I already skipped sleeping last night.

[Magic_Randy]

Doof,

I like your idea of using a playlist.  If you want to hear the song, you can click on the playlist selection & it will play, but that is independent of how you are managing the changes to the lyrics.

If you drive it from playing now, you could always loop the track so you don't have it change tracks in the middle of an edit.

Anyway, the good thing about software (or the bad thing) is that it is never done until people stop using it.

Randy

[mesue]

The layout should now resize itself to match the window size. More or less.

Very nice on my 20" LCD.  I like how the paste button expands so you don't need to aim very well.

Edit to add: It seems the "paste" and "Select All" buttons have stopped working for me in this last build. Anyone else?

[Doof]

Very nice on my 20" LCD.  I like how the paste button expands so you don't need to aim very well.

Edit to add: It seems the "paste" and "Select All" buttons have stopped working for me in this last build. Anyone else?

Whoops, you're right. When I moved those buttons into the lyrics groupbox, it broke the connection to the event handlers. It happened when I moved the navigation and clipboard buttons into their respective groupboxes, too. You'd think I'd learn.

Redownload and try again. It should be fixed now.

[Doof]

Doing a little experimenting..

What do you guys think of this? Right direction?

Screenshot

[Mr ChriZ]

Just an idea (Of which there appear to be many!),
 but why stop at Lyrics?  You could have a drop down
to retrieve any field, and rename the plugin
The ALL MIGHTY Tag Editor =)

[KingSparta]

What do you guys think of this? Right direction?

The problem with using a list box you may be limited to 32,7xx+ files

[Mr ChriZ]

The problem with using a list box you may be limited to 32,7xx+ files

Just tested a listbox with 100,000 entries and it's ok with .NET 2.0 /XP Pro.
Of course if you've got that many entries in a single listbox thats probably the least
of your worries!

[KingSparta]

i am not sure about .net

With VB 6.0 you can have 100,000+ items in it thats not the problem, but if you do a x=list1.listcount the control will return -1

so it will not return the correct count above 32,7xx

[dcwebman]

I like the listbox of songs. That gives an idea of what's coming up or what was back. Sorry I started a rollercoaster here. 

[Doof]

i am not sure about .net

With VB 6.0 you can have 100,000+ items in it thats not the problem, but if you do a x=list1.listcount the control will return -1

so it will not return the correct count above 32,7xx

I just tested it with 1,000,000 entries. It reported the count correctly, and all the items are reporting their index correctly. Looks like it was a limitation that was lifted in .Net

[KingSparta]

I just tested it with 1,000,000 entries. It reported the count correctly, and all the items are reporting their index correctly. Looks like it was a limitation that was lifted in .Net 

I am not really a .net fan, but am happy they fixed that.
 
 

[Mr ChriZ]

I am not really a .net fan, but am happy they fixed that.

Spend some more time with it 
I can understand why some VB 6 people got annoyed with it,
and why the VB side got nicknamed VB.NOT but after you've
played for a while, the flexability it offers is just fantastic.
Plus all the advantages of full OO support.  Really rich
class librarys etc. 
I think it is one of the best things Microsoft have done in a long time.
It leaves Java somewhat lacking IMO.
Very quick learning.
The biggest problem I have with .NET is I'll spend a day or
two implementing something that Microsoft have already done for you
and placed in an obvious place, and I didn't think to look!
I intend to produce a VB.NET template to go along side the C# one.
Shouldn't take long since the documentation should be more or less Identical.