Topic: MCC: NOTIFY_TRACK_CHANGE only works for active zone? (Read 5383 times)

gappie · « **on:** April 13, 2007, 03:24:13 am »

ill promise, my last question. $:-\$
when i listen to music in zone 1, but zone two is active, trackchanges in zone one are not 'fired'. is this by design? it does not seems logical to me since you could determine from which zone it comes from when you want to (parameter 3).

thanks, this is fun.

Craig · « **Reply #1 on:** April 13, 2007, 01:40:06 pm »

Hi Gappie,
I've been trying to get an answer to this for ages to no avail see
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38889.0
at least you've confirmed it's not just me :-)

Craig

John Gateley · « **Reply #2 on:** April 13, 2007, 02:17:20 pm »

I'll take a look, but it'll be next week. Feel free to *bump*...

j

Craig · « **Reply #3 on:** April 13, 2007, 05:16:21 pm »

Thanks John

gappie · « **Reply #4 on:** April 13, 2007, 05:22:42 pm »

yes thanks. no need to bump though. next week starts in two days, it takes 3/4 year to fall from the first page.

John Gateley · « **Reply #5 on:** April 18, 2007, 03:16:53 pm »

The behavior as it stands is correct (I mean, it's doing what it is supposed to, even though that may not be what you want).

The mechanism for signaling an event is complex, and also does other tasks. Media Center's philosophy is that only the currently active zone is visible - what is going on in other zones is not. So, the track change event never gets fired for non-active zones.

Why do you want to see the track changes in non-active zones?

j

gappie · « **Reply #6 on:** April 18, 2007, 04:41:21 pm »

that a zone is not the one in front does not mean it is not active, it can be playing music, for instances. and when a track changes im updating some fields in the library. i understand that it is complex. but that does not mean that it is more logical. the zone parameter does not make sence also in that case.

thanks for looking into it though

gappie · « **Reply #7 on:** April 18, 2007, 04:55:56 pm »

i guess i should be more clear. i made something were when a song starts to play the last played song is selected together with the other songs from the same album. the number plays from those songs are summed and devided by the number of songs, and placed in a custom field np album. now when i have my other zone infront and watch pictures there. there is nothing to worry, but when the 'inactive' zone is playing music and the 'active' zone is doing nothing, it goes wrong..

im not interested in rating songs or albums, number plays and last played are important criteriua for me.

John Gateley · « **Reply #8 on:** April 18, 2007, 05:12:22 pm »

Quote from: gappie on April 18, 2007, 04:41:21 pm

that a zone is not the one in front does not mean it is not active,

active means the zone that is actively displayed. Inactive zones are still doing stuff, they are not displayed though.

About your custom field "np album", I think this may be done as a computed field, instead of trying to do it when the track changes.
Have you tried that? It seems a better way to do it, and doesn't require a modification of the Events sdk...

j

gappie · « **Reply #9 on:** April 18, 2007, 05:22:31 pm »

what you mean with computed. something like a button i push. i have that also, ofcource, otherwise i had to play one song from each album before the library is updated. but that is not elegant at all. and takes some time to update all my files.
ofcourse we can discuss about what is active, and i understand what you mean as you could see in my post. but when a track changes, a track changes. that is the event that is taking place. no matter if the zone is 'active'. you dont have to change the sdk for me, but it just is not logical. ill find a way around it.

edit: or did you mean with computed a timer...? now the nice thing about events is.....

Craig · « **Reply #10 on:** April 19, 2007, 12:12:16 pm »

Quote from: John Gateley on April 18, 2007, 03:16:53 pm

Why do you want to see the track changes in non-active zones?

j

MC2Slim allows you to use different zones to control different Squeezeboxes. Because of this I need to know when track changes occur. At the moment I'm having to use polling to achieve this, an event would be much easier for me.

Craig

scthom · « **Reply #11 on:** April 20, 2007, 12:05:07 am »

Seems like something that ought to be there, but we have to be careful about how we determine which zone is active and how we respond to the events.

John Gateley · « **Reply #12 on:** April 20, 2007, 10:16:26 am »

Quote from: gappie on April 18, 2007, 05:22:31 pm

what you mean with computed. something like a button i push.

No, I mean a field that is computed "on the fly", no buttons, timers, or events needed. Go to Options->Library and add a field.
One of the types is "Computed" and you put in a template. I haven't used these enough to generate the template you need, or even know if you can, but this is the way to solve your problem, rather than a plug-in.

j

gappie · « **Reply #13 on:** April 20, 2007, 05:42:48 pm »

Quote from: John Gateley on April 20, 2007, 10:16:26 am

No, I mean a field that is computed "on the fly", no buttons, timers, or events needed. Go to Options->Library and add a field.
One of the types is "Computed" and you put in a template. I haven't used these enough to generate the template you need, or even know if you can, but this is the way to solve your problem, rather than a plug-in.

j

for a moment i was hopeful. a new feature i missed in the briefing, but i can not find it. but maybe you mean 'calculated'. if so, then no, i it not is possible as far as i know. there were two threads recently about it.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39566.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40013.0

besides that , it can also not take data from other records or group data. things you need to do for calculating an average. it is ofcourse possible there is something i dont know about.

src666 · « **Reply #14 on:** April 20, 2007, 11:13:08 pm »

Quote from: John Gateley on April 18, 2007, 03:16:53 pm

The behavior as it stands is correct (I mean, it's doing what it is supposed to, even though that may not be what you want).

The mechanism for signaling an event is complex, and also does other tasks. Media Center's philosophy is that only the currently active zone is visible - what is going on in other zones is not. So, the track change event never gets fired for non-active zones.

Why do you want to see the track changes in non-active zones?

j

Yikes - this is going to be a critical issue for me as well. I'm going to be developing a plugin that deals with a multi-zone situation and will need event notifications from all zones that are doing something, whether or not they are "in front". Otherwise I'll have to resort to polling, which is VERY non-optimal.

I guess I assumed from the event docs on the WIKI that events will be fired for all "busy" zones, since data passed with most events is the zone that fired it.

Is this an item that is going to be addressed?

Craig · « **Reply #15 on:** April 21, 2007, 03:03:17 am »

It looks like it would be a popular feature and I'd definately like to see multizone MCC: NOTIFY_PLAYERSTATE_CHANGE events too.

I'm still seeing a related problem ie
MC12 MCC: NOTIFY_PLAYLIST_FILES_CHANGED events only containing a zone number for the active zone all others are shown as 0.

Craig

John Gateley · « **Reply #16 on:** April 26, 2007, 04:15:38 pm »

I'll put this on my list, but due to implementation details, it's a little difficult. Don't expect it in the next week or two (but the more people who ask for it here, the sooner it'll be).

j

gappie · « **Reply #17 on:** April 26, 2007, 04:53:48 pm »

great. in about two weeks. what ever. nice that it is on a list.

thanks

Craig · « **Reply #18 on:** April 27, 2007, 03:53:06 am »

Yes I'll look forward to it too.
Thanks John.

Craig

Craig · « **Reply #19 on:** May 07, 2007, 10:23:10 am »

Just a gentle bump for this one John,

If the multizone PLAYER_STATE_CHANGED is a big job then could you take a look at PLAYLIST_PROPERTIES_CHANGED and PLAYLIST_FILES_CHANGED not indicating which zone caused them?

MCC: NOTIFY_PLAYLIST_PROPERTIES_CHANGED   0
MCC: NOTIFY_PLAYLIST_PROPERTIES_CHANGED   0
MCC: NOTIFY_PLAYLIST_FILES_CHANGED   0
MCC: NOTIFY_PLAYLIST_FILES_CHANGED   223016822

I'm doing a revamp of MC2Slim and can't see a way of identifying which playlist has changed in response to these events.

Thanks
Craig

gappie · « **Reply #20 on:** May 22, 2007, 04:37:18 pm »

Quote from: gappie on April 26, 2007, 04:53:48 pm

great. in about two weeks. what ever. nice that it is on a list.

thanks

its more or less four weeks now. hope it is still on that list.

an other thing is that notify track change fires when changing zones, although tracks dont change.

John Gateley · « **Reply #21 on:** May 22, 2007, 04:57:55 pm »

It's still there - I haven't been able to look at the automation stuff recently...

j

Craig · « **Reply #22 on:** May 23, 2007, 10:15:30 am »

John,
I've just found another little problem for when you get to look at automation,
NOTIFY_PLAYLIST_PROPERTIES_CHANGED and NOTIFY_PLAYLIST_FILES_CHANGED don't appear to fire when a file is deleted from 'Now Playing' I assume it should?

Craig

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Author Topic: MCC: NOTIFY_TRACK_CHANGE only works for active zone? (Read 5383 times)