Post by: RhinoBanga on June 06, 2002, 10:57:25 am
I have uploaded another test copy of version 2 onto my website and I would like some people to try it out and give me feedback on the following:
1) How long did it take to create the database
2) How long did it take to load the database (e.g. exiting then re-entering MJ or via the File/Open Database menu option)
3) How much quicker is the overview screen and general browsing of albums within AV
4) How long did it take to resize thumbnails
**** AGAIN THIS VERSION IS ONLY A TEST VERSION ****
It has TONS of bugs so really all I would like to know is the above (along with your machine spec, the number of albums/tracks/thumbnails if possible). Timing information and counts can be found in the new activity log ... View/Screen/Activity Log.
Once you have finished testing, uninstall V2 and reinstall v1.0.3 to get back full functionality. Also you should probably delete the "Default.avd" database file that will have been created. It resides in your installation directory.
Advance HTML Link:
Album View v2: Another Test Version Available Here!
I should be moving to alpha stage this weekend.
Thanks for your help.
Post by: bennyd on June 06, 2002, 12:05:55 pm
Here is a screenshot with the times on how long it takes to create and load the dbase.
And here are my system settings:
Media Jukebox PLUS 8.0.293
Install Path: C:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1499 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 136 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 (Build 2600)
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
wnaspi32.dll: 4.70 , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-2001 Adaptec, Inc.
Aspi32.sys: 4.7
Post by: Ilmar on June 06, 2002, 01:02:51 pm
Subsequent startups worked fine until:
Reading Thumbnails (33752331)
and MJ crashes
PS the previous test version: when I came to uninstall, it attempted to uninstall MJ8.
So before installing this test version I deleted all files in the installation directory manually.
Media Jukebox PLUS 8.0.293
Install Path: C:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\
CPU: AMD Athlon 1195 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 392 MB, Free - 263 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 (Build 2600)
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
wnaspi32.dll: 4.60 (1021) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-1999 Adaptec, Inc.
Aspi32.sys: 4.60 (1021)
Ilmar
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 06, 2002, 01:36:42 pm
895 Artists
2890 Albums
34721 Tracks
177 images
Media Jukebox PLUS 8.0.293
Install Path: C:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\
CPU: Intel Pentium III 691 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 129 MB, Free - 0 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows Me
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 5.50.4704.1100
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 5.50.4134.100
wnaspi32.dll: 2, 0, 0, 0 , ASPI for WIN32 DLL, Copyright © Adaptec 1995
Aspi32.sys: N/A
Restarting MJ first time 1 minute
Second time 5 minutes
Not funny when you see that it has to load each time again.
Post by: nila on June 06, 2002, 02:44:53 pm
that's a LOT of albums
Mine took 4.30 to do the full scan.
Then instantly gave me an error saying a mismatch in numbers (sync error) and so didn't bother displaying any of the data
Same problem I had before.
Love the new design though.
Looks great and I like the fact it now tells me what it's doing instead of just going crazy and freezing up till it's done.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 06, 2002, 10:14:06 pm
Can you email me your MJ database please so I can try the scan here ... my email addy is jamie@jdnet.co.uk
Neanderthaler:
As Nila said ... that is a hell of a lot of albums. I have a few ideas on how to speed up loading but I would recommend you get more memory as that will instantly make things a lot faster.
Post by: nila on June 07, 2002, 04:33:05 am
With that many albums I'm presuming you have a lot of hard drive space and use your computer quite a lot.
I'd really suggest you add another chip of RAM in, a 256 stick would probably be enough if you dont have much spare cash.
You can pick them up really cheap these days and I think you'd be hugely shocked at how much your systems speed and reliability improoved after you added it.
Post by: Mike on June 07, 2002, 04:55:14 am
How in the hell do you have so many albums??
I mean you must have a team ripping cd's for you !!!
Do you even know what you have?
Post by: nila on June 07, 2002, 06:15:34 am
And I doubt he does which is why he's waiting so anxiously for Album View so that it can reduce them to simply 3000 rather than 3000xNumberOfTracksPerAlbum.
lol
Album View's got it's hands full trying to optimise it with his system.
I've often wondered how many albums/songs other people have.
Doubt I'm likely to find anyone with more than him though.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 07, 2002, 07:19:36 am
Originally loading the AV database took 1 minute on my machine and I have now got that down to 30 seconds. Hopefully I should get that down even further but the biggest problem he will have is the thumbnail creation stage. My timings do not reflect that as I do not have his artwork.
Definately more memory will make things much more quicker.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 07, 2002, 08:51:01 am
Currently I use classes everywhere and single stepping thru them all and writing out each individual entry is slowing things down (e.g. Neanderthal's 34,000 tracks invokes 34,000 VB put's to write out a track class entry which only contains around 6 long's). Moving the majority of the data out of the classes and into an array of structures only incur's one vb put and speeds things up no-end.
Looks like I'm going to be delayed again while I re-jig things around.
I'll keep you all posted.
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 07, 2002, 10:23:14 am
I start to create all cd's in mp3 form 1 year ago, which was finished in Feb.
2) I'm a music freak and download realy much at Emusic which contains a lot of music I realy like, anhd of course I did download some albums via other paths.
Now don't get me wrong, but it sounds realy silly that I have to expand my memory because someone created a new program which I not realy need, I was doing a favour to Rhino to help him with his program
I don't have any problems with memory what so ever, have 2 disks of 80gig and one disk of 20 that is running all programs.I will buy a new comp in oktober so expanding is realy of no use!
Even in the case that I would expand my memory I dont think Rhino's program could fullfill the needs,
meaning if you want to use his prog it should keep a memorystate in rstead of constant loading
Once again, don't get me wrong I'm just trying to help
Regards
Neanderthaler
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 07, 2002, 10:39:22 am
Please don't take offence.
All we're pointing out that is that to use a graphically and memory intensive application like AV having more than 128mb of memory would definately help as it would using, say, Paint Shop Pro.
Version 1 of AV *was* a constant loading application (i.e. every time if needed data/graphics it loaded them from the source) ... but V2 is a memory state one (i.e. everything is pre-formatted and loaded into memory). The problem is though that the memory requirements for the size of your database easily outstrip your physical RAM and as such virtual memory (i.e. HDD) is being constantly referenced. And as we all know any form of physical I/O slows down any processing.
I'm thankfull that you posted your information to me as I have been busting a gut today trying to decrease my memory usage and loading times for large database users like yourself. In the next version you will definately see better performance.
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 07, 2002, 10:47:07 am
And I will use your program again, but what I mean is that if you close down Media Jukebox with or without restarting your computer your prog. should still contain all information and pops it up in a split sec.
Is this correct?
And you are saying that due to my shortcoming of memory (which is still 128 by the way)this is not possible?
Or are you saying that MJ should not be closed down, and in that case you can open albumview in a split sec.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 07, 2002, 10:57:23 am
AV is started/stopped with MJ and as such all memory is lost upon exiting.
The only upside is that (in theory) the AV database should be in virtual memory if you exit and re-enter MJ straight away ... if not then the OS will probably flush it and you will incur physical I/O's to open it again.
But still when the database is opened all information has to be read, re-linked and loaded into treeview's/imagelists/etc so that the user experience of AV is instantaneous.
Out of curiosity did/do you have V1 on your machine and if so how long did it take to scan the MJ database?
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 07, 2002, 11:01:42 am
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 07, 2002, 11:30:50 am
I know that I have 2 kinds that is BMP and JPG, the JPG did not show, is this correct?
Post by: nila on June 07, 2002, 11:33:17 am
I cant imagine the kinds of music you'd have on there. It'd be music heaven.
I wasn't suggesting getting the RAM for AV.
I just meant in general for your use of the computer.
256 megs now sells for around £32 with 128 going for as little as £18
I have 756 and it's great. The computer is NEVER accessing the hard drive for memory and it's all done purely from the RAM.
The difference in performance is so different and the whole experience is soo much nicer.
I too only have a 700Mhz CPU but the RAM means it runs smoothly no matter what I'm doing.
When it does (very rarely) have to access my hard drives for extra memory it feels like the whole computer is dying as I'm so used to it all running from RAM.
It obviously depends what your doing on your computer but RAM is always nice and these days it's also nice and cheap.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 07, 2002, 12:49:30 pm
I'm very surprised that .JPG did not show as that is what I (and others) test with and use on a daily basis.
Did you change AV to get it to use .BMP as by default it is preconfigured to use the external album artwork assigned via MJ or any "
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 07, 2002, 01:03:11 pm
I can imagine you want to peek on my comp. I have all styles, but mostly the more progressive ones like metal altrock, punk, but of course also blues jazz etc.
The only thing is that I have them in 128kbs MP3 and no more space left
The good thing is that I'm funned of MP3PRO and encode them to 64kbs even most of others think bad of it
It means that I can save half the space for use., and the lost of soundqlty is minimum
Rhino, I have no images on disk they are inside the MP3file, what I ment was that I copied 2 formats in the files.
The JPG comes from All music guide, the BMP from Emusic,
and I've noticed that the ones taken from the Emusic page are shown via your program
Post by: nila on June 07, 2002, 04:26:06 pm
Internal images are why it's taking you so long for your scans I think.
Also, if you have a lot of mp3's it's a waste of space.
Basically it's putting the cover inside every single mp3 of each album instead of just having it saved externally once inside the album folder.
I dont know how you organise your songs, maybe you have them all in one big dir, but if you have them in seperate dir's for each album you'd be better off just putting the covers inside each dir.
That'd save you some space for a start.
Secondly, if you have so many albums, I wouldn't recommend using mp3 pro and doing them at such a low quality.
I'd imagine your investing alot of time into ripping that many albums and doing them at a low quality is just gonna mean extra work for you later when you want them at better quality for setting up a proper home jukebox or something.
Huge harddrives are cheap these days and you can use really low spec ones (generic brand slow ones) just to store the mp3's on.
A 120 gig hard drive aint that much and would let you rip a lot more albums at good quality.
Another problem you might have with using mp3 pro is that if you later invest in an mp3 player or mp3 car stereo then it's not gonna support mp3 pro and so your setting yourself up with more hassle.
Obviously if you aint got the spare money then it's worth considering other options but from what I hear, WMA is the best option for lower bitrate and at least it's supported by mp3 players and stuff.
Just suggestions, u might have spent ages tryin to work out what to use, I got no idea.
VBR mp3's using LAME is the best option though for great sounding mp3's without going too extreme on space.
Nila
Post by: Frank on June 07, 2002, 05:45:08 pm
Post by: Frank on June 07, 2002, 05:51:26 pm
Post by: Frank on June 07, 2002, 06:13:38 pm
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 07, 2002, 10:54:06 pm
Nila is right in saying that internal images is teh reason for the long scan times. It's the worst possible format for MJ and AV since it has to scan the track to see if an image exists ... and in your case that's 34,000 of them
As far as it not bringing out the right picture type ... I think that must be an MJ bug as all I do is say to MJ "give me the picture in the file" and it extracts it to a file and I use that image as the artwork. We'll be able to confirm 100% is that's the case when I get the image extraction facility done.
Frank:
I'll have a look at the internal MP3 image processing today. Also the extractor is not there yet ... I just put a placeholder on the menu.
As far as "missing" options are concerned ... they are all there ... it's just that the majority of them have been moved to the wizard. The only difference now is that there is only external directory searching and internal images ... and internal images take precedence over external searching if enabled.
Also I agree that it's a pain having to navigate the menu to switch screens but the problem with the tab was that you cannot change the background colour of it (easily) and as such it would not work properly with the "use mj skin fonts/colours" that will be in there. If I find some nice icons relating to each screen I'll put them on a toolbar.
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 08, 2002, 12:19:02 am
Is there a possibility to have more than 4roms/disks attached to your computer?
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 08, 2002, 12:24:02 am
You have a couple of choices to get more than 4 cdroms/hdd's on your computer:
1) Use SCSI - can connect up to 7 or 15 connections depending on which type you get.
2) Get another PCI IDE controller card - will give you an additional 4 IDE channels
3) Get a motherboard with build in raid - will give you up to 8 IDE channels
On my development machine I have a motherboard with raid and it has a 40x CDRW, DVD, 72x CDROM and two HDD's connected to it.
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 08, 2002, 12:37:28 am
I will remove the internal images and try your program again.
PS: having converted a lot of files to MP3pro is not so dramatic as you think, and if I decide to use a higher bitrate that would not be a problem since I have all files backed up on cdrs in the original 128kbs.
I just converted 1 to WMA but was really not pleased with the result which was way less than MP3pro
Of course hearing is personal, but it seems to me that WMA is losing lower tones and makes the total sound a bit too sharp.
Seeing that you work on the same time on the comp. as me Rhino you must be a European like me, correct?
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 08, 2002, 12:41:53 am
And yes I'm in England and the weather is miserable
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 08, 2002, 12:49:44 am
Post by: nila on June 08, 2002, 12:52:51 am
Grey grey grey.
I keep expecting it to break and for the sun to come shooting out but it's just not happening.
Hopefully it will soon.
I'm from London
I personally use mp3's at 192kb/s just cause it's the best quality and as far as space goes I'd rather put myself out a bit and fork out for a new hard drive when and if they're needed instead of building a collection that I need to update when I'm rich and can afford some sweet speakers.
Rhino - just wondering, you said 160kb/s - does that mean your using CBR?
Cause if you are and want a space quality compromise, how come your not using VBR?
From everything I've read recently about LAME's VBR encoding pretty much everyone says it's better than CBR and if your worried about space I'd imagine it's the perfect answer.
anyway, gotta run.
Lemme know when there's a new build to try out Rhino,
cya
Nila
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 08, 2002, 12:59:33 am
Yeah it's CBR for compatability reasons ... I have numerous DVD players, personal MP3 players, etc, and CBR is the safest bet as all my current hardware supports it. But I am paying for it now ... I have run out of space on my 20gb mp3 HDD
I will be putting another test version out today. I have got the loading times right down now ... from 1min for a 24,000 track DB to 14 seconds
Post by: nila on June 08, 2002, 07:36:57 am
If your looking for another hard drive I found a great one a while back that got great reviews for speed etc and it's a huge drive.
If you want a new one then lemme know and I'll dig up which one it was.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 08, 2002, 07:40:02 am
I have nearly finished re-writing that whole section of code. I'll post the new version later as soon as I have finished with it. It shouldn't be too long.
Post by: dave on June 08, 2002, 12:40:02 pm
My 3900 songs uploaded in less than 30 seconds.
but... my external images were not uploaded. They are all in the data/cover art directory and work in playing now mode but not album view.
this may have been stated in previous posts but some are hard for me to understand.
do i have to enter a field in the step near the end for directory, i did it with and without a directory and it never got my album covers.
thnaks for the cool program,
dave
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 08, 2002, 12:58:53 pm
What type are your files?
By default AV looks for "
Also you could try switching on debug and email me the trace file so I can see if I can spot what is going on. Full instructions and my email address are in the README file.
Post by: bennyd on June 08, 2002, 01:33:29 pm
The moment I specify to have at least 2 songs in an album to view the cover art, it doesn't show the thumbnails anymore.
If I reload with 1, it works fine.
Thake care,
Benny
Post by: nila on June 08, 2002, 06:23:41 pm
Any idea when u'll have it done?
Just askin cause I love it so much I want it asap!
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 08, 2002, 10:29:56 pm
I have the version here ready to go but I have hit a snag.
I switched from the MS treeview OCX to my Sheridan one for speed and now AV is refusing to load on my test machines
I am trying to figure out what ocx/dll I am missing but I am really annoyed as I wanted to start on something really cool today
Post by: nila on June 09, 2002, 09:02:30 am
That would tell you which bits you needed so you could sort it out for you and let you get on with the 'cool' thing.
Any sneak idea's about what the 'cool' thing is?
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 09, 2002, 09:06:42 am
I already used a program called PE explorer to view the import information ... it wasn't much help.
Today I have left that problem and started work on the "cool" features ... but unfortunately that now means that there won't be a release for another day or so ... and no I'm not going to spoil the surprise
Post by: nila on June 09, 2002, 11:24:13 am
Pity I aint got a time machine so I can rush ahead and go into the future to get a copy.
Browsin through 7000 songs is a pain in the ass tryin to find a nice album to listen to.
Browsin thru 500 albums is a LOT easier and nicer.
Post by: Ilmar on June 09, 2002, 11:26:29 am
You have a good point!
Power to your elbow Rhino..
Ilmar
Post by: nila on June 10, 2002, 02:39:27 pm
how's it comin?
Good I hope's the answer.
U bumped into any more problems? And did u manage to work out what ocx was missin?
Good luck,
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 10, 2002, 10:48:59 pm
It's coming along nicely.
I've finished the 1st cool feature and I am working on the 2nd now which will take a few days but it's looking good
Also I haven't got back to the ocx thing as I am getting these features out of the way.
I will post a screenshot in the next day or so
Post by: nila on June 11, 2002, 01:28:55 am
Cant wait to see the new features.
I have a hunch what they are though.
Dont ask me how but I'm pretty sure that the first one is an expresso feature whereby you press the button and your cdrom tray opens up and a cup appears in the tray filled with steaming hot chocolate.
The second is a donnut making feature whereby I somehow also get a donut with my hot chocolate.
Am I right or what?
U know I am
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 11, 2002, 04:01:59 am
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 11, 2002, 12:43:14 pm
I removed all images from all files
I created a database containing only artists starting with an A or B
Took 4 minutes to load
Files 5122
Artists 123
Albums 434
Thumpnails 393
Then I created a database containing only Disk D
Took 12 minutes to load
Files 16462
Artists 591
Albums 1324
Thumpnails 151
And than I load the complete collection
Back to 31 minutes!!
Post by: nila on June 11, 2002, 03:25:05 pm
He's re-writing a lot of the code right now and speeding it up.
Wait till he's released his next version and then try it. AV is a work of art in progress.
V1 is pretty stable but v2 is purely for testing so we can help him make it.
If you want v1 it's on the plug-in page I'm pretty sure.
Also - did you still select to do internal scanning?
Cause if so it'd take just as long even if none of the files had images in them.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 12, 2002, 01:36:59 am
I am re-writing *a lot* and I have uncovered/fixed a few big bugs in the extraction stage. I'll see if I can get another test version out tonight (if I can find the ocx problem). Since my big surprises will be revealed I may as well tell you now:
1) Updated main UI to be more Office XP like (which you have already had a preview of in the last version).
2) Skin font/colour support - make AV fit in nicely with your preferred skin and the AV treeview's match the MJ treeview fonts.
3) Replaced thumbnail control with subclassed MS listview - no more height limitation and (eventually) it will only paint what is visible.
Post by: nila on June 12, 2002, 03:03:43 am
I was hoping it was the doughnuts and hot chocolate
Cant wait to test the new release.
Hopefully it'll have fixed that sync error I get each time.
Post by: nila on June 12, 2002, 02:10:11 pm
Post by: zevele1 on June 12, 2002, 03:56:02 pm
Concerning your next computer,you may have a look at a 'tower'
I got one since few days.Not that big,58 centimeter hight
I have room for cddvd-cdwritter-2 hard drives |PLS| 5 other spots for more hard drive
At this time i have only one 160 on the 5 other spots.If you have such a tower ,you can put extra hard drive when you want without changing your computer.
You will have hard drives with only music on it,i am sure.In this case you do not need to buy the most performant drives
30|PLS|40|PLS|160 now,next 160 in november..........
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 13, 2002, 12:10:30 am
I am using the Infragistics treeview control for speed and to provide the skin colour support ... unfortunately there seems to be a licensing issue when using the tvw within a usercontrol.
I am awaiting feedback from them on this problem.
If I don't hear anything back from them bu the weekend then I will strip it out and put back the MS tvw.
Post by: Neanderthaler on June 13, 2002, 10:48:15 am
I have a desktop now, but that is because it is from the office,
It is limited in all expantions,
As you probably know there are so many choices, but do think that I will assemble one myself
That way thee are no limitations what so ever, and I by the components were they are the cheapest!
Post by: zevele1 on June 13, 2002, 11:54:59 am
And if you are good enought -i'am not- to built the inside
,it is even better
The price of the tower i got was only a third more that an 'eternal box' for one drive and usb 1-mind you-
For a third of the price more i have room for 5 drives
Another funny[?] thing.When i got fast connection,the company sold me an external erthernet card.Inside the tower i put an internal one.It was so cheap that i gave a try.I get the same result with the internal than with the external
But...i can buy FIVE internal for the price i paid the external............
So if you can built on your own,you are on the good side of the fence
Post by: nila on June 13, 2002, 05:05:53 pm
Did u have any luck working out the sync problem?
I'm hoping that this version will work for me so I can start using it
Post by: Frank on June 18, 2002, 04:44:22 am
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 18, 2002, 05:37:32 am
It's quiet as I have been busy doing other projects that earn me £££ ... but I will be working on AV a bit tonight.
The good news is that I now have something that is actually usable, i.e. it can play music, and I have stripped out the infragistics stuff.
Also I gave Nila a version to try a few days ago and it worked
When you see the next test version, which should be either tonight or tomorrow, I think you'll be impressed with the way it looks/works.
By the way if people are wondering why it's taking so long over my initial estimation it's becuase I have decided to go the whole hog and totally revamp the UI.
Post by: shelly on June 18, 2002, 06:19:53 am
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 18, 2002, 12:46:52 pm
I have uploaded the latest test version for you to look at.
Things to look out for:
1) MJ skin/font support ... you may have to enable this is the options
2) MS Outlook XP style
3) Treeview is simplier and matches the XP theme correctly, e.g. the |PLS|/- buttons
4) When hilighting incomplete items in the treeview the icons change
5) Progress now reports actual time spent
6) In the album details screen there is now an option to sort the entries by Name/Rank/Year. It's not working just yet but it will be soon.
7) The overview screen isn't working yet ... I'll get around to that eventually.
8) Since mu thumbnail control has been replaced with a listview MS wheel mouse is nativly supported ... but the nice look'n'feel of my control has gone ... for now
Remember it's a test version and there is lots of bugs still.
Post by: nila on June 18, 2002, 01:47:58 pm
it's coming along nicely.
Lots more working now than in the last test version I had.
Couple of things:
1. After you select the AV plugin it shows the activity log as it's first processing everything. This then just goes grey when it's finished and all the info disappears. It should either: Still show the info or it should go to a different screen automatically. A blank grey screen isn't too interesting
2. The tabs in the overview screen - it's nice that they're clear, but I think I prefered having all the letters on the screen without having to scroll left and right. This could just be me personally though so maybe worth asking other people's opinions.
3. Album details screen: The thumbnails here seem to be the same size as they are going to be in the overview screen. I'd personally rather them smaller here as it's a much smaller space - dont know if making an option to display them smaller might however bring back the old image problems.
4. When selecting an album in the Album details screen it'd be nice if the appropriate album thumbnail for that artist was shown highlighted on the right.
5. Track listing in Album details doesn't seem to be by track # and I cant seem to get it too either.
6. Album details - when browsing by Genre/Artist/Album, Clicking on an artist inside a genre does not update the thumbnails on the right.
7. Managed to get a runtime error: 0 when playing with 'Options' next to track Listing in the Album Details screen then it was dead.
8. For this options screen, how come it's labeled: Options then has View screen inside of that as a sub menu - add's an extra click to the process which for the moment at least seems unnecessary.
9. If I choose thumbnail for the View screen it's not showing the thumbnail.
10. The wizard is being wierd. When I try to manually enter data it's becoming corrupted. This is a screen shot when I tried to select the destination for the database. This is what it drew instead of the correct path (all the other screens seem to be doing this too)
After this happens it seems to be freezing although it recovers again but still has dodgy data.
I'll try restarting my computer later and see if it still happens.
Not sure how much of this you knew as it was a test version and so it was meant to have things not working/bugs etc but I just thought I'd let you know all the ones I could find.
This plugin is REALLY developing nice.
v1 was nice and did it's job.
v2 is V. NICE and does it's job well and is starting to look darn good too. Once you've finished it I think you should definitely consider charging $5 for it. It's not alot to ask each person but it should give you a nice hefty amount over time, especially as MJ starts succeeding in it's plans for world domination.
Post by: Ilmar on June 18, 2002, 01:56:34 pm
Installed great! Won't give you all the niggles, I am sure you have your own task list!!
Stats:
Artists 542
Albums 1556
Track Array 23919
Thumbnails 832
Total time to create 14:26
Total Time to reload 00:40
Brilliant!
Ilmar
Post by: shelly on June 18, 2002, 05:30:49 pm
Dont' seem to be having much luck with the new version. It gets as far as adding treeview entries, opens to the treeview, but there are no entries and both the menubar and icons are greyed out. What now?
Shelly
Post by: JaredH on June 18, 2002, 07:01:12 pm
You were talking about having a few days with Neaderthalers computer and the amount of songs he had. If i remember correctly there was a thread not too long ago where someone, MachineHead ,if i remember correctly (please forgive me Machine if im wrong), posted that he had over 720GB of hd space and over 133000 songs in his database. Now i would like to get my hands on that for a few days. Its hard to imagine what kind of wonderful collection he has.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 18, 2002, 10:32:17 pm
1) I've seen that a couple of times but I haven't located the issue yet. I think it's to do with the remembering the last screen position.
2) Totally forget about the overview screen. The version you have is not how it's going to eventually look.
3) That is something I can do but not just now.
4) That's not implemented yet.
5) Can you show me a screenshot please.
6) That's not implemented yet.
7) I'll see if I can reproduce it.
8) Because there will be other items in there eventually.
9) That's not implemented yet.
10) Your screenshots didn't appear.
Ilmar:
Excellent ... I'm glad to hear it's more usable now. Out of interest how long did v1 take to load?
Shelly:
Can you email me a trace file please. Full instructions are in the README.
Jared:
I think the problem with having that many items is that you would never get round to listening to them all!
Post by: nila on June 18, 2002, 11:57:46 pm
It seems to have fixed itself (haven't done anything to the computer, not even restarted it. Just opened up MJ and it was working??
Cant wait till this is finished
.Good luck with it.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 19, 2002, 12:22:14 am
I have a sneaky suspicion this is an MJ issue as I have noticed it as well. After I have created the AV database all tracks are fine, then after a while of opening/closing MJ (without doing any adds/deletes/updates) suddenly all the track information is wrong. For an album all I store in my database is index offsets within the MJ search list ... and if this is returned differently from when I first created the AV database that would explain what is happening.
I tried to verify this last night but I couldn't reproduce it ... I will spend more time on it tonight.
But if this is the case then I will have to abandon AV
Let's hope it's not!
Post by: dave on June 19, 2002, 05:01:31 am
Any thoughts on adding a right click menu, so if you highlight and album there could be a play choice, add to playing now, etc... also a list such as play track #x on right click would be cool.
thank
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 19, 2002, 05:08:55 am
Thats sort of stuff is in the released version (v1) and will be in v2 when it gets to alpha/beta stage.
Post by: bobS on June 19, 2002, 05:16:09 am
It would seem that a clean API to a playback engine would be the simplest part of your brilliant album-view-centric efforts. Why not drop MJ entirely, avoid its 'mysteries', and produce a stand alone product? Seems like some users enjoy participating and contributing to a pure technical approach. Why not go for it?
Post by: nila on June 19, 2002, 05:36:39 am
If there was a problem I'm sure you could speak to Matt or one of the other programmers and they'd be willing to help you sort it out by tweaking a few lines of code so that MJ worked with AV. I'm pretty sure I remember a few of them saying they use it.
Post by: shelly on June 19, 2002, 06:30:35 am
Shelly
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 19, 2002, 09:12:51 am
I have proved that MJ is returning a random sequence of tracks from it's database when using the Search function
I have notified J River of the issue and am awaiting their response.
Post by: henry on June 19, 2002, 10:49:22 am
Software is VERY hard to test and fully debug.
The only method ever proven to work is intensive peer review and open code.
I'll wager JRiver has spent as much time attemping to write, and re-write, bug-proof buy, license, and license restore code as the core jukebox code!
Wish someone could figure out a better way to compensate those like JRiver and RhinoBanga for their efforts.
Any ideas?
I had three. 1- Donations, 2- Limited embedded advertisements/promotions, 3- Subscritions to online help and tutorials (maybe $5 per month). The last is particularly interesting for those who enjoy the technical learning/enabling process as much as the actual playing of music.
JMHO ... flame away!!
Post by: sekim on June 23, 2002, 03:06:30 am
Have you made any headway into this problem? I've kind of stayed away from the use of the plug-in until further progress has been made. But, I am certainly looking forward to the finished product as much as I did of MJ 8.
Jared,
I think you must have meant KingSparta. He is the reigning 'King' of file mongership. I too would like to have collection that large some day.
henry,
Options 1 & 3 may be plausible. But the advertising is ICKY at best. People go to a lot of trouble to keep ads off of their computers.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 23, 2002, 03:37:14 am
Yes ... the issue has been worked around thanks to Matt with little (or no) loss of performance
I will be back onto AV starting next week ... this weekend I have being adding more stuff to a program I wrote for a friend.
Also since people seem so keen to send me money I am going to setup a PayPal account and people can donate whatever they want. Hopefully I can get enough to get myself nice big HDD to keep all my MP3's on
Post by: sekim on June 23, 2002, 03:50:31 am
This being the case, is the current link at the top of the page good to go as far as latest mule?
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 23, 2002, 03:52:58 am
Post by: sekim on June 23, 2002, 04:12:24 am
Post by: nila on June 23, 2002, 02:50:43 pm
I was just gonna post a message asking what was happening with it.
Small favour - can you start a new thread for your new build. This one is getting a bit long winded to put it mildly.
Plus, it'll be easier to keep track of the bugs etc in the latest build if you start a new thread for it.
Good luck proggin.
Gotta say, Matt is a bit of a Gem. Gotta love the guy.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 24, 2002, 01:41:15 am
Don't expect anything different from the version you have with the exception of the sorting issue ... but I am working on it this week so should have the Overview screen done by the weekend.
Post by: nila on June 24, 2002, 07:47:12 am
any ETA for the working version of 2?
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 24, 2002, 09:08:17 am
I am only getting 2 hrs an evening and 10hrs at the weekend to work on it.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 24, 2002, 11:52:32 am
I have just uploaded another test version for you to play with.
It fixes the sort issue as well as implements more stuff in the Album Details screen.
I will start a new thread when I upload something more substantial.
Post by: KingSparta on June 24, 2002, 11:58:16 am
You Don't Need To Spend Time With the Wife And Kids Do You?
That Should Be Optional.
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 24, 2002, 12:16:32 pm
Post by: shelly on June 24, 2002, 07:11:07 pm
I was hoping for a miracle! But, the thumbnails still don't display and the menus continue to be greyed out. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling but no luck.
Shelly
Post by: RhinoBanga on June 25, 2002, 01:18:19 am
I am totally bamboozled ... I tried your DB here and everything was fine.
What OS you running?
Can you post a small screenshot of what AV looks like with the menu's greyed out.
I saw a similar problem once on my W2K server machine but I fixed it.
Post by: shelly on June 25, 2002, 03:01:53 am
I posted the screenshot in the new thread.
Shelly