INTERACT FORUM
Networks and Remotes => Remotes => Topic started by: Hendrik on December 04, 2019, 04:47:37 am
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Over the last year we've been working on an all-new JRemote for Android, dubbed JRemote2.
Today, we're finally ready to officially announce its release! Some of you may have already found it on the Play Store and followed its Beta, but now its official!
This thread is about JRemote for Android only. iOS will continue to use the app it currently has, which Bob is maintaining.
Lets get to important things first:
Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jriver.jremote2
If you sign-up for the beta, you'll receive early updates, but be warned that we may be testing changes in Beta which may not be 100% proven yet. You can always opt-out of the Beta again in the future.
Beta Sign-up: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.jriver.jremote2
JRemote2 is available for $9.99 on the Play Store now.
The history of JRemote for Android, or, Why JRemote2?
JRemote was created back in 2015 by Lespaul, after he joined JRiver and we acquired JRemote for iOS from him. Unfortunately, he left JRiver before JRemote for Android was ever fully finished, at which point I was asked to salvage it and get it out to you guys. Unfortunately, being thrown nose first into the deep-end of a foreign code-base is not a good situation under the best of circumstances, and I wasn't exactly an experienced Android developer at the time either (and Android in 2015 was also in a much different place then it is today). Eventually we did produce a working JRemote for Android, at least I've been using it almost daily for years now, but it was never what it could've been.
Jump to six months ago, when Jim asked me to look into some of the reported issues in JRemote, my first step was to bring it up to date to the latest Android kit, at which point I already noticed that it hadn't aged well at all. While many of the development concepts used in JRemote were still very similar to what has become the standard today, the implementation was not. JRemote used a dozen or so third-party libraries, many of which had disappeared over the years - often because Google had created something similar for every Android developer out of the box. It didn't take me long to decide that it would be better to start almost from scratch.
JRemote2 is born
JRemote2 was created practically from scratch. The only thing I did re-use is the UI design, for one I think as a starting-point it was solid, and it makes the app feel familiar.
Everything else is new. Not a single line of code was simply copied. JRemote2 is written in Kotlin instead of Java, which has a lot of advantages, including crash-safety and a faster turn-around on new features, and I used all new modern Android development concepts and libraries, based on Android JetPack, a toolkit from Google to make modern apps.
Audio and Video Playback now uses Google's ExoPlayer2, which is far more capable then the default MediaPlayer JRemote used previously, this means we can support lossless FLAC up to 192/32, including gapless playback. And its extensible, which might allow us to add more native formats, and add some core DSP features like Volume Leveling in the future.
One key focus of JRemote2 is to make it reliable over all else, and hopefully we can deliver on that. Features that do get built-in should function reliably, and the app should ideally never crash.
What can you expect?
JRemote2 is still in full development, but we are confident that in the majority of cases JRemote2 is a solid replacement for JRemote and/or Gizmo. But be assured that we're not done with it yet, and many additional features are planned over the course of 2020.
Overall we're pretty confident about JRemote2, as it has shown a much better stability and responsiveness than the previous app, and additional features will be worked on over the coming weeks.
Current Features:
- Local Playback of Video and Audio streamed from Media Center
- Native Audio Playback for MP3, M4A AAC, FLAC (Gapless!), OggVorbis
- Remote control Media Center
- Play Doctor
- CloudPlay
- ChromeCast
- TheaterView Remote, known from Gizmo
- SSL support
- Preliminary Metadata Display
While the current feature list may seem short, those are the key foundation features that everything else eventually builds up on.
Coming Soon:
- Image Support
- Improved Landscape and Tablet Layouts
- Full Playlist integration, with edit capabilities
And finally, Planned Features for 2020:
- Volume Leveling
- Streaming Improvements
- Newer audio formats, AAC for lossy, investigate Lossless transcoding (FLAC transcoded streaming?)
- Improved video streaming - more control, higher quality, avoid transcoding if possible
- Streaming Live TV
- Most Importantly: Your Feedback
- .. and things I haven't even thought of, yet, or forgot when writing this list!
Feedback
We strongly rely on your feedback to make JRemote better. No single person will ever use every aspect of JRemote extensively, and everyone has different priorities of what it should do. So please do let us know!
For the time being, please keep in mind however that its still very much in-development, and this is a first look. :)
Known Issues / Missing Features
- The Search view in the Nav Drawer is not implemented yet
- Playlists cannot be "linked" to Playing Now yet, so you can't reload a playlist.
- Modifying Playlists, other then the Playing Now list itself, is not implemented yet
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JRemote 2.3.0 (02/04/2021)
1. NEW: Selecting the audio/subtitle language during video playback on JRemote2 (requires Media Center 27.0.61 or newer)
2. Changed: HLS Video Streaming is enabled by default.
JRemote 2.2.0 (09/08/2020)
1. Fixed: JRemote2 will properly refresh the CloudPlay login if it expired or becomes invalid.
2. NEW: Support for native ALAC playback.
3. Changed: Moved Play Mode from the action bar to the "kebab" overflow menu, with icons and proper selection list.
4. Changed: Play Mode is saved on a per-view basis similar to the view mode, allowing eg. audio views to default to Play All and video views to Play Single.
5. NEW: Added server system control commands (Shutdown, Restart, Sleep).
6. Changed: Casting to ChromeCast supports longer playlists.
7. NEW: Improved video streaming to ChromeCast with Media Center 27.
8. NEW: Optional HLS video streaming when playing locally for more reliable playback (requires Media Center 27).
9. Changed: In local playback, the "Previous" button behaves in a CD-player style, returning to the beginning of the track on a single click, and to the previous track on double click or when near the beginning.
10. Changed: Increased the height of the video seekbar touch area for better control.
JRemote 2.1.0 (04/10/2020)
1. NEW: Full CloudPlay support (requires Media Center 26.0.52 or newer)
2. NEW: Theater View Remote
3. Fixed: Saving Rating changes was not working properly
JRemote 2.0.9 (01/16/2020)
1. NEW: Implemented Wake-on-LAN
2. Changed: Added a long-click popup on the server list, which allows editing/deleting/waking servers.
3. Fixed: Resolved an issue that prevented JRemote2 from starting on Android 4.x.
4. Fixed: Repeated attempts to connect to a server would silently fail, instead of actually re-trying.
5. Changed: The Playlist navigation will no longer skip empty levels.
6. Changed: With MC 26.0.17 or newer, JRemote will avoid the default placeholder images for playlists or library folders.
7. Fixed: Adjusted the visibility of the fast scroll popup in the dark skin, and made the entire popup bigger.
JRemote 2.0.8 (01/10/2020)
1. NEW: Native OggVorbis playback support.
2. NEW: Google Cast support.
3. Changed: Hardware Volume keys can be used to control volume when remote controlling a Media Center instance.
4. NEW: Improved Fast Scrolling in Library and Track views, with Alphabet popup in Library views.
5. Fixed: "Screen Always On" now works as expected.
6. Fixed: JRemote could resume on the Playing Now screen when returning from Standby instead of the last location.
7. Fixed: Video duration is properly shown on Playing Now for local playback.
JRemote 2.0.7 (12/06/2019)
1. Fixed: Using the refresh button in library views would result in icons to be shrinking.
2. Changed: Internal changes to how the Playing Now view is being handled, please report any problems.
3. Changed: Enabled access to the navigation drawer from Playing Now.
4. Changed: Updated the navigation drawer for better support for Android 10.
5. Changed: The Playing Now layout has been updated according to forum feedback.
6. Changed: The name of the current server is shown in the Zone dialog and next to the zone name in Playing Now.
JRemote 2.0.6 (12/04/2019)
1. NEW: View Metadata of individual Tracks.
2. NEW: Support for JSON File Lists for better performance and support for longer lists (requires Media Center 26.0.9 or up).
3. Fixed: Stability improvements and glitch fixes.
JRemote 2.0.5 (11/27/2019)
1. Changed: Significant performance improvements when loading a long list of tracks.
2. Fixed: Stability improvements.
3. Changed: Faster connection to servers if mutliple IPs are available and not all are reachable.
4. Fixed: The Navigation Drawer opens much more consistently and predictably.
5. Changed: Increased the responsiveness of "App follows Sever Zones" in combination with ZoneSwitch.
6. NEW: Implemented the Edit Server dialog.
7. NEW: SSL/TLS support.
JRemote 2.0.4 (11/21/2019)
1. Changed: The Zone selector dialog refreshes the zone list on show, and has a manual refresh button.
2. Changed: Closing Playing Now will always restore the Main Activity, even if it wasn't open before (eg. when coming from the notification)
3. Fixed: Remote Controlled Playback uses Error Free Mode to avoid popup dialogs on the server.
4. Changed: Using the "Back" key on the root view will open the Drawer, and close JRemote on another "Back" press, instead of closing directly.
5. Fixed: Stability and responsiveness improvements.
JRemote 2.0.3 (11/20/2019)
1. Changed: Updated to ExoPlayer 2.10.8, fixing an issue detecting certain FLAC files.
2. Changed: The Notification is dismissable when playback is paused, which will stop and shutdown the player.
3. Changed: The current JRemote2 version is shown in the top of the navigation drawer.
4. Fixed: When streaming video, Playing Now would claim its receiving MP3.
5. Changed: The keyboard is automatically hidden on the Add Server screen, and no longer obscures any error messages.
6. NEW: Cover Art in the Notification
7. Changed: Enabled horizontal text scrolling (marquee effect) on Playing Now and the artist field in the track list header.
JRemote 2.0.2 (11/19/2019)
1. NEW: Play Doctor support
2. Fixed: Server List would show one corrupted entry
JRemote 2.0.1 (11/19/2019)
- Initial Internal Beta Release
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I've collected a few common requests that'll be worked on in the near future:
- Volume keys when remote controlling MC (they already work for local playback) (done)
- Indication which server you are currently connected to (done)
- Improved scrolling in long lists (the current grabbable quick-scroll bar is too small, and no alphabet display) (done)
- Option to disable ratings (also, changing the ratings in Playing Now doesnt work yet)
- Playlist views (and others) show the ugly default folder icon in their header (done)
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Congratulations on this milestone! JRemote2 has been incredibly stable in my testing, and can play all my native FLAC files on my phone regardless if they're 16/44.1 to 24/192 (which other remotes can't go beyond 16/44.1 but JRemote2 can on my phone, thanks to ExoPlayer2 no doubt).
I've collected a few common requests that'll be worked on in the near future:
- Volume keys when remote controlling MC (they already work for local playback)
- Indication which server you are currently connected to
- Improved scrolling in long lists (the current grabbable quick-scroll bar is too small, and no alphabet display)
- Option to disable ratings (also, changing the ratings in Playing Now doesnt work yet)
- Playlist views (and others) show the ugly default folder icon in their header
Yes please to all of those.
I'll post my revised feedback and feature requests lists...
Feedback:
1) What do the refresh/reload buttons do? Sometimes I add new stuff to my library, but they don't show up in JRemote2 unless I force quit the app and reopen it. I thought the refresh/reload buttons might fix that but they don't seem to do anything, as far as I can tell, hence my question. Like I add a new album for an existing artist in my library, in JRemote2 go to the artist I added a new album to, and look at the albums list. The newly added album isn't in the list and I press the refresh/reload button at the top right, and it doesn't make the new album appear. So the button there kinda confuses me to its purpose. If that's not how it works, having a feature that does this seems like a good idea to me, IMO.
Feature Requests:
1) Option to allow the Previous |< button in Now Playing to restart the current track instead of going to the previous track. Double pressing the Previous |< button could then be used to go back to the previous track. This would really come in handy and would address my biggest annoyance right now, trying to restart the currently playing track but instead after pressing Previous it goes to the previous track. Right now I have to try to use the seekbar to restart the track (which usually doesn't work too well, as I tend to 'restart' tracks a couple seconds into the track).
2) Have Settings and perhaps My Servers shortcuts in the three-dot menu in Now Playing.
3) Option to remember the current Playing Now list between runs (aka option to store the local playlist between runs).
4) Screen always on setting added (or amend the existing one for video) to work with audio during the playback of audio. I guess I could also see the use case for an option to always have the screen on regardless of playback state, for those who create a little system using an Android phone/tablet as a navigation/progress/control device. I do admit, creating something like this is rather tempting.
Out of all of these, the first one and the third ones are the most important to me (but first one over the third, easily). Like a bonehead, I keep making the mistake of trying to replay the currently playing track by pressing the |< (previous) button, only for it to play the previous song and not restarting the currently playing track... then I have to facepalm at my mistake at doing it once again. I guess I'll never learn, huh? :-X Also I've also noticed if you only have one song in your Playing Now list, the |< button doesn't actually do anything (neither does the >| next button for that matter) but I'm not sure if that's intended. They should at least do something, right?
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Thanks Hendrick for the update, and for re-creating/polishing this up... MUCH APPRECIATED!
few bugs/wishes from other thread, of things ive notcied/would enjoy seeing.
bugs/wishes:
1. editing of servers does not work/nor ability to rename servers
6. no sleep timer
7. no widget for homescreen
8. ability to adjust volume increments by 1% instead of 5 in original jremote/first volume button / media volume seems too loud for lowest setting
9. no ratings/or editable ratings on video playback
Thank you
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1) What do the refresh/reload buttons do? Sometimes I add new stuff to my library, but they don't show up in JRemote2 unless I force quit the app and reopen it. I thought the refresh/reload buttons might fix that but they don't seem to do anything, as far as I can tell, hence my question. Like I add a new album for an existing artist in my library, in JRemote2 go to the artist I added a new album to, and look at the albums list. The newly added album isn't in the list and I press the refresh/reload button at the top right, and it doesn't make the new album appear. So the button there kinda confuses me to its purpose. If that's not how it works, having a feature that does this seems like a good idea to me, IMO.
The Reload button works, however MC caches the view structures for a bit (a minute at most, IIRC), so when you work on your server and then immediately refresh in the app, it might not be there yet, but give it a minute or so and Reload should then work.
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8. ability to adjust volume increments by 1% instead of 5 in original jremote/first volume button / media volume seems to loud for lowest setting
The volume increments for on-device playback are controlled by the device itself. I just display it as 0-100%, but for the device it might be 0-20 or such (depends on the device, I ask it for the range and translate that to 0-100), and you don't get any more granularity. :(
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The Reload button works, however MC caches the view structures for a bit (a minute at most, IIRC), so when you work on your server and then immediately refresh in the app, it might not be there yet, but give it a minute or so and Reload should then work.
Ahh, gotcha. I'll have to add something new in and test that.
1. editing of servers does not work/nor ability to rename servers
This works for me. Does the EDIT button not work? I'm able to press EDIT and change the name and server details. Do note I'm using IP addresses, not access keys so maybe that's different?
Since you brought it up, here's a thought... why can't we set a server name as we're setup the server (via access key or IP address) when adding the server details - something like a Server Name field under the Access Key field (for access key method) or the Server address or IP and Port (for IP address) fields?
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Since you brought it up, here's a thought... why can't we set a server name as we're setup the server (via access key or IP address) when adding the server details (a server name field somewhere, maybe at top or below authentication details)?
Honestly, because most people won't need that. It'll query the name from your server on first connection, and only if you need various different ones would you ever want to set a specific name, I reckon.
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editing of servers/rename....must have just been fixed recently.... was not working on S7, and i was using access keys.
TY!
Hendrick just an FYI.. on physical media/volume buttons, when loading EOS, and pressing volume down button on the S7 it would be MUCH lower for me on EOS, then Gizmo or jremote. Not sure why... but the lowest setting was considerably lower on the SAME device.
EDIT....(i dont have a different/newer device @ this time to test,)
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editing of servers/rename....must have just been fixed recently.... was not working on S7, and i was using access keys.
Yep, it was added in 2.0.5. It works great now. :)
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TY Awesome Donkey
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Thank you, Hendrik!
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The Reload button works, however MC caches the view structures for a bit (a minute at most, IIRC), so when you work on your server and then immediately refresh in the app, it might not be there yet, but give it a minute or so and Reload should then work.
I have a view that shows albums in random order, which I like to use when I haven't decided what to listen to. I thought the reload button just didn't work, but now I see I have to wait a minute or so and it will give me a new list. It would be nice if reload first cleared the cache (or if there was an option to make this happen).
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I have a view that shows albums in random order, which I like to use when I haven't decided what to listen to. I thought the reload button just didn't work, but now I see I have to wait a minute or so and it will give me a new list. It would be nice if reload first cleared the cache (or if there was an option to make this happen).
The Cache is in MC, can't influence that on the apps side, unfortunately. We recently already changed it to clear itself after a minute, instead of being stuck until MC restarts.
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The Cache is in MC, can't influence that on the apps side, unfortunately. We recently already changed it to clear itself after a minute, instead of being stuck until MC restarts.
It must be a cache specifically for remote views, as reloading a view with a random order within MC works immediately. So could another change to MC be clearing the cache in response to a request from the remote?
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Playlists which are larger than 10,000 Tracks don`t work!
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The metadata display is great, and it's fantastic to see the date fields display correctly. I realize that only non-empty tags are displayed. On a particular track, under Copyright I see Date with a value of 43101 and below that Date with a value of 2018. Looking at the same tags in MC I see "Date" with a value of 2018, and below that a non-editable tag "Date (filename friendly)" with a value of 20180101-000000.
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Playlists which are larger than 10,000 Tracks don`t work!
So make them shorter :)
Or make a smartlist that provides a small random excerpt of the bigger list.
And there is no inherent limit to how big playlists can be, another user just tested a playlist with 111.000 entries and it was fine for him. The only reason it would fail is if your phone runs out of memory.
With JRemote 2.0.6 and MC26, the performance should also improve significantly and allow larger lists.
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hmmmm.... it seems ..i need a Tablet with more than 3 Gigs of RAM
but i have only Ver. MC 25.0.114, but i bought the Key for MC26!
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MC26 will be available by mid-December.
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The metadata display is great, and it's fantastic to see the date fields display correctly. I realize that only non-empty tags are displayed. On a particular track, under Copyright I see Date with a value of 43101 and below that Date with a value of 2018. Looking at the same tags in MC I see "Date" with a value of 2018, and below that a non-editable tag "Date (filename friendly)" with a value of 20180101-000000.
The Date field with 43101 is not formatted yet, for some reason MC has two ways to present dates, I'll add formatting to that.
The second one is probably cut-off by its name, not sure yet what to do about cut-off field names here. The "filename friendly" field is probably not included at all, since its a calculated field.
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1) Great work, I like how responsive it is.
2) REQUEST: It would really be nice to be able to set a default zone for startup. I will almost always want to play to the device but occasionally directly to my AVR. Doing this turns on the AVR and starts blasting music through the house even if I'm not there. I know it is my fault and I'm asking you to protect me from myself. MO4media allows this and it has saved me a couple times I'm sure.
3) I never used the first JRemote but I think it is weird UI to have the volume slider next to the player controls and the time elapsed bar (which can be used to fast forward and rewind) at the top.
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3) I never used the first JRemote but I think it is weird UI to have the volume slider next to the player controls and the time elapsed bar (which can be used to fast forward and rewind) at the top.
I kinda agree with this, it's kinda hard dealing with the seekbar on the top (along with the Song Title - Artist - Album info but you do get used to it. I could live with an option hiding the volume slider (and moving the seekbar into that position) since I personally don't have a use for it.
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I believe this layout was chosen because JRemote for iOS uses it. But I generally agree, the seek bar on top feels weird, it should be at the bottom with the controls, and either leave the top empty, or use the space to show a bit more text.
But where does the volume go? Stay where it is, below the controls (maybe shrink it in height a bit), and seek bar on top of the controls? Maybe a speaker icon with a popup thing? Not sure how well that would work. Or no volume bar, and rely on the buttons only, like many other player apps tend to do?
I'm open to suggestions here, better to change it now then later, and right now all the layout was mostly just taken from the old JRemote, which was based roughly on JRemote for iOS.
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I'm fine with just the buttons that is what I tend to use anyway. I'm also usually playing from widgets so volume isn't even an option.
Perhaps some kind of small indicator like phone reception bars to show roughly where the level is at if people really need it.
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Thank you so much for the effort being put into this! :)
As it stands, the volume control is terrible compared to the first release of JRemote for Android though.
The phone or tablet volume toggle switch does not control playback volume in a zone on MC like it did so well in the original JRemote for Android with 1% increments which were great. It gave a very sophisticated way to adjust internal volume when played back on a hi-fi system.
With the large 7% increments you can get get clicks through the hi-fi and it's pretty awful and clunky.
When playing to "This device" in Jremote2 (something that I don't do other than for this test) the switch works to slide both the Android "Media volume" and JRemote2 slider simultaneously (with those 7% jumps which seems OK on the phone actually), but when controlling a zone on MC, the only way to adjust the volume using the phone is with the screen slider that more often than not just swipes the screen left.
It would be great to see it reverted to the most brilliant way that it worked in the first version and with 1% increments when controlling MC zones.
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+1... I'd prefer seekbar on bottom (near player cntrls) vol on top as well. (didnt notice this.. have only ran jremote2 video library so far, upon going to audio then i noticed it.)
also just an fyi... Volume...had time to play w/ jremote2 and eos today, and i can confirm (not sure about others w/ other devices/non Galaxy S7) but when in eos and using volume keys/side of phone, your 1st YOL up. one can barely hear the audio, next click tad louder, when using jremote. it's considerably louder from a mute/off volume postion to the 1st vol up click. (not sure if this can be fixed, or if im the only experiencing it.. but seems 2b issue from my tests)
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also to add.. i just opened playerPro (app that plays media files on device) and volume was different from EOS and Jremote2. It seems like each media app hardkey volume button pres up. is different... player pro/eos... takes about 2-3 volume up clicks to hear audio quietly. (bout 4-5 clicks to = jremotes first volume click.)
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On my Sony Xperia XZ Premium, Android 9.
I don't mind the layout the way it is, but I could live with a change if others hate it.
I would not like to have two bars down the bottom, being the Seekbar and volume slider. The current layout separation makes it possible to use either control with fat fingers. So if you move the Seekbar down, you must be able to (optionally?) turn off the volume slider display, and the physical buttons must control volume on a connected MC Server. Of course, then I would lose the volume % display, which would be annoying... Maybe leave a speaker icon somewhere, with a % volume display overlaid?
When I play on the Sony, my physical volume buttons control the volume and a volume slider pops out from the right, which has "fine" control. This is good. The Pop-out also has a musical note symbol, which when tapped mutes the volume, and when tapped again, returns the volume to its previous value. I think the JRemote2 speaker symbol to the left of the volume slider should work the same way. See image. If the volume slider was turned off or removed, and a visible speaker icon displaying the % was retained, then tapping that should mute/unmute volume, as above.
As explained above:
The volume increments for on-device playback are controlled by the device itself. I just display it as 0-100%, but for the device it might be 0-20 or such (depends on the device, I ask it for the range and translate that to 0-100), and you don't get any more granularity. :(
So the smallest volume increments in JRemote2 depend on the number of increments the Android device provides, and that is rounded up to a 0 - 100% scale. It appears that my Sony uses 30 increments, as each increment in JRemote2 is 3.333333%. i.e. It needs three steps to go from 50 to 60%, showing 50-53-56-60%. So if the volume increments 7% with one click, that means the device only has 15 increments based on the hardware buttons.
However, if controlling an external MC installation, then the number of volume increments on the device should not matter. Or at least it sounds like the original JRemote for Android, EOS, and Player Pro worked out how to do smaller increments on an external device. I would like that when controlling volume on a MC installation. So I guess I support this:
It would be great to see it reverted to the most brilliant way that it worked in the first version and with 1% increments when controlling MC zones.
If that needs to be driven by the Volume Slider, the layout becomes an important issue for me again. So, the answer depends on what is possible in controlling a MC installation with the physical buttons.
PS: I note that the volume slider can control the volume of a MC installation in 1% increments.
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When remote controlling MC there is definitely no limit on the volume granularity - other then your finger precision on the bar. It should offer full 1% step precision. Of course as mentioned it doesn't actually accept hardware keys right now, but thats a seperate topic.
The precision limit only applies to the on-device player, as it doesn't even take a percentage, it takes an "index", which goes from 0 to max, and when max is 30, then you only get 30 steps.
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Here is an example with the seekbar at the bottom (on top of the buttons, as that makes more sense to me), and volume on top
(https://i.imgur.com/D2IiLLa.jpg)
How does that look? Feels already better to me.
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Indeed, feels much better. Though personally I don't need the volume controls (my Android phone's on-screen controls are pretty good) so being able to hide it would be great.
But honestly the *only* other thing, which just feels weird about the layout to me, is the track title, artist and album at the very top. Typically in the majority of Android media players (e.g. every one of them I've tried including Poweramp and Neutron), the information (using your mockup above as an example) is usually always right below the album art display. Personally, I like it like this...
Track Title
Artist - Album
Elapsed Time Track Number of Track Total Time Remaining
Seekbar
Yes, this would likely use up some of the space (likely for the album art or the volume controls if hidden) but this would be worth it to me. This way you have room for more buttons at the top if desired or you could use that area to put the current server indication.
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Typically in the majority of Android media players (e.g. every one of them I've tried including Poweramp and Neutron), the information (using your mockup above as an example) is usually always right below the album art display. I think right below the album art it should go like this...
For the record, the Google Play Music player is just exactly like JRemote in this regard.. :D
The problem with taking too much space from the cover art is that it'll shrink and leave room on the sides. I could set it to be cut-off instead and always fill the full horizontal space, but in tests that also looked weird.
As an alternative I could test making the top controls translucent, or at least the rating bar and the two control buttons, and have that overlay the cover art, but at least the rating stars might stand out too much and ruin it (stupid rating stars)
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For the record, the Google Play Music player is just exactly like JRemote in this regard.. :D
Yuck! Well, Google isn't known for their great designs. :P
The only alternative idea I have is to move that top bar containing the track information and the three button menu to the bottom. Neutron has something like this, so it'd work for me too. The X close button is a bit of a potential issue, if it's moved to the bottom too it could get accidentally pressed when using other controls. I suppose leave it at the top with the other buttons and ratings or something? If the rating stars are hidden, then having translucent controls wouldn't be an issue. Stupid rating stars indeed.
(https://i.imgur.com/kkxR2l8.png)
EDIT: In my screenshot of Neutron above, I see a couple translucent controls on the album art including an X close button. Odd place to put that indeed.
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I would want to keep the top toolbar, as the top left close/back button is pretty standard android UX. I wonder how it would look if I ban the rating to up there?
In fact, it looks decent to me:
(https://i.imgur.com/Z3vyLvJ.jpg)
Thoughts?
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Works for me! :D
Plus the room at the top could come in useful in the future, e.g. new buttons and whatnot. Could potentially even add the current server info at the top too like move the rating stars slightly up to put the server info under it? Or even above the rating stars, I'm not sure which would look better in that case.
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I think server info above the rating stars (with the stars moved down towards the bottom part of the top bar) looks pretty good. Here's a quick 10 second mockup mod of yours I did with how it'd look if I was using it with my Pi server...
(https://i.imgur.com/aCDxmaS.png)
That... actually looks rather good.
EDIT: I did a second quick mockup (for the fun of it) to see how it'd be like to have the Elapsed Time/Track Number of Track Total/Time Remaining fields above the seekbar instead of below. I'm not sure if it looks better or not like that even though I'm personally leaning towards liking it because it *does* make sense to me with the song title/artist - album fields above it. On the other hand I can see how leaving it alone gives more room above and below from accidentally hitting another button when seeking, so it doesn't matter to me which way it goes in that case.
(https://i.imgur.com/PzAjeiD.png)
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EDIT: I did a second quick mockup (for the fun of it) to see how it'd be like to have the Elapsed Time/Track Number of Track Total/Time Remaining fields above the seekbar instead of below. I'm not sure if it looks better or not like that even though I'm personally leaning towards liking it.
The reason I put it below it was to give a bit more space between the touch interactive elements of the seekbar and the control buttons, to reduce accidental clicking.
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The reason I put it below it was to give a bit more space between the touch interactive elements of the seekbar and the control buttons, to reduce accidental clicking.
I literally added that conclusion to my post above after looking at it more, hahaha. :P If it was switched around, you'd have more of a chance accidentally clicking the zone and player controls buttons than how it'd be if it was left alone. So it makes sense leaving that as-is when taking that into consideration because it adds about equal distance of "padding" between the shuffle/repeat and zone/player control buttons to avoid accidental presses.
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Before you start moving much around, we should probably have a general discussion of how remote interfaces should work. I've been thinking about our other remotes, as well. It would be nice if there was some consistency among them.
And it should probably be in a separate thread.
Home and Back are the most important navigation buttons for me. I'd like to see them in that order in the upper left corner.
Theater View works by using the left arrow key on a remote or keyboard to back up.
The X in JRemote2 gets used as a back button sometimes, doesn't it?
Brad and I have had a discussion about whether the "standard" Android navigation is right or even standard. No conclusion so far.
I'll split this to a new thread.
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I'd also like to have a Playing Now icon available on every screen, or at least most screens. It's hard to find now.
So, my recommendation is to have icons like this:
[Home] [Back] [Icon1] [Icon2] [Playing Now]
where Icon1 and 2 are used as needed.
I think it's important that we make the navigation reasonably consistent across JRemote2, Panel, JRiver for Android, Gizmo, etc.
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You can access Playing Now from every screen already, just click the Player Bar at the bottom.
And JRemote really has no "home" screen, because thats the drawer, which you can access by swiping.
The Toolbar is actually quite limited, you can only fit so many icons on there, and the ChromeCast Icon is still missing, which already maxes it out, it literally has no room to hold 7 icons or such without doing a full custom job (which I'm very much against, since the chromecast component for example holds a lot of logic that only works with the default toolbar) - and you also can't put any icons in the front except the default back/up icon.
I think its more important to fit into the Android scheme then trying to force some unity between different remotes, when most people are only ever going to use one. And a Phone UI and a In-Browser UI have quite different design goals.
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I would want to keep the top toolbar, as the top left close/back button is pretty standard android UX. I wonder how it would look if I ban the rating to up there?
In fact, it looks decent to me:
(https://i.imgur.com/Z3vyLvJ.jpg)
Thoughts?
In this example it would be fantastic to have an option to remove shuffle and repeat and give the track name the full width of the screen. When playing classical music the name never fits the space allocated and has to scroll. And when playing classical music you're almost never going to use the shuffle or repeat controls.
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In Panel, the shuffle and repeat buttons are located in the three button menu, but I actually use those buttons so hiding could be optional.
JRemote already kinda follows Panel in basic ways, with a player bar on the bottom (playing now is accessible by clicking on the player bar at the bottom in both JRemote and Panel). Having a dedicated back button seems redundant since Android devices already either include a hardware back button or an on-screen back button so it'd be overlapping the same function. It makes sense in Panel since it runs primarily in a web browser (and doesn't really have 'access' to the hardware/on-screen button on touch screen devices because of the web browser) but doesn't make sense in an actual Android app.
I suppose you could change the X close button in playing now to a back button because it basically already does the same thing.
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just my .2
i been using playerpro for local files on droid, and have really gotten use to/liked their layouts/options galore.
here are some screenshots of their layout to give u guys more ideas
Personally i like the ratings/shuffle/repeat...use them almost daily. (notice in player pro, they do not have option to 5 star in playing now, but do in homescreen widget, i like the ratings feature in jremote playing now...allows for quickly sync'n back to server.
another really neat feature in player pro/which i use almost daily.. is to play a genre/playlist on shuffle, once i hear something i like, then one can chose to "go to artist" then disable shuffle, and play everything from that artist next in your playlist/see screens 2 get idea.
EDITED: i'm still on version 21 of jriver.. but i guess it would be similar to theaterview for jriver... once you drill down to a artist/movie/etc then you can click on artist-Actor/director/series and jriver in theaterview will show you everything thats available with those Artist/s in the currently playing media... it's like a super shortcut...saves alot of time for us users...GREAT feature.
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I'm personally not a fan of the larger player controls and lack of a stop button. Having larger player controls will most definitely eat into the cover art space area.
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The Shuffle/Repeat buttons are definitely not going away, although adding a few options to customize the layout of the Playing Now page is definitely possible, so you can hide the ratings, or the shuffle/repeat buttons.
For the X in Playing Now, I don't really care if its an X or a back arrow, it ultimately does the same thing. The reason its currently an X is because Playing Now is a seperate "action", a new screen which pops-up over the navigation screen, which you close again (which is also why the Drawer is not accessible there), instead of being a different screen you simply navigate to. But I've been thinking about changing that, primarily so that I can get the drawer working in there.
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awesome donkey, if you are talking about playerpro's larger playing now buttons Play/RWD/FWD.. i agree 100% and have thought the same thing since using it... wasted space/too big imho/they could fit more in there.
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For the X in Playing Now, I don't really care if its an X or a back arrow, it ultimately does the same thing. The reason its currently an X is because Playing Now is a seperate "action", a new screen which pops-up over the navigation screen, which you close again (which is also why the Drawer is not accessible there), instead of being a different screen you simply navigate to. But I've been thinking about changing that, primarily so that I can get the drawer working in there.
Yeah, if you get the drawer working there you could have the 3 line hamburger menu (to access the "home" drawer) and the back button at the top left. Should be enough space there to do it and still have space for the cursed ratings. :P
I guess adding a playing now button to all the screens (even though pressing on the player bar works) to the right of the search button (in between the search button and any other buttons) would help those who don't realize the player bar works like that. :P
Casting button would make sense next to the zone button in that regard. There should still be ample space between two buttons on the left and the player controls (with a little space between the two buttons, e.g. the amount of spacing used for player controls).
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Yeah, if you get the drawer working there you could have the 3 line hamburger menu (to access the "home" drawer) and the back button at the top left. Should be enough space there to do it and still have space for the cursed ratings. :P
Thats not possible. Its either hamburger or back, the Android toolbar component doesn't allow you both. Playing Now doesn't currently use a standard toolbar, which is already some trouble, so when I move it over to the standard toolbar, I would have to figure out some new way to get the ratings up there.
Old JRemote always showed the hamburger, and never the back arrow, so you had to rely on the devices back arrow, but personally I wasn't a fan of that. And Google decided to drop software buttons in Android 10 and rely on awful gestures instead, not sure that'll stick, since its really terrible, but for now I rather keep the actual back arrow.
Casting button would make sense next to the zone button in that regard. There should still be ample space between two buttons on the left and the player controls (with a little space between the two buttons, e.g. the amount of spacing used for player controls).
The Android ChomeCast button belongs into the toolbar, and only there does the built-in widget actually work, because it shows/hides itself based on availability of cast devices, colors itself, and whatnot, a lot of magic I don't feel like re-creating just to put it somewhere else.
The main reason ChromeCast never worked perfectly in older app versions (both Gizmo and JRemote) is that I tried to do too much stuff manually, instead of just relying on built-in functionality. Cast changes too much, and pulling in an updated cast library is much easier then trying to figure out how I have to change the code.
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Thats not possible. Its either hamburger or back, the Android toolbar component doesn't allow you both. Playing Now doesn't currently use a standard toolbar, which is already some trouble, so when I move it over to the standard toolbar, I would have to figure out some new way to get the ratings up there.
Hamburger would be my preference then, since Android devices already have either the hardware or on-screen back buttons.
The Android ChomeCast button belongs into the toolbar, and only there does the built-in widget actually work, because it shows/hides itself based on availability of cast devices, colors itself, and whatnot, a lot of magic I don't feel like re-creating just to put it somewhere else.
Ooof, sounds like some black magic is needed. Disregard then, haha. :-X
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Hamburger would be my preference then, since Android devices already have either the hardware or on-screen back buttons.
Just wait until Android 10 :p
Presumably you can still turn the software back buttons back on, but by default all you get is awful gestures.
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Yeah, you can enable the 3 button navigation in Android 10. The idea or using gestures as a default in the OS is something I'm not looking forward to, but thankfully you can re-enable them (which I will).
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Just wait until Android 10 :p
Presumably you can still turn the software back buttons back on, but by default all you get is awful gestures.
I have Android 10 and the software back button does the same thing as the X in JRemote2. I do like the swipe up feature to get the list of open apps. Much easier than using the button for that.
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Definitely not a fan of default gestures in Android 10.
If JRemote2 had a "home" screen, would long pressing on a back button to go to it work? Going by what you said, I doubt it could open the drawer that way or even allow long pressing buttons to work in the toolbar at all. So disregard those ideas too. :P
Yeah, I can see how it can be frustrating, can't exactly have your cake and eat it too, huh?
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2.0.6 - Metadata
thanks for the Metadata screen. Would it be possible to display characters instead of what seems to be Unicode values in Filename and Image file location?
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How about using gestures for volume in addition to HW keys. E.g swipe up on top of cover image to increase volume and down to decrease.
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2.0.6 - Metadata
thanks for the Metadata screen. Would it be possible to display characters instead of what seems to be Unicode values in Filename and Image file location?
These are the actual values as reported by MC (and as MC gets them), nothing is being displayed wrongly. URLs cannot contain spaces, so your minimserver replaces spaces with *20.
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For the X in Playing Now, I don't really care if its an X or a back arrow, it ultimately does the same thing. The reason its currently an X is because Playing Now is a seperate "action", a new screen which pops-up over the navigation screen, which you close again (which is also why the Drawer is not accessible there), instead of being a different screen you simply navigate to. But I've been thinking about changing that, primarily so that I can get the drawer working in there.
If you come from a Windows background X means close.
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I would want to keep the top toolbar, as the top left close/back button is pretty standard android UX. I wonder how it would look if I ban the rating to up there?
In fact, it looks decent to me:
(https://i.imgur.com/Z3vyLvJ.jpg)
Thoughts?
I think that looks pretty good
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If you come from a Windows background X means close.
Indeed, and thats the difference I was trying to illustrate, because right now Playing Now is like a new window, you close it and get back to whats underneath. But it being its own window has certain problems, like for example you can't access the nav drawer from there. And of course in an Android world where everything is fullscreen, the difference of opening a new window or changing the content of the previous one is lost anyhow.
So I've been working on integrating Playing Now into the "main" window instead, which means the nav drawer will work, and the icon will automatically turn into a back arrow instead. It won't change how you interact with JRemote, but it should give a more consistent behavior. Now I just need to do the same for the Metadata view.
The only thing that'll remain a "popup window" is the fullscreen video player, since that requires some special stuff to be proper fullscreen.
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But I've been thinking about changing that, primarily so that I can get the drawer working in there.
I would like the drawer to be accessible in Playing Now. That could give access to more functions, settings, searching etc. while something is playing.
X does mean close to Windows users, and the current X does close the Playing Now screen. That is just a user learning curve. But I often use the Android back button to exit Playing Now anyway, in JRemote2 and other players, so changing the X to a <- make sense.
While the idea of a Home screen compared to the drawer acting as Home has some appeal, other players use the same concept. In Panel, a Home screen is necessary, because it is a browser application. In Android, not so much.
I much prefer the centre aligned Title and Artist - Album, wherever you place it. But please keep the scrolling, which covers the issue of long classical track names. If necessary, the Shuffle and Repeat buttons cold become translucent or fade to near invisible, but sit on top of long names and remain active.
BubbleUPnP must have built their own Chromecast icon then, as I noticed it puts the icon in multiple places on screen and in a slide-out drawer. I can understand why you want to use the standard functions and top right location though.
Basically though, none of the ideas are horrible, yet, so work out the JRiver "Look and Feel", and go with it.
EDIT: You posted similar thoughts while I was playing around and typing Hendrik. All sounds good.
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Yep, agree with the center aligned title/artist/album with marquee of long names, it'd just look right.
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I've published a new version of JRemote2 just now, changes below.
Its primarily focused on Playing Now, introducing the new layout we've been talking about here, as well as changing the internals of how Playing Now integrates with the app. These are pretty big internal changes, so please report any breakage, which is also why I wanted to get it out, so I can fix these problems quickly while working on the next features.
I didn't actually have to work on stability problems this time around, since 2.0.6 didn't really crash (except that one time someone entered a IPv6 address in a wrong format and the URL parser got excited, which I'm now catching instead of crashing the app - on a related note, unless you have a Proxy, MC itself doesn't support IPv6 yet).
PS:
The text on Playing Now doesn't support scrolling right now, I'll look into bringing that back in the next version.
JRemote 2.0.7 (12/06/2019)
1. Fixed: Using the refresh button in library views would result in icons to be shrinking.
2. Changed: Internal changes to how the Playing Now view is being handled, please report any problems.
3. Changed: Enabled access to the navigation drawer from Playing Now.
4. Changed: Updated the navigation drawer for better support for Android 10.
5. Changed: The Playing Now layout has been updated according to forum feedback.
6. Changed: The name of the current server is shown in the Zone dialog and next to the zone name in Playing Now.
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Working perfectly for me thus far. Love, love, LOVE how Now Playing is structured. :)
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Okay, found a UI issue. Steps to reproduce...
1) Find an album where you have to scroll down through the list. I scrolled down to the very bottom then back up to where you're basically overlapping the overlay of the back arrow and album name with the number of tracks and the total time of the album and the bitrate and the file type like this...
(https://i.imgur.com/kjZhzO1.png)
2) Go to Playing Now by pressing on the player bar on the bottom.
3) In Playing Now press the back arrow and it should show this at the top with the overlapping arrow on the album info.
(https://i.imgur.com/h7NWBjQ.png)
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Alas, it hasn't made its way to Australia yet, and it's been all of 25 minutes! Must be on a slow connection! ;D
It's late here, so tomorrow. ;)
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Okay, found a UI issue. Steps to reproduce...
Fixed for the next one, thanks! The toolbar is not too happy being messed with this much, so I have to be careful. :)
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I usually play whole albums. When browsing (smart)playlists, I'd like to group tracks into albums.
Like the "List style" > "Album Thumbnails" in main app.
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2.0.7 Playing Now
This is impressive. Great that we see server:zone info on the low left corner, plus the ability to switch between players. Sorry I couldn't find any bug ;)
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Great work! I guess this update didn't make any changes to the metadata display. Track length is in seconds (eg 403.266666999999734).
There is no marquee effect on my Android 10 device when the track and/or album name are too long to fit on the screen.
(http://www.micropod.com/temp/gcyw.png)
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There is no marquee effect on my Android 10 device when the track and/or album name are too long to fit on the screen.
Yep, Hendrik already said in his release post above it was known and hopefully can be added back in the next version.
PS:
The text on Playing Now doesn't support scrolling right now, I'll look into bringing that back in the next version.
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Yep, Hendrik already said in his release post above it was known and hopefully can be added back in the next version.
Sorry, I did read Hendrik's post, but should have read it again before posting mine. I was excited by the combination of a new album and a new release of JRemote2.
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2.0.7 Playing Now
This is impressive. Great that we see server:zone info on the low left corner, plus the ability to switch between players. Sorry I couldn't find any bug ;)
How about using something like this?
NUC -> Player
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That comment was for Hendrik.
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Really liking the playing now in 2.7
nice work Hendrick!
found a glitch or 2 perhaps (have to forgive me w/ my old s7..perhaps issues are only w/me)
1. kill jremote/open jremote/choose server/ choose video/choose recently imported/chose media sub/movie/choose genre/ (long press to choose all of a genre, OR drill in deeper and choose a single file)
1. the video plays/landscape or portrait however the only CNTRLS are a play button/stop button, title/type properties on top banner. (see pic1)
2. hit the X/top left while playing the video stops and brings you back to left side drawer/audio.. it doesnt bring you back to where you were before pressing play, or when pressing the back arrow/i believe this was touched on/i forgot.. and seems confusing to me... if i close vid window/display i guess i'd think it would bring me back a screen, not back to the start/default/audio.
3. AFTER following all above steps/swipe the drawer closed/click on the last playing now item/bottom playing now bar...and wa la i have the Full playing now CNTRLS...playing now on top/ratings/then video playing/then video name...etc... (see pic2..Note the 1sec difference/ :10/:11)
love the meta data field/ on my device none seem to be editable yet. but all come up nice.
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1. the video plays/landscape or portrait however the only CNTRLS are a play button/stop button, title/type properties on top banner. (see pic1)
3. AFTER following all above steps/swipe the drawer closed/click on the last playing now item/bottom playing now bar...and wa la i have the Full playing now CNTRLS...playing now on top/ratings/then video playing/then video name...etc... (see pic2..Note the 1sec difference/ :10/:11)
The difference between those two is that the first is the fullscreen video player, with only essential controls (which also hide), and the second is just the normal Playing Now screen, with cover art replaced with video. You can go back to the fullscreen player by clicking the video in Playing Now.
The difference would be far more obvious in Landscape mode, because the video in playing now is much smaller there.
2. hit the X/top left while playing the video stops and brings you back to left side drawer/audio.. it doesnt bring you back to where you were before pressing play, or when pressing the back arrow/i believe this was touched on/i forgot.. and seems confusing to me... if i close vid window/display i guess i'd think it would bring me back a screen, not back to the start/default/audio.
Thats not supposed to happen, you are supposed to stay on the view you were on before. I'll try it later and see if it also happens here.
Edit:
Just tried and it works fine for me. Video keeps playing in the background, like its supposed to, and I get back to the file list where I started playing from.
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Just installed this and wow it's SO much faster on my Samsung S9 than the old JRemote. Well done!
Any intentions of adding cache management? I'd love to queue up some tunes for my commute and not have to use my data package...
- P
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Playing Live at the Bijou , on the cell phone, cover arts displayed fine, but zone to Sony Bravia tv, cover art was missing.
Can we have a text that says "zones" with the icon ?
This will be helpful to a novice.
Thanks.
George.
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TY Hendrick, for explanation and lookin into!
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Really liking the new layout and speed.
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I have installed jremote2 on my Samsung S8 - seems to be working with some hard drives and not others. Any idea why it works from some hard drives on my system and not others. I have no problems playing these files in mc25 itself. I have checked the share access and they are all the same across the drives.
When i click to play a song the 'download??' icon shows for awhile, but then nothing... no metadata is shown, song names and times etc. are all shown, just no audio output.
Any thoughts?
Rob
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Finding my way with JRemote2 but can't get extra large album art to work, it will load a few images but no more. All other sizes are fine. My phone and tablet both have the same issue, each with 3Gb of RAM, if that is a limiting issue. Otherwise a great app, thanks.
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feature request:
meta data tick boxes sync'd w/ server standard view tick boxes (same as jriver standard view, hear a song you like, click on Genre/s - Artist/s, allowing you to tick those available/most used... prevents guessing/memory failure/misspellings as well...keeping library tags clean/less double work/maintenance)
tonight was using original jremote, while watching a video on htpc, and a video came on i wanted to tag... genres, when clickin metadata it allows to edit Genres, which had a tag of Rock, i wanted to add others, but couldn't remember how i named those genre tags....have to wander to server/workstation - standardview, or close theaterview on htpc/standard view to verify, then add/edit.
offtopic but on topic... has jriver implemented tickboxes for tagging in theaterview, as in standard view since version 21? thnx
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I played with JRemote2 today paired via Bluetooth to my Google Home. I've been using it for a few weeks, but today I had to turn off battery optimization. When it was left at default (on), it would play the song that I clicked play on before my screen turned off. Then it started playing the next track and would get 32 seconds into that second track before stopping.
I found this odd because I did exactly this before Thanksgiving (paired to my Google Home while I did food prep). It played for at least an hour without a problem.
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Overall I am really impressed with the new Jremote2 app.
Couple of things I have come across so far using it.
1. The star rating doesnt seem to work, so I am using the old jremote app for this. Besides rating my songs, I also use this to help remove duplicates from my library.
2. The screen stay on doesnt seem to be working.
3. The play now screen seems to be very cluttered compared to the original jremote, but I can adjust to the new layout.
4. OVERALL, I am very happy with the new and improved Jremote2 app. Thank you
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was using jremote2 this am for chores...possible bugs (again my old device)
The difference between those two is that the first is the fullscreen video player, with only essential controls (which also hide), and the second is just the normal Playing Now screen, with cover art replaced with video. You can go back to the fullscreen player by clicking the video in Playing Now.
The difference would be far more obvious in Landscape mode, because the video in playing now is much smaller there.
when playing video's in the playing now screen/all cntrls... i was not able to seek..fwd/rwd, once, going bck to display mode/click the video window... i was able to seek.
too add/1st time i noticed this, but once in display mode "essential cntrls" there is no nxt track/prev track buttons.. when one is loading more then one track/a list/genre etc if in display mode you cannot go to nxt/prev in playing nows playlist, so i had to go back to playing now to hit the button to goto the nxt track (adding those 2 essentials for me/maybe others) would be nice/behoove.
Thanx
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My comments are for Jremote1/2 for Android.
Things definitely run better than before.
My use case is very simple - it acts as a remote only with no local playback on my phone.
(1) UI for Now Playing looks great to me, I'm pretty easy, though. LOVE the seek bar at the bottom. Can't tell you how many times with JRemote1 that I went to seek and instead ended up changing a rating. I understand that an option to remove the ratings from the UI may be in the works, and I would be all for it.
(2) On the Playing Now *list*, not the main Playing Now screen with artwork - it doesn't follow playback. So, if I get out of the Playing Now screen for whatever reason, then go back to it by hitting the bar at the bottom, the Playing Now list goes to the beginning, but does not show the currently playing item like I would expect to see. I thought JRemote1 did this, but maybe I'm wrong? Either way, I would like it to follow playback.
(3) On the metadata page, either group the most common items at the top (artist/album/name/track#/genre/year/etc.) or allow the end user to reorder the items. This would make it MUCH more useful for me. For example, seeing a date of "43546" doesn't do me any good. I want the most relevant items at the top, however that could be done.
Thank you! I haven't had any issues or crashes after using for many hours now.
Edit: Just noticed when browsing artists, the "default view mode", where you choose between grid and list, doesn't stick globally. It seems to remember the setting per sub-item once changed, and this differs from JRemote1 where the default view mode was applied globally to all browser items (and sub-items). I'm not sure if this is intentional, but I prefer that setting to be global and not per-item. Hopefully that made some sense. LOL
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Volume levelling … Yippee .. finally won't have to use bubble.
love it guys
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It just works. :)
Thank you!
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I noticed something today that isn't quite right.
I started playback on my server, via my Mac using Panel. I'm playing an http stream via a Car Radio button to a DAC connected to my server. I can log onto RDP and see playback has started in zone: Player, and it shows the name of the stream and the current playback time. I open JR2, connect to the proper server, set my zone in JR2 to Player, I then go to the Playing Now page, but it's still showing the coverart, title, artist, etc, of the item that I previously played in JR2 last week. The timing of the track however, is showing based on the http stream. It shows 29:15 as the length - the item on the left and that keeps increasing. And -00:05 as the position - the item on the right. That negative number starts at 7, then resets when it reaches 3 or 4, I assume this is in line with the cacheing of the stream. If I change the volume though, it does affect the output.
My stream has no coverart, but it does have a name. I think the coverart should reset and the name, title, etc should show the name of the stream.
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Love the new app so far on my android. Any chance we will ever see an option to download a song for offline play?
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I have installed jremote2 on my Samsung S8 - seems to be working with some hard drives and not others. Any idea why it works from some hard drives on my system and not others. I have no problems playing these files in mc25 itself. I have checked the share access and they are all the same across the drives.
When i click to play a song the 'download??' icon shows for awhile, but then nothing... no metadata is shown, song names and times etc. are all shown, just no audio output.
Any thoughts?
Rob
Ok, been playing with this problem only i've got - it doesn't seem to be a drive problem as i first thought. I can play certain flac files on one drive that i didnt think was able to play any. If i move the playable flac files to a folder with files that don't play, then the program doesn't seem to recognize them. Put them back where they were, program will play them ok again. If i move files that won't play into the folder with playable flacs, they still won't play...the playable flacs still play ok. Is there a debug mode i can run? Anything, anyone?? Help...
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Please add an option to change the screen to landscape when watching videos in full screen.
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Please add an option to change the screen to landscape when watching videos in full screen.
Turn your phone sideways to landscape mode. JRemote2 will follow the phone orientation. If the movie doesn't maximise on the screen, tap it.
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Turn your phone sideways to landscape mode. JRemote2 will follow the phone orientation. If the movie doesn't maximise on the screen, tap it.
I don't have auto-rotate enabled. Others video players (like Samsung videos and YouTube) it either automatically goes into landscape when maximizing the video, or there's an option for changing the orientation.
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I don't have auto-rotate enabled. Others video players (like Samsung videos and YouTube) it either automatically goes into landscape when maximizing the video, or there's an option for changing the orientation.
Old JRemote used to force landscape for video, but people wanted the option to have it rotate with the phone (presumably when they have videos taken with a phone in the first place), so thats what it does now.
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Old JRemote used to force landscape for video, but people wanted the option to have it rotate with the phone (presumably when they have videos taken with a phone in the first place), so thats what it does now.
I guess that's why I'm having trouble getting used to jremote2. I don't want to enable auto-rotate on my phone just for one app.
Samsung's "video" app has an option at the right bottom corner where you can change the orentation. Would be nice if jrmote2 implements something similar.
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So how do you get it to actually send a WoL? The MAC is configured in the settings, but not seeing the packets. Gizmo still works fine for waking the server.
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WOL is not implemented yet: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,123223.msg853495.html#msg853495
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Well then, I guess that explains why it doesn't seem to work. :P
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I've been using JRemote2 for a while now. Overall still very pleased with it, and I'm content to wait for most of the missing features except for the inability to move around quickly in a list. Please add JRemote-style scrolling back as soon as possible. Thanks.
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Hi Gents - tx for the good work on JRemote2. Please advise how to delete excess/obsolete servers in the My Servers list.
Thank you
JJ
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As above, I have this (can't) delete server issue as well.
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I'll add deleting servers in an upcoming update. It sort-of slipped through the cracks.
Will try to tackle most of the most common requests soon, so that we can get into a decent "1.0" state, before we plan fancy new features.
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Cheers!
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The only two things for which I immediately care:
1. Ratings
2. Metadata editing
Otherwise, very good show! I'm excited that this is finally happening! n.n
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I prefer to use the device volume controls. Maybe as a selectable option?
Great work so far!
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I am using JRemote 2 on a Samsung Tab A 6 in, playing to This Device, then Bluetooth to a sound bar
On 3 occasions it just stopped, maybe 10 minutes in. Wouldn’t respond . Then required a restart
Switched to old JRemote, ran with no issues
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The recently introduced MC26 enables lyrics to be added to the metadata. I added lyrics to a few albums and copied them to my IdPi’s SSD. They could be read on EOS, but with a problem. I installed JRemote2 to see if it had the same problem, and it does.
You can see the lyrics as part of the metadata for a track, but when the next track starts the metadata isn’t refreshed so you still see the previous track’s lyrics. I hope this can be sorted; it is particularly important for classical music fans listening to opera and wanting to see the lyrics. I think lyrics should be seen full screen, perhaps with track number/name as a header, apart from the other metadata. You normally view metadata just to check a detail, but lyrics are different.
Other things (some may be out of date already) –
When playing an album, if I pick the 3 dots logo to the right of a track there are various options. Could ‘Remove from Playing Now’, or something similar be added, or better still to remove the track before starting to play? Removing the track from the library, using ratings or other solutions are just work-arounds. I find it really frustrating that so much work has gone into improving playlists but MC (and JRemote2) lack this simple(?) feature.
Ratings are a love/ hate issue mentioned before. Please let us remove them from the display. Five blank stars are still ratings that many of us don’t want to see. EOS has a selectable ‘Show Ratings on File lists’, so it can be done.
When the Theme is set as Dark the scroll button on the right hand side can’t be seen.
When playing a track you show Sample Rate, Bitrate, (192 kHz, 9216 Kbps). Shouldn’t this be Sample Rate, Bit Depth, (192 KHz, 24 Bits)? Or simply 192/24: anyone using JRemote2 will know what the numbers refer to. OK, tracks converted to MP3 to play on your phone need Bitrate.
I much prefer EOS’s way of showing elapsed time. For a 5:00 min track you might see 02:20/5:00, whereas JRemote2 will show 02:20 (track no.) -02:40. Just my preference.
Album icons show one line beneath for the album title. Very restrictive for classical music where album names are usually much longer. Compare that to the large spacing in the tracks view.
I really want to like JRemote2, but I’m finding it hard. I generally use EOS (or JRemote2) just to navigate to an album and then play it. Usable lyrics would be very helpful, and if you can show them properly I would use JRemote2 when I wanted lyrics, but for normal day to day use I find EOS much more ‘friendly’ (I wish it was still available & maintained).
I’m sorry to sound so negative. I do appreciate your effort and the enthusiasm of the beta testers.
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When playing an album, if I pick the 3 dots logo to the right of a track there are various options. Could ‘Remove from Playing Now’, or something similar be added
Display the Playing Now list, press EDIT in the bottom right corner, swipe away any tracks you don't want in Playing Now.
BTW the three dots to the right of each track only show in the Album view, not the Playing Now view, which has a three dot menu at the top right for functions that affect the whole playlist. So I'm not sure where you are expecting to remove tracks from the Playing Now list.
The rest are mostly personal preference issues
It might be nice to show Bit Depth along with Sample Rate, just because we think that way. But Bitrate is an important measure of quality as well. As you note, for MP3's, usually more important. Bit Depth is quickly visible in Metadata.
I prefer the current display showing remaining time for a track, rather than forcing me to calculate that by looking at time played and duration. Just my preference.
There was much debate about having scrolling fields in JRemote2, which would then display long names with a pause at the start. Some like it. Some hate it. At present only the Album name in the Album view scrolls so you can view the whole Album name. Also in the Album view you can show multiple lines for each track. It is only in Playing Now that you only get one line, with a "..." showing there is more. I would think it is in the Album view that you would want to see the full names, to decide if you want to add tracks to Playing Now. Once added to Playing Now, generally, for me, the decision is made. Unless I am loading a Playlist, in which case I guess I might want to review tracks and remove some from a Playlist, or more likely Playing Now.
Hints:
Turn your phone sideways, into landscape mode. You will see much longer names without truncation.
Play with the toggle in the top right corner of the album view, to change the display format and show more or less information for each track.
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It might be nice to show Bit Depth along with Sample Rate, just because we think that way. But Bitrate is an important measure of quality as well. As you note, for MP3's, usually more important. Bit Depth is quickly visible in Metadata.
It should be showing bitdepth for FLAC in native playback mode, instead of the bitrate - since for a lossless format, bitrate is irrelevant. When natively playing a lossy format like MP3 or M4A AAC, then those don't have a relevant bitdepth, but bitrate matters.
Generally, there is rarely a case where both matter, since lossless bit-exact formats, where the bitdepth matters, the bitrate does not, and all major lossy audio formats make the bitdepth irrelevant as the first step to compress the audio, but here the bitrate is the quality indicator.
When transcoding, it does not show that information, since its no longer quite relevant.
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Roderick
Thanks for your reply, and explaining how to remove a track from Playing Now. That’s just what I wanted.
You mentioned ‘scrolling fields’. When I mentioned the ‘scroll button’ I was referring to scrolling down a long list of albums. There is a scroll bar on the right hand side but it’s hard to see when Theme is set as Dark. OK if you start at the top or bottom, but not if you’re half way down. If you set Theme as Light it’s much easier to see. It just needs at bit of contrast.
Regarding the single line for album names, the format toggle at top right is very helpful. Thanks.
We must agree to disagree about how to show elapsed time.
Thanks for your comment Hendrik
All of my music is stored as AIFF, so from what you say it looks like I should be seeing Sample Rate, Bit Depth as I suggested (using JRemote2 to control my IdPi playing into my DAC).
Any comment on the display of lyrics? It looks as though JRiver decided make them available in MC26 without thinking about what to do with them.
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I'm chiming in to support the request for a better library scroll mechanism. I don't know if the current JRemote2 tiny scroll bar is not responding to finger presses or if it's due to the Galaxy S10 beveled screen edge, but I'm not able to fast scroll through my library. Scrolling without using a scroll bar in a library with ~2k artists is not fun. Bonus points if you can add the scroll position alpha letter overlay while scrolling like the original JRemote.
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You mentioned ‘scrolling fields’.
I was refering to this:
Very restrictive for classical music where album names are usually much longer.
Scrolling field contents is one way to show longer names in full.
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Thanks for the clarification Roderick. I think seeing a screen full of long classical album names all scrolling would be a bit excessive, and I can see all I need now using the format toggle, with a bit extra in landscape.
Martin
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My 2c.
Good response time.
Changing thumbnail size does nothing. Old folks would also like a larger text option.
The grabbable scroll bar is effectively invisible in dark mode.
I'd like to use the hardware volume buttons, too, but the volume slider seems better than in JRemote1.
Still a bit slow picking up album artwork (internal). Sometimes shows in Artist list but not Recent Albums.
Can we rearrange the metadata list so the items we're most interested in are at the top? Not essential.
Thanks
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I'm chiming in to support the request for a better library scroll mechanism. I don't know if the current JRemote2 tiny scroll bar is not responding to finger presses or if it's due to the Galaxy S10 beveled screen edge, but I'm not able to fast scroll through my library. Scrolling without using a scroll bar in a library with ~2k artists is not fun. Bonus points if you can add the scroll position alpha letter overlay while scrolling like the original JRemote.
+1 on both points
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+1
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Pretty sure Hendrik is well aware of the scrolling 'issues' in JRemote2 compared to the original JRemote.
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Love the new beta.
Looking forward for the "screen stay on" feature though. Does not work now, and my phone is just stopping playing music when it goes into screen lock mode.
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It only works for video files right now.
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Pretty sure Hendrik is well aware of the scrolling 'issues' in JRemote2 compared to the original JRemote.
Cool. One feature I really like about JRemote for iOS is that on the right side, letters are displayed so you can kind of target where you want to scroll to. I'd love to see that in JRemote for Android.
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Hendrik,
JRemote2 has been working flawlessly for me for a few weeks. Thank you.
When you are ready for requests... Any chance for Cloudplay and Radio JRiver playback?
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Hendrik,
JRemote2 has been working flawlessly for me for a few weeks. Thank you.
When you are ready for requests... Any chance for Cloudplay and Radio JRiver playback?
Greetings:
It used to, but not anymore.
For the past 48 hours.. Zone detection is unstable.
It does not detect and if it does detect occasionally, nothing plays.
The counter also screwed up.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled twice, with no luck.
Thanks.
George Omoregie.
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It should be showing bitdepth for FLAC in native playback mode, instead of the bitrate - since for a lossless format, bitrate is irrelevant. When natively playing a lossy format like MP3 or M4A AAC, then those don't have a relevant bitdepth, but bitrate matters.
It shows bitdepth for FLAC, but not for M4A ALAC. I have a lot of ALAC from years of iTunes.
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Generally I have the "1+" option selected so clicking on a track will add the track to the end of the current playlist. This works perfectly in JRemote2 android.
However if want to add an entire album, on JRemote for iPhone, I can hold down on an album and then a menu pops up. If I select "add to playlist" or "play next" then the entire album is added/inserted into the playlist.
However on Android when I try this, only the first track on the album is added/inserted
I assume this is a bug??
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Thank you Hendrik!! I use JRemote almost daily on my Note 10.
I just downloaded the new version and it seems to run a little faster. Great work!! My only request is the ability to play ALAC files locally on the device without trascoding to MP3. I connect my phone to a Chord Mojo Headphone DAC/Amp and listen to my library remotely when I travel (this is my primary use for JRemote). I have thousands of songs stored using ALAC and really don't want to convert them to FLAC.
Looking forward to the other things you have planned for the app!!
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RE: Volume Levelling
I know this would be a shiny new feature and that those are rather far off, but if we got volume levelling, could we eventually get headphones crossfeed, similar to how it appears in MC's DSP studio?
It literally makes everything sound silly amazing through headphones and I would love that in JRemote.
Asking if it'd even be possible, for now.
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Theoretically I can implement any sort of DSP, but I would need to entirely re-implement it, or spent a lot of time writing an adapter to the MC DSP. Re-implementing the playback side of volume leveling is trivial, since its just a volume adjustment. Further DSP, we'll have to see. No promises. Got a lot of non-JRemote work piling up as well.
Tomorrow the Christmas break ends, and I'll repond to more questions and requests, and I plan to release a new version of JRemote2 this week if I get everything done thats currently mid-flight.
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Shield support would be great! I don't see JRemote2 in the Google Playstore for the Shield. I have it running on my old Samsung Tablet and it looks really good.
Also, Jremote2 for Amazon Fire products would be nice too, especially their Android based tablets.
Thanks, Chris
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I have been using Gizmo on my Android phone for years - I use it in my car on longer journeys.
Recently bought JRemote2 and - I don't know how you did it but it's great - I haven't had the same drop-out problems that were so frustrating with Gizmo.
The thing I miss most is shuffle/random play. Ideally I would like to be able to choose a genre / artist / album then shuffle/random.
Mostly I go to favorite podcast "artist" and choose shuffle/random to see what interesting topic comes up!
I wouldn't use a remote much if it doesn't have random/shuffle play.
Maybe the function is there already but I just can't find it.
Bruce
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I think it is there. Try press and hold.
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Thanks!!
Bruce
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Shuffle is also there on the first Playing Now screen, which shows the Cover Art of the playing item, rather than the list of all items in Playing Now.
It is to the left of the item name. Crossed arrows.
So if you added a whole Genre or Artist to Playing Now, you could shuffle in Playing Now at any time. Or edit the list to swipe stuff away, or drag and drop up and down the sequence with the three line icon on the right or each item.
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I purchased the JRemote 2 and installed it. Killed the old JRemote.
Signed up for the Beta.
Just found how to use Play Doctor and I am really liking the more responsive feel to the app.
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1. Is JRemote2 available free to try before purchase (Like JRiver)?
2. If I want to purchase it, can I get it direct from you and pay in USD as I have with JRiver? (The price in the UK Play Store is 4.50 Pound Sterling. This converts to 5.9 USD. A totally unreasonable 20% extra profit for Google Play.)
3. Does anyone have experience of running JRemote2 on an Amazon Tablet (modified to take Android software)?
Thank you for any advice you can give this novice here.
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1. Nope, I'm afraid that's a limitation of the Google Play Store. But I think you can get a refund from Google within 2 hours of purchase, if I recall correctly.
The others somebody else will have to answer.
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Our Android applications are only available through the Play Store directly. Note that some countries include taxes in those prices, which explains certain differences - its not something Google just adds for their own profit.
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I just purchased and installed JRemote2 on my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (Android 6) and it cannot connect to the Media Center 26 server (running on Windows 10). Credentials are correct and I tested on other devices running the full JRiver Media Center as a node/client. On the JRemote app on Android, whether I use the key or IP, once I put in the username/password I just get an endless spinning "Connecting" and have to manually kill the app to try again.
I know its in beta, but any ideas?
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Try enabling read-only authentication in MC's Options > Media Network, does it work then (set it to Everyone, then try connecting without a username/password)? That's strange though, I haven't encountered that at all.
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Thanks kindly for responding. I enable passwordless readonly access and that worked fine and I was able to connect with JRemote2 without credentials. I dont do many things off the server which would require write access, so this should be good enough. Sure like the look of this app and being able to see the bit depth and sample rate of each track.
Thanks again :)
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Also, you can try switching read-only authentication from Everyone to Username and password, and using readonly for both the read-only username and password and see if it works there too.
If so, maybe it's something about the password (like some special character or something) being used that doesn't work in JRemote2?
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Good day to you all
Is it is JRemote2 possible to read also the PDF or epub that comes with a audiodownload? It would be nice to read the booklet in the remote
With regards, RIen
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I've published a new version of JRemote2 just now, it should be arriving on your devices soon.
The biggest feature in this version is Google Cast / ChromeCast support. It took a few weeks to build, so hopefully it'll also work quite reliably this time around.
There are some caveats when using Casting. Primarily, if you are using a secure connection between JRemote and MC, Cast will only work if the Certificate used in MC is fully trusted. In JRemote itself, I can overwrite the trust by either asking the user to manually trust it, or through our Access Key server, however with ChromeCast, I have no control to do any of that - so for ChromeCast to be able to access your server to load the media, it has to either be an insecure connection, or a fully trusted certificate.
The reason for this is that Casting does not actually cast the media, it only tells the Cast device where to find it - so the ChromeCast streams it straight from the MC server, and not through the device. As such, the connection between ChromeCast and MC has to be possible, which an untrusted certificate would not allow.
Some other limitations (for now):
- Shuffle / Repeat does not work when Casting yet
- No Native Playback when casting (yet), have to properly define the formats the Cast device can play
Next, I'll be looking into common requests and/or issues, and work through the most important ones there.
All changes listed below:
JRemote 2.0.8 (01/10/2020)
1. NEW: Native OggVorbis playback support.
2. NEW: Google Cast support.
3. Changed: Hardware Volume keys can be used to control volume when remote controlling a Media Center instance.
4. NEW: Improved Fast Scrolling in Library and Track views, with Alphabet popup in Library views.
5. Fixed: "Screen Always On" now works as expected.
6. Fixed: JRemote could resume on the Playing Now screen when returning from Standby instead of the last location.
7. Fixed: Video duration is properly shown on Playing Now for local playback.
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I'm getting Error Connecting to Server when I first start.
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There were no changes in regards to connecting to the server in this version. Make sure your server is actually on, and you're on WiFi if required.
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Yes and yes. Rebooted too.
Permissions on the app show as none allowed and none denied. Can't change either.
Insecure connection.
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Panel works on the same phone. Bingo finds all the servers.
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It should definitely be showing permissions, to access the network among other things. Although that's not a permission you actually have to confirm, it's automatically given to any app that wants it.
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Maybe not on Android 10? My phone just updated last week. It's a Note 10.
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Same behavior at work.
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It should definitely be showing permissions, to access the network among other things. Although that's not a permission you actually have to confirm, it's automatically given to any app that wants it.
There is a second screen where it appears that network access is permitted. It's not very clear. It says this:
have full network access
view network connections
prevent phone from sleeping
run foreground service
but there are no checkboxes or sliders to allow me to change anything. Looking at permissions on the same screen for gmail, there are a number of permissions. None show a checkbox or slider, so they appear to all be enabled for gmail.
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Are you trying to use a secure connection? If so, What happens if you turn that off?
Also someone else said they had to have read-only library access enabled, but I couldn't reproduce any such behavior on my end.
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It's not set to secure.
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We'll test with Android 9.
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It works on Brad's phone, running Android 9, connecting to my server.
It doesn't work on Matt's phone, which is also running Android 10.
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I use Android 10 in the emulator, and that works fine, but I don't have a device with it.
Someone could try to get access to the logs, but unfortunately thats not quite straight forward
https://www.appdome.com/no-code-mobile-integration-knowledge-base/gathering-android-device-logs-using-adb/
Matt and Brad should have Android development setup already, shouldn't they? They could probably fetch a log from an affected phone.
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I found one hint in the network library i'm using, so I pushed a quick test to our internal test version, I think you should still be on that.
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It worked. Thanks.
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Working here too. Thanks.
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Cool, pushed that fix to the main version as well.
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I'm getting Error Connecting to Server when I first start.
I saw this recently after doing a lot of testing and mucking around with Gizmo and servers. I couldn't blame JRemote2 specifically. It didn't crash, just sat there trying to connect forever, or gave a connection error. I may have changed the Authentication Username and Password, so that could have been the cause. Could be unrelated. When it happened I didn't have JRemote 2.0.8 of course. It sounds like you found the issue anyway, reading further.
Clearing the App Data fixed the original issue for me.
One anomaly I found when I couldn't connect to any server was that JRemote2 landed on the server selection page, the one with the WOL link, and the hamburger menu didn't work on that page. So I couldn't get to the "My Servers" page via that menu. I did (just now, after updating to JRemote 2.0.8) discover that I could get to the slide-out drawer using the Android back button, which showed the "My Servers" link, but that link didn't do anything. I just went to Settings, backed out of there, and then used the back button again and the slide-out drawer displayed with no content.
Just restarted JRemote 2.0.8 with no servers running, connection failed of course. Hamburger menu still doesn't work. Settings menu worked, so I turned off "Autoconnect to last server". That still left me unable to get to the servers page where I could edit the Username and Password to get JRemote 2.0.8 to connect.
So currently, if a user changes the Authentication (insecure) Username and Password on the server, they will need to clear the App Data in order to connect again. Or add a duplicate server record I guess, as that function is available on the server selection page. But there is no server delete function yet, so that would be annoying.
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You are not supposed to be able to open the drawer if you are not connected. The page it puts you on is the server management page, just that it replaces EDIT with WOL when you are not connected yet. Which indeed you have found a case for which this is not ideal.
I could just always put EDIT there, and move WOL to a long-click menu. I reckon WOL is not that commonly used anyway.
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I kind of like the WOL there. Quick access to wake and then connect to a server. Is it working now? I should test... Nope. Doesn't wake my HTPC.
I would maybe reverse your suggestion and put the Edit on a long press, or squeeze it in next to the WOL, maybe tapping the JRiver icon. Because I would use WOL often for my HTPC, but edit a server very rarely. Of course the other option is to make WOL run automatically, maybe if flagged to do so in server settings, and then the EDIT link could always be visible.
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Chromecast is working for me. It also worked on the Android TV Brad uses for testing.
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Chromecast works fine for me too on a Nvidia Shield TV.
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4. NEW: Improved Fast Scrolling in Library and Track views, with Alphabet popup in Library views.
Yep. that works well, BUT, the scroll bar and alphabet popup are still effectively invisible in the Dark theme. Even with the screen brightness on my tablet set so the tablet warns me that prolonged viewing could cause eye strain.
Ta
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I reckon WOL is not that commonly used anyway.
Probably not, but my player goes to sleep when not playing and WOL is very useful.
Of course the other option is to make WOL run automatically,
Yes, Gizmo does that and it seems to work well; you don't have to think about WOL it just happens.
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4. NEW: Improved Fast Scrolling in Library and Track views, with Alphabet popup in Library views.
Thanks for this. However it is perhaps not as helpful as in JRemote (see pics) as the letter is smaller and often right under the finger...
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Thanks for getting the hardware volume key working when controlling MC.
Would like to see ARTIST BIO alongside METADATA as it was in previous JRemote.
Also some thumbnails still don't load:
(https://d7leog.ch.files.1drv.com/y4mYhDy8IH_CJwil5NopoWUzrkzu0p7ObclrtwKWpHHoLrD1rmsCJFaSSB7IAvLBiwsG-sYHp6OnWS6cR3tDIJIB0uRljilMVQ0LiK1j604cXYplf4DnFoB6fbg8yfgmHLFjMzSqx0bRvtAy9x4-Xz5u2jmRg1J0lW8oRqV2al-BQTjx9Jk3XPdqV57Z59ZMxZBbRsZWKSCTWCK-2Jnzswa3Q?width=371&height=660&cropmode=none)
Equivalent screen grab from original JRemote:
(https://drleog.ch.files.1drv.com/y4m-oiES6K-1rPHv5U0CXQiIOpi5Z5C6PltHokP2CqTaZ0n3rCO6yC-axXdakICEVlrpR8Ew5Poyup8hXhA74oNOXUuLtqDEHTn7UtcyK3K42NV01Sa09btMcdsFrqR8tB8VI035nus0PNkn8oz__o6GNgW0lgr6BE09AMq-H7CMsrQbEwXmkd6f9bOB5Er5MwQ6cPhuNskcURDSnePK_Jbsw?width=371&height=660&cropmode=none)
Apparent duplication of Wagner album is not. They are ripped from the same disc, but have different album titles in the MC library - one having "(Surround)" appended, the other not. Missing thumbnails not limited to those - for example "The Egyptian" shown is missing the thumbnail.
This only seems to happen when controlling an instance of MC that loads the library across the local network (but showing all the thumbnails correctly on the MC interface itself). It doesn't seem to happen when controlling an instance of MC on the PC where the library is stored.
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A Blue Music Note means that MC sent that as an icon, and JRemote just displays what it received, JRemotes place holder for missing icons are all grey-ish.
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Those screen grabs were done within minutes of each other while controlling the same instance of MC. It is not clear why the same instance of MC sends blue music notes to JRemote2 when it can send the correct thumbnails to JRemote? I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the instance of MC being controlled at the time is not the instance of MC that holds the library. These blue music notes only appear on JRemote2 when controlling an instance of MC that loads a library from across the network - in this case from a PC with a large HDD. I'm not seeing grey-ish place holders. Also I have no missing cover art in my library and every album in it shows correct cover art in the MC interface.
I have seen this also at a friend's place. He uses JRemote on an iPad to control a MacBook laptop that loads a "cover art perfect" library from a PC on his network. Random blue music notes show on his iPad too. Please tell Matt.
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Looks great so far
questiona -
1. How to delete a server from My Servers list? You should be able to delete a server by holding down on the name or within edit there should be a delete option
2 . Controlling subtitles. How to turn them on or off? This is a big issue for me as i often watch foreign videos and need to see the subtitles.
3 - file list. can the file list that has thumbnails have the file name across two lines . There should be enough space. Also change default view option as it always defaults to thumbnail view and always to Audio page.
4 - Download media option. this is one feature that I love on the MO4Media App as I can Dload media to my phone when in an area with no wifi/cell connection (e.g., b4 i fly)
Thanks and keep up the good work
Dave
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I can answer number 1, deleting servers is not implemented yet, it's on Hendrik's to-do list. It's listed in the Known Issues / Missing Features list in the first post of this topic.
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I've published a new version to the Play Store, it should be arriving on your phones in the next couple hours.
If you have a confirmed working Wake-On-LAN setup in your network, I would appreciate if you could confirm that it does indeed work for you with this version.
There is no automatic waking - yet. So to trigger it you'll have to press the button. I will revisit automatically sending a WOL packet in a future version, but I wanted to get this out before I'll be on a short vacation next week.
Otherwise, the usual small fixes for glitches and bugs. More feature work coming after a short break.
JRemote 2.0.9 (01/16/2020)
1. NEW: Implemented Wake-on-LAN
2. Changed: Added a long-click popup on the server list, which allows editing/deleting/waking servers.
3. Fixed: Resolved an issue that prevented JRemote2 from starting on Android 4.x.
4. Fixed: Repeated attempts to connect to a server would silently fail, instead of actually re-trying.
5. Changed: The Playlist navigation will no longer skip empty levels.
6. Changed: With MC 26.0.17 or newer, JRemote will avoid the default placeholder images for playlists or library folders.
7. Fixed: Adjusted the visibility of the fast scroll popup in the dark skin, and made the entire popup bigger.
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1. How to delete a server from My Servers list? You should be able to delete a server by holding down on the name or within edit there should be a delete option
You can do this now in 2.0.9, long-press on a server in the server list to get a menu.
2 . Controlling subtitles. How to turn them on or off? This is a big issue for me as i often watch foreign videos and need to see the subtitles.
Currently - you cannot. Improved video playback controls are planned for the future, but no ETA yet. Will need MC changes first to do it properly.
3 - file list. can the file list that has thumbnails have the file name across two lines . There should be enough space. Also change default view option as it always defaults to thumbnail view and always to Audio page.
You should be able to change the default in the settings, I think? It should also remember any manual changes - for each top-level view individually, so at worst you should only have to change it once, unless that doesn't work?
For multi-line .. will have to see how that looks. Not quite sure it might fit, especially if people use bigger font settings.
4 - Download media option. this is one feature that I love on the MO4Media App as I can Dload media to my phone when in an area with no wifi/cell connection (e.g., b4 i fly)
There are plans for this in some shape or form, so we'll see.
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The recently introduced MC26 enables lyrics to be added to the metadata. I added lyrics to a few albums and copied them to my IdPi’s SSD. They could be read on EOS, but with a problem. I installed JRemote2 to see if it had the same problem, and it does.
You can see the lyrics as part of the metadata for a track, but when the next track starts the metadata isn’t refreshed so you still see the previous track’s lyrics. I hope this can be sorted; it is particularly important for classical music fans listening to opera and wanting to see the lyrics. I think lyrics should be seen full screen, perhaps with track number/name as a header, apart from the other metadata. You normally view metadata just to check a detail, but lyrics are different.
Its not exactly a bug, it just doesn't do what you think it does. When opening the metadata view, it'll open it for a specific file - the one currently playing. When the currently playing file changes, then its not meant to swap the metadata view to the new file. Its hard to know what the user really might expect. If the track is almost over, and I figure I want to check something in the metadata, I might not want it to swap over quite yet. But if you use it to follow the lyrics, you might.
Maybe I'll add an option, or something, to be able to do this. But what I'll definitely do is add a seperate screen to directly read the Lyrics, instead of having to do it in the metadata view.
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Any chance for Cloudplay and Radio JRiver playback?
We're definitely planning to do this. With 2.0.9 (released just now), you can play downloaded Cloudplay playlists (find them in the Playlists section).
Proper integration so you can pick playlists straight from the cloud as well as Radio JRiver stations will come in a later update.
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Is it is JRemote2 possible to read also the PDF or epub that comes with a audiodownload? It would be nice to read the booklet in the remote
Support for "Extras" is planned to be added in the future, but no ETA.
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Nice with all new new changes and fixes. When will the rating system be fixed when sync back to the library?
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I would appreciate if you could confirm that it does indeed work for you with this version.
WOL worked fine to my MC25.0.115 Server. Wake was immediate. I let the PC finish its start, then connected to the Server. A two step process, but that is okay with me, as I may just wish to wake a PC, and not connect to it immediately.
PS: Access to the Edit Server page worked fiine as well. I didn't edit anything, or try to delete a server though. Not today!
PPS: Have a great (short) holiday!
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I was able to wake a Win7 PC by using WOL. Thanks, Hendrik.
The full story is here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,123800.msg857197.html#msg857197
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When will the rating system be fixed when sync back to the library?
I'll try to remember to get that in the next update.
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WOL is working here as well. Thanks for that.
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Thanks Hendrik, this feature is the only thing keeping me from using JRemote 2 fully.
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I apologize if this has been covered and I missed it, but I didn't see anything post on it. Is there a way to see the current playing queue for upcoming tracks? I can see the currently paying song, but can't figure out how to see what is coming up next.
Thanks
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Is there a way to see the current playing queue for upcoming tracks? I can see the currently paying song, but can't figure out how to see what is coming up next.
Swipe the Playing Now screen. It has the playlist to the right (so swipe from the right to the left).
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In the now playing screen swipe from right to left and you'll see the playlist.
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In the now playing screen swipe from right to left and you'll see the playlist.
Thank you, I knew it was probably something easy. I will try that tonight when I get home from work :)
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Thanks for native ogg support! Working great. Opus next? 8)
Casting doesn't play anything for when using Sony's built in chromecast support. I get JRemote splash screen but music and videos both doesn't work. Old JRemote still works.
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Maybe it doesn't support Cast v3. I can only really support official Cast devices. Not that I get much control over it anyway, I tell it to play your selected playlist and a Google library does the actual communication.
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7. Fixed: Adjusted the visibility of the fast scroll popup in the dark skin, and made the entire popup bigger.
Excellent. Even my ancient eyes can read it. Thanks
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Its not exactly a bug, it just doesn't do what you think it does. When opening the metadata view, it'll open it for a specific file - the one currently playing. When the currently playing file changes, then its not meant to swap the metadata view to the new file. Its hard to know what the user really might expect. If the track is almost over, and I figure I want to check something in the metadata, I might not want it to swap over quite yet. But if you use it to follow the lyrics, you might.
Maybe I'll add an option, or something, to be able to do this. But what I'll definitely do is add a seperate screen to directly read the Lyrics, instead of having to do it in the metadata view.
Thanks Hendrik. The separate screen is exactly what I was hoping for.
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Excellent. Even my ancient eyes can read it. Thanks
That's odd. I'm not a Beta tester, but my JRemote2 updated a couple of days ago. Using the dark theme I can now scroll OK, which I couldn't before, but I only see the square for the initial letter - I don't see the letter. In the light theme I see the letter clearly. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy A2 (2017), with Android 8.
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JRemote2 works fine on my end when I play music to the phone but when I select "player" there is no playback from the server I am connected to. The server is a NUC based Windows 10 machine which connects to a library server. Playback from the original JRemote works fine. I didn't see this on the list of known not working features so I figured I should report it.
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Does audio work when you try to play it from MC running on the NUC?
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Yes it does. It also works using the original JRemote for android and JRemote on my wife's iPhone.
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Using the dark theme I can now scroll OK, which I couldn't before, but I only see the square for the initial letter - I don't see the letter.
You need to be on version 2.0.9. The version number is shown in the top right corner of the slide-out drawer in JRemote2.
The Dark Theme shows a light grey square with dark text, still near the left edge, but not under my finger when I use the scroll, so visible.
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JRemote2 works fine on my end when I play music to the phone but when I select "player" there is no playback from the server I am connected to.
Version 2.0.9 is playing fine to my MC Server's Player Zone, and to my Workstation MC Client, and indeed also to my TV acting as a DLNA Renderer. Check version.
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Using 2.0.9 on my Samsung Tab S5e with 10 inch screen. If, for example, I choose an artist, then an album, then I rotate my tablet between portrait and landscape the view resets to the beginning and I have re-select the artist, album, etc.
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You need to be on version 2.0.9. The version number is shown in the top right corner of the slide-out drawer in JRemote2.
The Dark Theme shows a light grey square with dark text, still near the left edge, but not under my finger when I use the scroll, so visible.
Thanks for this Roderick. I was on 2.0.8, but now updated to 2.0.9. Now the initials are showing in the dark theme and the scroll 'button' is much clearer too. The more I use and learn about JRemote2 the more I like it.
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Version 2.0.9 is playing fine to my MC Server's Player Zone, and to my Workstation MC Client, and indeed also to my TV acting as a DLNA Renderer. Check version.
I'm on 2.0.9 as well. It looks like it might be related to authentication. I setup a new install of JRiver with media network enabled and I could get it to play music. I then turned on authentication and I could not play music.
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I'm on 2.0.9 as well. It looks like it might be related to authentication. I setup a new install of JRiver with media network enabled and I could get it to play music. I then turned on authentication and I could not play music.
That would be very strange if it is the cause. If you turn off Authentication, does it start working again? Playing to the Player Zone on your MC Server?
As long as you are actually connected to the MC Server, Authentication is only required for updates via syncing, I think. I guess there could be a problem if you didn't successfully connect to the MC Server. But if you are able to select tracks to play from the Server you must be connected, and so you must be getting the Username and Password for Authentication correct.
Maybe clarify your setup. You said:
The server is a NUC based Windows 10 machine which connects to a library server.
So I take it you have a MC Library Server running on a PC somewhere, and then you have a Windows based NUC running as a Client of the Library Server, but also set up as a Server (running Media Network) so that JRemote2 can connect to the Client and control playback on it. Correct?
If so, what happens if you use JRemote2 to connect to the Library Server, and then try to direct playback to the NUC Client which should be visible as a Zone using its name, rather than "Player"?
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If I turn off authentication I am able to once again play music provided that I clear the user and password from the server settings in JRemote2.
I can also successfully push music to the NUC from the library server. Note that the library server has authentication turned on.
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Is there any way of playing back WAV without converting to MP3? I've already selected Use Native Audio Format which works fine for FLAC but WAV gets converted.
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If I turn off authentication I am able to once again play music provided that I clear the user and password from the server settings in JRemote2.
<snip> Note that the library server has authentication turned on.
You didn't clarify this:
So I take it you have a MC Library Server running on a PC somewhere, and then you have a Windows based NUC running as a Client of the Library Server, but also set up as a Server (running Media Network) so that JRemote2 can connect to the Client and control playback on it. Correct?
But I'm going to assume that is correct.
If Authentication was turned on in the Client, and JRemote2 was connected to the Client, then JRemote2 would be trying to push tag changes ([Number Plays] count) back to the Client, which would then synchronise those tag changes back to the Library Server. Maybe if different Username and Passwords were used on the Client and Library Server, that is causing a problem... I tested that theory. Nope. With that exact configuration playback works and the [Number Plays] tag get updated back to the Library Server. I had JRemote2 connected to my Windows 10 based MC Client, which was in turn connected to my Windows 10 based MC Library Server, both with Authentication turned on and using different Username and Passwords, and playback to the MC Client worked fine.
Maybe try rebooting all PCs and the phone involved in your setup. Just to be sure it isn't some transient issue.
If that doesn't work, and...
I can also successfully push music to the NUC from the library server.
If you are using JRemote2 connected to the Library Server to push music to the NUC, then I guess that is the solution for now. It isn't a bad way to run your setup anyway. Maybe you or someone else who has the problem can isolate the cause. I can't duplicate the problem, so I can't diagnose the issue.
PS: You aren't using special characters in your Authentication credentials are you? I think that caused some issue for someone recently.
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No special characters just letters and numbers. I appreciate your effort to replicate the problem.
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I thought I would give this a shot. 4.99 for a one time deal over the 4.99 yearly subscription for MO4Media is what made me think I should try it. I do not like paying subscriber fees! Just let me own the app outright. Plus, I like what you guys are doing in development for MC (been a MC user since MC20), so why not try this?
I like it. The interface is nice (esp in dark mode) I like that I can seek within a song (something the other app sucked at). Plays back video pretty nicely too. I will see how it interfaces with Android Auto very soon! I installed the app on my LG V30 (w/ Android 9) without a problem. Search function is fast!! Locating bands or albums in my library occurs without a hitch.
I do wish it had a built in EQ or at least some DSP settings but it seems to do what it was intended to do very smoothly.
Great job developing this app. I look forward to the updated functionality to come! This app made me cancel my subscription with Mo4Media after about 5 minutes of playing with it. Super easy to use. Thanks!!
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I will see how it interfaces with Android Auto very soon!
Unfortunately, probably not very much, outside of perhaps default Android functionality to display any app there.
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I thought I would give this a shot. 4.99 for a one time deal over the 4.99 yearly subscription for MO4Media is what made me think I should try it. I do not like paying subscriber fees! Just let me own the app outright.
MO 4Media is now available as a one time purchase. No subscription needed.
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I have JRemote2 installed on my phone and an Amazon Fire (converted to use Play Store). I use JRiver mostly for playing music from my Windows 10 PC, although I occasionally use it for Video. I have very few tags attached to my music files which include HD Downloads, SACD to DSF rips, CD to WAV rips (no tags) and Digital Radio rips to WAV (no tags). I structure my files in folders on the PC, and always play through JRiver selecting "AUDIO" - "FILES" or "VIDEO" - "FILES", and then browsing to the folder of the music/video I wish to play. When using JRemote2, there is no option for browsing the file structure on the PC to select a folder, and because of limited tagging I cannot find anything as JRemote2 seems to search only on tags. Is the option to browse files in my Music and Video folders likely to become available? I can currently browse and start playing on the PC and use JRemote2 to go to the play list to jump or repeat tracks but cannot use it to browse to another folder.
Also a setting to "Stop playing after current track" would be very useful.
Thanks for all the work you put into the software JRiver and JRemote2.
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I have JRemote2 installed on my phone and an Amazon Fire ...
Follow the highlights in the attached image to add the Files View to JRemote2. See if that works for you.
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RoderickGI,
I fixed the typo and removed your comment. Thanks.
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Follow the highlights in the attached image to add the Files View to JRemote2. See if that works for you.
Thank you RoderickGI. That works for me. ;D
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Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I use this app on an Android screen with a 5 inch diagonal.
My one suggestion would be to have (or an option to have) more than one line of text under an album icon. For those of us who have a collection of classical music files this is really needed. One line barely allows a composer's name, and little more.
The app, EOS, used to have two lines overlapping the album icon somewhat. It worked very well, in that respect, I think. See attached.
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Lenny
I asked for 2 lines of text too, also because I used EOS. Roderick pointed out that if you use the toggle at top right of the screen you see much more of the title and even more if viewed landscape. I now find this is enough to show, eg, the piano sonata number. Although I include the key and opus no. I don't need these to be able to pick the work I want to play, which is what it's all about. I wouldn't want to have the top line of the title overlapping the album image as in EOS, it looks a bit like a mistake.
There is much about EOS that I still prefer, eg the elapsed time / track length, rather than elapsed & remaining time on opposite sides of the screen, but overall I do now prefer JRemote2. It just takes time and a bit of exploring features we're not used to.
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Hi MartinC,
Thank you for your note and explanation. For those who use a phone it seems to me that there ought to be two goals (perhaps among others).
(1) Efficient use of what has been called the most valuable real estate known, and
(2) a minimum of keystrokes to get what you want.
At present, with three albums across, JRemote2 has fewer than four full rows down. IMO, that is not efficient use of this very limited real estate. EOS has slightly more than four, an important improvement IMO. With EOS's two rows of text, and even with some very complicated album names, I have never felt any lack of information. So keystroke (and possibly multiple keystrokes or scroll) and back saved looking for an album. As for, "it looks a bit like a mistake" I would ask: to whom? Certainly not to me, and no one is looking over my shoulder who might suggest that. It's a super smart use of the very limited area and minimizes the useless black space. If made an option it can certainly do no harm.
One of the reasons I write again with this feature request is that in some important respects, and speaking here only of audio, MC gives short shrift to those of us using it for classical music while there are all sorts of features which we probably don't use at all. A single line for a complicated album description is but an example. I realize we are a minority, but even so perhaps another bite at the apple and Hendrik and others might take notice.
Again, thanks for your kind reply and thanks to the developers for giving us this forum.
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One of the reasons I write again with this feature request is that in some important respects, and speaking here only of audio, MC gives short shrift to those of us using it for classical music while there are all sorts of features which we probably don't use at all. A single line for a complicated album description is but an example. I realize we are a minority, but even so perhaps another bite at the apple and Hendrik and others might take notice.
I know what you mean. I don't use ratings or the volume control, so the top 15% of the Playing Now screen is unused. Meanwhile, the title is sandwiched between Shuffle and Repeat controls - and I don't use those either.
I think the Bubble app's Playing Now layout (below) has some good ideas.
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Lenny
I agree that classical users are not catered for very well compared with others, but regarding the lines of text where do you draw the line? In many cases on a phone, which I'm also using, 2 lines or even 3 wouldn't be enough to show the full title. It's not helped by putting the composer"s name first, as I do. OK if it's Bax, but not if it's Shostakovich - that's most of the first line gone already. I had been thinking of omitting the composer's name from the title (I have the composer's name as part of the genre), but now I don't feel the need to omit it. In classical music we're often chosing a work that will play for 40 minutes or more; we can spend a bit of time finding the right album.
Regards
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. . . In many cases on a phone, which I'm also using, 2 lines or even 3 wouldn't be enough to show the full title. . . . . we can spend a bit of time finding the right album. . . .
MartinC,
Of course, you're correct about the lines. However it was certainly possible for me, and given what you have written for you as well, to make two lines work. So I have not asked for 3, or more, just for two. Perhaps if enough of us make that request, it might be considered. I hope you can agree.
As for "spend a bit of time finding the right album" that's exactly what I'd like to avoid when using an app, or as to spending extra time, any app at all for that matter.
All the best to you.
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Has anyone had this problem. I play a playlist fine and select another playlist which plays but doesn't show artwork or the title of the track. It continues to just show the previous playlist track and artwork. I'm using an Id NUC.
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Has anyone had this problem. I play a playlist fine and select another playlist which plays but doesn't show artwork or the title of the track. It continues to just show the previous playlist track and artwork. I'm using an Id NUC.
I think I had the same after adding some albums to my IdPi. I did a 'force stop' on JRemote2 on my phone, and it then worked as normal.
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Yes I did the same thing. But why do I need to do that?
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Are you remote controlling MC when this happens, or playing to your phone?
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Yes.
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Which is it?
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Sorry. Using Id as a renderer.
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Before you start moving much around, we should probably have a general discussion of how remote interfaces should work. I've been thinking about our other remotes, as well. It would be nice if there was some consistency among them.
And it should probably be in a separate thread.
Home and Back are the most important navigation buttons for me. I'd like to see them in that order in the upper left corner.
Theater View works by using the left arrow key on a remote or keyboard to back up.
The X in JRemote2 gets used as a back button sometimes, doesn't it?
Brad and I have had a discussion about whether the "standard" Android navigation is right or even standard. No conclusion so far.
I'll split this to a new thread.
Maybe have a look at phonograph for android. Its a local music player. But imo its as good as it gets in terms of general ux design. For android. Its open source too.
You dont need a "home button" either since you dont ever really leave "home" by more than one screen when playing back media. In phonograph. Does not necessarily apply to jremote2.
The "android navigation" (material design). I would say its standard too on other platforms. Or the standard that seems to prevail the most often when cross-platform things collapse into mobile size. Everyone knows how it works, it takes 5 minutes to implement with kotlin/java. It works great. Why would you reinvent it?
I understand wanting to theme your app more jriver like. But why in the world change basic ux designs away from whats basically system default to fit an entierly different system (ios) when both of them are native apps?
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Just purchased the app, will you be adding adaptive icon support? The app icon is pretty small when it's placed inside the default white background placeholder.
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Just purchased the app, will you be adding adaptive icon support? The app icon is pretty small when it's placed inside the default white background placeholder.
Yes, its planned to add round icon support.
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Yes, its planned to add round icon support.
Great! ;)
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RE: text lines
I would be in favour of having at least two text lines per thumbnail for use in views wherein specifying artist and album is preferable, but this will likely not efficiently address very long titles.
Instead, I would suggest implementing right-to-left text scrolling for tites in thumbnail views and in Playing Now. If the number of lines is increased, apply the effect to each line individually, as needed.
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Is it not possible to use Jremote2 to play a movie from the server to another client and keep original audio and video? It transcodes every time I attempt this. Playing the file from the client directly works as expected.
I cannot imagine why this would not be a major point of emphasis, so I must be missing something. Also, the ability to pick the audio stream via JRemote would be quiet useful for movies.
Thank you
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If you use JRemote2 to control another client playing from a server, then that client will control how it streams the video - ie. it has settings on conversion or original. JRemote does not decide that.
If you play the video inside JRemote2 (on the phone), then it'll always be transcoded right now, because phones support much less formats.
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What you describe is what I would expect. The client is set to not convert. As I said, when browsing the library from the client, Windows 10 HTPC, and playing... It works just fine. My Dolby Atmos track or Dolby Digital track works.
When using JRemote 2, the audio seems to convert to 2 channel and the video down to 1080p from 4k. It definitely does not play native streams for me.
If you use JRemote2 to control another client playing from a server, then that client will control how it streams the video - ie. it has settings on conversion or original. JRemote does not decide that.
If you play the video inside JRemote2 (on the phone), then it'll always be transcoded right now, because phones support much less formats.
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Perhaps I overlooked it, but just heard about JRemote2.
As a long-time user of JRemote, is there an upgrade in place or do I have to repurchase from scratch?
Thanks
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JRemote2 is a separate purchase as it's a separate, rewritten app from the original JRemote.
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Here is an update... I had to select original audio and video on the first DLNA server entry inside Options, Media Network, add or configure DLNA servers. Now, it works as expected but not as I would expect to configure it... If that makes sense.
Secondly, is there any plan to allow for the picking of different audio streams from inside JRemote 2? I'm trying to remove the need to use my mouse. JRemote 2 is pretty snazzy, but if I have to use the mouse to select the appropriate audio stream, I might as well use the mouse to select the movie too and not use JRemote. It's just another application at that point. It works well and seems a lot better than Gizmo.
What you describe is what I would expect. The client is set to not convert. As I said, when browsing the library from the client, Windows 10 HTPC, and playing... It works just fine. My Dolby Atmos track or Dolby Digital track works.
When using JRemote 2, the audio seems to convert to 2 channel and the video down to 1080p from 4k. It definitely does not play native streams for me.
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Selecting streams is planned for JRemote in some capacity. But perhaps not quite in the manner how you are controlling the client right now.
I initially misunderstood what you were doing, but practically what you are doing is controlling the server - which is then in turn controlling the client. Thats probably too many steps for full control.
If you wanted to directly control the client with JRemote, you could enable Media Network on the client, and connect to the Client with JRemote, and then control the "Player" zone. That way it would act more like actual local playback.
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Selecting streams is planned for JRemote in some capacity. But perhaps not quite in the manner how you are controlling the client right now.
I initially misunderstood what you were doing, but practically what you are doing is controlling the server - which is then in turn controlling the client. Thats probably too many steps for full control.
If you wanted to directly control the client with JRemote, you could enable Media Network on the client, and connect to the Client with JRemote, and then control the "Player" zone. That way it would act more like actual local playback.
Wouldn't this be like having two libraries pointing to the same files? What I changed this morning seems to make the original streams work now. It just doesn't seem like it should care what the DLNA server settings are. To me, if it is a client, it should play as if you were clicking the mouse buttons directly and not transcode. Am I missing something, is this a bug or is this all expected?
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To me, if it is a client, it should play as if you were clicking the mouse buttons directly and not transcode. Am I missing something, is this a bug or is this all expected?
But thats not what you are doing. You are basically clicking mouse buttons on the server, not on the client. If you want to directly "click buttons" on the client, then you need to connect directly to the client.
If you control a remote zone on the server like this, you are basically using DLNA for playback, and not using "local" playback.
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Perhaps I overlooked it, but just heard about JRemote2.
As a long-time user of JRemote, is there an upgrade in place or do I have to repurchase from scratch?
Thanks
It's currently a reduced price.
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But thats not what you are doing. You are basically clicking mouse buttons on the server, not on the client. If you want to directly "click buttons" on the client, then you need to connect directly to the client.
If you control a remote zone on the server like this, you are basically using DLNA for playback, and not using "local" playback.
This probably belongs in a different thread, but on the subject of audio streams, I have selected, in your splitter, to always prefer the "best audio"... Sorry, I forgot exactly what it says... Is there a better way to do this, or program JRiver in some way that it always selects the English, Atmos DTS:X, TrueHD, DTS MA etc... In some order of preference?
I see, after searching, many people have asked you guys to implement this over the years. My guess is that, if it were going to happen, it would have happened by now.
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I like it! The only thing I've found that doesn't seem to be working is to save ratings (stars). When I make a rating on Gizmo it shows up on my desktop MediaCenter, but making a rating on JRemote2 doesn't seem to do that...it just disappears.
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I like it! The only thing I've found that doesn't seem to be working is to save ratings (stars). When I make a rating on Gizmo it shows up on my desktop MediaCenter, but making a rating on JRemote2 doesn't seem to do that...it just disappears.
I'll try to remember to get that in the next update.
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i am loving JRemote, particularly as i can now sign in using the secure SSL protected port. Also the browsing experience is much improved. I just wondered though, once in genre menu it seems to default to a split by artist. Could i possibly get it to sort by say publisher instead, something a bit like you could do with column browser on the PC version? the only way i can think is to do a playlist.
Also yer i'd like to see the ability to edit tags in the library from the jremote2 app as its helpful to edit them at the time you're listening
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Sounds like JRemote 2 is pretty sophisticated with a lot of options... I wonder if it would work for my rather simple setup:
I have a WIn10 PC running MC24, connected via USB to a DAC (which in turn is connected to amp and headphones).
My PC boots straight into MC24, and all the music is stored locally on the HDD. I use this setup just for audio playback.
My questions are:
1. Can I simply use my Android tablet (Samsung S6) to control the MC on the PC? So basically, eliminate the need for keyboard & mouse operation? Just select album / song on my tablet, press play, and music just plays?
2. Is MC24 compatible, or do I need MC26 installed? I did buy the upgrade license, just never got to upgrade, yet... ;-)
Please let me know if other Android apps are better for this very simple setup and only for Audio playback...
Thanks!
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1. Yes.
2. MC24 should work, but it is worth mentioning there was performance updates in MC26 which might make it faster when using JRemote2 (e.g. large playlists load quicker).
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Thanks Awesome Donkey! You are awesome indeed :)
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There are also new features coming that won't work with older versions of MC anymore. But the baseline functionality should always be available on any semi-recent version of MC.
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First order of business would be to upgrade MC24 -> MC26...
Will try to find the time tonight! ;)
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What you think about making the first window tab based instead of those sub-menus. Maybe as an option? I think it would be a lot better in terms of usability. You don't need to go back and forth to switch between albums and artists and playlists and so forth.
I've already said that once here, but less as a suggestion and more as a reaction to another comment (that probably came over wrong and was probably unnecessary in that way).
Though the reason for that was mostly, because I also got jriver for android. I could go into all the detail you want, but let's just say i wasn't very impressed with the UI/UX decisions made in it. Or rather the lack off since it's just panel on mobile. Witch there are great cross platform web apps out there. Panel just isn't that. So 'a unified app experience' in that context is something that more scared me than sounded good at all. JRemote is better designed than panel (especially on mobile) ever was.
I don't currently use jremote much. But that will change soon when I actually have a system that I will want to commonly remote control. Where as now I pretty much use JRiver exclusively on PCs I sit in front of with a mouse and keyboard.
Then I can probably say more about wether it worked well or not when using it for longer than just messing with it with no real point to actually using it.
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Are you planning on adding a feature to "Convert to MP3 when using mobile data" ? That would be a great addition!
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Are you planning on adding a feature to "Convert to MP3 when using mobile data" ? That would be a great addition!
This was my favorite feature of EOS when it was still around. I'd like this too.
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I've been using Gizmo and the original JRemote for a long time, but often I use BubbleUPnP to control MediaCenter. There are some things I can't do with BubbleUPnP (star ratings, customizing library views) but there is one very useful feature that app does have - In the "Now Playing" screen the options dropdown menu lets you "Go To Artist" (which shows me all the albums I have by that artist). There's also "Go to Album." Sometimes with a playlist that includes songs I haven't played in a while that's a great way to immediately re-acquaint myself with an artist.
Just a thought.
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Upgraded to MC26, installed Jremote2 on my Samsung S6 tablet, connected to server, and...
When playing - the music plays off the tablet. Not what I wanted...
How do I make tablet only the remote, so when I click play - music would play through my desktop DAC and amp?
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In JRemote2 settings, set the renderer you want. In this case, Player, the zone of the server.
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Worked!!! Thanks Jim.
Player settings is in bottom and I didn't even see it until you made me look for it.
Now it's exactly what I wanted :)
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Feature request:
Add shutdown action. Just like when in theater view mode, and clicking exit - one of the options is shutdown. That would allow to disconnect my music server from monitor and mouse!
Thanks Jim for excellent remote app!!! Best $6.99 spent in a long time ;)
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You're welcome.
Not exactly what you want, but you can do a shutdown from Panel in the Admin part.
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Not exactly what you want, but you can do a shutdown from Panel in the Admin part.
Admin part? Where is that?
Can you please attach a screenshot that shows what you mean?
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Under Settings in Panel.
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I do not see "Admin" under Settings :(
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Sorry. It's only when you use the IdPi as a server. Settings Icon > First Tab > System (at bottom) > Admin.
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Sorry. It's only when you use the IdPi as a server. Settings Icon > First Tab > System (at bottom) > Admin.
My server is Windows 10, so I guess I do not have that option?
So, I am back to ask adding "shutdown" as a new feature for server that is running Windows...
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Just started using JRemote2 on an Android. I was expecting to be able to change tags (fields) from the app, but I did not find how. Any advice?
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Just started using JRemote2 on an Android. I was expecting to be able to change tags (fields) from the app, but I did not find how. Any advice?
Coming in a future update.
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I see from the recent JRiver email JRemote 2 can now play from Cloudplay.
I must have missed this but how do we use JRemote2 to access Cloudplay?
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I think that's coming soon.
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I see from the recent JRiver email JRemote 2 can now play from Cloudplay.
I must have missed this but how do we use JRemote2 to access Cloudplay?
Its in the next version, Jim jumped the gun a bit with the text in the mail. ;D Won't be much longer though!
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Hi,
Sorry if I've missed it but are there any plans to implement the possibility of controlling the different Radio Paradise streams from the app?.
Manny thanks,
O
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I was just looking at the recent email regarding the stable release of JR26 and saw the note about JRemote2 for Android. I had tried the previous version way back and did not like it. Then I started using Gizmo which though short on features works very solidly but doesn't support rating songs and transferring that rating to the PC/server which is a key feature I want/need to curate my music lists.
Bottom line.
1. Ratings on Google Play Store for JRemote2 are abysmal. It seems many people have insurmountable problems. Average rating is 1.9. Has anything changed in the last couple months that moves the needle on people's issues? There are no responses from JRiver development visible in Play Store to give a potential buyer any reason to think JRiver has responded to the issues raised.
2. Will JRemote2 support me rating a song in JRemote2 and transfer that rating to the PC?
I would pay the rather steep app price of $9.99 if I knew it would do #2 and if issues raised by reviewers have been addressed.
Thanks! Looking forward to possibly using JRemote2 for Android as it potentially fills a need for me.
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1. Ratings on Google Play Store for JRemote2 are abysmal. It seems many people have insurmountable problems. Average rating is 1.9. Has anything changed in the last couple months that moves the needle on people's issues? There are no responses from JRiver development visible in Play Store to give a potential buyer any reason to think JRiver has responded to the issues raised.
I think you must be looking at the wrong Play Store app listing. JRemote2 is at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jriver.jremote2, but there is barely any public reviews since over 3/4 of all users are enrolled in the beta program (which hides their feedback to developers only). That also distorts the rating quite a bit, unfortunately. However, there is not one actionable review on the Play Store, the only negative ones are generic "it doesn't work". And when crashes happen (which might be one source of such a review), we get automatic reports, and we actually address those for the next update.
All feedback given here on the forums is given serious consideration and/or discussed here.
2. Will JRemote2 support me rating a song in JRemote2 and transfer that rating to the PC?
Ratings are unfortunately broken in the current version, but it will be fixed in the next update. Keep an eye on this space if you want to be notified. It'll be soon.
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I think you must be looking at the wrong Play Store app listing. JRemote2 is at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jriver.jremote2, but there is barely any public reviews since over 3/4 of all users are enrolled in the beta program (which hides their feedback to developers only). That also distorts the rating quite a bit, unfortunately. However, there is not one actionable review on the Play Store, the only negative ones are generic "it doesn't work". And when crashes happen (which might be one source of such a review), we get automatic reports, and we actually address those for the next update.
All feedback given here on the forums is given serious consideration and/or discussed here.
Ratings are unfortunately broken in the current version, but it will be fixed in the next update. Keep an eye on this space if you want to be notified. It'll be soon.
Thanks - you are right. I was looking at the wrong app and see JRemote2 is an average 2.8. Thanks for the feedback. If/when song ratings gets fixed I will try this.
Would JRemote2 be a complete replacement for Poweramp on my Android? It seems so. I got Poweramp in order to play FLAC files.
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Hi
I like it!
Is there a way to shutdown a Windows 7 with MC26 in JRemote2?
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Would JRemote2 be a complete replacement for Poweramp on my Android? It seems so. I got Poweramp in order to play FLAC files.
JRemote2 is for the time being only designed to either manage MC or play files from MC. It does not play files that reside locally on your phone. You would need to continue to use Poweramp for that.
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Or JRiver for Android.
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Hi,
will there be a way to shutdown a Windows PC in the future, like in EOS?
[settings-shutdown]
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Hi,
will there be a way to shutdown a Windows PC in the future, like in EOS?
[settings-shutdown]
I was asking the same question, and so did another person...
Hopefully, that would be enough of a demand to make it happen :)
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When browsing tracks for playing I typically use the "Play next" playmode.
1. Right now when browsing tracks to add, there is no indication of which "playmode" is active. It would be great if the current selected playmode symbol was visible during browsing.
2. When selecting tracks for Play next there is no popup or other indication that the track selection was successful (referencing old JRemote) and will play next. When in "Default view mode" the Play next function still works, but there is not even a momentary track darkening when selected, and when viewing the play list they are added.
It will be great when JR2 gets fully built, including Theater View remote, cloudplay, streaming etc. to be an all-in-one remote app. Since my equipment is in a separate room from listening/viewing I find myself bouncing between different remote apps depending on what functions I need. Great work so far!
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I have a JRemote2 bug to report. If I'm using the app and then close it down, about 2 seconds later the icon in the top notification area pops back up like something is still playing. The only way I've found to get the app to close fully is to force stop the app.
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Any more word on when the next build drops?
Really missing those star ratings now.
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Should be next week, when everything works out
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I have a JRemote2 bug to report. If I'm using the app and then close it down, about 2 seconds later the icon in the top notification area pops back up like something is still playing. The only way I've found to get the app to close fully is to force stop the app.
I see that only if playing to the local device, if I remember correctly.
After closing the App, just close the notification by swiping it away. No need to force close the App.
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Should be next week, when everything works out
Will that release include Windows shutdown functionality?
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Hi, I don't know if anyone has already asked about this: In JRemote1 the year was indicated underneath the album title. I found that very useful and would like to have it again. Otherwise JRemote is working very well and much faster than the previous version.
Thanks
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I see JRemote 2 is price@10.99 eu. Any sales or disocunt for buyer of the JRemote 1?
Thanks
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Should be next week, when everything works out
Hendrik - any update on next release?
Will you be adding shutdown functionality for Windows?
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Hendrik - any update on next release?
Will you be adding shutdown functionality for Windows?
No system management functions for now.
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It's been bugging me for several years already that JRemote can't handle CD playback at all. Even if I can put CD in with auto playback function, I can only press back and forward to navigate music and can't select track number like real CD player remote.
Worst of all, there's no eject button function meaning I'll need to eject CD through remote desktop feature. Some good drive like certain Teac model won't have eject button implemented and now I need to buy Unified Remote app setup on PC to do that.
I hope JRiver will realize this issue and develop CD remote function for audiophiles who want to use server as CD player too. Trust me this is one of reasons why many of audiophiles haven't joined in computer audio yet. They have massive CD collection and don't have time to RIP them all yet.
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While the idea is interesting, I'm not sure if it'd actually work that way. I can't imagine the experience of trying to play CDs on-the-fly through a remote using MCWS/DLNA, especially the latter since DLNA is file based, is even going to work at all.
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Does JRemote2 understand CUE sheets?
Just made one for a particularly long mix of tracks sold consolidated in to one. Plays as intended in MC and appears fine in JRemote2, but selecting any track just plays the long mix from the beginning.
Edit: Got it to work by disabling the Use native audio format option.
I see it behaves similarly to when using MC to push media to other devices with DSP: transcoding must be in play to actually apply the desired effects.
This is obviously not a high priority at this early stage, but consider this a feature request for later: if Use native audio format is enabled and media asset is CUE, convert to same format as the file the CUE references.
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Loving and learning jRemote2, thank you! Have had problems with MC26 and JRemote dropping Chromecast Audio groups as DLNA renderer(s), but just sometimes, and I can't offer a pattern to help diagnose.
My question is (perhaps) the flip side of people asking for a Windows shut down feature. When my Windows 10 PC is sleeping, and I'm lazy in another room, and open JRemote 2 on my Android phone, it won't connect to server unless I go to the PC and wake it. Can that be changed? Once connectrd to the server, I'm fine with all features I've tried even when the PC goes back to sleep.
Thanks!
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Hi rick5
The wake a server feature already exists in JRemote2.
On the startup page where you see a list of the configured servers on the right hand side of the page opposite your server you should see WOL, which stands for Wake On LAN.
If your server is configured correctly to wake from sleep using a magic packet this will wake your server.
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Here's the wiki topic on how Wake On Lan works:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Wake_on_Lan
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Thank you very much, but no luck yet.
That wiki led me to https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=63581.0 from which I learned to make sure the PC is set to allow WOL - it is now [device manager, expand the adapters section, properties for the network adapter, power management tab].
jRemote2's server list did not have the WOL before I did that, but does now (if the PC is asleep). But alas, when I tried the WOL, nothing happened, except the PC lost and would not regain its internet connection (other devices on the wifi were fine). I rebooted, was Internet-connected, put it to sleep and tried the WOL again, same result.
I'll keep reading wikis and experimenting - it's not long before I'm over my head. Next I'm guessing the router needs a look-see. Eventually I hope to get this working from outside my network...
Ideas welcome! and thank you,. ... Rick
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Try testing with a WOL app (not MC).
If your PC lost its IP address, then something isn't configured correctly on it. I don't think sending it a WOL packet could do that.
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Rick, if your MC Server is on WiFi only, you may need to do some more work, and it may not be possible if the PC is old. WOL over WiFi wasn't well supported in the past. The Wireless Adapter in your PC needs to specifically support WOL over Wireless. I believe this means it needs specific hardware, and not just the latest drivers.
You may need to find a setting in the PC's BIOS to allow Wake On LAN over Wireless. In fact, Google "Wake On LAN over Wireless" to find lots of information.
If you get stuck, tell us what your PC is, Brand and exact model, or if not a specific brand, motherboard brand and model, or if you have a separate Wireless Adapter in it or a Wireless USB Adapter, brand and specific model.
You don't usually need to make changes in your Router setup to get WOL working. If you were trying to wake the MC Server from the internet, that would be different. You do have your Android phone connected to your home WiFi network, correct? Because if you only have the phone connected to mobile data, that means you are trying to wake it over the internet, which as above is harder and does require changes in your Router, if the Router supports it at all. Many don't.
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>>Try testing with a WOL app (not MC).
Well, I'm stumped (relatively easy that) . I tested WOL with Android app WoIon. No visible result from WOL, but same anomaly -- PC lost Internet, until reboot. So it's not an MC- or JR-specific cause. I'm thinking the adapter (Qualcomm QCA9565, 2017 Dell PC) is getting the packet and messing up, or it's a router issue (I think it's irrelevant that I have Google Fiber with a router built in to their modem still broadcasting, but I only use and configure LAN from my Linksys). I'll experiment more, and meanwhile hope my immediate problem (for JRemote to wake sleeping PC) will be solved by only manually letting the PC sleep.
(Meanwhile, I got distracted last night with the 'customize views for JRemote' options in tools>options>media network>advanced, so now within jRemote2's Audio items I can search for any song title, or about anything else I can set up. Often hard to find, but it always seems there's a way to do what I'd like MC to do.)
Thanks again!
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Should be next week, when everything works out
Everything okay?
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(I think it's irrelevant that I have Google Fiber with a router built in to their modem still broadcasting, but I only use and configure LAN from my Linksys).
It probably is irrelevant in this situation, but having yet another wireless device broadcasting locally isn't going to improve your WiFi connection strength.
All ISP Modem+Router devices I have used allowed the device to be put in "Bridged Mode", which basically turns off the Router part of the device and leaves it just acting as a Modem. I strongly advise you to look into that, and do it if you are using your Linksys for all wired and wireless Router requirements.
I found a recent Dell page that specifically refers to setting the BIOS to allow Wake On WLAN. See the BIOS section of: https://www.dell.com/support/article/en-au/sln305365/how-to-setup-wake-on-lan-wol-on-your-dell-system?lang=en#BIOS-settings
Turn that on.
I haven't been able to find specifications for the Qualcomm QCA9565 that confirm it supports Wake On WLAN, but it probably does if it is in a 2017 Dell PC.
What is the model number of your Dell PC? The specifications for the model often document what form of WOL is supported.
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Thanks, you guys are great! I've been indisposed, but quickly for now...
It's a 2017 Dell Inspiron 3650. I found a post for WOL issues on this model,
http://www.fileerrors.com/dell-inspiron-3650-unable-to-wake-from-sleep.html
that recommends downloading a "repair tool," but I'm not inclined to download a tool not from dell.com, and will check BIOS from the dell.com link you sent. I found other dell.com WOL-issue posts for the 3000-series, with solutions setting the Realtek adapter (ethernet, unlike my all-wifi set up; all devices on the same Linksys EA7300 LAN).
For the internal Qualcomm adapter, Windows Device Settings indicate it is WOL-capable. Power management properties (on/off) are: "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" and if that is checked, "allow this device to wake the computer," which if checked enable the option to "only allow a magic packet to wake the computer." I think I've tried every variation of those properties but will try again methodically, to be positive.
(The Google Fiber router was in bridge mode, but after I needed to look at settings and power it down once, its network started broadcasting, and I let it be. User error no doubt, thanks for the advice, I'll find its bridge mode setting.)
Thank you again. I'll try everything I can and report back when I find a solution (or not).
Best, Rick
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http://www.fileerrors.com/dell-inspiron-3650-unable-to-wake-from-sleep.html
Don't use that tool, or site, ever. At best it is trying to sell you a tool you don't need. At worst it contains Malware and is a scam or is trying to steal your personal information.
Any site anywhere, except maybe Microsoft, Intel, or a few other brand name sites (always check the URL), that offers a Windows Repair Tool is usually a bad player. The above looks particularly bad.
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I had a look at the Dell Support site for the Inspiron 3650. No help at all specific to your model. If you don't find the setting to turn on in BIOS, perhaps confirm with Dell that the PC has the capability for Wake On WLAN.
The good news is that the wireless card does look upgradable if your current card doesn't support Wake On WLAN.
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New version when?
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Probably when it's ready to be released. Can't really rush this kind of thing but Hendrik is actively working on it and getting Cloudplay working in it, like he said on the previous page. :)
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Is there an issue trying to Chromecast playlists or multiple albums? I can play all of an Artist's albums or a Playlist to the local device, but they won't play when I try to Chromecast the same thing (Now Playing never populates.) However, if I play a single album or track Chromecast works just fine.
??
Also, is there a way to show the whole Now Playing list - not just only the current track?
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Also, is there a way to show the whole Now Playing list - not just only the current track?
On the Now Playing screen, swipe from the right to the left to load the playlist.
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Thank you for the Now Playing tip...
My JRemote2 problem with Chromecast seems even more bizarre now that I keep working on it. Only some Playlists and some multi-album Artists won't play when casting (single albums by any Artist always play.)
Examples:
- I have a playlist "Audio: Chill" that plays just fine on device, but won't play if Chromecasting. Whereas my playlist "Audio: Dinner Jazz" plays fine in either case.
- I have multiple albums for each of the artists "King Crimson", "King Crimson Collector's Club", and "King Crimson ProjeKcts". The first two only play on the device, not when Chromecasting. The latter plays in either case.
I have a fairly large collection and could create scores of similar examples. I can't see any reason why enabling Chromecast should make a difference, or why some Playlists/Artists should be affected and others not.
Ideas?
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Chromecast has certain limits, if a playlist is too long it may not work. If those are particularly long, try using more manageable playlists.
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Well that's probably it then. I'll edit my SmartLists to limit the # of tracks until I get a size that works thru JRemote2....and live with the limitations for Artists.
Thanks.
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There is a new thread here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,124861.msg864463.html#msg864463
Locking this one now.