Timestamp preserve, lyrics/cover import and advanced playlists

[Dogway]

To this day I still use Winamp. I'm really liking Wacup but here are a few things that refrain me to take the leap forward.

- Allow modifying IDtag while preserving timestamps
- ReplayGain, prevent timestamp update
- Integrate lyrics and album cover import
- Show waveform also in compact mode
- Integrate queue panel into the UI (make UI customizable would be a plus)
- Create Sub Playlists
- Smart Playlists (by genre, by year, etc) (this has been requested before)
- Allow to show also bitdepth and type of Stereo (joint stereo, etc)

[dro]

So not much then though most of these points could be leveraged as reasons to also not be using Winamp

Timestamps being modified imho should happen if the tag has been altered - is there a reason why preserving timestamps is needed?

Integrate lyrics and album cover import

This is limited by how to reliably access lyrics information unless you're just wanting to use local information which tbh lyricsplugin / mini-lyrics do the task already. Not sure what you mean by "album cover import" as artwork should already be being displayed.

Show waveform also in compact mode

Do you mean the waveform seeker window? Also what compact mode as that can vary between skin types & what can or cannot be (easily) done.

Integrate queue panel into the UI (make UI customizable would be a plus)

Again not sure what queue panel is meant (the JTF window or the queue manager window) ? Also again this depends on the skin type being used & what you're actually asking for.

Create Sub PlaylistsSmart Playlists (by genre, by year, etc) (this has been requested before)

These will eventually get done.

Allow to show also bitdepth and type of Stereo (joint stereo, etc)

Shown where? As bit depth already can be but showing the level of stereo is going format specific & that often isn't too helpful if you're wanting this is some sort of main ui feature (which might not be feasible to do depending on the skin being used).

-dro

[Aminifu]

Timestamps being modified imho should happen if the tag has been altered - is there a reason why preserving timestamps is needed?
-dro

Some IDtag editors (e.g. MP3Tag) provide the option to preserve timestamps or not. Like you, I don't understand why. The default media library views "Recently Added" and "Recently Modified" meet my needs and the default time periods (i.e. 3 days from current date) are easily changed for either or both.

[Dogway]

Thanks for the answer.

Because if Wacup doesn't improve my experience with Winamp why should I make the effort to switch?
I don't know why you come as defensive, I'm here because I like what I see and want to help to improve the program.

About timestamps, music is associated with periods of time, experiences, if you change the timestamp then music is detached from memories and are simply seen as assets. This is like writing the date on the reverse of photos, call me rare : /
I use MP3Tag, but the purpose is to allow this on a global level within Wacup so I can also use ReplayGain. By the way ReplayGain can also be found on other programs as well and that didn't mean it shouldn't be included in Wacup.

Yes, lyricsplugin / mini-lyrics should make it, didn't know those, in case they work with Wacup although a button like on the screenshot should be great to streamline the experience. Also this is again editing the IDTags hence Timestamps. With album cover I mean if it's not present or if it's not what you want, click on a button to download a cover album.

I also add a mockup of the waveform seeker in compact mode. The queue panel is the queue manager window. It's just floating around, shouldn't it be integrated into the UI?

[Aminifu]

...
About timestamps, music is associated with periods of time, experiences, if you change the timestamp then music is detached from memories and are simply seen as assets. This is like writing the date on the reverse of photos, call me rare : /
I use MP3Tag, but the purpose is to allow this on a global level within Wacup so I can also use ReplayGain. By the way ReplayGain can also be found on other programs as well and that didn't mean it shouldn't be included in Wacup.

Ok, I get what you're saying. However, several dates are, or can be, associated with music files. Only 1 of these dates (i.e. modified) is changed when a file's metadata is changed. The date a file was first put on your storage device (i.e. created) is not changed unless you use a special utility that lets it be changed. The date a file was first added to the WACUP media library is not changed unless the library database is lost or corrupted and needs to be recreated. The date a song's artist first released it is in (or can be added to) the song's metadata.

These are just 4 of the date categories that are, or can be, associated with a music file. If there is a date category that isn't already defined (e.g. when you 1st heard it), then the comments field in the metadata can be used to store the information.

So most dates (timestamps) are maintained. I thought you were referring to the modification date in your original post. But maintaining a file's old modified date when a file is modified is just wrong, imo.

My mention of what MP3Tag does was not to agree or disagree with your point of view. It was just stating a fact for those who may not know. What 1 program does has nothing to do with what another one does, imo.

I also add a mockup of the waveform seeker in compact mode. The queue panel is the queue manager window. It's just floating around, shouldn't it be integrated into the UI?

The free floating and/or integrated queue panel window (or any other window) depends on the skin you're using. The skin I'm using has both a free floating queue panel window and an integrated queue panel view within it's media library window (which is enabled or disabled with a preferences option).

In addition, any free floating window can be linked with any other free floating window so that they always appear in the same relative positions to each other. The ability to place windows where you want (i.e. customize the UI view) is one of Winamp/WACUP strengths. Skins that provide most or all of it's windows within a prearranged overall window are referred to as SUI (single user interface) skins.

[Dogway]

While what you say it's true, the created timestamp is relative in the sense it doesn't depict when the file was created but copied (to another drive), so it's not reliable, meanwhile the modified timestamp survives copying between drives.

You have to admit that in this day and age it's not realistic to rely on the created timestamp when we copy files between several internal or external HDDs, USB, the cloud, back and forth. It's not the 90's anymore despite Microsoft believing so.

Thanks for looking into the mockup screenshots. I guess what I meant was exactly that, the ability to restructure the SUI with mouse and not a skin (with code), similar to some GUI implementations like Qt (foobar maybe? can't remember). I know that attaching windows side to side is a Winamp trademark, but the UI is not as small anymore but full fledged.

Well, that was my wishlist give or take, it's not my intention to start an argument,

[Aminifu]

Not really an argument. I believe it's usually a positive to heard and discuss different points of view.

Anyway, do well and stay healthy.

[dro]

Because if Wacup doesn't improve my experience with Winamp why should I make the effort to switch?
I don't know why you come as defensive, I'm here because I like what I see and want to help to improve the program.

That wasn't the intention of my comment to be defensive & was meant to be light-hearted when I was otherwise quickly trying to cover the things being asked for & so on.

About timestamps, music is associated with periods of time, experiences, if you change the timestamp then music is detached from memories and are simply seen as assets. This is like writing the date on the reverse of photos, call me rare : /

That makes more sense for asking to preserve the timestamps. Not sure how I'd best achieve that at the moment as tag writing is basically done on a per input plug-in basis & doesn't guarantee it'll go through some of the generic modification messages that the core tries to send. Will have to have a think about that once in_mp3 finally gets replaced.

I use MP3Tag, but the purpose is to allow this on a global level within Wacup so I can also use ReplayGain. By the way ReplayGain can also be found on other programs as well and that didn't mean it shouldn't be included in Wacup.

Along with my comment to the prior quoted text, WACUP supports both versions of the ReplayGain protocol when it comes to calculation & can be used with playback when enabled.

Yes, lyricsplugin / mini-lyrics should make it, didn't know those, in case they work with Wacup although a button like on the screenshot should be great to streamline the experience. Also this is again editing the IDTags hence Timestamps. With album cover I mean if it's not present or if it's not what you want, click on a button to download a cover album.

With the screenshot, it starts to take us down a route of doing skin-specific features which I'm not all that keen on doing unless there's no alternative. So with the case of artwork, that's something that I've been doing some research recently into possible ways to get an online copy if there's nothing locally present which would actually help negate the need for a button at all imho & would work whatever the skin being used.

Lyrics handling will need more research as I'd noted originally as it mostly comes down to where to get them from.

I also add a mockup of the waveform seeker in compact mode.

That's one for Victhor I think.

With the format info on the skin, without doing some testing even if I was to expose that metadata information, I'm not sure the modern skin engine is going to be able to access it even if the skin is updated to support such things. It gets messy as some parts are pulled directly & other things are parsed from a pre-formatted string & I'm not sure if that's the case or not with that part at the moment (this is one downside of not having gen_ff's source code to be able to know for certain what is / isn't going on).

The queue panel is the queue manager window. It's just floating around, shouldn't it be integrated into the UI?

Only if the skin has been coded to do that &/or has a mechanism to generically do it (iirc some of the cPro skins might offer that). Almost all of the SUI (single-ui) skins don't deal with such windows as most setups don't have the additional windows showing or they're only intended as being used temporarily or didn't exist when the skin was created. Not sure what I can suggest on this without getting the appropriate skins re-worked.

-dro