Messages

1516

Wishlist / Feature Requests / Re: Save ML Window Configurations on a per Skin basis

« on: July 04, 2017, 03:43:08 PM »

I fully understand the reasons for this wish and could do with it myself at times but I can't think off a nice way that it can be achieved without all library plug-ins being opt-ed into a system that allows for tracking the settings per-skin.

A big part of the issue is that the library window (and in turn the views) just work with the size of the library window container so the position of the library window sizer bar should be able to be made into a per-skin setting but the library views aren't simple to try and override. Also I'm not sure if when using a modern skin if it'd be possible within non-skin based code to detect normal vs maximised layouts (maybe within Winamp3 it could but as there's not much of the modern skin engine exposed in the 5.x setup that skin + plug-in interoperability is sadly very low).

-dro

1517

Wishlist / Feature Requests / Re: AIFF Metadata support

« on: July 04, 2017, 03:27:14 PM »

That's scary re-reading my old posts. I've just had a quick look and https://aifftagging.blogspot.co.uk/ seems to give a decent state of how the tagging is now don. From that it seems to follow using ID3v2 tags rather than the native tag fields (which sort of makes sense.

I found http://samplephotovideo.com/2015/12/download-aiff-audio-interchage-file/ which seems to have both types of tags and having a quick play around, it seems like winamp / wacup as-is is only reading the native fields rather than the ID3v2 tag as other players / editors are doing.

The handling of 'wav' file types sadly hasn't improved since that other forum post but it's more down to time to get something done that prevents even just having it follow the more popular formats (e.g. mp3, flac) and being handled via the unified alt+3 dialog. So this s something I'll definitely keep in mind as down the road I want to do some wider changes when it comes to tag handling to deal with some long standing annoyances I've got with Winamp + tagging in general.

-dro

1518

Archive / Re: Winamp - hot off the press (Arstechnica)

« on: July 04, 2017, 02:16:08 PM »

That seems very much like a re-posting of the original article from a few years back (2013 time-scale iirc).

-dro

1519

Archive / Re: Winamp. In your browser.

« on: June 25, 2017, 08:51:42 PM »

Jordan has done a lot of good work in getting Winamp 2.x skins to work in the browser to then wrap the HTML5 playback.

There's more than what the example on the site shows when getting the code from github and he's still actively working on it.

-dro

1520

Wishlist / Feature Requests / Re: Playlist: PgUp/PgDown/Home/End keys support

« on: June 23, 2017, 05:09:34 PM »

Home / End should already work as requested (they do from a quick test as long as the playlist is focused). The only difference from a normal list and the Winamp main playlist editor is that the selection doesn't go to the start / end respectively (I can't remember off the top of my head if that can be set by code).

PgUp / PgDown also should work as expected but it may not do a full 'page' and the option on the 'playlist' preferences node ("Scroll playlist using Page Up/Down by xx" may need to be tweaked). I think it was a lack of time which is why there's that option instead of the playlist behaviour mirroring the OS behaviour in moving up / down by the number of visible items that make up the 'page' view.

As for working with the 'shift' action, the main playlist editor list is a custom thing and just doesn't really follow the OS standard behaviour. I know I'd done some work to fix that post-sale but doing it within the confines of what I can do with WACUP means it's not likely to be seen (unless I do a full replacement of the UI handling and can nicely link that into the original playlist core handling - needed to prevent breaking plug-ins, etc).

-dro

1521

Wishlist / Feature Requests / Re: Airplay Support and/or DLNA

« on: May 29, 2017, 06:26:31 PM »

There are a number of DLNA plug-ins that already exist for Winamp but like DLNA, they work to differing degrees of success. I don't know if there's licensing related issues for this implementation of this or if it's only down to some of the formats being used (MP3 going patent free was one possible issue that is now gone).

This (DLNA) is the better option imho to try and do (and is something I'd like to see done) rather than relying on something that is very Apple-centric which without research, I don't know how well it can be accessed (which for me is a no-go as I don't have anything that is compatible due to an unhealthy dis-like of Apple specific lock-in).

-dro

1522

General Discussion / Re: What's your preference on keeping versions up-to-date ?

« on: May 18, 2017, 11:59:38 AM »

No preference is a preference

-dro

1523

Archive / Re: Anyone heard from Darren (Dr_O)?

« on: May 15, 2017, 09:20:57 AM »

Was holiday time though feel like I need another week to recover

-dro

1524

General Discussion / Re: What's your preference on keeping versions up-to-date ?

« on: April 24, 2017, 09:51:34 PM »

IMHO, Beta should not have auto update. It is for testing purpose and testing only it be until the full version is released.

There's arguments for both sides of whether to auto-update a beta build or not but seems to be more so on the side that it's ok (with opt-out) for betas and then the opposite for release (opt-in by default). But when it comes to betas, having things kept on a recent set of builds is more beneficial and is why the potential to auto-update a beta (within reason) is more appropriate and is part of the reason why the beta builds eventually expire as a build from october 2016 is no use to me to get feedback about when we're into builds from april 2017.

Hope that makes sense and whatever is finally decided upon (which I'll need to work on it sooner rather than later) will within reason allow for opting out but the expiry nature will be maintained for the beta builds due to my reasoning above and by agreeing to beta test builds I hope it makes sense why such things are done (if only to try to make things a bit easier for me).

Clean install for release version.

This is an interesting comment as I can see both sides of the fence when it comes to that point. Yes it's probably better to have a beta and a release install (for when we get to that point in time). However as WACUP becomes more mature I can also see the need to have separate installs being less important so one install that's used for everything could be feasible (which is how one of my dev+test build installs ends up being) since sometimes real usage can show up things that don't happen in a specific 'clean' install.

I've made my suggestions to the beta testers for the time being that it makes sense to install WACUP separately to any existing Winamp install but as the overall aim is for it to be able to be installed over the top of an existing Winamp install and 'just work' then there are going to be times where a clean vs separate install setup isn't going to help when it comes to the testing of things. Plus as everyone likes to do things in slightly different ways, that variety in how installs are done has been helpful (especially in the earlier WACUP beta builds) to catch issues that wouldn't have been seen until much later in the development phase where the changes that were needed would have been more painful to make compared to when they ended up being made.

But definitely how to test things is an interesting area of topic and as 100% coverage is impossible imho, sometimes just doing what people naturally do often works out the things that wouldn't be found via a more formalised process (which itself has it's benefits).

-dro

1525

General Discussion / Re: Why I'm still not become a tester of WACUP?

« on: April 24, 2017, 09:36:18 PM »

All valid beta requests are now being processed (a little bit later than I'd planned) and should be completed within a few hours of this post being made.

[edit]
All direct requests that I've logged have now been actioned. If you think you've been missed or just want to get involved, please send me a PM.

-dro

1526

Wishlist / Feature Requests / Re: Important features

« on: April 24, 2017, 07:09:04 PM »

Piglet: You're airing views that a lot of people have and I tend to agree with most of them as it's a side effect of the changing nature of how people consume media has changed over what is now the 20 years of Winamp.

Now with the key aspect of what you've mentioned, certain aspects just aren't feasible unless there is a way to nicely interact with those services (which for the case of Cast isn't as Google don't provide an official API for Windows programs to use to my knowledge) and Spotify has / had a Windows library but it was deprecated and meant to be killed off / replaced with an alternative this year (but chances of which seem slim). As for iTunes, I don't seem them going for that considering it's history in causing issues for Winamp (though within WACUP now it is possible to make use of iTunes podcast feeds when manually entered which is something but full on iTunes related services is just a no-go from Apple's control of such areas and I'm not sure it's really wanted by the majority of the remaining Winamp users).

So on those counts, it's the services themselves that are the stopping point for getting such features added even if there's a demand. Plus not forgetting that some require licensing which as a single independent developer (as Dr Flay notes) does at times leave me stumped / unable to do unlike could be done when Winamp was owned by AOL (with the new owners making it clear they don't want to pay for any such things either). Sometimes I know it's cool to bash the 14 or so years that Winamp was under AOL but they paid for a hell of a lot of licensing costs to help make for the free Winamp that was expected and not having that now does make it hard to implement the things (legally) that would be most worthwhile.

However there's often a split in views when it comes to Winamp and streaming as some want it and others absolutely don't want that and will only ever play local files. Now it's part of the strength in that both options can be done but sometimes when saying about improving streaming aspects it puts off those who only want local playback (which often means they stay using 2.x instead of a 5.x which would do local playback better than the older version as well but that's another story).

So for WACUP, I've done a few things that act as the basis to make use of more streaming aspects (e.g. youtube, soundcloud, mixcloud, & tunein url playback support) and depending on licensing requirements I do want to add in some more to flesh things out to what is being used as long as it's a) legal and b) not a complete pain to get working (such as the case with spotify seems to be - as I could implement support with the current library but not knowing for sure when it's being dropped, that's potentially a lot of work to see suddenly broken).

I'm definitely taking on board yours and other peoples comments and as long as I can keep going WACUP (I need to get the patreon option setup sooner rather than later as well as hoping that the current Winamp rights holder doesn't have a go at me again) then I hope to do what I can to try to make things stay as relevant as possible for those that want to keep using a desktop media player in this mobile-centric world that we now live in.

-dro

1527

Implemented Requests / Re: Add Classic Spectrum Analyzer as optional Vis

« on: April 24, 2017, 06:49:51 PM »

Yeah that's the one. I found it on archive.org iirc - would need to go back and find the notes I made when I looked into it (if I can remember where I put them - will teach me to tidy things up).

-dro

1528

Archive /

« on: April 21, 2017, 02:13:58 AM »

Today marks the 20th birthday of Winamp and I've put up a new blog post (https://getwacup.com/blog/index.php/2017/04/20/happy-20th-birthday-winamp/) covering some of those 20 years with our favourite player and how things have changed from it's humble beginnings.

So have some

1529

General Discussion / Re: Why I'm still not become a tester of WACUP?

« on: April 09, 2017, 10:52:55 PM »

For those who've requested beta access over the last month or so, all valid requests will be actioned in time for the next WACUP beta build. This is due to there being enough changes in the next beta build and time having passed to make it not as helpful from my side of the fence to have more people trying out the current beta build.

Just wanted to acknowledge that for those wondering what might (or might not) be going on when it comes to new requests for testing out WACUP beta builds.

-dro

1530

Implemented Requests / Re: Add Classic Spectrum Analyzer as optional Vis

« on: April 07, 2017, 02:15:50 AM »

The buggy nature of it is something I'm aware off from https://getwacup.com/community/index.php/topic,68.0.html (beta group thread) though that was more in-combination with another plug-in. I do need to re-test one of the changes I've made in an upcoming WACUP beta that should attempt to remove the need to change folder permissions (something I don't think should ever be needed unless its the last resort).

I will need to re-check if I did get around to trying to contact the author about either getting the un-released update  (which then makes it portable / user-settings happy) &/or an ok to bundle it or if it's even possible to instead take it on going forward (assuming that the source code even exists anymore).

There was another similar vis plug-in which I mention in the thread and I think that instead had source code (mainly to help speed-up getting to something that works) so that might be an option instead if the preferred plug-in cannot be used.

-dro