Playback functionality improvement

[jarek]

I know this is not easy to do, but let's imagine how nice it would be if you could play a track of any CD or a whole CD without creating a playlist first. Playlists are nice to select particular tracks from different CDs, but this is time consuming process. In everyday life you want just to select a CD and play it. Maybe it is possible to plan such kind of BIG improvement - playing any CD or any track just by selecting the track in directory, without creating any playlist first. Just an idea....

[PeterSt]

Hi Jarek,

Or you don't understand, or I don't. But let's say it's me. Let me phrase it like this :
(almost) Nobody is creating "playlists" as such with XXHighEnd. At least I never do. Now, the middle pane is your center court. I guess you know it all in there, but of not - I guess that is your "problem". You might start with rightclick on the coverart in there, and then look further/deeper.

If you missed the functionalities of the middle pane, you missed 99% of it all.
Let me know !
Peter

[PeterSt]

I was just thinking ... a function coincidentally *not* being obvious, is clicking an (or select as many as you like) album in the middle pane and click Load. This is the first you are asking for ... I think.
So, click album, click Load, click Play.

[Eric]

Jarek,
another way to do it is to drag and drop an album to the playlist area and press play.
(or a track, or a collection af albums/tracks, or a folder containing albums)
Like with a CD-player: you have to put something in it and press play.
Cheers,
Eric.

[jarek]

Hi Peter,

I mised this functionality...
Thank you for help.
Jarek

[jarek]

Dear Peter,

I have checked and, I think I am just a "little, little bit" right. I think you can admit that it is not possible to play any CD without putting it into playlist area. The playlist acts like a container from where you play. If you want to listen to a few CD, you first add one, than another and another. They are added on top of each other. This is like you put the next CD into the tray of CD Player without removing the first one. So when you click play adding second CD, first track of first cd is played. So, you have to go into the playlist, multiselect the tracks you want to remove and right click remove or clear the whole playlist area by clicking CLEAR button. There is also a small bug - you can add the same CD several times to the playlist area and the tracks are multiplicated.

I think, there might be several options to consider to make it easier (2nd proposition below is the best in my opinion).

1. The checkbox functionality - I am not sure how does it actually work, but it might work in such a way that when you select a checkbox, the tracks are copied to playlist, when you unselect, they are removed. Just one click on the checkbox changes the presence of a CD in the playlist area.

2. Create another "handy" playlist area below of library pane (divide the library window horizotaly). This playlist will contain ONLY one CD actually selected by ONE click of a mouse. The tracks will not be copied to the playlist on another pane. Then if you focus to this small playlist and select the track - it would play. This would be very easy to operate. You select the CD on the library pane, below the tracks are copied as a list. First track is selected by default. You click play and it is played from this pane. If you display PLAYLIST are on another pane, and select the track from there - then this will be the source of playback.

What do you think about it ? Do you like this idea ?
Best regards
Jarek

[PeterSt]

Hi again Jarek,

I think it is completely overdone, but wouldn't you say the next comes down to the same :

Have a checkbox "one album only in the Playlist Area". When ticked :

If you click (once) an album in the Library Area it gets auto-loaded in the Playlist Area (and immedieatly played). Before that happened, a possible "old" album gets removed from the Playlist Area.

Now, this is not what I am going to create, because it causes any single click (very useful for a 100 things) in the Library Area not to work anymore (you wouldn't even be able to select).

What I would do to simulate best what you want :

[when playing already]
- Clear, click album, Load, Next.

[when not playing]
- Clear, click album, Load, Play.

The latter can also be done like
- Clear, DoubleClick album, Play.

Btw, what about loading a couple of albums and do
[play as before]
When you're fed up with an album -> Alt-L (which plays the next album in the Playlist Area).

Oh, it is *very* nice to hear about someone who wants the exact opposite of the "iPod generation"; we have had discussions about that too.
I mean it.


Allright. For something we're doing once in the xx minutes, it wouldn't be much legitimate to bother. I mean, I guess I have more useful things to do first ?

So yes, you are right-a-little-bit-right indeed, but you must also take into account the other functionalities which will run out of order because of such a behaviour. Even my proposed checkbox won't really help, because Jarosaw2 will complain "his" functions all don't work with that checkbox ticked.
But I always listen ! ...

[jarek]

Dear Peter,

I know there are much more urgent things to do, and do not treat my posts as just "my wish", you can treat this as a "small" contribution to the development ideas. I will be happy with the program without those features. In fact I am sure this is the best playback software by a WIDEEEE margin. And you know it. I just wanted it some better in the way I am accustomed to.

Best regards
Jarek

[PeterSt]

Dear Jarek - as said, I listen anyway. So keep it coming.

And thanks,
Peter

[Eric]

Peter,
sometimes I load an album from the Library area while I forgot to remove the previous one played from the Playlist area. Adding to Jarek's suggestion, would it be possible to create a checkbox in the Playlist area. When ticked, the Playlist area will be cleared after the the last track has been played? This would still give you the possibility to create a checkbox in the Library area like "load and play". What do you think? Something for Release 1.01??
Cheers,
Eric   

[PeterSt]

You guys must be intuitive like women. You know, the creatures stuffing the kitchen cabinets with everything and all, so you must get *everything* out to reach for that one thing YOU need.
But personally I don't see the difference.

So I am testing this last track of an album. It played, and whoops, everything empty. Nicely convenient if I want to test it another time.
What about learning to click Clear *each* time you want it, necessary or not. Never fails. Unless you are playing Attendedly of course, then the playing track will stay there.

I like predictable behaviour. And yea, I know, for a woman that needs some tweaking. But I got used to that too.

Hmm ...

[Calibrator]

Until Peter gets to the stage of creating an "install" process for XXHE, there will be some ergonomic limitations on how one can start the actual playback procedure. I surmise that once XXHE is at the stage where an actual installation occurs for each version release, and hense the file associations are created to allow the system to understand that XXHE can handle MP3's, WAV's, AIFF's and FLAC's, we would then likely have an explorer context menu that has a couple of options:

• Play with XXHighEnd
  

• Enqueue with XXHighEnd

The latter might be a little tricky to code if playing in unattended mode, but I enjoy throwing challenges to Peter 

When using the explorer context menu's, XXHE would start in the same manner as which it was last used, that being either attended or unattended mode.

Cheers,

Russ