SubFire 1.1.2 for Chrome, Web, Fire - Artists Browsing

[acroyear]

A major update for SubFire for the Web and for the Chrome app has been pushed, 1.1.0.

http://subfireplayer.net/

This fixes a number of annoying issues:

• Clicking anywhere would cause a tiny border to appear around the whole window.
• Hitting an empty folder would cause it to bounce back 'twice'.

Adds the following minor features:

• Cover art urls are now cached, even when using the md5 hash, including the 'blobs' generated for the Chrome app.
• The Year is now rendered in the folder browsing view, when available.

And adds the major new feature, Artists. You can now browse through by the Artist ID3 field. Viewing an artist's page gives you the list of all albums they are on, and allows you to play the top songs (if using a 5.3 server) and even generate a random "radio" playlist of similar artists' music (if using a 5.0 or greater server).

The Fire TV/Tablet version will be coming soon, once I've had a chance to test and fix any issues with remote control navigation.

[acroyear]

An update to 1.1.2 for SubFire is out, fixing a few bugs, plus now working with the FireTV remote control.

This also adds 2 new actions to the Artist detail page: Play All Songs and Shuffle Songs. Each does what is expected: the first loads all albums in order (chronological or alphabetical, as your server is configured). The second does that and shuffles the list before playing.

Chrome and the Web deployed now. Fire and FireTV/Stick should be up by tomorrow afternoon.

[daneren2005]

So I just started playing around with SubFire a bit. Is there any chance you can add hover description popups to some of the buttons. Some of them are obvious but some of them aren't (this isn't a ding on you. It's almost impossible to always find good self-explanatory button icons).

[acroyear]

So I just started playing around with SubFire a bit. Is there any chance you can add hover description popups to some of the buttons. Some of them are obvious but some of them aren't (this isn't a ding on you. It's almost impossible to always find good self-explanatory button icons).

i've thought about it. trouble being how does one do that for a 'tv' ? a title popup for a mouseover hover is automatic in Chrome and Firefox. the browser just does it for you. the tv would need explicit coding to do it, both in rendering and in the 'timeout' to determine when it should pop up. (actually, i do wonder if the amazon tv renderer would just popup the title if you leave it idle long enough - update: no, it doesn't.).

time to hunt the jquery archives to see what's out there...

of course, it means nothing for mobile. a long enough press-down on an image usually triggers the android to automatically pop up the "save this image" dialog.

of course, the negative side of popup text, like any text, is globalization. the less text you have, the more likely nobody's going to care that it isn't translated.

no worries. worth looking at.

at the very least, i can write up some help text at the app's official web site.

thanks,
Joe

[daneren2005]

Yeah I'm not sure if its worth worrying about all platforms. Most apps just seem to have them when it makes sense and not worry about it when it doesn't

[acroyear]

ok, 1.2 is now official on web, Chrome App Store, and Amazon. For web/Chrome, they are standard tooltips that show up on a hover. For FireTV, it'll put text in the footer or in the space below the time range bar if you leave an icon button focused for 5 seconds, and then hide it again after 5 seconds.

I have no idea if they'll ever show up on a tablet, but there we are.

This release also hacks around a Chrome for Android problem that got more extreme on Android 5: the audio tag never updates "currentTime" - it is always 0 no matter how long the song has actually been playing, so the time slider never moved. Impacted Chrome and my personal apk file generated from PhoneGap Build by Adobe. Didn't affect Samsung's internet browser because that's based on an older version of Chrome before the bug appeared (it showed up in version 40, that browser is from version 38). Yes it has been reported, no idea why Google won't fix it.

"Write Once, Test Everywhere". Little has changed for me in development after 22 years of cross-platform UI.

Yes, I've thought about releasing the APK as a side-load option. The UI isn't clean enough for Google's Android-TV standard, but maybe Samsung's store may take it 'til I can redesign a little for 2.0. Who knows. Just rambling.

Joe

[acroyear]

Heh, somehow we missed moving this over to the new SubFire section under Apps and Clients...

SubFire is free and will remain so. I may someday have a "tip jar", but it isn't in the immediate plans. I maintain it because I use it, all versions of it (TV, Mobile, and "Dash", and am right now writing the new "Desktop" version). It also serves as something of a 'resume' if I ever need a job interview, but not expecting that any time soon.

I don't recommend using this version anymore. For Fire TV/Stick, look for SubFire Beta 2. For mobile platforms, the web links here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=18235 are progressive web apps that can be run just about anywhere, including the Silk Browser for Fire Tablets - I will have a tablet compatible app on the Amazon store in a month or so).

On Android Chrome, Android Firefox, and on IOS Safari, they can be saved to your home screen (on Android 8 and 9, formally installed as apps through this process), removing any need for going to a web store, provided your server is https. http will still install but not give the best experience that https gives.

A lot has changed in web app development in the 4 years since I started this, and the latest apps follow much more modern standards and practices.

Joe