Subsonic Windows Sidebar gadget

[kramttocs]

Just a quick update on some of the features coming in 2.6

1. Ability to specify (from predefined values) how many tracks the Random Track option returns - completed
2. Ability to specify which genre the Random Track option returns - completed
3. Ability to expand Albums in the Artist Directory and select individual Tracks - completed

[erik]

Nice work! I'm looking forward to the new release, again. =)

[girlcake]

I'm so stoked I came upon this! I've been using an outdated sidebar gadget for Media Monkey for way too long since it stopped being developed. Your gadget is awesome and a real breath of fresh air! Thank you very much!

I have one question and one possible feature suggestion;

Question: How does the gadget media player handle lossless tracks? Is it using a subsonic player and transcoding rules, or something else entirely? Can it play Them natively?

Suggestion (if it's possible for a Sidebar Gadget): Customizable hotkeys. I say customizable because I'm sure everyone has their own way of navigating through their library

Anyway, thanks again, this is so great!

[kramttocs]

@girlcake

glad you can get some use out of it! Getting close to releasing 2.6 with some useful changes and a couple bug fixes.

erik and I looked at lossless tracks a little while ago (all of my tracks are in mp3 so it had never crossed my mind before that). From our tests, iirc it came down to problems with streaming such large file sizes or incompatible formats (FLAC). Since the gadget uses WMP, it 'should' be able to play anything the full blown local WMP can play. Like I said, mine are all in mp3 so I haven't done any real testing with other formats but am happy to work with anyone to see what can be done. Yes, this uses the transcoding rules in SS since the streaming ability from SS uses these.

For hotkeys - I have this on my list of things to look back into but from what I have found so far I am not sure it is possible if the gadget doesn't have focus on it. If it does then it isn't a problem (like using the left and right arrows to move through the Artist Directory) but if other windows are active then I haven't had much luck.

[girlcake]

@kramttocs

Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate it!

If I can help in any way to work out issues with lossless files, I would be more than happy to help. All of my music files are FLAC, so it would be great.

For local playback with SS I us a player with transcode rules for FLAC>WAV.
This transcode rule is tricky because evidentially Lame has to be used, so ffmpeg decodes to WAV (ffmpeg -i %s -f wav -) and then Lame get used to decode but doesn't actually do anthing (lame -decode - -)

Where does SubGadget get its transcode rules from? Is there a way to force it to use a particular rule from SS? I glanced at the code but didn't see where it handles transcode rules.

Seems like it would be worth having lossless playback for folks with lossless files using the gadget locally.

Like I said, anything I can do to help, please let me know!

RE: hotkeys, I was thinking the same thing about gadgets not having focus, but i wonder if, for example, those keyboards with dedicated media keys would work since the key is global and seems to work for media players even when they don't have focus. I have one to test, I'll have to dig it out. It's probably a long shot, but I'll give it try.

Anyway, Thanks again!

[kramttocs]

SubGadget 2.6 Release

SubGadget 2.6 has just been released on Google Code. Enjoy!

http://code.google.com/p/subgadget/

Added Features

1. Ability to specify the number of Random Songs from predefined values in Settings
2. Ability to specify the Random Song genre from a list of genres on the server
3. Added an album art flyout - click on the cover art to show this and move the mouse over the lower left corner of the flyout to see the track information for a few seconds
4. Ability to select Tracks under Albums like the Album under Artist
5. Increases flyout size and the length of albums/artists/tracks
6. Added Album as tooltip when hovering over the Artist in the Now Playing flyout
7. Added all/none selection for the tracks in the artist directory - will only work if the Artist or Album above the tracks isn't selected or disabled

Bug Fixes

1. Fixed an issue where search results would get added twice to the playlist
2. Fixed an issue where if an artist or album was expanded in the Artist Directory and the artist or album is checked then when adding to the playlist, the albums or tracks were still disabled
3. The artist directory now scrolls back to the top when changing letters

[kramttocs]

@girlcake
Thanks for the offer to help!
SubGadget uses the API to stream the tracks so it uses the transcoding rules defined in SS. I haven't played around with any of them (with all mp3 tracks I haven't needed to) so I don't know much about them honestly. If you're running the gadget on the same machine as your music files and SS have you tried using the FLAC>WAV one and playing the files in the gadget?
As for the hotkeys - I haven't had a chance to look into this much more yet but hopefully I can work something out. I use a media keyboard myself and hotkeys would be great to have.

[kermit22]

Thanks kramttocs for making this and adding the random playlist functionality. Is it possible to view the randomly generated playlist after it has been created?

[kramttocs]

Thanks kramttocs for making this and adding the random playlist functionality. Is it possible to view the randomly generated playlist after it has been created?

Hey kermit - if you click on the music note (Now Playing) button at the top of the gadget you can see the current playlist. Is this what you are looking for?

[kermit22]

Thanks kramttocs for making this and adding the random playlist functionality. Is it possible to view the randomly generated playlist after it has been created?

Hey kermit - if you click on the music note (Now Playing) button at the top of the gadget you can see the current playlist. Is this what you are looking for?

Thanks. That is exactly what i was looking for. I'm not sure how I missed it.

[Vproduct]

У меня очень много музыки,поэтому только так можно каталогизировать.
Исправьте эту ошибку! С уважением, русский мужик. )))

[kramttocs]

@vproduct - sorry, I only know English and bad English
The gadget is designed for the artist/album/track hierarchy. So it is seeing L as being the artist like subsonic does. The reason it shows No Tracks is because there aren't any tracks there but rather albums. It's understandable that each user has their structure preference and I have already planned to look at this issue in the future but it gets to be pretty complicated trying to address every scenario. I hope this covers your post.

[kramttocs]

Update on the upcoming 2.7 release.

1. Ability to download tracks (through use of a helper executable)
2. Subsonic.org addresses are handled correctly and the IP no longer has to be used
3. Ability to specify where the master Settings file is located (defaults to My Documents still)
4. Update check - for both the gadget and downloader (if installed)
5. Several other tweaks/fixes

These are all completed and in the testing phase now.

[kramttocs]

SubGadget 2.7 has just been released on Google Code
http://code.google.com/p/subgadget/

Added Features

1. Ability to download tracks (if the user has appropriate permissions) from the Artist Directory. Will need to download either the GUI or Console Downloader available in the Downloads section.
2. Update notification. When opening Settings, if an update for either SubGadget or the installed downloader (if installed) is available, you will be take to the About tab for a link to this site to obtain the update.

Bug Fixes

1. Subsonic.org addresses are now handled. If you are on the same LAN as the server you may need to check the LAN checkbox due to your router's settings
2. The location for the Settings file can now be selected by clicking on the path at the bottom of the Settings window. This allows the gadget to load the Settings even if the My Documents location isn't in the standard location.

[girlcake]

Excellent, thank you again!