Use playlist while flashplayer is open

[zeekay]

I use subsonic in the always use webplayer mode, and I've noticed a couple of things that are odd. When logging in/reloading, it will begin to play automatically, without sending anything to it to play, it just uses the last playlist, which i guess is cached somewhere.

Second, I can't use the playlist view & webplayer at the same time...it'd be nice if I could use them both, i.e. build a playlist, and click play on the playlist view to send the updated playlist to the flash player. For instance, I could use the webplayer in the detached mode, and use the playlist view to modify/change the playlist, before sending it.

At anyrate, it'd be great if you could view the playlist as a normal page when in webplayer mode.

Also, I switched xspf_player to the great JW Player (http://www.jeroenwijering.com/). You might be interested to learn that the JW Player has an extensive javascript API that lets you control the player/update the playlist etc, without reloading anything. So you could feasibly modify the playlist using the playlist view, and have it add the items, change order, jump around in the playlist without reloading.

Thanks!

[sindre_mehus]

Thanks a lot for bringing the JW Player to my attention. The javascript API is something that potentially could enhance the user experience significantly, and also address the issues you mention.

Sindre

[gillespam]

[...] I switched xspf_player to the great JW Player (http://www.jeroenwijering.com/) [...]

Can you please post how you achieve this and the changes you did to the source to be able to use this player ?

I'd like to change the webplayer as I'm not satisfied with it - your post summarized all the troubles I have with the official webplayer.

No offense, Sindre - subsonic is really a killer web-app!

[sindre_mehus]

No offense, Sindre - subsonic is really a killer web-app!

None taken In fact, I hope to replace the existing Flash player with JW player if it fit's the bill.

Sindre

[gillespam]

I hope to replace the existing Flash player with JW player if it fit's the bill.

Sindre

Can't wait to test it

I hope that it will solve the 2 main griefs I have with the actual one :
- the fact that it doesn't update the informations of the playing artist in the upper frame when you have a playlist loaded with a lot of different music (only the informations of the first album is displayed)
- and the fact that pausing a song for a long time will skip to the next one when resumed
(but maybe this "bug" is due to the fact that I transcode the streams)

[BrianDelShasta]

gillespam,
here is a link to the thread that discusses the changes needed to use JW Player:
http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1265

Basically you do this:
Download the player
Add a meta tag for type=mp3 inside xpsfPllaylist.jsp
Change the reference within WebPlayer.jsp to the new player.
That's it! Of course there is tons of customization you can do on the flashvars line, checkout the JW Player homepage for examples.

[shagmanx]

Running, 3.5.beta2 (build 666) – September 23, 2008
Flash ver. 10.0.12.36

As stated above, as soon as I login, music plays from webplayer... last song selections. I cannot clear the webplayer and cannot "break-out" web player anymore either.

Let me know if other info is need.

Thanks

[gillespam]

gillespam,
here is a link to the thread that discusses the changes needed to use JW Player:
http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1265

Basically you do this:
Download the player
Add a meta tag for type=mp3 inside xpsfPllaylist.jsp
Change the reference within WebPlayer.jsp to the new player.
That's it! Of course there is tons of customization you can do on the flashvars line, checkout the JW Player homepage for examples.

I forgot to thank you for the link - it's working flawlessly

[Zerosan]

Just wanted to mention that you should use the flash player so much to begin with.

There are only two ways to make this flash player work nice and fluidly with subsonic......
1. Edit the flash player to add more functions like playlist management etc.
2. Remove all the onboard flash functionality and just use the javascript api to add all functions again.

I've worked with the player before, creating something that is quite comparable to subsonic, just with drag'n'drop playlist management, deleting adding etc. and the jw flash player to playback all the stuff, the whole interface was ajax driven.
Also some playlist management like saving and loading.

I just came to the conclusion that the playlist that is inside the flash player just isn't usable in any way as it is.

Best is to write your own javascript functions to check if a song has finished etc. and then just push in the next song and start playback.

[zeekay]

I think it's quite workable, actually. I use the built-in playlist with jw player in the footer. I resize the footer in subsonic so that only the slim view is visible by default, when someone wants to modify the playlist they simply click the resize button (very small bit of js) to view the full playlist (which is scrollable). My current implementation:



The only thing I'm really lacking would be drag and drop functionality. I was looking at Google Web Toolkit (GWT), which has easy to implement drag and drop functionality): http://code.google.com/p/gwt-dnd/. I'd like to be able to drag track/artist/album names/images from the top frame to the bottom frame, and have it added into the playlist dynamically. Normally this would cause the playlist to refresh. For this to work seamlessly with the flash player in the footer, subsonic would need to add the new songs to the current playlist in the footer AND update jwplayer's playlist at the same time (using it's js api). To implement drag and drop in the playlist editor, you'd use ajax to rearrange the playlist in the footer, and at the same time use jw players js api to move the songs around in it's playlist. You can use the js api in jw player to move/add/subtract/jump to/etc.

I wouldn't bother trying to implement drag and dropping to the popup player. I had to break the normal playlist functionality to do all this, but it's been worth it for me, since I only use the flash player. Ideally you'd be able to switch between using the dedicated flash player in the footer and normal streaming with pls/m3u/xspf.

That's where I'd like to see subsonic go anyways. Full drag and drop sorting/playlist manipulation would be amazing!

[justin]

Good work zeekay. That looks awesome. I like the idea of drag and drop right to the playlist. Even with out drag and drop it still looks good. I'm going to have to try to copy you later this week.

I hope this makes it into the next beta.

The current player is the only problem I've found in great app. I was looking for something like this program for a long time before I found this one. By far its the best one I have tried.

[zeekay]

Good luck! I posted most of the relevant code I use here: http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1390.

This got me to thinking about a playlist editing page, actually. It's useful to be able to do everything in the footer, but what about merging the load/save playlist pages and creating a dedicated view for modifying/editing/generating playlists? That would be really useful, and the extra screen real-estate would be appreciated too!

It'd be great to be able to build and edit playlists from a single interface, rearranging, removing songs, etc, as well merging in the random playlist function in the more.view so you could, for instance, add 50 random jazz tunes, or 20 songs from such and such artist, etc. Possibly specify a few genres, and build/edit your playlist that way...would be really nice to have a refined interface for creating/editing/saving/loading/generating playlists!

Ideally you'd still have the useful general playlist editor in the lower frame available for the current playlist, but you would be able to jump to the "playlist advanced editor" view and do everything I mentioned.

Just a thought!

[Zerosan]

I made something like this:
- Remove the normal Playlist in the FlashPlayer
- Throw in the next song when the playing has finished etc.