XO: Subsonic Commander for PlayBook

[eblade]

BlackBerry PlayBook users can now enjoy the goodness of Subsonic, with a port of the webOS Subsonic client "XO" to the BlackBerry PlayBook!

http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore ... 7/?lang=en

[mtn]

Not trying to be a jerk, but what advantages would XO have over Sindre's android app which has been converted to run on Playbook?

[mtn]

Delete that last post... I see there's a port for WebOS and I assume the Playbook has similar features. I'll give it a try...

[eblade]

Sure thing, sorry, I didn't repost the whole thing because they were right next to each other, and I was super busy at the time. I'll copy it over.

I think downloading and video do not work on the PlayBook ver right now, but I should have my PlayBook in the next couple of days, so I can get that all fixed up. I wasn't aware at the time that there was another PlayBook app, though it doesn't look like Sindre's.. which might run in PlayBook now too, with the Android support. So, this means there might be 2-3 PlayBook apps for Subsonic Probably not a good place to have that much competition..

BTW, next update for PlayBook should be 1.0.3, rather than 1.0.2 as I stated on the site, after locating some problems in the webOS update - I'm not sure if they affected PlayBook or not, as we only found them once phone users started using the webOS ver, but I did fix them and resubmit a new package.

[mtn]

Quite enjoying the XO Commander... I like the interface.

As with all 1.0 versions there are some issues, but the app has a great deal of promise...
Please continue with the updates!

[eblade]

Yeah, I just got my playbook in, and I've been using XO quite a bit on it. It works better than I thought it would, considering that I didn't have a device to test it on.

It looks like the drag-and-drop isn't working right, at least in my development copy .. and i notice that the playbook only streams about 15-20 seconds ahead of where the media is actually playing.. which seems really weird. In webOS, and in my test Android version, it will stream the whole media file in if possible.

The sound on this little thing is quite good, though. I hope that HTML video support just works on it I do have some experimental code to improve the scrolling on it, too, but it needs some work still.

[mtn]

Great news that you are impressed withe the PB, for the money its the best value tablet around.
The drag n' drop sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Confusing.
One benefit of the way the PB is streaming is that there is no interruptions to music. With the Andriod app on both PB and Phone, the music halts while songs are downloaded.. often in the middle of a song. Both your app, and SonicAir are smooth.

[eblade]

yeah, i don't want it to cache the whole thing before it starts playing, but I do want it to pick up more than a few seconds of time, so it can survive a screwey net connection for a little while. Doesn't look like the PlayBook's audio element works like that, though, as I do have all the parameters set to "download it as fast as you can" but it throttles it considerably.

I've just noticed that there's a problem where the playlist will not scroll in Jukebox mode. I've fixed this like 3 different times already, but I'm going to hopefully figure it out again, because that's really annoying me now that I'm using Jukebox a lot.

If ever RIM gets to approving the update to it, it should fix the start-drag not registering problem, significantly improve scroll areas, and hopefully overall work better. I did quite a few tweaks to it once I actually got it onto a real live PlayBook.

[RTA]

Really liking your version of Subsonic it has a slick UI and is fun to use compare to the other 2 in the app world and I am glad that you are continually fixing and updating the app. I was wondering if you will make use of the swipe down menu for the playbook? I would also appreciate a new app icon because right now its a bit small compared to other apps, but that's just me being picky

Keep up the good work and I appreciate your contribution to the playbook.

[eblade]

Yes, I will probably add more functions that will end up going onto a menu. At the moment, webOS phones have a menu with a single function - Jukebox toggle - because the switch just doesn't fit on screen on phone sized displays But there are still some functions missing from the main app that are available in the web app ( and I don't think any of the other subsonic apps implement them, such as chat? at least, I haven't seen that in any of the others ), that could definitely use some app menu love.

Adding major new features is probably not on the agenda for a little while, though, I'm still working out getting some of the core features operating, tweaked up, and working on trying to find places that I can do some performance optimizations -- on a webOS TouchPad, everything pretty much flies on it, but the PlayBook isn't quite as powerful, so the experience is a little .. lacking .. in some places.

Hopefully you'll like the new update that's awaiting, though. It has performance improvements, bug fixes, and video

[mtn]

It's looking good

(But a very very very very small request... could you put the spinning busy wheel in a more obvious place? When I touch an album there's no obvious feedback that the tracklist is now downloading)

Other than that, appreciate the update, the scrolling fixes, and the video!
Thank you.

[eblade]

I've been debating about that. Should I just put a giant spinner over the center of the left panel? Serious question, not being sarcastic.

Unfortunately, my PlayBook died yesterday. Apparently the USB connectors can only survive about 7 days. So, if the people in charge of handling the warranty ever get in contact with me.. we'll find out then what is going to get done about it.

[eblade]

It doesn't look like we're going to get https/SSL support here, at the moment, web apps at least are prevented from accessing https sites that they don't have a preinstalled cert for.

Awaiting confirmation from RIM though.

[eblade]

New version updated that should handle host/server names a lot better