Audio Books

[SenorSmartyPants]

I just loaded an audio book onto my subsonic server and I noticed that in the newest DSub it has support to automatically bookmark on pause for audio books.

How does DSub know it's an audio book?

Are there other audio book specific features that DSub has, or are possibly coming in the future?

I haven't been listening to audio books and a friend recommended Smart Audiobook Player as an app for them. But I really like the whole subsonic streaming setup.

[daneren2005]

There is a "type" variable included in a songs metadata, though I have never been able to figure out exactly what the criteria Subsonic applies to determine it's type. Basically if the type is Audio Book or if the genre of the song is any case of "AudioBook" (ie: audiobook, AuDIoBook, etc...) then DSub considers it a Audio Book. I'm not sure how much Audio Book specific dev I want to do, but it never hurts to ask for features which would make the experience better in case they are low hanging fruit or something which I can integrate without hurting the song specific functionality.

[SenorSmartyPants]

My books have each chapter in a separate file. Is there a way to skip back a little (10 seconds, 60 seconds, etc) in that file.



Also, I've discovered Booksonic:

https://github.com/popeen/Popeens-DSub

http://booksonic.org/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... opeen.dsub

I have not tried it because there is no way to do that without paying for it. And I'd rather just use DSub if it works well enough.

[SenorSmartyPants]

A couple of my audiobooks have covers that are tall. They extend down to the area with the title and thumbs up controls making them hard to see.

[daneren2005]

Give me an example cover and I can take a look at it.

[SenorSmartyPants]

[daneren2005]

Alright I added that to the TODO list.

[popeen]

My books have each chapter in a separate file. Is there a way to skip back a little (10 seconds, 60 seconds, etc) in that file.



Also, I've discovered Booksonic:

https://github.com/popeen/Popeens-DSub

http://booksonic.org/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... opeen.dsub

I have not tried it because there is no way to do that without paying for it. And I'd rather just use DSub if it works well enough.

If you plan on using one app for both music and audiobooks then Booksonic is not for you, while Booksonic can handle music (after all it is just a modded version of DSub) the lack of features like shuffle and the addition of features like automatic book descriptions will end up annoying you when using it for music.
Personally I use DSub for music and Booksonic for audiobooks, both connecting to the same Booksonic server.

As for trying it out for free here is the latest version for you, just keep in mind that it won't auto update unless you get it from Google Play (the reason why I don't publish apks on GitHub or the website)
http://booksonic.org/apk/Booksonic_1.0.7.apk

[daneren2005]

I have fixed the cover art issue for the next release as well as added listened to indicators for Audio Books in this last release. You can fast forward/rewind by holding down the next/previous buttons but that isn't as exact as you probably would want for Audio Books. I have been thinking about getting rid of the repeat button when playing Podcasts/Audio Books and putting a Rewind 30 Seconds button there. It's difficult to accommodate all types of playback with limited UI space

[whatwasthat4]

This is interesting. Anyone know if it can bookmark across devices, so I can start on one device, and pick up my audiobook from the same location on a different device?

[daneren2005]

Yes the bookmarks are saved on the server so they are cross device.

[SenorSmartyPants]

I've been using DSub with audio books for several months now and it works well. However I would love a way to display the total time remaining in a book. I usually have the book loaded up from the chapter I'm listening to (and a couple chapters before dsub is set to only keep the last 3 songs in the playlist) all the way to the end of book.

I don't know if you could base it on the "listened" flag to filter out mp3 tracks. But it would be wonderful to have this info.

Thanks

[mrdrew]

Good find on booksonic @SenorSmartyPants! Should prolly start a new thread/forum somewhere for it aside from this Dsub one. I just bought the app, and will be giving it a spin for the next few weeks. A specific challenge I've been having is jumping between audiobook, and kindle book versions. Oh if I stayed in the amazon ecosystem, I bet it would all play nice. But I don't play nice I guess.

[daneren2005]

I've been using DSub with audio books for several months now and it works well. However I would love a way to display the total time remaining in a book. I usually have the book loaded up from the chapter I'm listening to (and a couple chapters before dsub is set to only keep the last 3 songs in the playlist) all the way to the end of book.

I don't know if you could base it on the "listened" flag to filter out mp3 tracks. But it would be wonderful to have this info.

Thanks

That should be possible to add. The way I am thinking about it:
If you are playing an eBook and you have more eBooks after the first one, display somewhere the total time remaining for all of the eBooks combined. I am thinking I might just replace the duration of the current playing with this, but I will have to consider it more.

[mrdrew]

My kindle goes on percentage. That might be a cool way to find the spot in an ebook or Kindle. Good idea!