Music Player (Remix)

[DanPLC]

Seems your app scans the whole internal and external memory and adds the files to the app playlists. I guess it might be a good idea but as it also adds podcasts it really isn't. Shouldn't it scan preset folders that contain music on phones (e.g. synced with Kies) or you could also/instead point the app to a music directory (e.g. you've manually copied to a SD card).

Though in one way it was good, now I know many apps don't really remove folders when uninstalling. It added podcasts because Doggcatcher left files behind when I "uninstalled" it.

Actually my app doesn't scan anything. It retrieves the list of songs/albums/artists/genres/composers/playlists from the Android media database. Android's media indexer is what scans the storage for media files. My app queries the database for all audio files that Android has labeled as "music" in the database.

I believe Android will categorize podcasts as music if they're not stored in the "Podcasts" folder. It may also look at the genre to determine the type of the audio file, but that's purely a guess.

 

[welipshi]

Ok. Doggcatcher stored them in their own "Doggcatcher" folder.

 

[DanPLC]

Ok. Doggcatcher stored them in their own "Doggcatcher" folder.

Yeah that would probably do it. Incidentally, in Music Player (Remix) it's pretty easy to exclude podcasts from your "Shuffle All" results. Go to the Preferences screen (tap the gear at the top of the right-side sliding panel) and select "Shuffle All". There you can choose the min and max durations to include in Shuffle All results. So if you set the max duration properly, it should exclude all podcasts (and other long-format audio files). This obviously is only applicable to "Shuffle All", but that's better than nothing.

 

[DanPLC]

Music Player (Remix) is now available for "Test Drive" in the Amazon App Store (Amazon.com: Music Player (Remix): Appstore for Android). It's actually quite impressive. You can test drive the app either on your device or on your computer (via the web link above). Amazingly enough, most everything works in the app. It actually has a small music library to play. And even the mini-player works! (tap the home button on the emulated device and swipe up from the bottom of the screen to reveal the mini-player). The only 2 things I found didn't work are the karaoke recording function (since it would require an actual microphone) and the sharing function.

If you use the Amazon app store (like on a Kindle Fire), be sure to check it out. The emulated device seems to be a lower-res phone (maybe 320x480), so it's not exactly the same experience you would have on a Kindle Fire, but still it's a pretty good representation of the features in the app.

I'm actually really impressed with this "Test Drive" feature that Amazon added to their app store. It would be nice if Google added something similar to their Play Store.

 

[welipshi]

Shouldn't the star become yellow when adding songs to fav? Also shouldn't there be indicated in the fav popup that what's been added to fav, i.e. song/album/artist.

Ah, now I see. You can add a song to favs multiple time. Hundreds of times if you wanna. I don't see a point with that. Shouldn't it be more like the iTunes star?

 

[DanPLC]

Shouldn't the star become yellow when adding songs to fav? Also shouldn't there be indicated in the fav popup that what's been added to fav, i.e. song/album/artist.

Ah, now I see. You can add a song to favs multiple time. Hundreds of times if you wanna. I don't see a point with that. Shouldn't it be more like the iTunes star?

Faves are not meant to be a rating system. Faves are just songs/albums/artists that you want one-touch access to (well a swipe to open the left-side panel, then one touch). So think of them as the things you're currently interested in. My Faves list usually changes pretty frequently as I get sick of hearing a song/album/artist. But some Faves stay on there forever. For example, my daughter has a favorite song or album that may stay on there all the time so I can pull it up quickly.

You can tell what type of item it is by the way it's displayed. A song will have the artist and album underneath it (as a smaller subtitle). An album will have the artist underneath it. And an artist will say "Artist" underneath it.

Yeah I guess you can add the same thing multiple times. I guess I can add a popup prompting them whether they want to add a duplicate copy to the Faves list.

 

[noseph]

Hi Dan, I went from using Music Player Remix everyday to not using it at all when I retired the 1st of July. Recently I have started to use MPR again and have found that it does not auto play when launched when bluetooth headphones are connected. I have always used bluetooth to listen to MPR and auto play use to work. I have verified this behavior on both my CM10.1 HP TouchPad and Carbon 1.8 VZW Galaxy Nexus, both are running Music Player Remix 1.4.5.

 

[DanPLC]

Hi Dan, I went from using Music Player Remix everyday to not using it at all when I retired the 1st of July. Recently I have started to use MPR again and have found that it does not auto play when launched when bluetooth headphones are connected. I have always used bluetooth to listen to MPR and auto play use to work. I have verified this behavior on both my CM10.1 HP TouchPad and Carbon 1.8 VZW Galaxy Nexus, both are running Music Player Remix 1.4.5.

Do you have the "auto play" option enabled on the "Miscellaneous" preferences screen?

 

[noseph]

Yes, I have even toggled it off and on several times on both devices.

 

[DanPLC]

Yes, I have even toggled it off and on several times on both devices.

So are you saying that auto-play works if you don't connect bluetooth? And with bluetooth when you launch the app it won't play? If so, it would be helpful to see the app's log. If your device runs ICS or earlier you can grab the app's log by using a free app like aLogCat or CatLog. Be sure to clear the log in aLogCat/CatLog, run the test, then filter the log for "com.hedami.musicplayerremix" and email me those lines from the log. And when you email me the log, let me know what you did during the time of the log.

 

[L3v3l0rd]

Hi DanPLC!
Thx for the great App. I use it since my Pre1 tp Pre3 times. Now i'm on Android and have a slight problem with Album Art. (Version 1.45)
I can choose an Art and i can succesfully download it, but i cannot see it.
Even after a reboot i am not able to see it. Also, while testing new ROMs, even then it doen't work for me.
With the version befor 1.44 (the one with Album Art crashes) it worked fine.
What can i do?

Thx and best regards,

 

[DanPLC]

Hi DanPLC!
Thx for the great App. I use it since my Pre1 tp Pre3 times. Now i'm on Android and have a slight problem with Album Art. (Version 1.45)
I can choose an Art and i can succesfully download it, but i cannot see it.
Even after a reboot i am not able to see it. Also, while testing new ROMs, even then it doen't work for me.
With the version befor 1.44 (the one with Album Art crashes) it worked fine.
What can i do?

Thx and best regards,

Other than fixing the crash, version 1.4.5 would behave in the same exact way that version 1.4.4 would. So it's not that causing your issue. If it was working before, then something must have changed on your device that's causing the media database on your device not to update. The way the app works is it downloads the album art and embeds it into the music file. It will then update the Android media database with the new album art. This is what's used to display the album art in the app.

You may need to force Android to re-index your music and re-build its media database. To do this, go to your device's app settings and open up the "Media Storage" app (under "All Applications"). Then select "clear data". Then reboot your device. This will force Android to re-build the media database and it should pick up all the new album art that was embedded in the music files. However, this will also probably delete your playlists, so be wary of that.

 

[L3v3l0rd]

So i finally could check my files again and it do work with my mp3 files. But it won`t with my FLAC files. It still says "Download ok, Artwork updated" but there is nothing to see.
Are there any specifications to regard while compress my CDs with the FLAC algorythm or something like that?

Edit: I managed to embed an downloaded artwork to my FLAC-files with another app. It is now also visible with MPR. So it seems to be no problem with Android settings or the files itself...

 

[DanPLC]

So i finally could check my files again and it do work with my mp3 files. But it won`t with my FLAC files. It still says "Download ok, Artwork updated" but there is nothing to see.
Are there any specifications to regard while compress my CDs with the FLAC algorythm or something like that?

Edit: I managed to embed an downloaded artwork to my FLAC-files with another app. It is now also visible with MPR. So it seems to be no problem with Android settings or the files itself...

It should theoretically work. I'm using an open-source library to embed the album art into the music files and it does support FLAC. However it's always possible that the library has a bug in it related to FLAC. So perhaps it's not working for FLAC files. I haven't tried it myself (I don't have any FLAC files).

 

[L3v3l0rd]

That's too bad. Neverless there's a workaround for me. Feel free to contact me if you want to test a FLAC file from me.
Thank you!

 

[DanPLC]

That's too bad. Neverless there's a workaround for me. Feel free to contact me if you want to test a FLAC file from me.
Thank you!

I just found a sample FLAC file and sure enough the album art downloading isn't working. As I suspected, the error is occurring in the tag editing library. I'll investigate and see if there's anything I can do to fix it.

 

[anon(363857)]

Still loving the app since I've switched Dan, any thoughts about giving us the ability to edit the metadata (title, artist, etc). of the currently playing song? In addition is album art embedded in to the mp3 when I use the find album art option?

 

[DanPLC]

Still loving the app since I've switched Dan, any thoughts about giving us the ability to edit the metadata (title, artist, etc). of the currently playing song? In addition is album art embedded in to the mp3 when I use the find album art option?

Tag editing will come in a future release.

Yes, album art is embedded in the music file when using the "download album art" feature.

 

[anon(363857)]

Will we ever have the ability to modify the mini player toolbar? Mini player is great and if I could modify the shortcuts to mirror my setup in the main player I'd almost never have to go in to the main player...

 

[DanPLC]

Will we ever have the ability to modify the mini player toolbar? Mini player is great and if I could modify the shortcuts to mirror my setup in the main player I'd almost never have to go in to the main player...

Yes, it's something I'll be investigating. If possible, I would like to eventually display the shortcuts (set up in the main app) on the mini-player. My intention with the mini-player is to pack as much functionality as possible so people don't have to go into the main app in most cases. But there may be some things that will be impossible to add since the mini-player is implemented as a basic window (that overlays on top of other apps). There are some limitations with what you can do compared to a regular app screen.