Music Player (Remix)

[DanPLC]

Re: Music Player (Remix) - Now live in the Play Store!

Version 1.3.0 has been submitted to the Play Store and Amazon App store. It has several new features and bug fixes. My favorite new feature is being able to access your Faves and Playlists directly from the mini-player. So now there's even less of a reason to have to leave whatever app you're in. Just swipe up to bring up the mini-player and you can play (or queue) your favorite songs/albums/artists, or select a playlist to load up.

Here are some screenshots of the new-and-improved mini-player:

And here's the complete changelog:

- (New Feature) Add the ability to access your Faves and Playlists from the mini-player.

- (New Feature) Add preferences for Shuffle All to specify a min and max audio file duration.

- (New Feature) Add an option in the preferences to initiate a Shuffle All by shaking the device. (NOTE: This is disabled by default).

- (Bug Fix) On certain devices, like the Samsung Galaxy S3, the app would sometimes lock-up when deleting a song from a playlist.

- (Bug Fix) Improve error handling in the media service.

- (Bug Fix) On some tablets the upper row of shortcut labels would be cut off on the Now Playing screen.

- (Bug Fix) On Jellybean devices, if you chose a wallpaper with the same dimensions as the device the app would sometimes crash.

- (Bug Fix) Implement the Playlists list (in the left-side sliding panel) as a dynamically-nested fragment to prevent it from causing crashes on certain devices.

- (Bug Fix) App would sometimes crash when updating album art or lyrics in a large music file.

 

[DanPLC]

Re: Music Player (Remix) - Now live in the Play Store!

Version 1.4.0 has been submitted to the Google Play Store and Amazon App Store. It has a lot of new enhancements and a bunch of bug fixes.

Also the trial version's expiration has been reset for all users!!! So if you've tried the app before, give it a go again. Today's release is the 11th update of the app since its initial release back in December. A lot of great things have been added to the app since its initial release.

Here's the complete changelog for version 1.4.0:

- (New Feature) Add the ability to search for songs, albums, artists, genres, or composers using Google Voice Search. Also when searching within the app, if you tap the Enter key after typing a search phrase, a list of songs, albums, artists, genres, and composers will appear matching the search phrase. From here you can tap the item or select the '...' next to an item for additional options.

- (Enhancement) Lots of karaoke improvements:

1. Keep the screen on during karaoke recording sessions.
2. Disable shake-triggered 'Shuffle All' events during karaoke recording sessions.
3. Changing device orientation will no longer interrupt a karaoke recording session.
4. Audio quality of karaoke recordings may be improved on some devices.
5. Fix a bug where karaoke recordings would not play back on some devices.

- (Enhancement) Redesign music controls notification (for Android 3.0 and later).

- (Enhancement) A new Queue All button has been added to the bottom of the playlist, album, artist, genre, and composer song list screens, which when tapped will queue up all those songs.

- (Enhancement) Add a 'Queue playlist' option to the '...' menu next to a playlist.

- (Enhancement) All current Shuffle All shake options will be disabled when the screen is off. A new option has been added to enable shake-triggered Shuffle All even when the screen is off.

- (Enhancement) After a device reboot, display a message on the homescreen widgets indicating the last played song can be resumed by tapping the Play button.

- (Bug Fix) The mini-player Playlist and Faves lists would appear black when scrolling on certain devices.

- (Bug Fix) Under certain conditions switching songs would immediately record a song play and/or last.fm scrobble even though the song just started playing.

- (Bug Fix) If a song included in an autolist had its song id changed in the Android media database, it would fail to play after the autolist was loaded.

- (Bug Fix) If the orientation changed while the 'Add to Playlist' dialog was displayed, the app would crash on certain devices.

- (Bug Fix) If one of the Android AudioEffect libraries is not available on the device, the app would crash on certain devices. Instead of crashing, an error is displayed indicating the equalizer, bass boost, and/or virtualizer is not available on the device. (NOTE: The AudioEffect libraries should be available on all devices running Gingerbread or later. This type of error should only occur when running a custom ROM where they didn't implement the AudioEffect library completely).

- (Bug Fix) The current playlist position displayed at the bottom of the screen in landscape orientation was slightly off-center.

- (Bug Fix) If you displayed the songs of a composer with certain characters in their name (like an apostrophe), the app would crash.

 

[StuntmanMark]

Are you planning on adding the option to add to the end of the current playlist? I really miss that option.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[DanPLC]

Are you planning on adding the option to add to the end of the current playlist? I really miss that option.

Posted via Android Central App

No, I currently have no plans to add that option. For me personally, I rarely used that option. When I implemented it back in the webOS days, I thought it would be a good idea. And I think it could be useful in some situations, but at least in my experience most of the time I wanted to queue items after the currently playing song.

 

[StuntmanMark]

No, I currently have no plans to add that option. For me personally, I rarely used that option. When I implemented it back in the webOS days, I thought it would be a good idea. And I think it could be useful in some situations, but at least in my experience most of the time I wanted to queue items after the currently playing song.

I would use the feature a lot. I often want to queue albums to play after the current one. Also when I'm hanging out with a couple of friends, I like to get multiple songs ready to play.

On another note, I really like the new search results page. It's a lot easier, when I want to queue a particular song, to search it directly rather than going through the album or artist.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[DanPLC]

I may consider this feature in the future, but I have a lot of other things I want to work on which I think are more critical so no guarantees of when this will be implemented.

I wanted to finish the search results page since I first released the app mainly for the reason you mentioned (being able to access additional options on search results, such as "queue next"). Also being able to perform a voice search (either in-app or via Google Voice Search) is really convenient.

 

[DanPLC]

Version 1.4.1 has been released to the Google Play Store and Amazon App Store and should be available soon! It has a ton of bug fixes and includes Jellybean expandable notifications with big, beautiful album art and music controls.

The free 14-day, fully-functional trial version (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hedami.mprtrial) has been reset, so everyone can try it again!

Here's the complete changelog:

- (New Feature) Add Jellybean expandable notifications (Android 4.1+).

- (Enhancement) Long-tapping the menu button will display the search prompt (if your device supports long-tapping the menu key as a way to initiate searches).

- (Bug Fix) Last.FM login was failing due to a change in the Last.FM API.

- (Bug Fix) App crashed occasionally on the Galaxy S4 (and perhaps other devices) due to the equalizer (even if not enabled). And when enabled, the equalizer was not working properly.

- (Bug Fix) Songs would sometimes double-skip or momentarily pause when changing tracks.

- (Bug Fix) Header icons on the search results page were not formatted properly on higher-resolution devices such as the Galaxy S4.

- (Bug Fix) Karaoke recording not working on some Jellybean devices.

- (Bug Fix) NuSong notifications were not being issued on some Jellybean devices.

- (Bug Fix) Music would stop playing after PicSpeed Wallpaper saved a wallpaper or FS Explorer modified a file. These apps were issuing a 'media mounted' event which caused Music Player (Remix) to erroneously stop playback.

- (Bug Fix) If you played a song almost to completion and then switched to another list, the song play would register with the new song instead of the song that almost finished playing.

- (Bug Fix) App could crash if another app had the media database locked.

- (Bug Fix) If the app was shut down while music was playing, the widgets would still show a pause icon as if music was still playing.

- (Bug Fix) Widget album art cleared out when device changed orientation if the device's launch screen supported landscape orientation.


And here's a screenshot of the new Jellybean expandable notification:

 

[DanPLC]

wow this music app looks promising, I will try it out

Let me know how you like it after you try it out!

The app is being continuously improved, so be sure to check out future updates as well. Next update has customizable swipe gestures for the Now Playing list and playlist song list. Default behavior will be to remove the song from the Now Playing list when swiping the row to the right. Swiping it to the left will queue it to play next. This also works on the mini-player (accessible by swiping up at the bottom of the screen while in other apps). Also when editing a playlist, you can swipe a song to the right to remove it. Swiping it to the left will move the song to the top of the list. All of these gestures are customizable and also can be disabled if so desired.

There may be one other cool feature (auto-downloading of lyrics when playing a song) in the next release, but I may decide to wait until the next release to avoid delaying the current release. Of course, the auto-download feature will be able to be disabled via the Preferences screen.

 

[DanPLC]

Version 1.4.2 has been released to the Google Play Store and Amazon App Store and should be available soon. It has a lot of enhancements and bug fixes, but my favorite is the new customizable swipe gestures on the Now Playing list and while editing a playlist. It makes rearranging your Now Playing list or playlist a breeze. You can read the details below.

Here's the complete changelog:

- (New Feature) Swipe right on a song in the Now Playing list (within the app and in the mini-player) to remove it from the queue. Swipe left to queue it to play next. Swipe right on a song in a playlist to remove it from the playlist. Swipe left to move it to the top of the playlist. Gestures can be customized or disabled on the Preferences screen.

- (Enhancement) Add an 'Edit Playlist' button next to each playlist for one-touch access to the view/edit mode. You can still tap '...' for additional options.

- (Enhancement) Vibrate slightly when displaying or removing the mini-player, long-tapping the Now Playing preset icons, long-tapping the pause/play tap area, or long-tapping any tab header.

- (Bug Fix) Reordering songs in the Now Playing list or within a playlist appeared clunky. Now it will be silky smooth!

- (Bug Fix) If you removed songs from a playlist, re-ordering the songs located after the deleted song would fail. (NOTE: If you have an existing playlist whose play order was previously corrupted due to this bug, re-ordering songs in that playlist may still fail. However re-ordering songs in any new (or uncorrupted) playlist will function properly. If you believe you have a corrupted playlist, you should create a new playlist and go into multi-add mode (tap '...' next to the playlist and select 'Playlist multi-add'). Once in multi-add mode, tap the old/corrupted playlist and this will automatically copy over all songs to the new playlist. You can then delete the old playlist and start using the new one).

- (Bug Fix) On certain Gingerbread devices, app's notification would remain even when disabled in the app preferences.

- (Bug Fix) On certain Android 4.2 devices, karaoke recordings could not be played back.

- (Bug Fix) On certain devices, app could crash if you skipped tracks within 2 seconds of the end of a song.

- (Bug Fix) App could crash if album art was too large while displaying the music controls notification.

- (Bug Fix) Jellybean notification would sometimes momentarily show 'unknown artist - unknown album' when switching tracks.

- (Bug FIx) If you quickly deleted a few karaoke sessions in a row, the app could crash.

- (Bug Fix) App would sometimes lock up while reading the lyrics embedded in a music file.

- (Bug Fix) When skipping songs using the widget, the pause/play icon would momentarily toggle if music was playing at the time.

- (Bug Fix) When skipping songs using the mini-player, the song/artist/album info would update a fraction of a second before the album art updated.

 

[ChrisC]

Quick question: when installing, I see that the app permissions list that the app uses the hardware to record audio. Does this app record voice memos, or is this permission just needed for the karoake mode?

 

[DanPLC]

Quick question: when installing, I see that the app permissions list that the app uses the hardware to record audio. Does this app record voice memos, or is this permission just needed for the karoake mode?

No it's only for the karaoke feature. However I suppose the karaoke feature could be used as pseudo memo recorder, but there are a ton of other memo apps that would be better for this purpose.


Dan

 

[ChrisC]

Thanks. I decided not to pollute this thread with a request for voice memo app guidance

Two new questions:

1. Maybe more of a bug ... I listen to archival material recorded on a custom system, so there is no album artwork or even song track structure. So when playing a track, I saw the generic "CD" graphic where you would have the album artowrk, and that was fine.

Last week while doing a music file update, I put a JPEG file into the music folder just to carry it home, and that JPEG started appearing in place of the generic CD graphic. I would like to go back to the generic CD graphic. I have tried the following:
- deleting the JPEG file off the phone
- force-killing the app (right swipe in app list) and restarting it
- rebooting the whole phone

In all cases, the image display persists. Are you caching it somewhere? How can I clear that?

2. Ohhhh, this just gave me an idea: put in a JPEG that explicitly shows the play and skip buttons, in place of album artwork. Has someone already created that graphic?

3. After I dump the mp3 files into the phone, how do I get the file listing to refresh? I'd try navigating through folders, but I have NO FOLDERS. Just one big pile of mp3s in the "Music" folder on the phone. I was unable to find any way to navigate UP to the parent of the Music folder. If there some way to force a refresh? Eventually I found that doing a "shuffle all" forced the folder rescan.

 

[DanPLC]

1. Maybe more of a bug ... I listen to archival material recorded on a custom system, so there is no album artwork or even song track structure. So when playing a track, I saw the generic "CD" graphic where you would have the album artowrk, and that was fine.

Last week while doing a music file update, I put a JPEG file into the music folder just to carry it home, and that JPEG started appearing in place of the generic CD graphic. I would like to go back to the generic CD graphic. I have tried the following:
- deleting the JPEG file off the phone
- force-killing the app (right swipe in app list) and restarting it
- rebooting the whole phone

In all cases, the image display persists. Are you caching it somewhere? How can I clear that?

The Android media indexer is responsible for finding the album art (whether it be an image file in the same folder as the music file, or album art embedded in the music file). I'd suggest you use the built-in "album art download" function and find the actual album art for the song.

2. Ohhhh, this just gave me an idea: put in a JPEG that explicitly shows the play and skip buttons, in place of album artwork. Has someone already created that graphic?

It wouldn't make much sense from a user interface standpoint to sometimes display pause/play/next/previous buttons (i.e. when album art is not available), and sometimes not to (i.e. when album art is available). So no, I'm sorry I'd prefer to keep the current default album art (the image of the CD).

3. After I dump the mp3 files into the phone, how do I get the file listing to refresh? I'd try navigating through folders, but I have NO FOLDERS. Just one big pile of mp3s in the "Music" folder on the phone. I was unable to find any way to navigate UP to the parent of the Music folder. If there some way to force a refresh? Eventually I found that doing a "shuffle all" forced the folder rescan.

The Android media indexer should pick up new files automatically. If it's not, then you may be having issues with the media indexer on your phone. I've seen apps in the Play Store that advertise the ability to force a rescan of the media indexer. I haven't tried them out so I can't tell you for sure if they work. However another way to do it is to go to "Manage Apps" in the Android settings and find the "Media Storage" app (under "All Apps"). If you select "Clear Data" and then reboot your device, the Android media indexer will be forced to rescan your media library. However this probably will result in you losing all of your stored playlists (not the audio files themselves, just the playlists).

 

[ChrisC]

The Android media indexer is responsible for finding the album art (whether it be an image file in the same folder as the music file, or album art embedded in the music file). I'd suggest you use the built-in "album art download" function and find the actual album art for the song. It wouldn't make much sense from a user interface standpoint to sometimes display pause/play/next/previous buttons (i.e. when album art is not available), and sometimes not to (i.e. when album art is available). So no, I'm sorry I'd prefer to keep the current default album art (the image of the CD).

There is no album art for the files I'm listening to. It's output from an audio recording system. I would love to just revert to the CD image that you are using (or is it the indexer that provides it?) but that's what I can't do.

OK fine, I made a custom image as I described (I think you misunderstood my question and so I just made my own) and loaded it into the phone. But it was still showing the old image. So some Googling led me to this: navigate to Internal storage\Android\data\com.android.providers.media\albumthumbs and delete the offending file. In my case there was just one image in there (see, I told you I don't use any album artwork ) so it was trivial to identify which file to delete!

I force-closed the Remix Music Player, restarted and BOOM got the desired results. The single album art image I have on the phone is a crude sketch of play/pause and skip icons, which now appears behind the "hidden" buttons.

The Android media indexer should pick up new files automatically. If it's not, then you may be having issues with the media indexer on your phone.

Perhaps. I just did my weekly dump of files into the phone and again it failed to index. I'm not going to install Yet Another App. The shuffle-all command works as a workaround, which implies that you can tell the app to rescan the folder. Can you have the app "listen" to when the OS says the contents of the folder have changed?

A couple new problems to consider:

I can't get the notifier icon in the notification bar to go away. I've turned off every pref I can find. I don't mind it there when music is playing, but it seems to persist no matter what.

I was trying to figure out how to turn on the "fine-tuned controls" skip buttons and could not find it in any pref. Eventually I found the "remix tip" and the long-press. This capability should also be shown as an explicit pref. It's a great feature and the one that led me to spend money on this app!

If the above two problems can be resolved by me going to a pref somewhere in the app, I think this would be evidence that your prefs are problematic, because I couldn't find them. All prefs should be in one place in the app.

The player that shows up on my lock screen (awesome!) is very nearly blocking the unlock mechanism. My phone is a Verizon Droid Razr M, running Jellybean 4.1, and the unlock is a swipe from the CENTER of the screen to the right. With the lock-screen player, I can juuuust barely get to the unlock icon, peeking below the player. If the lock-screen player were only a few pixels bigger (taller), I wouldn't be able to unlock my phone! That'd be scary, no?

I still think you need to have all of the features documented in one place -- combine the FAQ and Remix Tips into one set of information that one can scan through, and add in the BASIC information I describe earlier (e.g. the hidden play/pause button).

I hope this is taken as intended: constructive criticism, intended to help improve your otherwise good app. Thanks and good luck.

 

[DanPLC]

Can you have the app "listen" to when the OS says the contents of the folder have changed?

What you're describing is the exact function of the Android media indexer (which is part of the OS). My app already automatically updates when the Android media indexer finds new or updated data.

I can't get the notifier icon in the notification bar to go away. I've turned off every pref I can find. I don't mind it there when music is playing, but it seems to persist no matter what.

By default the notification icon persists at all times so that users have access to the mini-player and "new song" notifications. The notification icon is just a visual representation of the app's media service. A notification icon is required if you want a service on Android to always run. If you don't have the notification icon, Android has the ability to kill off the service if it needs to.

To disable the "always persistent" notification, open up the Preferences (tap the gear icon at the top of the right-side menu) and select "Notifications". You'll find the notification options there. Once you disable the persistent notification, you can remove it by going back into the app, pause you music, then leave the app.

And on Honeycomb/ICS/JB, regardless of the notification preferences, you can always tap the "X" button in the notification to remove the notification icon and kill the app's service (which completely removes it from memory).

I was trying to figure out how to turn on the "fine-tuned controls" skip buttons and could not find it in any pref. Eventually I found the "remix tip" and the long-press. This capability should also be shown as an explicit pref. It's a great feature and the one that led me to spend money on this app!

The app description in the Play Store indicates how you display and hide the fine-tuned controls. And I added the "Remix Tips" to the Help screen so people could find out about some of the "hidden" features like this one.

All prefs should be in one place in the app.

All preferences are in one place. They're on the Preferences screen (see above for instructions on how to get there).

The player that shows up on my lock screen (awesome!) is very nearly blocking the unlock mechanism. My phone is a Verizon Droid Razr M, running Jellybean 4.1, and the unlock is a swipe from the CENTER of the screen to the right. With the lock-screen player, I can juuuust barely get to the unlock icon, peeking below the player. If the lock-screen player were only a few pixels bigger (taller), I wouldn't be able to unlock my phone! That'd be scary, no?

You can remove the mini-player from the lock screen by swiping down on the title. Tapping the title also removes it. And of course you can choose not to use it if you did find it to be in the way. The options are available on the Preferences screen.

I still think you need to have all of the features documented in one place -- combine the FAQ and Remix Tips into one set of information that one can scan through, and add in the BASIC information I describe earlier (e.g. the hidden play/pause button).

All features are described in one place: the "Help" screen. I separated out "FAQ" and "Remix Tips" because "Remix Tips" are specifically features that are "hidden" (or not obvious) to the user. FAQs are simply any commonly-asked question.

I hope this is taken as intended: constructive criticism, intended to help improve your otherwise good app. Thanks and good luck.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[davidtm]

Hey Dan,

I've just discovered Widget Locker and NiLS for a modified lock screen with notifications. I was hoping to have basic player controls on my new lockscreen. Unfortunately, Remix doesn't seem able to "play nice" with them. Wanted you to know if you didn't already.

thanks!

 

[DanPLC]

Hey Dan,

I've just discovered Widget Locker and NiLS for a modified lock screen with notifications. I was hoping to have basic player controls on my new lockscreen. Unfortunately, Remix doesn't seem able to "play nice" with them. Wanted you to know if you didn't already.

thanks!

Music Player (Remix) offers several lock screen control options. You can choose the one that works best for you. They include:

1) For Android 4.0+ devices, you can enable basic music controls. (NOTE: Some device manufacturers disable this Android 4.x feature. For instance on my HTC Evo 3D, they're not available, but on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 they are). However I'm not sure if the ICS+ lock screen music controls will appear when using a 3rd party lock screen replacement.

2) For Android 4.0+ devices, you can enable the advanced mini-player controls. They appear as an overlay on top of your existing lock screen. With the mini-player, you have basic music controls, a scrubber bar, access to your Now Playing list including ability to re-order, queue, or delete songs, as well as access to your playlists and faves.

3) For Android 4.2+ devices, you can install one of the 4x2 widgets onto the lock screen.

Can you elaborate on "not playing nice"? I'm going to guess you're using option #2 above (the mini-player). This lock screen music controls option is really meant for users who don't display other info or items on their lock screens. For instance, I used to use it with my Evo 3D. The mini-player took up most of the top of the screen and the unlock ring was displayed at the bottom of the screen.

If you're using a lock screen that displays a lot of information at the top of the screen, you may want to try out option #1 (if your device manufacturer has made it available). And for Android 4.2+ devices, option #3 may be the best one. One of the things I'd like to do is to create a "micro" version of the mini-player that's more compact with the ability to move it to different parts of the screen. So when that's implemented, option #2 may become a more viable option.

Of course, in ICS and Jellybean, you always have controls in the notification panel. Most devices allow you to bring down the notification window on the lock screen, so that's always an option. On Jellybean it's particularly nice since I've implemented expandable Jellybean notification controls.

 

[ChrisC]

Well, you're saying every problem I've pointed out simply does not exist. I guess I hope you'll eventually re-read my original reports, reconsider, and make the improvements I'm suggesting. Especially the prefs and documention issues. Thanks again and good luck.

 

[DanPLC]

Well, you're saying every problem I've pointed out simply does not exist. I guess I hope you'll eventually re-read my original reports, reconsider, and make the improvements I'm suggesting. Especially the prefs and documention issues. Thanks again and good luck.

I answered your questions concerning your issues (persistent notification) and the mini-player lock screen. I'm sorry you didn't like the answers.

You said you wanted prefs in one place, and they are already.

In regards to the FAQ and Remix Tips, that's the way I prefer to arrange the help info. It's a design choice I've made as the developer.

As a developer, I'm happy to consider suggestions for feature suggestions and other improvements, but ultimately I (as the app's creator) may reject certain ideas. I've developed Remix for 4 years (first on webOS) and a lot of its features came from user suggestions. But there have been times when I don't go with certain ideas.

 

[davidtm]

Dan,
Thanks for the thoughtful (as always) response. Yes, I should've been more clear. I've tried to have the basic controls (option 1 above). That worked just fine on my stock lock screen, and yes, having them in the notifications pull-down shade along with the "x" shutoff is great. When I configured the lock screen with Widget Locker and NiLS, the basic controls would appear, but kinda overlay other notifications there. Inconsistently, they would function correctly or not respond at all to taps. Also, they would still be there even after closing the app with the "x". Once, I had to restart the phone to clean it all up.

My settings:
Notifications - Always enable music svc notification - ON
NuPlay - Off
Mini-player - Enabled, detection size at default 15dp
Lock screen controls - Display basic controls ON, mini-player Off
(Note: the basic controls have sometimes appeared even after I gave up and turned them OFF in lock screen)

A little more testing shows that it finally did behave for 2 or 3 commands (play, pause, next, previous) in the lock screen using basic controls, then it became slow or unresponsive. Almost like it's confused (pardon the anthropomorphization!)

I hope this is helpful, as I'm puzzled. I just wonder if there's unknown (certainly to me) conflict between Remix, WL, and NiLS.