Rockbox Technical Forums
Rockbox Development => Feature Ideas => Topic started by: Mosician on January 01, 2009, 10:01:58 PM
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See here (http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=20004.0). (I add it here again as this is a feature suggestion.)
It is unclear to me why the topic was locked by the administrator Llorean there? How should others discuss this feature then?
By writing "(I did not check the manual for this already.)" I meant not the entire manual, the chapter "4. Browsing and playing" I checked and could not find anything there.
So in summary it would be nice if admins do not lock too fastly any still relevant ideas.
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If you follow the guidelines, your posts won't get locked quickly. If you'd meant it as a request, you should've posted in this section in the first place. The original post certainly reads as "I couldn't be bothered to look, can Rockbox do this?"
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Sorry my failure, I should be more precise about how I wrote what I already checked in the manual and what not.
( For me it was "I did not check the full manual from beginning to the end" ~ "I did not check the manual." )
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This is basically a bad idea. A single-button removal (especially one that updates the playlist and/or moves the file) allows for a lot of accidental behaviour.
It only takes a few button presses to either remove a song from the playlist or delete it (and not too many more to do both) and once you've done one or the either, it's only a single button press more to start playing the next song. Meanwhile it's a lot harder to accidentally do it the current way, and there are few (in most cases, none) buttons free for such a feature.
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This is basically a bad idea. A single-button removal (especially one that updates the playlist and/or moves the file) allows for a lot of accidental behaviour.
I understand your arguments.
1. If we assume everybody in this forum would like and want this feature, basically this should be a very fast to implement idea I think, am I correct with this thinking?
2. If we assume one of many developers would like and want this feature also, is it possible it would get a special release, or a plugin maybe (if possible), so anyone who wants this modification could use this plugin?
3. If none of above two what would you recommend me how to start for implementing this feature myself (where to look, what to consider and not to forget)?
It only takes a few button presses to either remove a song from the playlist or delete it (and not too many more to do both) and once you've done one or the either, it's only a single button press more to start playing the next song. Meanwhile it's a lot harder to accidentally do it the current way, and there are few (in most cases, none) buttons free for such a feature.
I prefer the principle "often used features should be as simple as possible" which is for me a direct one press click. The more often you need a feature the more this principle is true for me. Removing songs which I do not like and do not want to waste my time with come here at first place for me. There are too many bad songs out there. :-[
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You only ever remove bad songs once per song. You pause and start playback, enter the menu, fast forward, rewind, and adjust volume a potentially infinite number of times. These features need a button more than removing a song does.
I would suggest not putting songs on your player if you don't like them.
As for a special release, there isn't going to be an official one. We don't do that. And it doesn't make sense as a plugin (it'd take longer to run the plugin than to just remove the song from the playlist yourself). You could implement it yourself if you feel like learning C.
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You only ever remove bad songs once per song. You pause and start playback, enter the menu, fast forward, rewind, and adjust volume a potentially infinite number of times. These features need a button more than removing a song does. ...
I looked at some of the button definitions here (http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-ipod3g/rockbox-buildch4.html#x7-490004.3), e.g. Long Next which is defined as "Fast forward in track" I would like to replace with this functionality as I do not need any fast forward usually ~ in more than 90% of times. (About these things I have other for me more powerful methods, but I might write those ideas later on a separate topic.)
I would suggest not putting songs on your player if you don't like them.
It would be good if the player itself would also support this filtering process. So you could simply take over also any experimental releases on your mobile player to check them out if you feel so. Why should we have to do the prefiltering before somewhere else (e.g. on our desktop computer)? (This is a strong argument, I know. ;) )
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You can already remove songs on your player. It only takes a couple button pressed to delete a song currently, you can probably do it in less than three seconds.
But this is clearly not something the official version of Rockbox needs on a single button press. Especially in place of fast-forward or a feature like that.
Remember, this is a place to post ideas for features you think would be acceptable for the whole population, not "ideas I want someone to program for my private use."
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You can already remove songs on your player. It only takes a couple button pressed to delete a song currently, you can probably do it in less than three seconds.
I am one of these people who thinks this is not simple enough for its importance. I prefer supersimplicity rather than "it is possible in less than three seconds".
But this is clearly not something the official version of Rockbox needs on a single button press. Especially in place of fast-forward or a feature like that.
For you, yes, for me, not. Sure I am not allowed to talk about the official version of Rockbox.
Remember, this is a place to post ideas for features you think would be acceptable for the whole population, not "ideas I want someone to program for my private use."
I know, nobody has to do anything they do not want.
I am already happy of discovering Rockbox, which means it is possible that I could do it myself (sooner or later). One of the main reasons I still did not buy any mp3 player is I do not like their "standard features". Many people just take what is released/sold, I am not a big fan of it. For simple mp3 listening I can just use my mobile phone, but of a special mp3 player I have much bigger expectations. Sadly many are already used to their "standard features."
For what are you using fast forward that often if I am allowed to ask? I would put e.g. this 3 second clicks away but not as a direct click.
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Fast Forward and Rewind are used to seek within songs, obviously. They both need to be available at the same time, while the progress bar and/or elapsed time is visible to find locations in audio files.
As I said already, deleting is something you need, at most, once per song. The primary use of a player is listening to music, not managing music files, and the WPS button functionality represents this.
Simply, deleting a song is not as important as you think it is in terms of what Rockbox is.
Yes, Rockbox can be made to do things other music software doesn't. But "everyone else does it" doesn't immediately mean we shouldn't. Fast Forward and Rewind are very basic playback functions. "Delete song from playlist" is a feature many, many users will never even use.
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As I said already, deleting is something you need, at most, once per song. The primary use of a player is listening to music, not managing music files, and the WPS button functionality represents this.
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For me a player should allow listening while at the same time allowing most basic song management in a supersimple way
a) removing bad songs from the current playlist and
b) adding good songs to a "favourites list".
... "Delete song from playlist" is a feature many, many users will never even use.
Here I disagree as everybody has at least a "favourites list". Or can you imagine a person having a 120 GB mp3 player which consists only of favourite songs. I can not. Even for 4 GB this gets difficult.
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Adding songs to a favorites list is not what this feature request is about.
You request ways to remove bad songs. I can imagine someone EASILY having 4gb of not-bad songs. And it's also quite easy to create a playlist of your favorites as you go.
This idea was about deleting bad songs, not adding the best ones to a favorites list.
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I mentioned favourites list also because we were writing about (basic) song management.
I have to check also btw. if Rockbox allows adding to a favourites list with one single click which would be just the symmetric opposite of the bad song removing function. Removing bad songs ~ Ending up with songs you like ~ Favourite songs.
But I would like to have both ways, entering directly the favourites and just ending up there after a long term "bad songs removal process".
Anyway keep up the good work with Rockbox, now we have discussed almost anything important of this feature idea. Now the readers can make their own opinion.
Right now I am doing all my management exactly as I want using Winamp plus some AutoHotkey customizations. Then I simply copy these favourite selections to my mobile phone and that's it. An mp3 player would get only interesting to me if I could do the same process also in a mobile fashion. So I would need at least this functionality (in a supersimple way). I have even more crazier features for Winamp but as I can feel Rockbox is not the right place to suggest such things.
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Have you even used Rockbox and tried its playlist catalog and song removal features?
They are very simple. They aren't one-button, and they'll never be one-button (there are simply not enough buttons) but I think something can still be quite simple even if it requires a couple button presses instead.
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Have you even used Rockbox and tried its playlist catalog and song removal features?
They are very simple. They aren't one-button, and they'll never be one-button (there are simply not enough buttons) but I think something can still be quite simple even if it requires a couple button presses instead.
No I never used Rockbox as I do not own any standalone mp3 player. The closed software format of mp3 players I just did not like, now Rockbox is good news for me.
As I understood one of Rockbox's philosophies was to keep things as customizable as possible, but as we could see in our conversation, this seems to have some "standard limits". I would even prefer being able to override these "standard button behaviours" as mentioned above. I would define Long Back as "add to favourites list" and Long Next as "remove from current list and jump to next song". Rockbox' philosophy ends already here. ;)
But I suppose I will soon consider buying an additional mp3 player, even knowing they don't have what I want, but thanks to Rockbox, it is possible to implement. Before Rockbox we had not this possibility.
Before buying an mp3 player, I discovered now the Rockbox simulators with which I am playing around now. This is great. So you can buy a hardware when you have finished a Rockbox version which fits to your needs.
While experimenting with the simulator I discovered there is an option in Settings.Playback Settings.Skip Length, e.g. when set to 1 min, who needs the fast forward buttons still? I am asking out of curiosity as this seems to be an overlapping of functionality on buttons, so in such setting scenarios the WPS buttons could adapt themselves to this changes, e.g. by replacing Long Next and Long Back buttons (optionally) with other functionality, e.g. as suggested above.
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How do you propose to do fine-seeking with it set at 1 minute, then? Just sit and wait 45 seconds if you need to go 15 seconds back after getting nearby?
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How do you propose to do fine-seeking with it set at 1 minute, then? Just sit and wait 45 seconds if you need to go 15 seconds back after getting nearby?
Sorry, I never need that extensive detailed seeking, so I would be interested in why others think this is such an important and essential feature? (I could also answer in a similar fashion as you did before, "if the song is that bad that you have to seek inside it for interesting parts, why did you copy it into your player, instead just use songs which you like to listen fully", but I think everybody should decide for themselves.)
I can say for myself extensive seeking, which has to be on a direct single button press distance is not necessary. If Rockbox' philosophy is to be customizable, then why not allow even such options? Anybody could decide for themselves what they prefer.
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People who listen to spoken-word audio on their players may appreciate the ability to revue what they just heard (perhaps in the case of an instructional language recording) or skip ahead (if they're listening to a news program and find the current story uninteresting).
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We have party mode, which changes the behavior of certain keys. I would prefer to see this functionality accessed in a similar way -- i.e. the user voluntarily chooses to enter a mode which gives quick access to file deletion and track skip. I certainly don't think this should be any sort of default behavior, though.
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I don't think it's necessary to add more code-size for a feature that generally should be performed on the PC side. We don't want customizable controls, and we don't needed added modes for every way someone wants to use their player.
Customization of everything is not a project goal.
Rockbox is a music player, not a library organization tool. Take the three seconds to delete a song if you want it gone.
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Sure. I'm not lobbying for this.
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I see this proposal as extremely undesirable from a cost/benefit perspective:
The cost is high, in that (1) the proposal would remove existing functionality, seeking, that is an essential function for any digital music player and one that I suspect is used by a very high percentage of Rockbox users and (2) there is also a cost involved in dedicating a button to any feature or function, particularly on platforms, such as the Sansa C200 series, that have too few buttons as it is.
The benefit is low, in that (1) Rockbox already has the functionality that you want, and (2) that functionality already exists with a relatively small number of keypresses. It literally takes only a few seconds to delete the currently-playing track, so I just don't see how we gain much by dedicating a button to this.
In short, I see this proposal as sacrificing functionality for a majority of the Rockbox userbase for the convenience of a small subset of the userbase. For these reasons, I feel fairly comfortable in saying that even if someone were to code this request as you have it phrased, that change would never be accepted into Rockbox. Moreover, in general, I think that there is also little desire among Rockbox developers to allow the basic navigation buttons to be user-configurable. And--with all due respect--I think that you will not get much traction on any feature request, particularly one that involves changes to navigation, when you make the request without having actually used Rockbox.
If this is something that you really want, I think that you would have more success with your proposal if you were to become more familiar with how Rockbox works, especially the existing functions that allow you to delete files on the fly, and propose a way that the current delete functions could be accessed more easily without sacrificing existing functionality.
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... when you make the request without having actually used Rockbox.
I am playing around now with the simulator and parallelly I am also reading the manual, soon I should know Rockbox (almost) in and out.
It is nice see also replies here from other Rockbox users/developers besides Llorean.
Any feature ideas from my side do not have to be in the default Rockbox distribution. It would be enough if users had those options in a non-default way.
We have party mode, which changes the behavior of certain keys. I would prefer to see this functionality accessed in a similar way -- i.e. the user voluntarily chooses to enter a mode which gives quick access to file deletion and track skip. I certainly don't think this should be any sort of default behavior, though.
I would also like to have such an option. Especially by having even some other ideas which would also introduce/need some new modes, for much more crazier playback functionality. (I will wait introducing those ideas until I can recognize any openness in Rockbox community for non-standard mass ideas.) We should also not mix up main ideas: My main idea is still removing current song from current playlist, not deleting current song from disk/medium. I mentioned deletion as additional option, but the main idea is just to update current playlist without the current song.
What I know for sure is I will implement it at least for myself sooner or later.
I will also have a closer look what the party mode is about in the manual. Thanks for the hint.
How do you propose to do fine-seeking with it set at 1 minute, then? Just sit and wait 45 seconds if you need to go 15 seconds back after getting nearby?
I am not sure Llorean if you read the Rockbox manual. See chapter 7.15 Skip Length
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Note: To skip tracks with this setting set to a time interval, press Short Prev + Long Next to go forward and Short Next + Long Prev to go back.
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I think this should answer your above question.
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I don't really have much to add that people haven't already said very clearly here, but I'm going to throw my two cents (Canadian) in anyway...
Fast forward and rewind are common controls to all mp3 players regardless of model and brand, if you were to remove those controls and replace them with track deletion or whatever you'd have a lot of users just starting out ending up removing tracks accidentally because they expected holding the skip buttons to do what they should (compared to the OF anyway), and not be deleting the track and skipping to the next.
Furthermore, it hardly makes sense to be putting all sorts of music on your MP3 player if you're expecting to be deleting a lot of it anyway, it would be much wiser to take the time to sit down and at least preview it on your computer and decide then if you want it on there or not. MP3 players are primarily for playing music, and removing controls that are perhaps not essential, but are expected to replace them with controls more oriented for managing the music (which should really be done on the computer before hand) reduces that primary functionality.
If you really want that sort of functionality, rather than asking it to be added to the official build (where it's quite clearly not wanted, not to mention impractical to most), take the time to learn how to program C, read through the source code, and modify the keymap for your player to change those buttons on your own build.
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Any feature ideas from my side do not have to be in the default Rockbox distribution. It would be enough if users had those options in a non-default way.
. . .
What I know for sure is I will implement it at least for myself sooner or later.
If you are interested in making a patch and (optionally) maintaining an "unsupported build" then you are certainly free to do that.
I will also have a closer look what the party mode is about in the manual. Thanks for the hint.
Party mode is just an example of a playback mode with nonstandard key mappings.
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How do you propose to do fine-seeking with it set at 1 minute, then? Just sit and wait 45 seconds if you need to go 15 seconds back after getting nearby?
I am not sure Llorean if you read the Rockbox manual. See chapter 7.15 Skip Length
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Note: To skip tracks with this setting set to a time interval, press Short Prev + Long Next to go forward and Short Next + Long Prev to go back.
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I think this should answer your above question.
That doesn't answer my question at all. I said "fine seeking" and even clarified what I meant to mean seeking very small amounts. You just told me how to skip tracks which is basically the opposite of what I was asking.
Anyway, this forum is for suggesting ideas for the official version. If you don't think they're suitable for the official version, that's fine, but if you're posting them here we're going to assume that's what you mean because that's what this place is for.
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replace them with track deletion ... you'd have a lot of users just starting out ending up removing tracks accidentally because they expected holding the skip buttons to do what they should (compared to the OF anyway), and not be deleting the track and skipping to the next.
Please read more carefully what I wrote above, the main idea is still deleting from the current playlist, btw. I never wrote about full deletion but moving into a separate directory which is something different, and this was only meant as an option.
This is what is written on "Why Rockbox" page:
We believe that you should never need to go through a series of menus for an action you perform frequently. We also believe that you should be able to configure almost anything about Rockbox you could want, pertaining to functionality. It is written by users, for users.
As it seems I believe this much more than Rockbox and its developers do. :-\
That doesn't answer my question at all. I said "fine seeking" and even clarified what I meant to mean seeking very small amounts. You just told me how to skip tracks which is basically the opposite of what I was asking.
What was done there for skipping could be done in a similar/same fashion for seeking, I hope it is now more clear what I meant. The important point is that we can use a series of button presses (in this case two button presses) to trigger a certain operation.
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So write a patch and show us how it can be done without making any existing features harder to use.
"Customizability" doesn't mean "make Rockbox do everything possible." Once you start getting into jobs better suited for other programs, we start drawing lines. This is one of those jobs that's really better suited for other software. This isn't configuring something pertaining to functionality. This is adding functionality beyond the intended scope of the software. Taking its "playback" mode and attempting to turn it into a "library management" mode.
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There has to be a limit somewhere on button shortcuts, as we have very limited buttons. Fast forward and rewind are much, much, ..., much more basic functions of a music player than deleting songs. I listen to audiobooks fairly often, and I quite like to be able to accurately seek my way to a particular place in a file. I think I have deleted a file from within Rockbox maybe three times in four years - I don't copy stuff on I don't like. Customizable buttons are generally agreed to be not wanted, as apart from anything else it would be a support nightmare.
As other have said in this thread Rockbox is about customisability up to a sensible limit - however as it is all nice and open source and that you are of course free to do whatever you want with it yourself.
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I frequently delete songs on my DAP, but I don't find the current keypress sequence troublesome at all.
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Currently, you press (starting from the WPS) "long select, right, right, long select, right" to remove the currently playing song from the current dynamic playlist.
After that it's "play, right" to return to WPS and skip to the next track.
I don't think it's that troublesome as you don't even really have to look at the screen to execute this.
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Currently, you press (starting from the WPS) "long select, right, right, long select, right" to remove the currently playing song from the current dynamic playlist.
Thanks Chronon for your tips, many of you are of course right and I can understand why you do not want to support such custom modifications officially.
Maybe in future more and more people can start forgetting old "standard behaviours of players" no matter which modes we defined where. I looked at the problem as how often I use certain operation sequences, and put them together into a single button press. As Rockbox is open source anybody is free to implement whatever they want for personal use. I will do when the time comes, until then I will continue using my mobile phone.
What would be the fastest key sequence for adding current song into an existing playlist like e.g. "favourites"? Also this I would prefer sitting on a single key press.
For me increasing the quality of my music selection in the long term is far more important than fast forward and rewind. I do not have a need for fast forward and rewind as I use a separate, special mode which does it automatically. But again, switching into and out of this special playback mode should be possible in a direct and fast way.
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What would be the fastest key sequence for adding current song into an existing playlist like e.g. "favourites"? Also this I would prefer sitting on a single key press.
You can do that by using the Playlist catalog. (http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-player/rockbox-buildch4.html#x7-580004.4.2)
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Just wonder if solution was found to last post - one button press adding current song into an existing playlist like e.g. "favorites"
I did extensive research but found only below workaround:
http://www.rockbox.org/mail/archive/rockbox-archive-2003-07/0930.shtml
As possible solution I wonder if someone could point best way to invoke above favorites.c from WPS -> Long Play.
Also created new topic with hope of gather ides / solutions for WPS->One Button Press->predefined playlist
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,43124.0.html
Much Thanks