Why Creative's GUI stomps all over Rockbox

[isamu]

OK here's the deal...

I am not liking Rockbox GUI and playback features...AT ALL

It's way way WAY too cumbersome and confusing.

Issue #1:

I've tried creating an "Dragon Quest Orchestra" m3U playlist file from both foobar2000 and Winamp and put in a folder containing ALL the Dragon Quest tracks in the m3u file. I called it "DQ Compilation". You know what happens when I try to play "DQ Compilation" in my Rockboxed iPod? Absolutely nothing! It displays some random song on the screen but doesn't play it back or anything. What exactly do I need to do to get a proper playlist working in RB, with the songs in the order I want?


Issue #2:

When playing a playlist, you cannot A)See the songs currently listed in the m3u/m3u8 file and B)Re-arrange  them in the order that you want on the fly. Which brings me to why the GUI in Creative's old Jukebox 3 player is much better.

Here's a perfect example of why Creative's GUI craps all over RockBox....Let's turn on my Jukebox 3 and go to an artist like say, The Cure. I then go into the album "Disintegration". I highlight the song "Pictures of you" and then add it to the "Now Playing" menu. I then highlight the song "Lullaby" and add it to the 'now playing' menu. I then back out of the Disintegration album and go into the "Head on the Door" album. I highlight the song "In Between Days" and then add it to the "now playing" menu. I then highlight "Close to Me" and then add it to the "now playing" menu.

Now, when I back out into the main menu and click on the "Now playing" button, I now have the following four songs ready to be played from TWO different albums:

1-"Pictures of you"
2-"Lullaby"
3-"In Between Days"
4-"Close to Me"

These songs will be played in the order I added them, and even better, I can go to a screen that lists all the songs I added that are en-queue and re-order them ON THE FLY while a song is playing! This is something you CANNOT do at all in Rockbox, and it makes things very limited in my opinion.

Why can't Rockbox allow something simple like this? Why can't it simply allow me to highlight a song from some different random albums, and add them one at a time to ONE dynamic playlist that will play them in the order I added them? Why am I stuck to being forced to listen to songs in the order they are stored in an album folder or in a pre-defined playlist?

If this CAN be done, please tell me how because I'm ready to give up here.

[GodEater]

No-one's forcing you to use Rockbox you know. If it doesn't work how you want, and you've got something else which does - then by all means use that. We won't be offended.

That being said - it should be perfectly possible to do all these things in Rockbox. Without seeing the content of your playlist, and the directory structure of your DAP - we can't help much with the first issue you raise.

With the second issue, you normally use a long-hold on the select button on your DAP to access the playlist features. These are well documented in the manual. Can you please explain where you issue with them is ?

[linuxstb]

1) Could you attach your m3u file to a message in this thread, so we can see what the problem might be?  Does it contain the same folder names that exist on your player?

2) To add a song to the current playlist, just "long-select" (to bring up the context menu), then select playlist, and then one of the many different ways you can add that song to the current playlist (see the manual for a full description).

There is also an option to view the current playlist.

If you go to Rockbox's main menu, you will see the "Playlist" menu.  From there you can view the playlist, and when viewing the playlist, a long-press on select allows you to move an item.

[Llorean]

As a note, it's generally considered polite to read the manual and learn how to use software *before* complaining about its inability to do things that are actually documented.

It's understandable if there are undocumented features, but there is a PDF manual provided, and these things are documented in it.

[pixelma]

There is also an option to view the current playlist.

If you go to Rockbox's main menu, you will see the "Playlist" menu.  From there you can view the playlist, and when viewing the playlist, a long-press on select allows you to move an item.

It is also reachable through the WPS context menu. The manual is your friend and it is there for a reason - have a look at especially the "WPS context menu" and the "Working with playlists" chapter. It gives you enough of an idea of the possibilities though it's still not complete.

P.S. First I didn't want to answer your post at all because of its tone... it sounds as if you already have judged even though you didn't play around with it or read much.

[isamu]

1) Could you attach your m3u file to a message in this thread, so we can see what the problem might be?  Does it contain the same folder names that exist on your player?

Sure, it's right here. Just rename the file extention to m3u

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[isamu]

Sorry for the tone. I will admit that I need to familiarize myself with the manual a bit more, but how do you explain Rockbox not being able to play my foobar and winamp created m3u file?

[Llorean]

Well, the basic answer would be "You've done something wrong, because m3u playlists work for all of us", but instead of stopping there, we're trying to figure out how to fix your problem.

What does the folder structure look like on your device? Was the M3U created by pointing to the actual files on the player, or is it pointing to the ones on your hard disk?

[isamu]

What does the folder structure look like on your device? Was the M3U created by pointing to the actual files on the player, or is it pointing to the ones on your hard disk?

The m3u file is pointing to the songs from my hard disk on my PC. But the same files are on my iPod. Could that be the problem?

[Llorean]

Are they in the exact same folder structure?

If you look, an M3U is JUST a list of filenames with paths. Rockbox will ignore the M:\, but it will NOT search the whole hard disk to find them, it can't. The processors are slow and it would take time. If the whole rest of the folder names aren't exactly the same, it won't work.

You should either create the M3U based on the real files, on the player, or you should make sure the directory structure on the player is identical to the one on the PC.

[GodEater]

Does Rockbox parse .m3u's with all the #EXTINF stuff in? I didn't think it did...

[Llorean]

I'm almost positive lines beginning with # are treated as comments and ignored.

[isamu]

Are they in the exact same folder structure?

If you look, an M3U is JUST a list of filenames with paths. Rockbox will ignore the M:\, but it will NOT search the whole hard disk to find them, it can't. The processors are slow and it would take time. If the whole rest of the folder names aren't exactly the same, it won't work.

You should either create the M3U based on the real files, on the player, or you should make sure the directory structure on the player is identical to the one on the PC.

ok I ll check that out. I dont think the paths are the same so that could be the thing. But the thing about it is, let's say I import the files directly from my iPod into say, f00bar and then...*while in foobar*.... arrange them in the order I want them to play in the playlist, then I save it in a new folder in rockbock, will rockbox then play the files in that same order I saved them in while they were in foobar? Or will they play them by alphabetical/numerical/whatever order?

[Llorean]

If you save an M3U in foobar using the songs on your iPod, yes, they'll play in that order when you launch the .M3U in Rockbox.

[LinusN]

So, basically, the Creative GUI "craps all over" Rockbox because the user has to read the Rockbox manual to find out what features it has?