Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
Why Isn't Database Auto Update The Default?...
jrredho:
Hey All,
I have four old refurbed Sansa e200's (2, 4, 6 and 8gig). Up until now, due to their inability to grok m4a, I've always hated loading new music onto them because it took hours to do it due to time required to translate m4a to mp3; I use autofill within Winamp to do that loading.
Then I encountered Rockbox v3.6.
Now, I want to say that Rockbox is a kick-ass alternative. For one thing, I don't have to translate the m4a files anymore; this cuts my autofill time from several hours to approx 45 minutes for my 8G player; for another, the flexibility of the application is astounding. But, as Uncle Ben would say, "With great power comes great responsibility." Boy, did he ever get that right! I've spent the better part of a week figuring out that the database must be updated manually every time the device is re-autofilled! How did I discover this? From the manual? No. Surprisingly, after searching through the forum on several occasions for '(ERR)', which I was seeing at the front of almost every track in my then-current playlist, I ran across a forum post from 2008 mentioning this fact.
Okay, you might say, once you learned that, what was the problem: Just go to the appropriate place and do that update. In fact, from reading the manual, I found that there was a thing called a "Database Menu", but there is no mention, as far as I can tell, anywhere in the entire manual regarding how to access this menu (I learned this from a forum post). Not only that, I learned from looking through my player, that the option "Auto Update" was not set to "Yes", and from the manual that an auxiliary setting (Settings → General Settings → System → Disk → Directory Cache) needed to be enabled to make auto updating possible.
Wow...
I really want to apologize for such a long-winded context set: I love all the things that all of you contributors have put together; Rockbox is an amazing product with amazingly talented personnel who are responsible for developing and maintaining it. And I *know* that it's free! But this weeklong experience has left me with the following simple questions: Why isn't enabled Auto Updating for the database the default? And why isn't the issue of accessing the various context menus described better in the Getting Started chapter of the manual? These few little tweaks would make life so much easier for those of us out there considering switching to Rockbox, and thus make fewer folks, perhaps like me, i.e. knuckleheads, decide not to take the plunge due to the high initial learning curve.
Thanks for your patience in letting me vent...
all the best,
john
saratoga:
--- Quote from: jrredho on September 02, 2010, 12:36:27 PM ---I've spent the better part of a week figuring out that the database must be updated manually every time the device is re-autofilled! How did I discover this? From the manual? No. Surprisingly, after searching through the forum on several occasions for '(ERR)', which I was seeing at the front of almost every track in my then-current playlist, I ran across a forum post from 2008 mentioning this fact.
--- End quote ---
Next time just read the manual. All of this in the first 5 or 6 sentences of the database section.
--- Quote from: jrredho on September 02, 2010, 12:36:27 PM --- Why isn't enabled Auto Updating for the database the default?
--- End quote ---
Most people don't use the database, so its not enabled by default. I think the auto update also has issues on some players. I can't really remember what the reason is though.
--- Quote from: jrredho on September 02, 2010, 12:36:27 PM --- And why isn't the issue of accessing the various context menus described better in the Getting Started chapter of the manual?
--- End quote ---
Because it has its own section and doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the stuff in "quick start". If you want to rewrite the manual, you're welcome to do it, but I'm not sure mixing a bunch of random things into the first section really makes sense. IMO if someone wants to know how to use the database, the database section is the obvious place to look.
[Saint]:
The manual is also lying about needing Directory Cache enabled for Auto Update to function.
But, you weren't to know that, nor did I until I questioned it on IRC.
However, now you know ;)
[St.]
jrredho:
Dear Saratoga,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my long post.
--- Quote from: saratoga on September 02, 2010, 01:15:29 PM ---Next time just read the manual.
--- End quote ---
Part of the point of my post was to provide constructive criticism to make your product more accessible. I'm saying that having to read an entire 200+ page manual prior to using a product is too steep a price to pay for the non-robust prospective user.
Regardless, and as I stated in my OP, I *read* a significant portion of the manual, and what I'm saying is the manual: (1) Isn't crystal clear in describing what a "context menu" is and how to access some of them, and (2) Is incomplete or even incorrect on some of things that relate to the software.
--- Quote from: saratoga on September 02, 2010, 01:15:29 PM ---All of this in the first 5 or 6 sentences of the database section.
--- End quote ---
As far as I've been able to divine, none of what I experienced was described in the first 5 or 6 sentences of the database section.
Specifically, I encountered problems creating a playlist from either the Create Playlist menu pick from the playlist menu (I was not in the Database), or from the Database/Album-Artist/<all-tracks> context menu that I happened to stumble upon. In fact, this mode of creating a playlist isn't even described in the manual section on creating playlists, and it was the only one I could find that let me shuffle the tunes without setting "Shuffle" to On in the playback settings. This was after autofilling my (previously non-empty) device the first time after installing Rockbox. After I updated the database, and re-created playlists using those two approaches, I had no errors shown in the playlist.
Are you saying there was something wrong with either of these approaches? Can you please point out the exact wording in the first 5 of 6 sentences of the database section of the manual that could've helped me avoid my troubles?
--- Quote from: saratoga on September 02, 2010, 01:15:29 PM ---Most people don't use the database, so its not enabled by default.
--- End quote ---
Again I ask, was there anything wrong with either of the approaches I described above? If so, then there seems to be at least one unanticipated use of the database, namely, creating a playlist from the playlist menu.
--- Quote from: saratoga on September 02, 2010, 01:15:29 PM ---Because it has its own section and doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the stuff in "quick start". If you want to rewrite the manual, you're welcome to do it, but I'm not sure mixing a bunch of random things into the first section really makes sense. IMO if someone wants to know how to use the database, the database section is the obvious place to look.
--- End quote ---
Okay, how about something like this small revision to the Context Menu section of Quick Start (this would've given me a clue to how to find the Database Menu in the first place):
-------------------------begin included revision-------------------------
Context Menu
Some menu picks and views, for example the WPS, the Database main menu
pick, and the file browser each have a context menu. These are
generally accessed using Long Select either while the WPS is showing,
or with a menu pick, such as a directory or file within the file
browser, highlighted.
The contents and objects of actions of a context menu can vary
depending on the situation from which you call it. The file
browser context menu presents you with some operations you can perform
with the file or directory you called the menu from. For the WPS this
object is the currently playing file. Finally, there are some actions
that do not apply to an object, but instead refer to the screen from
which the context menu gets called; one example of this is the
playback menu, which can be called using the context menu from within
the WPS.
------------------------end included revision-------------------------
cheers,
john
Llorean:
Why should "context menu" be in "Getting Started?" Not everything can go there, or it would become the whole manual. Specifically, your description is awfully long for describing it. Don't the keymap tables tell you that 'long select' brings you to the context menu, and then searching for context menu tells you further information about it?
As well, enabling the database by default can have significant performance penalties for people who don't wish to use it, so that's why it's not on by default.
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