One button press -> Remove current song from list, jump to next song

[Llorean]

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?

[Mosician]

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.

[MarcGuay]

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).

[Chronon]

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.

[Llorean]

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.

[Chronon]

Sure.  I'm not lobbying for this.

[Febs]

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.

[Mosician]

... 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

"
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.
"

I think this should answer your above question.

[karashata]

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.

[Chronon]

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. 

[Llorean]

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

"
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.
"

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.

[Mosician]

...
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.

[Llorean]

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.

[AlexP]

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.

[yapper]

I frequently delete songs on my DAP, but I don't find the current keypress sequence troublesome at all.