xMusic - some extra music stuff

[S Pittaway]

I tried adding a button to the xmusic.dummy page that runs a "Select Playing" on category "xMusicDummy" and what this will do is update the xMusicDummyDetails category with the currently playing artists song list but does nothing to the xMusicDummy category

That is what it should do, xMusicDummy does nothing and is not used, its simply there to give me xMusicDummyDetails

The plugin then scans xMusicDummyDetails for the current parameter

has long as xMusicDummyDetails has the current song in it it should work...

execute wise i do the same thing a you i use "track play" or i simply click on the playlist/music detail screeen...

idont mnd looking at this, i am quite curious as towhy it does not work, that bit of the plugin really is that simple.

I will try and knock up a version with debuging in it and mod the dummy screen to include playback controls and a playlist.

if you could giv me a email address i could send it tou you?


Sean.

[scottw]

Sure, thanks for helping.

My email is swindmiller at gmail dot com.

Yeah the only way I was able to get xMusicDummyDetails to change was by using a button, it did not seem that the plugin was changing anything. I also added a textbox with "audioplayer>now>%parameter%" and it did show the current songs path:c:\music\folder\song.mp3 and this did change after each song.

How often does the plugin look for a new song??

I would be glad to test any version you can give me

[S Pittaway]

it checks every second.

i have added a playlist the dummy screen every time i click on a entry, i can see the dummydetail load in the album, then scroll thro untill it finds thr song.

next job is to add a bit of login then i wll send it to you

[scottw]

I appreciate all your work. Can't wait to get it working!!!

[S Pittaway]

I made the dummy screen a bit more informative, i will add a bit of debuging tonight...


i had a look at the code last night and had an idea - i only check the playing song if WinAmp says its playing...

I do a findwindow for winamp, then i send it a "are you playing" message...

I take it you are using winamp?

If so do you have multiple copies of it running?

i dont know how the multi zone stuff works (i dont use it), but i will only check the first instance of winamp that i find.

[scottw]

I do use Multizone audio, 3 copies of Winamp. I mainly use 1 copy most of the time but whatever you can do would be great.

[scottw]

S Pittaway sent me an updated copy, which I think he is going to post, and it seems to work for me.
Here are my observations as far as multizone audio goes:

Of course one zone with 1 copy of Winamp works fine.
I have 3 zones right now and it seems to work with all of them but not at once, it only works on the zone that you are currently controlling with Xlobby.
If I am controlling zone1 and have a playlist setup, each time the song changes it will update the song stats. If I am controlling Zone1 and Zone2 is also playing from a playlist and starts playing a new song it will not update. If I switch to Zone2 it will then start to update when the next song starts or if I click on a song to play but then songs playing in Zone1 are now not being updated.
You get the idea


As far as from a Thin Client:

What ever zone you start out controlling, that is the one that will be updated. Even if you switch zones using the “Zone Set” command (which which works fine on the main install of XL) it will still only update the zone you started in. My thin client’s servers.txt file has “zone:1” in it so that is the first zone being controlled when the thin client opens. If I change that to “zone:2” it will then update from Zone2 and not Zone1.

This plugin does work GREAT even though I have only messed with the “auto update” and the “database.add extra fields” but would be even better if the multizone stuff worked a little better.

I know that S Pittaway is not running Multizone audio so he may need some help trying to figure this out, if he wants to

Anyone have any ideas???

PS. Hats off to Sean for this fantastic plugin!!!!!!!

[scalt]

Since this ended up being the last post of the previous page, maybe you didn't see it.

Sorry if I'm a bit pushy, but I'd really like to get this to work!

Thanks

Pittaway

So I tried the method you described, but it doesn't work for me. All I get is an empty music.xml file. It does however create the music.xml.dup file so I know that the event is being launched.

Could I send you my music.xml file and tag.txt files so you can take a look?

Maybe it's because my music db is formatted differently then yours?

My sort order is

Code: Select all

  <sortorder>artist:albumname:tracknumber:trackfilename</sortorder>

[scottw]

Scalt,
I don't know anything about this part but did you already have an empty music.xml file and it created a duplicate. Did you try to delete the old music.xml file before you started? Also I looked at your music.xml file when you accidentally sent it to me and I noticed alot of weird characters. Maybe try to export a small amount of music files as a test to see if it works and then go from there.

Sorry if this did not help you at all I just figured I would try.

[scalt]

I cleaned up my tags...and thus my database with no change.

I also tried a different sort order (Album vs Artist->Album) with no change.

I am at a loss here

[S Pittaway]

The sort order is not important, for what its worth i use

Code: Select all

<sortorder>artist.sort:albumname.sort:tracknumber:trackname:trackfilename</sortorder>


which is not all that differant.



for starters, I think is is a potential bug if it cant find the mp3tag.txt file, i guess it fails to load the tag file then saves an empty db...

if you look in the root of c drive, it will have created c:\xmusic.txt, this is a log file, could you try again and paste the contents here? (its emptied every time xlobby starts up...)

Some other questions-
where is the tag.txt file stored that you exported from mp3tag?
has the header been added properly?
where is your music.xml file? is it stored locally on a network share etc?
what event do you run?

if you want, you can email me a clean copy of your music.xml file and the exported mp3tag file and i will try and have a look.

send to seanDOTpittawayATdaiDOTcoDOTuk and i will see what i can do.



I have to say that i am feeling a little uncertain about the future of xlobby, so am am a little wary of spending ages looking at stuff....

[S Pittaway]

Updated.

Added album.added\sort and track.added\sort tags.

Very basic multizone support (works on the active zone).

Fixed a bug while loading invalid tag files (scalts bug).

Improved tag importing instructions.

[Marbles_00]

Concerning the updating/zone, could you not use something like Buddabing's NowPlaying scheme to automatically change zones? I do something like this in my skin that uses his scheme as a type of screen saver. Every 4 seconds it changes the zone to display the "now playing" information to. To do this I send a zone set command, so for those 4 seconds, a different zone is in control. You could do something similar, but increase the time to something like every 30 seconds. Also depending on your use, you may want to drop all the other extra stuff Buddabing's "Now Playing" feature does (graphics and the sort).

Just a thought, that may or may not help out.

[charli181]

I am having roubles updating ratings. I have tried the entire database or a single track with no joy.

I set up an event that uses the plugin and the command
current.track.set track rating
with a variable of *****

I have no success.

Is there anything I have to add to the event?

I am modifiy the heavyMetal Skin and it seems to play the track there is an execute on the category musicdetails.....

[S Pittaway]

I just doubled checked

Plugin: xmusic
Command: current.track.set.rating
Variables: *****

It works fine here.


Make sure that you added the xmusicdummy.xml file to your skin directory, if thats not there it wont do anything.

Try binging up the xmuiscdummy screen (press pause then use the skin editor) and see whats happening when you call the event.

also, it writes a log file to c:\xmusic.txt have a look in there (it gets reset whenever xlobby is started).