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some suggestions for possible improvements

joostjodel
2008-01-30
2013-04-25
  • joostjodel

    joostjodel - 2008-01-30

    Hi Leif and team,

    First of all I'd like to compliment and thank you with a fantastic app. I use it on my Nokia N82 with Symbian 3rd edition. Its strongest advantage over the standard player in my view are:

    - More file formats supported.
    - Possibility to scan for certain folders containing music, thus avoiding to end up with annoying ringtones in your playlist.
    - And for me a big one: the possibility to play subfolders, instead of the iTunes-like behavior of using tags only. I keep my music in neat folders and like to play whole albums.

    I also have some comments/suggestions for possible future improvements:

    - Option to define another location than the standard E:\Ogg dir. I don't really mind putting all my music there, but still...
    - Add option "now playing" in main menu to dive back into the directory/list with the current song playing.
    - Controlling volume: no hardware control of volume on my N82. Only from within the app.
    - Make it possible to scroll through back up in playlists/directory play (subfolders). E.g. if I want to play music starting with a Z, I have to scroll all the way down. It would be handy to be able to scroll up (beyond "back") to get there. This also goes for the main menu.
    - Option to go back to last played song after restart.
    - Streaming capability (I see on the forum it's being worked on).

     
    • Sean Zhu

      Sean Zhu - 2008-02-02

      Some 3rd party sound players (like Oggplay and ReadM) play sound in slow motion after a lot of memory is used (like starting a large app like Fexplorer.)  The only way to make it play normal is to press 'stop' and press 'play' again.  (Pause and play does not work.)
      The real problem is, in Oggplay 1.71a, whenever I press 'pause', and then 'play', the sound becomes slow-mo.
      The cause may be that 1.71a uses so much memory that even 'pause' bring the memory used over the "slow-mo threshold."
      The additional memory uses also makes it impossible to listen to music while, say playing a game.

      Now, some compliments:
      Great feature to only search fro unhidden files.  I can use FExplorer to hide/unhide tracks.
      Good incoming call function, but I'm think the track might play slow-mo after I hang up.

       
    • Sean Zhu

      Sean Zhu - 2008-02-02

      "...but I'm think the track might play slow-mo after I hang up."
      It does.

       
    • Stuart Fisher

      Stuart Fisher - 2008-02-02

      Hi SeanZ,

      Two points:

      1. Please start a new thread when you have an issue (you've posted this in somebody eles's thread)
      2. You really need to tell me what phone you are using. Every model of phone has different issues.

      Some of the older phones had this defect. What's happening is that the audio hardware forgets it is playing 44KHz audio and goes back to playing the audio as if it was the Symbian default 8Khz: hence the slow motion. As far as I know it's nothing to do with memory, it's to do with when the audio briefly stops and starts because the processor is busy doing something else (e.g launching Fexplorer).

      The NGage does this all the time and there is a fix in the code for NGage that stops this happening. Some of the other old phones did it ocassionally. It should not happen at all on any of the newer phones, what phone have you got!?

       
    • Stuart Fisher

      Stuart Fisher - 2008-02-02

      Hi joostjodel,

      Leif and team is just me, Leif hasn't been around for years.

      "Option to define another location than the standard E:\Ogg dir. I don't really
      mind putting all my music there, but still..."

      Yeah, this is something that will probably get done in 1.73 or 1.74, although it isn't at the top of the list.

      "Add option "now playing" in main menu to dive back into the directory/list
      with the current song playing."

      An interesting suggestion. Actually I think what I'd like to do is add a "Find" item on the menu.
      You could then select "Find->Find playing" which would jump back to the currently playing track (as you suggest), or you could select "Find->Find track" that would pop-up a search dialog and allow you to type in the name. I guess you'd also need an option to tell OggPlay in which view to search for the track (in your case you say that you prefer to use sub-folders). Alas, this is not something near the top of things to do, so I wouldn't hold your breath.

      "Controlling volume: no hardware control of volume on my N82. Only from within
      the app."

      Yeah, this is much nearer the top of the list. I will probably get this done for 1.73 (1.72 is due in a week or so, 1.73 maybe in the next month).

      "Make it possible to scroll through back up in playlists/directory play
      (subfolders). E.g. if I want to play music starting with a Z, I have to scroll
      all the way down. It would be handy to be able to scroll up (beyond "back")
      to get there. This also goes for the main menu."

      I've always found page up / down (2 and 8 on the keypad) to be so fast that I've never really wanted the scroller to loop. This would be fairly easy to implement, but it's just not a priority for me. Of course if we had more developers on the project it would help!

      "Option to go back to last played song after restart.
      Streaming capability (I see on the forum it's being worked on)"

      Planned for 1.73...

      "I use it on my Nokia N82 with Symbian 3rd edition"

      Just bought one, it's a nice phone. The keypad is not so good and the guys who designed the memory card slot want shooting, but apart from that it's impressive. We so need gapless playback though and some sort of audio fade in when we start playback: these nokia phones all seem to be incapable of starting playback without sending horrible clicks, pops, or hissing noises to the speakers!

       
    • Sean Zhu

      Sean Zhu - 2008-02-08

      I have a 3650 (year 2003).

       
    • Sean Zhu

      Sean Zhu - 2008-02-08

      When scrolling, have an option to turn off smooth scrolling.  Smooth scrolling across a whole list causes oggplay to render the whole list, which may take a longer time to stop at the desired song.  This is a problem when you play a song at the bottom of the list and press 'back', and when you use page up/down.

      Add an option to hide each individual toolbar (time, scrubber, now playing title).

      About the slow-mo problem: oggplay 1.71a uses more processor than the old one.

       
    • Sean Zhu

      Sean Zhu - 2008-02-10

      Also add an option to hide the 'back' list item.

       
    • Stuart Fisher

      Stuart Fisher - 2008-02-15

      "oggplay 1.71a uses more processor than the old one"

      It sort of does and it sort of doesn't. Multi-thread buffering is now the default and this buffers audio in advance. That requires more processor power when the buffering is being done and less when it isn't. If you are using an old, slower, phone you might want to try switching multi-thread buffering off. Go to the Playback page and select Buffering mode->No buffering.

      I've made some changes in 1.72 that should, in principle, make multi-tasking smoother. I've also put that NGage fix into the code path for the 3650, so your slow motion issues should be fixed. I suggest you give 1.72 a try.

       
    • Sean Zhu

      Sean Zhu - 2008-02-19

      @ Stuart Fisher
      It Works!!! Thanks!!!

       
    • Leston

      Leston - 2008-03-08

      could you make ogg sound quality better through headsets, just like the quality the ngage has with its built in mp3 player through headsets? as it would be perfect if this was acheived, although it pretty much is perfect already...AWESOME APP, i really appreciate this hard work, GREAT appreciation for this player thx man i just wish ogg quality through the headsets were better :/, great thx man.

       
    • Stefano Pini

      Stefano Pini - 2008-05-06

      HI Stuart,

      I'm using version 1.80 beta 2 but I can't find the option to define a different location... any idea? Moreover do you think to add a timer function?

      rgds,
      Stefano

      "Option to define another location than the standard E:\Ogg dir. I don't really
      mind putting all my music there, but still..."

      Yeah, this is something that will probably get done in 1.73 or 1.74, although it isn't at the top of the list.

       

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