Recent changes to Android

WikiPage Android modified by Martin Scarratt

Martin Scarratt — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:07:54 -0000

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 Randirplay_android 2.1( 23/03/12)
 Manual
 
 
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 Randirplay_android 2.1 - instructions
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 NOTE: This program only works if you have your music files organised in such a way that each album is contained in one directory.
 This is an offshoot of randirplay and contains some minor modifications and some thinning down of the feature set. Namely the inability to specify a limiting size for the playlist. This is due to a limitation of busybox (the absence of the  'grep -x' command).
 I haven't found this to be a problem though as due to the nature of android systems the directories that you will wish to scan will be on the device itself and you will want to use the playlist on that device to play songs on the device, rather than transfer them to another device.

WikiPage Android modified by Martin Scarratt

Martin Scarratt — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:06:04 -0000

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 Randirplay_android 2.1( 23/03/12)
 Manual

WikiPage Android modified by Martin Scarratt

Martin Scarratt — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:04:00 -0000

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 Randirplay_android 2.1( 23/03/12)
 Manual
 
 
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  by Martin Scarratt 30/04/2010
 Randirplay_android 2.1 - instructions
 NOTE: This program only works if you have your music files organised in such a way that each album is contained in one directory.
 This is an offshoot of randirplay and contains some minor modifications and some thinning down of the feature set. Namely the inability to specify a limiting size for the playlist. This is due to a limitation of busybox (the absence of the  'grep -x' command).
 I haven't found this to be a problem though as due to the nature of android systems the directories that you will wish to scan will be on the device itself and you will want to use the playlist on that device to play songs on the device, rather than transfer them to another device.
 Randirplay_android creates a playlist of files from selected directories such that the order of the files within the directories is preserved but the order of the directories themselves is random. So playing the playlist will result in entire albums being played in a random order. 
 
 Installation
 There are a number of modifications you need to make to your device before you can use bash scripts.
 
 I)	 you need to root your device
 II)	Make sure busybox and terminal emulator are installed
 III)	Copy Bash into /system/bin (you’ll need a rooted file browser to do this, eg. es file explorer or you can do it from the terminal emulator after an ‘su’) I use version 4.2 but any version should do the trick – you can find the file on the internet...google it!
 IV)	make sure ‘ls’ is symlinked (type "ls -1p" to check. If the command doesnt work, type "ln -s /system/xbin/busybox ls" and try again)
 V)	make a folder /system/myapps (you can call it anything you like as long as it is in /system) copy the file randirplay_android into this folder.
 VI)	In terminal emulator go to ‘preferences’ and scroll down to ‘initial command’ replce the text there with “PATH=/data/local/bin:$PATH:/system/myapps; su -c bash"
 VII)	Exit terminal emulator and open it again – hopefully you should see “bash-4.2#” omn the command line
 VIII)	Type randirplay_android into the terminal and press enter...hopefully it should run...
 
 The custom_dir file
 Before you run the program you may wish to set up the custom_dir file. This file tells Randirplay_android which directories to include in your playlist file (without the custom_dir file randirplay_android just scans the folders in the path that it is being run from). To do this, create a text file and add a path to scan for files. eg.
 /home/name/music
 You can put any number of paths into this file, one per line. The program will scan these paths and their sub-directories and enter all of the music files contained within the paths into a playlist. 
 
 Excluding directories
 If there is a particular directory contained within one of your paths that you don’t wish to include in your playlist,  then you need to add an extra line to the custom_dir file which consists of the path to the unwanted directory preceded with a ‘-‘ sign. 
 eg.
 /home/music
 -/home/music/single tracks
 This will create a playlist of all files in  “/home/music” but will not include files contained within “/home/music/single tracks”. It will still include files within the sub-directories of “/home/music/single tracks” though, so files in “/home/music/single tracks/rock” will be included.
 To exclude a directory and all its sub-directories you need to precede the path with ‘-r’ (r for recursive).
 eg.
 /home/music
 -r/home/music/single tracks
 This will create a playlist of all files in “/home/music” but will not include files or directories contained within “/home/music/single tracks”. So it will not include “/home/music/single tracks/rock” or even “/home/music/single tracks/rock/whatever”.
 
 Exclusion exceptions
 You may want to exclude an entire directory but keep just one or two albums from within it. You can create exceptions to your exclusion lines by starting a new line with –e, or –er  for a recursive exception.
 Eg.
 /home/music
 -r/home/music/single tracks
 -er/home/music/single tracks/particulardirectory
 -e/home/music/single tracks/other/directory
 This example would create a playlist of all files in  “/home/music” but will not include files or directories contained within “/home/music/single tracks” apart from those within the directory               /particulardirectory with its sub-directories  and /other/directory/ without its sub-directories.
 
 Permanent directories
 This feature has been severely affected by the stripping of options and now the only use of this feature is the following:
 If you want to include a certain directory without its subdirectories which is outside your specified paths, then you need the following lines in your custom_dir file:
 /home/music
 +/home/documents/podcasts
 
 Options
 The command line syntax is as follows:
-randirplay_android_android [-c filepath] [-p filepath] [-e "extensions"]
+randirplay_android \[-c filepath\] \[-p filepath\] \[-e "extensions"\]
 There are three ‘flags’ that you can use. These are -c,  -p and -e. A flag followed by its argument is called an option. 
 
 What the flags do:

WikiPage Android modified by Martin Scarratt

Martin Scarratt — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:51:13 -0000

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 Randirplay_android 2.1( 23/03/12)
 Manual

WikiPage Android modified by Martin Scarratt

Martin Scarratt — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:50:16 -0000

--- v1 
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-Randirplay_android
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-This is an offshoot of randirplay and contains some minor modifications and some thinning down of the feature set. Namely the inability to specify a limiting size for the playlist. This is due to a limitation of busybox - absence of 'grep -x'.
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-I haven't found this to be a problem though as due to the nature of android systems the directories that you will wish to scan will be on the device itself and you will want to use the playlist on that device to play songs rather than transfer them to another device. 
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 Randirplay_android 2.1( 23/03/12)
 Manual
 
 
@@ -31,80 +25,89 @@
 
 
 
  by Martin Scarratt 30/04/2010
 Randirplay_android 2.1 - instructions
 NOTE: This program only works if you have your music files organised in such a way that each album is contained in one directory.
+This is an offshoot of randirplay and contains some minor modifications and some thinning down of the feature set. Namely the inability to specify a limiting size for the playlist. This is due to a limitation of busybox (the absence of the  'grep -x' command).
+I haven't found this to be a problem though as due to the nature of android systems the directories that you will wish to scan will be on the device itself and you will want to use the playlist on that device to play songs on the device, rather than transfer them to another device.
 Randirplay_android creates a playlist of files from selected directories such that the order of the files within the directories is preserved but the order of the directories themselves is random. So playing the playlist will result in entire albums being played in a random order. 
-To install, place the randirplay file in your path and make executable.
+
+Installation
+There are a number of modifications you need to make to your device before you can use bash scripts.
+
+I)	 you need to root your device
+II)	Make sure busybox and terminal emulator are installed
+III)	Copy Bash into /system/bin (you’ll need a rooted file browser to do this, eg. es file explorer or you can do it from the terminal emulator after an ‘su’) I use version 4.2 but any version should do the trick – you can find the file on the internet...google it!
+IV)	make sure ‘ls’ is symlinked (type "ls -1p" to check. If the command doesnt work, type "ln -s /system/xbin/busybox ls" and try again)
+V)	make a folder /system/myapps (you can call it anything you like as long as it is in /system) copy the file randirplay_android into this folder.
+VI)	In terminal emulator go to ‘preferences’ and scroll down to ‘initial command’ replce the text there with “PATH=/data/local/bin:$PATH:/system/myapps; su -c bash"
+VII)	Exit terminal emulator and open it again – hopefully you should see “bash-4.2#” omn the command line
+VIII)	Type randirplay_android into the terminal and press enter...hopefully it should run...
 
 The custom_dir file
-Before you run the program you may wish to set up the custom_dir file. This file tells Randirplay which directories to include in your playlist file (without the custom_dir file randirplay just scans the folders in the path that it is being run from). To do this, create a text file and add a path to scan for files. eg.
+Before you run the program you may wish to set up the custom_dir file. This file tells Randirplay_android which directories to include in your playlist file (without the custom_dir file randirplay_android just scans the folders in the path that it is being run from). To do this, create a text file and add a path to scan for files. eg.
 /home/name/music
 You can put any number of paths into this file, one per line. The program will scan these paths and their sub-directories and enter all of the music files contained within the paths into a playlist. 
+
 Excluding directories
 If there is a particular directory contained within one of your paths that you don’t wish to include in your playlist,  then you need to add an extra line to the custom_dir file which consists of the path to the unwanted directory preceded with a ‘-‘ sign. 
 eg.
 /home/music
 -/home/music/single tracks
 This will create a playlist of all files in  “/home/music” but will not include files contained within “/home/music/single tracks”. It will still include files within the sub-directories of “/home/music/single tracks” though, so files in “/home/music/single tracks/rock” will be included.
 To exclude a directory and all its sub-directories you need to precede the path with ‘-r’ (r for recursive).
 eg.
 /home/music
 -r/home/music/single tracks
 This will create a playlist of all files in “/home/music” but will not include files or directories contained within “/home/music/single tracks”. So it will not include “/home/music/single tracks/rock” or even “/home/music/single tracks/rock/whatever”.
+
 Exclusion exceptions
 You may want to exclude an entire directory but keep just one or two albums from within it. You can create exceptions to your exclusion lines by starting a new line with –e, or –er  for a recursive exception.
 Eg.
 /home/music
 -r/home/music/single tracks
 -er/home/music/single tracks/particulardirectory
 -e/home/music/single tracks/other/directory
 This example would create a playlist of all files in  “/home/music” but will not include files or directories contained within “/home/music/single tracks” apart from those within the directory               /particulardirectory with its sub-directories  and /other/directory/ without its sub-directories.
 
 Permanent directories
 This feature has been severely affected by the stripping of options and now the only use of this feature is the following:
-
-If you want to include a certain directory without its subdirectories outside your specified paths, then you need the following lines in your custom_dir file:
- /home/music
+If you want to include a certain directory without its subdirectories which is outside your specified paths, then you need the following lines in your custom_dir file:
+/home/music
 +/home/documents/podcasts
 
-
 Options
 The command line syntax is as follows:
-randirplay [-c filepath] [-p filepath] [-e "extensions"]
-There are three ‘flags’ that you can use. These are -c, -p, -e. A flag followed by its argument is called an option. 
-
+randirplay_android_android [-c filepath] [-p filepath] [-e "extensions"]
+There are three ‘flags’ that you can use. These are -c,  -p and -e. A flag followed by its argument is called an option. 
 
 What the flags do:
 
--c
- 
+-c 
 This flag, along with its argument, points to the location of the custom_dir file. eg -c /home/dirs would point to a file called dirs in the /home directory.
-If you have already set up your custom dir file then this option is necessary to enable it. You must make sure you have already created the custom_dir file before you run randirplay with this option. If  randirplay can’t find the specified custom_dir file or you haven’t added this option, then randirplay will scan all directories in the current working directory.
+If you have already set up your custom dir file then this option is necessary to enable it. You must make sure you have already created the custom_dir file before you run randirplay_android_android with this option. If  randirplay_android_android can’t find the specified custom_dir file or you haven’t added this option, then randirplay_android will scan all directories in the current working directory.
 
 -p
-
- -p, along with its argument, tells the program where to save and what to call the final playlist file. 
+-p, along with its argument, tells the program where to save and what to call the final playlist file. 
 eg -p /home/playlists/playlist would create a playlist in the /home/playlists directory called playlist.m3u
 
 -e
-
 This flag allows you to state the extensions that all of the files in the playlist must have. There is a special notation that you must use for the argument that follows the flag. 
+
 i.		The argument must always start and finish with double quotes
 ii.		Any period character (dot) must come after a backslash
 iii.		If you want more than one file extension they must be separated by \|
 
 eg.
 -e “\.mp3”				All files ending .mp3
 -e ""					Everything, whether music files or not.
 -e "\.mp3\|\.m4a\|\.m4b\|\.wav"		All files ending .mp3, .m4a, .m4b and .wav
 -e "mp3\|m4a\|m4b\|wav"		All files ending mp3, m4a, m4b, and wav (no periods) 
-If the -e flag is not included then the included files are .mp3, .m4a, .m4b and .wav (which is perfect for iPods).
+If the -e flag is not included then the included files are .mp3, .m4a, .m4b and .wav 
 
 Example
-
 Command:
-randirplay -c /home/dirs -p /home/playlists/playlist -e “\.mp3”
+randirplay_android -c /home/dirs -p /home/playlists/playlist  -e “\.mp3”
 
 /home/dirs file:
 /home/music

WikiPage Android modified by Martin Scarratt

Martin Scarratt — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:09:55 -0000

Randirplay_android This is an offshoot of randirplay and contains some minor modifications and some thinning down of the feature set. Namely the inability to specify a limiting size for the playlist. This is due to a limitation of busybox - absence of 'grep -x'. I haven't found this to be a problem though as due to the nature of android systems the directories that you will wish to scan will be on the device itself and you will want to use the playlist on that device to play songs rather than transfer them to another device. Randirplay_android 2.1( 23/03/12) Manual by Martin Scarratt 30/04/2010 Randirplay_android 2.1 - instructions NOTE: This program only works if you have your music files organised in such a way that each album is contained in one directory. Randirplay_android creates a playlist of files from selected directories such that the order of the files within the directories is preserved but the order of the directories themselves is random. So playing the playlist will result in entire albums being played in a random order. To install, place the randirplay file in your path and make executable. The custom_dir file Before you run the program you may wish to set up the custom_dir file. This file tells Randirplay which directories to include in your playlist file (without the custom_dir file randirplay just scans the folders in the path that it is being run from). To do this, create a text file and add a path to scan for files. eg. /home/name/music You can put any number of paths into this file, one per line. The program will scan these paths and their sub-directories and enter all of the music files contained within the paths into a playlist. Excluding directories If there is a particular directory contained within one of your paths that you don’t wish to include in your playlist, then you need to add an extra line to the custom_dir file which consists of the path to the unwanted directory preceded with a ‘-‘ sign. eg. /home/music -/home/music/single tracks This will create a playlist of all files in “/home/music” but will not include files contained within “/home/music/single tracks”. It will still include files within the sub-directories of “/home/music/single tracks” though, so files in “/home/music/single tracks/rock” will be included. To exclude a directory and all its sub-directories you need to precede the path with ‘-r’ (r for recursive). eg. /home/music -r/home/music/single tracks This will create a playlist of all files in “/home/music” but will not include files or directories contained within “/home/music/single tracks”. So it will not include “/home/music/single tracks/rock” or even “/home/music/single tracks/rock/whatever”. Exclusion exceptions You may want to exclude an entire directory but keep just one or two albums from within it. You can create exceptions to your exclusion lines by starting a new line with –e, or –er for a recursive exception. Eg. /home/music -r/home/music/single tracks -er/home/music/single tracks/particulardirectory -e/home/music/single tracks/other/directory This example would create a playlist of all files in “/home/music” but will not include files or directories contained within “/home/music/single tracks” apart from those within the directory /particulardirectory with its sub-directories and /other/directory/ without its sub-directories. Permanent directories This feature has been severely affected by the stripping of options and now the only use of this feature is the following: If you want to include a certain directory without its subdirectories outside your specified paths, then you need the following lines in your custom_dir file: /home/music +/home/documents/podcasts Options The command line syntax is as follows: randirplay [-c filepath] [-p filepath] [-e "extensions"] There are three ‘flags’ that you can use. These are -c, -p, -e. A flag followed by its argument is called an option. What the flags do: -c This flag, along with its argument, points to the location of the custom_dir file. eg -c /home/dirs would point to a file called dirs in the /home directory. If you have already set up your custom dir file then this option is necessary to enable it. You must make sure you have already created the custom_dir file before you run randirplay with this option. If randirplay can’t find the specified custom_dir file or you haven’t added this option, then randirplay will scan all directories in the current working directory. -p -p, along with its argument, tells the program where to save and what to call the final playlist file. eg -p /home/playlists/playlist would create a playlist in the /home/playlists directory called playlist.m3u -e This flag allows you to state the extensions that all of the files in the playlist must have. There is a special notation that you must use for the argument that follows the flag. i. The argument must always start and finish with double quotes ii. Any period character (dot) must come after a backslash iii. If you want more than one file extension they must be separated by \| eg. -e “\.mp3” All files ending .mp3 -e "" Everything, whether music files or not. -e "\.mp3\|\.m4a\|\.m4b\|\.wav" All files ending .mp3, .m4a, .m4b and .wav -e "mp3\|m4a\|m4b\|wav" All files ending mp3, m4a, m4b, and wav (no periods) If the -e flag is not included then the included files are .mp3, .m4a, .m4b and .wav (which is perfect for iPods). Example Command: randirplay -c /home/dirs -p /home/playlists/playlist -e “\.mp3” /home/dirs file: /home/music The above would create a playlist of random albums called playlist.m3u consisting of mp3 files residing in /home/music.