kazemizuhi's dashboard

A comment on the idea "Suggestions for improving the Now Playing List" in Songbird:

@Dustin Paluch,I have just tested it again now. It does appear to work via the Library to Now Playing, however it did not with my smart playlist. That is to say drag'n'drop and drag to re-arrange.

My apologies I should have performed more testing. I would like the ability to be added to smart playlists though. – kazemizuhi, on April 24, 2009 22:30

kazemizuhi replied on April 24, 2009 06:04 to the idea "Suggestions for improving the Now Playing List" in Songbird:

Instead of starting a new thread, I thought I would add here that all lists in Songbird lack the ability to drag'n'drop.

To better illustrate my point, the feature I speak of is standard in Media Monkey. The user may re-arrange the tracks in their library view or playlist via dragging. Furthermore, the user may drag a track from their library view onto their playlist.

Having "Play Next" and "Play Last" available from a right click menu can be streamlined by the ability to drag and drop within a list and/or to another list (i.e. from Library view to Now Playing List). My main concern is to be able to re-arrange a playlist to my preferance.

My 2 cents.

kazemizuhi started following the idea "Suggestions for improving the Now Playing List" in Songbird.

kazemizuhi started following the idea "Store Ratings using Extended Attributes instead" in Songbird.

A comment on the problem "Shuffle feature not shuffling very well." in Songbird:

I've begun learning to make extensions, which means learning Javascript, XML and XUL. If I keep at it, I should be able to have a solution ready within 12 months.

Hopefully someone who understands extension building can implement something before then. – kazemizuhi, on April 24, 2009 04:34

A comment on the idea "CD Art Display" in Songbird:

Thanks. That is interesting, but I think what seperates CAD (and makes it so popular) is it's aesthetically pleasing selection of skins. Take a look here to see the desktop I managed to put together with CAD.

If Pure Player can achieve this level of (aesthetic) versatility, it would be the perfect supplement to Songbird. – kazemizuhi, on April 20, 2009 08:56

A comment on the idea "Mutiple Library Management" in Songbird:

I am not entirely sure I understand what indexing is, but there is a smart playlist filter that filters your library by 'composer'. You could basically create a smart playlist for each of your favourite composers. However I have yet to try using that specific filter as my library does not contain classical works. – kazemizuhi, on April 20, 2009 08:12

kazemizuhi replied to "folder view", but it was removed. see the change log

kazemizuhi replied on April 20, 2009 08:08 to the idea "folder view" in Songbird:

I recently discovered that smart playlists could include all songs of a certain genre, artist, album artist, album, year, composer and what have you. Now I have a playlist which contains nothing but R&B songs, one for House tracks, another for songs from the 90's etc. etc.

This is not the same as MediaMonkey's left pane and it's folder tree, but it somewhat bridges the gap until proper folder tree functionality can be implemented in Songbird. Smart playlists also have the ability to filter by 'file location' but I have yet to figure out how it works (when I include a directory as an explicit condition, the list is empty).

kazemizuhi replied on April 20, 2009 07:40 to the question "Can i get rid of the filter panes of media flow view and still keep both the list and album covers?" in Songbird:

I discovered something similar that may be of interest. Drag the Songbird window from the bottom until it covers up the list and/or filter panes.

Combining this with the Pane Buttons add-on to hide the main left pane and you'll be left with a minimalist player that just has MediaFlow and the player buttons (previous/pause/next).

You're welcome.

kazemizuhi replied on April 20, 2009 07:27 to the idea "CD Art Display" in Songbird:

According to THIS thread over at the CAD forums, explicit support for VB6 (Visual Basic 6) and modules are needed for the CAD team to add compatibility with Songbird.

There is talk of an SDK with CAD 3.0, but that seems to be a ways off. Support for VB6 or a new add-on with CAD's function appears to be the fastest way we will see this sort of functionality on Songbird.

Does Songbird's API not allow for detachable panes that can stay within view when the main app is minimized? If so, could an extension developer not create an add-on like CAD?

kazemizuhi started following the idea "CD Art Display" in Songbird.

kazemizuhi started following the idea "Winamp API Emulator plugin" in Songbird.

kazemizuhi marked one of qways' replies in Songbird as useful. qways replied to the problem "Songbird add-ons site needs workover.".

A comment on the problem "Songbird add-ons site needs workover." in Songbird:

Thanks. I use Nightly Tester Tools for FF, but didn't know how to go about it Songbird. Works fine now. – kazemizuhi, on April 20, 2009 00:41

kazemizuhi shared an idea in Songbird on April 19, 2009 00:23:

Need another pane at top.

I have been happily using MediaFlow with Songbird recently but what struck me as odd was that I could not get rid of the library list below. Now I am perfectly sure the add-on's author could just edit MediaFlow to not include the library list, but what if I wanted to bring it back up for a moment? One could argue that the author could place it in the bottom pane, but what if I did not want it at the bottom? Furthermore, one cannot hide the library view so the list that I want gone would still be there (when placing MediaFlow in the bottom pane).

A simple solution to all this would be to allow all panes the ability to be hidden without the need of an add-on (like the Maxthon web browser allows you to do) and to distinguish the custom media-views we download as add-ons from the default library view. This would allow Songbird the same level of customization present in foobar2K on the fly. One would be able to imitate the stand-alone MonkeyFlow's view by clicking a few buttons.

What I really want is a window consisting of nothing but MediaFlow (or Griddy or Album Art Manager) and previous/play/next buttons. Currently that and similar setups are not possible on Songbird.

kazemizuhi replied on April 18, 2009 23:58 to the problem "Songbird add-ons site needs workover." in Songbird:

Another suggestion:

Yesterday I attempted to install the add-on Griddy only to be told it was not compatible with my current version of Songbird. It would be nice if under the 'details' panel on an add-on's page, the compatible versions of Songbird were listed. A simple feature that I neglected to see the importance of over at Firefox's add-on site. Now that I see what life is like without it, I miss it a lot.

kazemizuhi marked one of atreiu's replies in Songbird as useful. atreiu replied to the question "Why can't I customize my display panes???". kazemizuhi and 2 other people think it's one of the best replies.

A comment on the question "Why can't I customize my display panes???" in Songbird:

Thanks. I suppose one could also just edit the extension directly if one knew which file specified the usable panes? – kazemizuhi, on April 17, 2009 22:14

kazemizuhi reported a problem in Songbird on April 17, 2009 22:04:

Songbird add-ons site needs workover.

The way add-ons are currently filtered on the add-ons site is insufficient. For instance Last.fm Album Art, Album View and Pause/Play/Stop Buttons among many others are filed under the categories Appearance and Playback & Management. I do not think I need elaborate as to why this current system is substandard. Why have categories if most add-ons appear in more than one of the categories?

With Firefox being the unofficial big brother of Songbird (what with their both using XULRunner) one would be forgiven for assuming the logic applied to Firefox's add-on site would find it's way to Songbird's add-on site. I believe that authors uploading their add-ons (and users downloading) should have more categories to choose from so as to differentiate one add-on from another. Pause/Play/Stop Buttons has little to nothing to do with Last.fm Album Art yet they are both under the same two categories. What is more feathers are all buried under unrelated add-ons in the Appearance category. This has to change.

As Songbird continues to grow its new user base will need a logical and simple method of finding their add-ons. As it stands one needs to browse through as many as 10 pages into each category to find decent add-ons. It's not the worst system but it could be better.

Here's hoping.