[Canola] Add-on idea
 

equalizer; 4+ bands

Re: Add-on idea
 

EQ would be great , my one great wish is for a spectrum analyzer vis.... would look awesome when in the car

Re: Add-on idea
 

About Equalizer : added to wish list

Visualization : it sucks to draw on the fullscreen, visualization graphics would look horrible : /, I will add to wish list but with really low priority. If some graphics freak wants to play around with that :)

Marcelo

Re: Add-on idea
 

I've just been playing my albums then going to photocast and playing my flicker feeds, not the same thing, but when it sits on my desk playing music if I look at it at least it has an interesting picture I haven't seen before.

Re: Add-on idea
 

As another Add-on idea, is it possible to use the fm python module the guy on garage made, to be able to access the FM radio for N800 users via canola?

Re: Add-on idea
 

Agreed on the EQ :)

Re: Add-on idea
 

@Rip : we have the plans for the FM radio, it's not there just because of lack of time : /

@yabbas: we will take a look, also it's a nice opportunity to see if we can do that via a third party plugin.

Actually I don't know if we can really do that, I will talk to the media guys :)

Re: Add-on idea
 

i would love an equalizer, that is the 1 and only problem with canola. it is way better than when i had a zune and watching the project grow and seeing how many users there are is very promising. any ideas on when we will get to see youtube or last.fm?

Re: Add-on idea
 

i would like to see a windows vista type of active search.... where the database starts searchin for all types of media when u enter a letter and slowly narrows it when you continue inputting more characters.

Re: Add-on idea
 

omg u have no idea id like that! i wouldn't be able to use windows media player without it! its sooooooooo convenient

BUT is there enough memory for a search indexer? dont think so

Re: Add-on idea
 

Well, if it searches already on the database, why not? But it for sure needs a lot of effort to get it right ;) we have already discussed briefly about search to at least give n810 users the ability to start typing and narrowing the. Urrent screen

Re: Add-on idea
 

here's what I believe canola lacks and what prevents me from using it as a player:

0) preamplifier
the music I have isn't always loud enough to be heard on the radio.
1) WORKING scrollbar (for those of us with 16Gb card with music)
2) dunno if it's here I should ask, but canola should recognize 150 different authors with the same album name as 1 album, not 150 different ones, with one track in each!

10) if possible (if not - forget it) add support for headset buttons (ex: the headset N8*0 was shipped with had 1 button on the mike) - add mapping for that button (eg. next track)

100) if possible (eventually) add a feature to lower the quality of video thus enhancing the performance (something like TCPMP for pocketpc's)

once the first 2-3 demands will be fulfilled, I will switch to canola; not earlier!

Re: Add-on idea
 

u dont HAVe to touch the "text" part of the Artists list, theres a blank space on to the left of the list which is touchable and scrolls without problem or interference (since theres nothing there, it wont assume you're clicking anything)

Oh, btw HandsFree, Metallica is different from metallica, mutemath is different from muteMath (why does caps matter? this is reallllly annoying)

Re: Add-on idea
 

Let's go one by one

a) preamplifier : uhn? Does the default media player has this? Can you explain better? So what's your media player currently on maemo ?

1) working scrollbar : well, we are trying to improve scroll and create a set of shortcuts on the bottom (that's why it's empty) but it takes a little bit of time to make it right.

2) this problem is well known, There's several cases, we have discussed a lot this, and there's not a good "safe" way to do it (several ID3 versions) and even desktop software does different ways. So we try to avoid, but if it happens theres a option on the settings : media library -> Multiple album entries that will allow you to easily combine all the albums that appeared duplicated or should be in a same album. It's of course controllable so you can avoid it to merge for example 2 artists different but with albums with the same name (now you got the idea of one of several problems ) believe me, we are not lazy or doing "hacks" just to work.. the problem is just a little bit more complicated that people think.

10 ) the headset support is coming. Again, people should understand that we do want to improve as much as possible but it takes time. It's just not possible to implement everything in one shot. I know some player has the support for it, but I believe they don't have 1/10 of the features we have.

100) this is something that needs a little bit more of work, to see how much resources are needed, etc etc. If it was possible to do easily it would already be working on the default media player on the mplayer. Actually canola shouldn't implement it, the players should :) But this is a nice feature, if feasible. (I saw how TCMP player works)

We have several things to do. We will implement most of them asap. We also hear your people a lot, but as I told before there's priorities, and we answers common requests first. Unfortunately, I can already say that some of those will not be implemented, but luck you :) you have choice ... and the work we have done with python and it's bind gives you even more choice ... UKMP, Kagu, Mediabox and more youamp. that's the beauty of open platforms, users have choice.

Unfortunately we know the sad truth : you just cannot please everyone.

But I think we have shown here : We are very passional and dedicated, and we put a lot of effort to do more than the expected, but we have limits : /

Maybe in the future...

BR

Re: Add-on idea
 

It's different so you can fix it :) kidding... We can normalize it, but we are not doing it (there's a reason, but was not me who explained it... I will ask Gustavo)

Marcelo

Re: Add-on idea
 

preamplifier:
the player I used until yesterday : YouAmp - lightweight media player (that unfortunately only supports media WITH ID3 tags :( )
yesterday, it stopped launching (for unknown reasons - waiting for an update). I swiched to Xmms - a winamp clone with enough addons to make this a great media player.

thanks for promising much; the only question I have left is: when can I expect this ;) (1 month or 1 year)?

good luck

Ilia

Re: Add-on idea
 

Allow Canola to be used as a bluetooth/wifi remote for streaming content from PC or other device such as Nokia N95 (UPnP already) etc

The media drive on the target would need to be mapped (option to scan for media over wifi/bluetooth in media library settings or something) and then via the Canola UI you could access and play the content

Re: Add-on idea
 

An equalizer would make me very happy. I already use Canola, so you don't have to convert me :) but I think being the only NIT media player with an equalizer would sell a lot of people on it who sort of bounce around between the different media players.

Also, integrating the FM radio would be cool too. I don't have the radio on my home screen (I don't use it enough to warrant it) but I also listen to it even less because otherwise I have to launch it from the command line. Integration into Canola would be a great way for me (and I presume others, though I don't know) to get more good out of the radio. We might as well; it's in there@=!

Re: Add-on idea
 

Hi there,
instead of starting a new thread, i thought i could post this in here...

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=LPG3kTZ9mPI

kennethchristiansen give us a preview of what could come / is possible with plugins for canola. If i look at the number of icons on screen, i ask myself if all this will come to canola or if it is just for testing purpose (would be really a waste of goodies...) Seeing this, i would say a simple graphic equilizer should be feasable.

Any information handful ? :)

MiBi

Re: Add-on idea
 

what I'd really like to see is a FF and a RW button that will function within the current video -- sort of like how MythTV does it: the FF button seeks forward in the currently playing file by 30 seconds, and the RW button seeks backwards by 10 seconds. This way, I could easily skip through the commercial breaks in my transcoded MythTV recordings.

...yes, I could just edit the ads out prior to transcoding, but that would involve extra steps to be done in MythTV prior to transcoding for the N800.

Re: Add-on idea
 

@ilia :

Well, if it was for me :) I would release it tomorrow. But being quite quite honest, it's a lot of work ahead, and we are trying at least to make the basics working so nicely that people will have no major or minor problems of any sort.

I can tell you that we would be quite happy to implement a lot of other stuff (specially the equalizer ) - what I can imagine we could use as " pre amp " also. And more. I also think that we the third party plugin coming a lot of good things will surface.

That was the point, we realize that we are really small to do everything is need : / thus we are doing a great developer support to aid us on this :)

Timeline : We have at least one more big update for march, we will release youtube and last.fm first (they were actually developed as example for the developers), and after that, I'm planning how much we are able to do in the other sprints. So imagine that we will try really now the 2 or 3 weeks interval (testing is taking a huge amount of time) so I see some of these features coming in the 2nd and 3rd sprint after the following one (beta7)

@fido : check out my blog (upnp is under working since the beginning, but it has a lot to improve( loading time, compatibility with the servers etc) Canola1 did that but we needed to rewrite the support to be able to not only be a UPNP client, but also a UPNP server and controller. ( http://www.marceloeduardo.com ) the last post is a video about that.

Mibi: in this demo we tried to come up with the testing of the menu system. It's fully flexible (up to 10 or 12 main items with 10 or 8 sub items for each ) that's why you see that :) Upnp and My Apps (location for third party) is coming :) so you can spect a more crowded screen.

@briand : we are trying to do that, but MPLAYER overrides the event system, and its actually using it's event mapping for the keys that are really weird (FF AND RR are in the up and down on the hardware : /) we have the code, we are now trying to fix mplayer to allows us to control the ui. We REALLY want to do that.

Cheers guy,

Marcelo

preamplifier:
the player I used until yesterday : YouAmp - lightweight media player (that unfortunately only supports media WITH ID3 tags )
yesterday, it stopped launching (for unknown reasons - waiting for an update). I swiched to Xmms - a winamp clone with enough addons to make this a great media player.

thanks for promising much; the only question I have left is: when can I expect this (1 month or 1 year)?

good luck

Ilia

Re: Add-on idea
 

Timeline : We have at least one more big update for march, we will release youtube and last.fm first (they were actually developed as example for the developers), and after that, I'm planning how much we are able to do in the other sprints. So imagine that we will try really now the 2 or 3 weeks interval (testing is taking a huge amount of time) so I see some of these features coming in the 2nd and 3rd sprint after the following one (beta7)


Hi again,

Well, I was and still am checking all your releases (missed the 4th one since I was disconnected from the world), and I can see a lot of improvement. I am quite curious about the last.fm plugin, and am wondering if it is better than vagalume. If so, I am switching to canola, promised :D

I just remembered about another (quite simple by its looks) add-on: button(s) mapping.
Since I use media players mostly (as much as possible) with a bluetooth remote control from my cell phone, the only input canola was able to get was "next track" and "previous track, defined by the left/right hardware buttons. If I could map the up/down buttons to volume, comfort would be GREATLY increased.

Btw, you said :
Does this mean that your team is lacking force to complete the task it agreed upon? Or does it mean that you are lacking funds? if so, I wasn't able to find any "donate" section on your website - a must for such promising projects ;)

Please, if you are going to change the settings of MPlayer, PLEASE warn the users! Oh, and if so, the uninstallation should return those settings to their previous values (a feature Canola is lacking - after uninstallation, all my audio codecs "disappeared"...)


about the testing:
1) automated scripts?
2) releasing builds every 2-3 days for users to test? I'm sure there would be a lot of enthusiasts - me included!

Keep up the good work

Ilia

Re: Add-on idea
 

youtube plugin

(looks at watch) [unpatient smile]

good job guys and keep at the good work. i love how uguys fixed the lock-touchscreen bug. now i can live without having to pause it and plan everytime i lock the screen!

Re: Add-on idea
 

Some lyrics plugin, who knows...? :rolleyes:

Re: Add-on idea
 

Salomc: if we could release our real idea for lyrics/covers/more you would really like it, but we can't. But I think sooner something will appear :)

@illiaden :

Button mapping : we have been talking about that a lot, but of course you will not get the full thing, as canola will not have " selection " moving around :) but in my website you can find the explanation of how button map will work, and the 2 states planned for that (scroll and playback controls)

Actually we are kind of ahead of what agreed upon. but to do more and more stuff takes more time and we have deadlines to met also, even to a open project (remember we are a small company, we need to do other projects to pay the bills). We don't work for donations, don't worry about that.

Oh, you got it all wrong. We don't want to change your mplayer settings at all. What I said is that when embedded on Canola, instead of leaving the events to Canola, mplayer gets them, thus creating some strange behaviors in the button mapping. It's actually the opposite of what we wanted. So what we want to do is see if theres a need for a patch to make mplayer behave correctly when embedded. Just that.

ALSO: we do not, at any circunstance touch anything that wasn't installed by us (or the activity dependencies of canola) Mplayer, its codecs we NEVER touch it. if this is happening something must be pretty wrong and I certainly would kill the guys (kidding)


Rich interaction software testing It's a little bit different from the system that you can automate test like you are imagining :) to do that to canola, I believe would waste more time than help us.

We have the builds, and we don't think users are ready to give the class of feedback you need on daily released builds. Sometimes people just complain that thing doesn't work. Don't fill bugs on garage. Sorry, not happening until we feel people really want this, and it's also ok (doesn't break our daily code routine) just to release it. We want a little bit more of freedom while we can :)

BR

Marcelo

Re: Add-on idea
 

Sorry, I must be blind since I can't find it. Mind posting a direct link there?

Hey, no one is blaming you! most of us are thankful for what you are doing, not the opposite!

So, if I understand correctly, when one plays a video in Canola, the buttons mapping switches to MPlayer's settings? I don't see any problems with that; what did you want to correct it to?


Please tell this to my codecs, they don't know it yet ;)

Seriously, this occured when using the canola-cleanup tool on Beta5 (didn't yet remove the Beta6...). Sure, all the codecs are part of dependencies of all major media players, so they were reinstalled with any other install. Wonder if that was fixed in Beta6.



About the builds - yeah, that's true: you would spend too much time on sorting what feedback is good, and which is plain spam, so it wouldn't be productive.
As for the automated tests - I mostly have experience working with the server part, not the client. For the server, it's usually quite easy (relatively) to automate some procedure to run the same test (written once) on every single build.

Also, another request just occured to me regarding Canola - if possible, and not really hard (which I doubt), please add support for non-unicode encodings. Most of the russian, french, even spanish tags I have display only the standard latin characters correctly. the rest is changed into hieroglyphic symbols :(

Ilia

P.S. - bought new earphones: now Canola works perfectly for me, even without any preamplifier (although that feature would still be nice). It's now my main media player.

P.P.S. - just out of curiosity, does the flat black theme actually helps save power? I just like it for simplicity and contrast.

Re: Add-on idea
 

No. The trouble is not that a key mapping changes; that would be bad, as it yields inconsistency.

This is even worse; mplayer is supposed to be embedded, and only receiving events that are trickled down to it; instead it's seizing the keys for itself.

If I understand right, anyway. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

Re: Add-on idea
 

So, if I understand correctly, when one plays a video in Canola, the buttons mapping switches to MPlayer's settings? I don't see any problems with that; what did you want to correct it to?

Simple : putting seek to the up and down keys is totally a developer solution with no knowledge of basic usability /semiotic or anything.

They have the feature and just want to push somewhere. (ops I just found a empty key, nice)

Canola has design rules, and this is breaking them. why it should work like this only when playing on mplayer backend, which the user isn supposed to known in fact?

Seriously, this occured when using the canola-cleanup tool on Beta5 (didn't yet remove the Beta6...). Sure, all the codecs are part of dependencies of all major media players, so they were reinstalled with any other install. Wonder if that was fixed in Beta6.

That the point, we don play media, thus we don change anything there. Anyways, it can be a unfortunate bug and I will ask the guys to investigate it. But it for sure shouldn touch applications that we don actually develop. Mplayer and default media player we talk to them only via Dbus or other means, never directly.

Automated test for rich UIs don work like you are used to. Sorry, but this is a huge subject, anyways you can try taking a look. there has been a lot of advances in this areas, but we do have automated tests where it can be done, but the REAL test, the user finger print on the screen needs to be done in every single build, we need to generate random events that only a user generate and cannot be efficiently mapped to a test case. It more similar to "gameplay" test in the game industry. You cannot automate gameplay, because the results are more than just visuals. It the users reactions to each feedback that are taken into account.

Strange, because we did add. What you need is the FONT. We don send you a font that make this. so what you can do substitute the font with a font with the characters from the languagens. But remember: french should be working :) we are Brazilians, we have exactly the same characters and accents.

Send us the music which is displaying incorrectly because this can be more a matter of the scanner mixing up in your tag version, that not supporting unicode. (you can send a Private message I will send you my personal email )

Glad to hear :) that you are really using canola now :) I can see that you will be sending us more bugs and we will improve it even more.

The black theme don help save power :) It was meant exactly for that : simple, fast and really high contrast :)

Benson: you got it perfectly :) and we are restless we will see how to change this, and fix mplayer not only for canola but to any player.

MArcelo

Re: Add-on idea
 

Just a couple of quick things I wouldn't mind.
I have a 770, and I wouldn't mind an option for disabling the screen blanking when I'm in full screen, like maemomapper. I know, it eats more battery, but I've got a 770, so I can just cover it to blank the screen.

Also, and I don't know if this is possible, when the 770 lid is closed, I wouldn't mind having a few buttons active. Like volume, and maybe a pause. So I wouldn't have to open it to adjust it.

Just a few thoughts,

Keep up the great work.

desiv

Re: Add-on idea
 

Desiv :

well, your requests are quite "individual" : / and focus on a device, that we are supporting as much as we can, but we don't want to create specific features for devices : /

Hope you understand, we do have a lot of critical things to do first : /

Marcelo

Re: Add-on idea
 

Like I said, they were just suggestions.
(I thought that was the point of this thread. :-)

I'm happy with what I've got so far.

No complaints here. And if it doesn't happen, I'm still happy with Canola.

Thanx again,

desiv

Re: Add-on idea
 

handful: I have no doubt you guys would make one of the most complete and attracting media players if you could do what you envision for Canola. It already is very above the norm. I, like others in this forum, see Canola as much more than just a media player. I see it becoming a more universal UI fot the tablets.

Well, that said, I just wanna complement what I previously asked. A lyrics reader could be through id3v2, .lyr or .txt. Access to the net would be secondary, maybe for the future.

Thank you again, keep up the show, guys!

Re: Add-on idea
 

Hi salomc : yeah, embedded lyrics are easier (safer) to do. We wanted actually to be able to implement our whole idea, but for sure.. once we have :

a) scanner working perfectly (or near)
b) playback working also great
c) settings complete

we will start implementing the plus features :)

Re: Add-on idea
 

Just a thought,
Could you include downloaded youtube videos in the local videos section?

Yes, I can go into C2Tube and go to local and view them, but it seems to me I should be able to see them in "My Videos" as well. I tried adding that directory to the search path, but it didn't show them. (Of couse, if it showed them with the current name from youtube, it might not help me too much. :-) :-)

Not a big deal, and I don't expect it. If it doesn't happen, no biggie. Just a thought.

Also, (this is just an observation, I don't expect a fix) on my 770 (Yes, I know it's underpowered and running OS2006), I can watch videos full screen. But if I have the power plugged in, the videos flash, and I can see mini-versions really quickly in the top left flashing. This doesn't happen if I watch the video in mplayer directly.
(Yes, I know when you call it, you are using mplayer embedded and there's more memory /cpu issues.)

I just think it's weird that it only happens when it's plugged in. On battery, I can watch the videos full screen fine.

On my 770, sometimes, Canola crashes after a video ends, but I tried launching the video from mplayer, and while it didn't crash, it still took awhile to end, and when I got my xterm back, CPU was spiked and stayed there for a few seconds.
So, it doesn't surprise me that embedded, that would cause a crash. Guess my CPU is being pushed to his limits! :-)

desiv

Re: Add-on idea
 

Desiv : it's going to be there. But for that we need to add the "choose folder" option, to give you flexibility. As we wanted to use youtube as plugin example it has everything inside, but it will change, don't worry.

(I wrote this a couple of times already :) but don't worry,.. I'm really getting used to the fact that not everyone reads everything here in the forum or in the blogs etc :) that's how users are :)

but for us is a big thing :) it will happen :)

yeah, 770 and 2006 software are complicated. Not that much because of underpowered (as they are not that underpowered) but more because the software is quite older, and thus a lot of small problems happens that that were solved in future versions : / specially with dbus and media : /

I think this must be something related to DBUS , but I could be completely wrong... so when you're plugged something is being called more times, causing the flickering (like checking / updating battery status more often)

As I said, the problem is not mplayer or canola it self in some cases, but all the communication is made via DBUS, and 2006 has a really old version. Also you put the CPU spike and you got the point :)

But yes we are indeed really pushing it to the limits :)

Marcelo

Re: Add-on idea
 

>(I wrote this a couple of times already but don't worry,.. I'm really getting used to the fact that not everyone reads everything here in the forum or in the blogs etc that's how users are

Actually, I have read the forums, even posted in them on your topic.
What I mentioned wasn't the same thing. I'm familiar with the "Change folder" option.

You apparently misread my post. No biggie.

However, I'm really getting used to the fact that not everyone replying to posts really reads the posts, and/or makes assumptions, but that's OK. :-)

Thanx and take it easy. ;)

desiv

Re: Add-on idea
 

Has anyone mentioned a canola2 mpd client plugin? That would probably be useful. :)

Re: Add-on idea
 

Desiv,

dont worry, so i probably misunderstood your post but i am sure i read every single post here ;D

but you know it happens a lot and i didn´t mean to be rude, just used the space to pass the message ...

anyways feel free to tell me again so we can try to help

cheers

Re: Add-on idea
 

handful, any plans or hopes of a last.fm add-in? i love Vagalume, but i'd love it even more if i could have all my media in the same program!

Re: Add-on idea
 

Hi! First time poster here with N800. Love Canola with the flat red theme. Anyway my requests:
- have a gesture to deactivate and activate the touch screen (similar to the iphone i think?). It would be cool to keep the hardware buttons active during this too. pressing the power button to lock touch screen and keys is awkward everytime i take the thing out of my pocket.
- The choose cover from file everyone mentions

Thanks! keep up the good work!