footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

If you want a small and fast Spotify client this is something for you. The latest version, 0.0.5-3, is available for install from Extras-devel.

A premium Spotify account is needed to use this client.

Functionality:
+ Navigate playlists and search results in a finger friendly way.
+ Close the currently selected playlist by swiping from right to left over the screen.
+ Play songs from playlists or search results (with cover art).
+ Previous and Next song buttons.
+ Somewhat experimental Shuffle (activate it before starting the first song and expect varying success).
+ Repeat for playlists.
+ Remembers user information.

To be added:
* Local meta-data cache.
* Portrait mode (in the future).
* Displaying of more meta data (artist photo, suggested searches)

Known issues:
- Some parts of the GUI aren't always updated to reflect the current state of things. This might, for example, leave the Play/Pause button in the wrong state.
- A new search result is shown with the same scrolling position as the last one.
- Tracks are shown even if they aren't available to play.
- Sound stutters when the lid is opened or closed and when the screen is dimmed.

The project Garage page is https://garage.maemo.org/projects/footify/ and the Developer thread, with some screen shots and feature requests and general discussions about functionality, can be found at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=52917 .

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Perhaps you should mention that you need a premium account for this to work? (assuming Spotify have not changed their policies)

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Second paragraph says exactly this. In bold. Or am I missing something?

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Didn't see it before so either I was temporarily blind or you edited it :p

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

another thread?

ok. nice work. testing it now. working pretty good.

*if last track in a playlist finish...client freeze

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Ah, I did edit to add it but I did it very quickly after first posting.

So, my bad, too, I guess. ;)

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

This thread is to announce that footify is available in Extras-devel. The other thread is for development issues.

Does it freeze as in you can not start a new song or does it just stop playing? Does the same thing happen if you activate Repeat?

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

you have to restart footify. Same thing with yaspot and qtify.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Ok, that sounds like a problem in libspotify if all three clients have the same problem. I'll investigate.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

don't know if any one else having problem installing footify from the repo. I get an error message telling me the install failed due to damaged files.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.6-1 has been uploaded to the repository.

Fixes:
* Small thread bug connected to GUI updates.
* Small change in startup graphics.

Changes:
+ Repeat works better now.
+ End of playlist is handled better if there is no Repeat.
+ Shuffle is almost working. Try to start a new song if it stops playing when a new song should be started automatically.

To note:
Shuffle can, still, only be started before playing the first song or just after a playlist has ended.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

is the client fairly stable? I don't want to install apps that can brick my device, is it safe to install or should i wait a bit longer?

not sure if it can help at all, but i remember yaspot had the same issue with the music stuttering when the screen dimmed however that was fixed in the latest release... i guess it might be the same problem?

thanks

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

What do you mean by:
Local meta-data cache.

Is it offline Playlists? Or just songnames, albumarts and so on?

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

It is always unwise to promise that something will not happen, but bricking your device via footify sounds so unlikely that I'd have to say that I find it almost impossible. There are no kernel modules that get installed, no basic component gets updated and all components that I use are standard and well tested.

The only unstable parts are libdespotify itself (which works very well as is) and the connection between my GUI and libdespotify. If you haven't installed something else that tries to abuse PulseAudio in some weird way, I'd say footify is pretty stable.

The feature that is the least stable is Shuffle so if you really need this to work, you might want to wait a bit if stability is your primary concern.

If there is an easy fix to handle this, I'm interested. If the fix is more complicated, I'd say that makes it uninteresting to implement since I don't see one short hickup in sound as such a big problem.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Cover art is a good example. More is saved locally but I haven't investigated what exactly. As soon as I get around to adding support for it, I'll compile a list.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

I've made a logo for you... its not perfect but I personally prefer this one over the current (no offense everyone got his or her own taste right)... If you want to use it its okay by me. I've also uploaded the PSD file if you want to edit it. And i can remove the shadow (or modify the shadow and fine-tune the picture to your liking if you want.

As you might have noticed its basically a mockup of the gnome and the spotify logo, so i take no credit for the design. I just wanted to express my preference :)

EDIT:
When the file was uploaded as an attachment it was converted to jpeg and transparency was removed. the psd has transparency.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.7-1 has been uploaded to the Extras-devel repository.

New features:
+ It is now possible to choose between high and low bitrate.
+ It is now possible to enable local cache of cover art, album information and playlists.

Changes:
* The debug message from the sound layer has been removed.

To think about:
The cache is located in /home/user/.cache/despotify and it's important to remember that this is in the 2GByte "program partition". If you'd like to allow for a bigger cache, you need to create a symlink to somewhere under MyDocs and hope it works. I have not tried this.

Please experiment with high and low bitrates and report if it changes the behaviour of the client. It's extra interesting to know if lots of big playlists still is a problem or not.

Playlists handling seems to be atomic in despotify. This means that if you change one playlist, all playlists will be downloaded again. This might be by design by Spotify.

If you change the settings for bitrate and cache, please wait a moment for the change to reach the gconf system before clicking Login. I have no idea why it sometimes takes a while.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Thank you for the new logo. The only problem I have with it is the GNOME foot. :)

I intentionally did something that looked like a footprint but not the GNOME footprint so this is not something that I'd use.

If you want to keep the creative flow going, I'd suggest dropping the shadow, tilting the foot as in the present logo and making it less GNOME. Then I'd have less problems with it.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

I was just thinking since Hildon is based on gnome :P
But if I remove the shadow, tilt the foot, and make it less Gnome, then we would have your current logo :P

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

That logo sure does look good, but it being the GNOME foot bothers me as well.

Also, I think it could be made to remind people of the original Spotify logo a little better. Maybe just make a simpler foot with more "space in it" to include a portion of the Spotify logo.

http://routenote.com/blog/wp-content...otify-logo.png

http://www.clker.com/cliparts/5/3/8/..._02.svg.hi.png

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.7-2 has been uploaded to the repository and to the project Garage page. This is mostly a bugfix release in preparation for adding album and artist browsing.

Changes:
* After logging in, the Login button becomes inactive.

Fixes:
- Old cover art is not reloaded.
- More graceful client read error handling.
- Better separation between client and despotify.
- Move search area to top after new search.
- Finger friendlier search results.
- Some small GTK related bug fixes.

While using the client at work for an hour or so, I've noticed that there is still some problem when a new track is about to start. I try to handle this as gracefully as possible now by pausing playback and waiting for the user to start another song.

On the other hand, it works perfectly to pause playback, unplug the headphones and go to a meeting, return an hour later, plug the headphones back in and click play and the song continues as if nothing has happened.

The change in regards to search results is something of a test. Being more fingerfriendly is nice, making it easier to start a special song, but you now need to scroll a bit more. Please give me feedback regarding this. If this new order feels ok, I'll make the same change for playlists.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.7-3 has been uploaded to take care of the broken search results. All other changes from 0.0.7-2 are still there.

Sorry, sloppy testing.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.8-1 has been uploaded to the repository and the Garage page.

New functionality:
+ Album search for the currently playing song.
+ Artist search for the currently playing song. This search is limited to 200 songs.

Changes:
* Compiled for speed.

To think about:
Sometimes the artist search crashes. I have no idea what causes this. As far as I know, this might very well be the result of some albums not having tracks connected to them or something similar to this. I'm investigating this.

To not clutter the UI more than needed, the new search buttons are located in the application menu. Keep in mind that getting all the albums for a productive artist will take time on a slow connection.

Play around with this and give feedback on how it works and how it's designed. As have been suggested, being able to start a new search directly from a search result might be interesting but I'm not sure it would be easy to implement in a clean way, UI wise.

I just noticed that I forgot to bump the version number in the binary. This new version will, falsely, identify itself as 0.0.7-2. I will not make a new release to fix this.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.8-2 has been uploaded to the repository and the Garage page. Regard this as a bug hunt release to make album and artist search work properly.

Changes:
* A pop up menu has been added when tapping and holding on a search result row. The menu offers searching for album or artist for the currently selected row.
* The search buttons in the app menu now behaves differently if they are clicked while in the search view or not. When in the search view, search is done based on the currently selected row. When not in the search view they behave as before.

To think about:
The client has now gotten another layer of complexity since the search result view is used for more things. This in turn requires more internal states to behave in good ways offering more ways to fsck things up when they don't.

I've noticed that it's not too hard to make the client crash by doing a few different searches in a row and I'm assuming this is on account of me having added more ways to update the search view.

If you want to help with testing and debugging, please take care to note the order of things you do when making the client crash.

The pop up menu opens up in a bad place, being covered by my finger if I'm using my right hand, but works as intended when using the stylus. This is the reason I made the buttons in the application menu act like they do now. This makes finger navigation much friendlier.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.8-3 has been uploaded to the repository and the Garage page. This is a bugfix release to take care of some of the bugs that have been found.

Fixes:
Clearing of variables after deallocation.
Thread issue when starting the first song from search or playlist. This might solve some problems with slow connections and long timeouts.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.8-4 has been uploaded to the repositories and the Garage page.

New functionality:
+ Album and artist search now also works for playlists.

Changes:
* Some refactoring of the code.

Please note:
The bug in libdespotify that makes the application crash when searching for an artist after having searched for an album is still not fixed.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Version 0.0.9-1 has been uploaded to the repository and the Garage page.

New functionality:
+ Sorting by album, artist and popularity in search view.
+ Sorting by artist in playlist view.
+ Buttons to perform sorting has been added to the application menu.

To keep in mind:
- The playlists are not changed by sorting. This goes for the search view as well.

Feedback regarding sorting is very welcome.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

footify has been entered into the Coding Competition and voting has started.

Please vote for footify at the top of the thread if you think it deserves your vote:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=763679

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

a) Please state in title thread or in opening post what Maemo version this is for (Maemo4, Maemo5, etc) since it's posted in the generic "Applications" category,

b) Since I'm assuming this is for Maemo5 - would it be possible to have this ported to Maemo4 or are there something unique to the Maemo5 OS that couldn't carry over?

Thanks, looks like a very nice application.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

I don't know what is wrong but it always crashes when I try to log in. I'm using version 0.0.9-1.
I also tried an older version (0.0.8-4), but it did not work any better.


I have premium Spotify account and Qspot works fine.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Qspot is usable but still crashes from time to time and isn't the best

but Qspot is the only one ive had working properly the rest are pants, infact Qspot isnt all that good either.

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

GOOD JOB JORIN!!!

I have been waiting for a good Spotify
client since I have my N900.
I am very happy that I can finally enjoy my
premium account on my mobile.
The gui is good and simple, I am only missing the
off line playlist mode. that's all.

Thanks a bunch for this development I have been
waiting for, for quite a while now.

Excellent work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :):):):)

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

Hi! Got a N900 today, and installed your app. Love it, but do you still work on it? I would love a offline function ;)
And when I have selected a playlist, I can't go back to the select playlist. Does it have this function? I can't find it :P
Thanks

Re: footify, a Spotify client based on despotify
 

dont think anyone working on footify anymore. correct me if I'm wrong. using footify from time to time.

But we also have qspot were the developer working activly. No offline mode for any spotify client to maemo yet.