UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Please read my blog and have a look at the 1.7 concept image.
http://konttoristhoughts.blogspot.co...rking-for.html

Comments would be really welcome at this stage before I start any coding.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

While I love this new direction... I'll be honest about a few things.

The fact that the play, track time, et al is above the images instead of below bothers me. The replay/shuffle/play continuous is larger than the play button and the controls.

And finally the lack of the exit button is somewhat disappointing on that screenshot.

Moving the top parts down, moving the images up, and allowing for right to left scrolling of the music rather than up and down would make for a killer interface imho.

But what you have, I like. I really like. Keep up the good work man.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

It'll be left to right scrolling.
I'll try to scale the play and controls and also reposition them a bit.

However, about the position of the control interface. On that area I feel I must stand firm. You see the most important reason for the top positioning is at the moment to allow users to use the app also when not in full screen.

But hey, I made another mockup with the controls at the bottom.
Same page, at the very bottom.
http://konttoristhoughts.blogspot.co...rking-for.html

http://bp3.blogger.com/_oSU7o6fFfUU/...20/Kuva+10.png

Edit: also added the original concept as a reference for this discussion.
http://bp0.blogger.com/_oSU7o6fFfUU/...320/Kuva+8.png

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

I will also add the exit button.

So, please comment on the button row positioning. Up or down? Also bear in mind the effect on the fullscreen/normal modes. If buttons are on top, they are also visible if you use the application in non-fullscreen mode. If they are at the bottom, they disappear. Is this a bad thing? Hard to say. Please comment!

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Ahh.. Here is an example image with the exit button as well as with a lamp for keeping the screen lit all the time.
http://bp0.blogger.com/_oSU7o6fFfUU/...20/Kuva+11.png

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Congrats on the new gig! http://www.clicksmilies.com/auswahl/ernaehrung004.gif

Rock on dude. I'm liking the interface. To me, control location is not important or even an exit button... being able to switch back and forth between say a navigator program and a media player easily while driving is what I need.

Of course in this litigious society you wouldn't call this a "while driving" feature I suppose. :)

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Yes, Urho has Entered the Building. :) It's very good.

I also support not having a separate now playing -view, if there is no real purpose to have that view.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

great work! kiitos!
to be able to see the commands when not in full screen is important. please keep the commands in the top.
it would be nice to have the possibility to conttol the volume.
thanks for the nice work

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

At the moment (and in the future), you can control the volume from the + and - buttons at the top of the device. I have thought about adding a widget for that, but in all honesty, I really wouldn't want to add any more clutter to the interface.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

rok just suggested on the blog that I just drop the seek buttons. I will do that. They are not needed (dpad can do the same). Also, just clicking on the progress bar will do the same as well. So dropping them makes sense.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Nice looking updates. Will 1.7 solve my problem of the wrong song playing?

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

I have no idea to be honest. I'll try to have a look at the song import part. Do you happen to have oggs or aac/m4a files on the device?

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Would it be possible to add a setting for where UKMP looks for media? I keep my media on another computer and I mount it on my 770 using sshfs, but I can't figure out how to make UKMP find it.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

No, just mp3 files. I deleted everything a few days ago thinking a fresh install would help. I've only had the problem with the 1.6 series.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Congrats on the new job, keep up the good work.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Hmm... as for the odd mount locations... if you just mount it under a subfolder/link in:
/home/user/MyDocs/.sounds
then ukmp should be able to process the files. First time probably takes some time, but after that it'll remember the metadata of the mp3 files.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Looks great. Keep it clean and simple and don't make it bloat like Kagu. I vote for buttons at top of screen.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Would've said it on your blog, but here'll do:

a) Congratulations on the new job!
b) Change the "Exit" button into a previous screen button, which exits at the top-level (a la Canola)
c) Get rid of the "always on" lamp altogether, it should be another preference somewhere else.

Personally, I think the controls look better at the bottom. Shouldn't the display scale when not in full screen mode, rather than just chopping stuff off?

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

I'd go for controls on the bottom of the screen because they are more accessible with thumbs there. If I hold my IT with both hands, I have to reach to touch the top border at the center of the screen. Bottom is easily accessible. Also the buttons on the side should be big enough so that the corner of the screen doesn't get in the way.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Jaffa:
a) Thanks!
b) I'll consider it! (the concept of video lists is in conflict with the idea of a top level entry)
c) Good idea. I might add a launcher part where you can choose theme and may be some other stuff as well. This might be a nice addition to it.

I agree that the control look better at the bottom. Yeah, it should scale, but then again it's much harder to scale the interface than to keep it in single mode. I do have some ideas on how to make it happen... let's see how the tests go.

I started coding already and went for the top approach, but it's quite easy to change the bar location once it's done, so I can run some tests on moving it and scaling the interface once it's done. Anyway, it's already in pretty good shape and if I have more than 2 hours today time, it'll probably be in alpha stage by the end of the day.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

I'm sure you've heard it quite a few times by now, but, congrats on the Nokia situation (that's karma in action).

I definitely like the new look you've got here. Slimming everything down to just one screen (two w/ video) is awesome. I'm really interested in this mention of themes. If you decide to make that available could you release the goods for custom theming. Maybe a template or just a set of icons/backgrounds. I'd absolutely love that, ever since you released the Light theme a while back I've been dying to toy with the look.

It seems the other hot item is the controls. I'm unbiased as far as top/bottom go, I think it'll look good in either spot, but I did have a couple other thoughts:
1) if the essential buttons were closer to the left side would they still get cut off when the player isn't in full screen mode? (scaling the controls is a good idea but how much would it slow down opening and closing?);
2) if you do create some sort of laucher would it be possible to make some of the buttons optional? (it seems not everyone wants the backlight/track skip buttons).

Last but not least I've got a question completely unrelated to the rest. I have a unique problem with my 770 where the - of the -/+ buttons on the top stops working intermittently (it's probably a loose connection or something). What I wanted to know is if I could remap the volume controls, possibly to the up/down on the D-pad? If its too much of a pain explaining how-to don't worry about it.


Thanks, keep up the great work man.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

I just put an early alpha 1.70 on the web:
https://garage.maemo.org/frs/downloa...-1.70Alpha.deb

Turned out pretty well already. However, testing that on n800 and 770 you can see the really big problems in n800 page flips. 770 is actually much smoother than n800 version.

ak.n770:
You can theme even now, the image template is there in /usr/share/pixmaps/bg.png (and bg2.png). It's not proper theming yet, but if I add the launcher app, then I could easily support theme images properly. (ok, never say easily... it'll come back to you).
1. Yeah. Essential on the left is the way to go.
2. Yeah, some buttons would definitely benefit from being only in the launcher
last:
Sorry. You have to dig into the code. I suggest that you just use the top applet to change volume.

Now I'm off to watch federer beat novak and then off to bed.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

might I be so bold as to make a small suggestion.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1169/...96f90236_o.jpg

It would be nice to see that the buttons be actually look like buttons instead of indicator icons. I put a 20% opacity button around the icons. I made it very understated to match the over all look without being over powering. Also I evenly spaced out the buttons .

BTW, it would be cool if the context menu button could be used for some prefs, like "screen always on when plugged in" or "scan storage for media". I really would like to see scanning an option rather than being part of the launch process.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Gigabites. A good idea. I'll test it out asap.

Yeah. Scanning takes 0.7 seconds on my device. The loading of the album artwork is what takes most of the time at the moment. There should be some console time logging as well that you can see if you open the ukmp in terminal.

Anyway, I was considering of adding that to the launcher application (a gtk window).

Oh. 22 people have tested out the 1.7 alpha. Did you like it? Comments?

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Comments on 1.7 alpha from a brief play:

• One of my videos isn't listed. Plays fine in mplayer direct (this is not a helpful bug report, I know)
• No thumbnails for video visible at all.
• Videos *need* to be structured into hierarchies as per albums, using directory names. Having 20 episodes of "Thomas and Friends" mixed in next to the one episode of "My Name is Earl" I want to watch is tricky. Especially without thumbnails.
• If you've only got four or five albums, only three are completely visible, the previous two can only just be seen off the left of the screen.
• Agree with the above, move "Keep screen on" and "Exit" to a menu which pops up when you press "menu".

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

I'll be checking this out later today.

It was a close match at least. I only watched the score ticker... Not the game. Must have been pretty good.

Thanks for the nice app. btw.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

the update looks great and congrats on the nokia thing!

Much of my digital "music library" is made up of stuff that, for one reason or another, doesn't even have cover art - the biggest thing for me is an ipod-like/winamp ability to make and save playlists that I make (easily) myself. does the app do this?

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

hmm, I have 4-5 gigs of mp3s sorted in folders, none deeper than 3 levels. Even after the initial scan for media and covers, it takes and avg of 1-2 mins to complete the scan and launch.


BTW, did anyone ever help you in finding out how to cap a few frames into a video to make a cover? Most of my videos have a black icon, I guess because the first frame is black.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

After the install is done, ukmp flushes the mp3 id tag cache file (located in mmc/covers/filelist.txt). This cache file is created after successful first opening. Can you tell me how long it takes after the file has been created for the system to move from scanning mmc to start showing album artwork (loading of the album artwork that is). I have around 3 gigs of files and it's pretty snappy on my device (like in the under 1 sec time) to scan the mmc cards. Then again, if you have maemo mapper files, that may affect scan time considerably.

Well, option -ss 30 should seek to 30 secs in the video, but it doesn't. If you could help in making the call to mplayer to make the snapshot, it would be really cool.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Mine shows "reding music information" and then closes the app.....worked fine with previous versions.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Making a full scan optional would be a killer addition to UKMP. Also being able to specify folders to scan would help as well.

I have a 40GB hard disk connected to my 770, with about 36gb of MP3's on there, and for UKMP to scan everytime makes the app just about unusable unfortunately. It often crashes after several minutes of scanning - I know my situation's a bit extreme, but....

I'm going to pull down and install the 1.7 alpha to try later on, as the look of it is simply stunning.

keep up the good work.

Gaz

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

About the layout, how about implementing MaemoFlow into UKMP? Or would that piss off Apple too much? :rolleyes:

Ton (MAC user).

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

I've fixed this problem.

• mplayer has a bug where it can't render a single frame - the same issue affects Freevo: change "-frames 1" to "-frames 2" and copy 00000002.jpg to the appropriate filename.
• The thumbnails are only ever shown at 160x160, change "-scale 320:-3" to "-scale 160:-3": the file size is about a third what it was before. On a device with limited space and CPU, this makes a big difference.
• If you've got lots of (say) TV episodes ripped from DVDs, 30s can be the same frame in each. Change the start of the command to the following:

You'll have to "rm /media/mmc1/covers/*.avi.jpg" to rescan the images.

Hope that helps,

Andrew

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Jaffa / aflegg:
Thanks!
Just tested it out and it's working great. Although the python syntax for random startpos=str(random.randint(18,40))
but anyhow.

I also agree for the 160... for now. I was planning to show the clip in larger size for the user along with some file details, but I don't think that'll happen for a while, so I might go for the fast route. A good idea.

Toontje:
Yeah, well... maemoflow... yeah. Would be kind of nice, but I feel my approach is actually better for touch screen use. The coverflow looks better, but being able to select any album on screen with one click has its advantages. Also, n800/770 don't have the horse power or memory to do that. With a few precalculated frams the coverflow effect could easily be done on 770, but it'll consume 3-4 times more mem than it does at the moment, so I guess it's out of the question for now.

As for 36 gigs of mp3s on 770. ... Whoah. I guess 770 will run out of memory for the cover images. You might try opening ukmp also from xterm. When it crashes, you could copy paste the last few lines of the xterm to me. It would help a lot.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Hi guys,

I just uploaded a new version. I just had half an hour to do changes, so they are pretty minor ones. Jaffas stuff has been integrated, I didn't have the time to make the buttons look as suggested, but that'll come. I added larger album titles, video titles and also on the song list view, I added artist name and album name in big friendly letters. I'll add reflections to the letters later on. that should look sweet.

Hmm... clip names are now automatically cleaned up a bit. I'll add multiline name support in the future.

Ok. Off to bed now. A busy day ahead.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Hi,

quickly on alpha2:

When in cover window the time doesn't update correctly if you move forward/backward. Music plays fine though. If you change to song view it updates instantly.

The play/pause button doesn't change (toggles) unless you press again a little on the side. It works fine simply the image doesn't change.

Finally, if you have only a couple of albums the images get hidden on the left. (already been said I think.)

tnx a lot.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Time update rendering is a bit of a performance issue at the moment. Updating the entire progress bar takes so much time that it affects the performance of the scrolling. Thus it's done only in idle states for now. I'll try to improve the situation in the future though.

Jaffas and Saturns report:
If you've only got four or five albums, only three are completely visible, the previous two can only just be seen off the left of the screen.

Has just been fixed to the code, so it'll be fixed for the next version.

Play/pause button problem is something that I'll try to remember when I modify the icons to be more button like.

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Hello,

I tried the alpha2 last night and its realy cool ! You've maid a great job in a short time.

The only problem for me is that I can't play music from a share or upnp server. It must be difficult to add upnp suport but would it be possible to add a buffer option (in a prefs screen) to be able to play music from a cifs share ?

I can read music on a cifs share mounted under Mydocs/.documents but there is some lag on files with 128kbps+ rate.

That would be a great improvement I think :)

BTW congratulations for your job ;)

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

Hi Konttori.

I downloaded the 1.7beta2 and here are my remarks...

1) Great look I also preffer the play pause buttons on the bottom.
2) Hard to finger scroll the covers. I'm always selecting an album instead of scrolling... I don't know where to touch the screen to scroll with my finger so I have to use the stylus and point in betwween (2mm) album covers. Maybe you need to reduce the zone for album selection (i.e. not the entire album cover but 50% of it in the center or maybe my fingers are too fat...
3) Song display ordering is wrong one column out of 2 i.e here is what it looks like
-------------------------------------------------
song 1 | song 4 | song 7 | song 10 |
---------------------------------------------------
song 3 | song 5 | song 9 | song 11 |
---------------------------------------------------
song 2 | song 6 | song 8 | song 12 |
---------------------------------------------------

so song 3 and song 2 are inverted same goes with 9 and 8

4) Video mode... video pictures are effectively made (I see that happen during scanning) but none are shown in the video scrolling windows. Video file names are all packed on top of each other on the last line on the bottom left of the screen.... So there is nothing scrollable... (been this way for me since 1.6 by the way...)

Keep up the good work

Re: UKMP 1.7 concept image. Comments needed
 

I encounter a wierd bug in that everything works except the wrong song plays when I tap the song name?? It's like a completely different album is selected or the ID tags have become messed up?