Topics

1

Beyond MusicBee / iTunes Being Killed

« on: June 07, 2019, 09:51:25 PM »

iTunes is being killed off by Apple.
They just announced it at their Developers' Conference.

What does this mean for the future of Music Bee?

Will Steven stay true to the older software, adopt the new whatever it might be
or go off in his own independent direction with new ideas?

We need to know what Steven is planning!

2

Bug Reports / Losing my Music (to Auto-Truncation)

« on: April 11, 2019, 12:06:41 AM »

When I scan iTunes folders for new files to enter into MusicBee,
some of those music files get truncated near the end.

There seems to be a bug that eliminates the end part of the songs.
What happens is that the song plays normally for awhile but then
suddenly there is a screeching electronic noise and the song goes
dead.    The progress bar and seconds counter continue to work
normally but the music is gone.

There is a bug that causes auto-truncation.
And it also affects play in iTunes and when I sync!
So I'm progressively losing my music!

I already lost 10 songs to this bug.
I don't know how many I will lose?
Perhaps there is a way to recover the lost data?
I hope so.
I don't want to redownload all the music I lost.

Can you please give me some feedback on this as soon as possible?

3

Skins / Create A Simple "Skin Adjustment" WIZARD

« on: September 06, 2018, 01:59:53 PM »

I am impressed with all the work the skin developers have done!
Excellent work!

But Steven could write a simple "Skin Adjustment Wizard" to make minor changes!
Something that is easy for the casual end-user to use.

I'm using the Dark Fine-Tuned Bordeaux Skin!
But the white font on black is too dark!
I can't see the A-Z Jump Bar!

It would be nice if there was a WIZARD that would allow me to make minor changes!
Rather than creating another dozen Dark Fine-Tuned Skins, just allow the end user
to generate a new skin file with this Wizard!

The Wizard has to be designed so that it is impossible to create a font that is the same color as the background.
Dark Fine-Tuned comes close to that somewhat.

Maybe Steven doesn't have to write it?
Can one of you skin "experts" write it?
This will make your skins more versatile if the end user can tweak them!
And you don't need to program as many variations yourselves!
That way you can focus on creation of entirely new skins that dare to push the limits!

What happened to "Radioactive Green"?

4

MusicBee Wishlist / Notes Editor

« on: September 04, 2018, 02:22:54 PM »

I love Music Bee!    

I am prepared to pay for the notes editor!


It's okay if you copy the source code from elsewhere.
I want you to make it better and add it to Music Bee.
I want the notes editor to look as good as the auto-pick song list panel.


If you can do it over a weekend (2 days), that's a going rate of $75 dollars an hour!
The same as a pilot of an airliner!

5

MusicBee Wishlist / End-User Controls Auto-Pick Color Rules

« on: September 04, 2018, 04:40:07 AM »

Let the end-user control the rules for the auto-pick color scheme.

The user will specify whether the periphery or the center or 25% and 75% squares about the center
are used to determine the color!   Or whether to use averages of two or more colors.

You could have small white dots to toggle between the different rules.
That way we can change the color on the fly.

I noticed the color pick scheme has color gradients between two colors sometimes.
Let the user control the rules for all this.

Also allow the option to save a computer generated color scheme to use as default for all the other albums.
Some users might want the predictability of only one color!
Control freaks don't want the computer to do things on its own.

We need more control and options with color pick as well.
Empower us with more control over color pick.

6

Questions / Album Cover Orphans

« on: September 04, 2018, 01:05:58 AM »

I have my album cover artwork set to large to fit the main panel, 4 to a row.
Thank you to Phred for helping me with this.

When I play an album, the song list rectangular slab appears underneath it with auto-pick colors!

The problem is that the album covers underneath it are shifted downwards and I can see
an unsightly row of truncated album cover albums all the way at the bottom of the main panel!

This is the row of album cover orphans I mentioned in the subject header.

Is there any way to make the song list auto-pick slab any larger to push the album covers beneath out of view?
Can I make the album cover on the song list auto-pick slab any bigger?

If there is no way to do this, then add this to the wish list for Steven to work on!
Add a "Fit Song List to Bottom of Panel" button in the next iteration of Music Bee.

Music Bee is almost perfect!    Just a few minor annoyances left.
Steven did a wonderful job!

7

MusicBee Wishlist / "Bloated" Software Lie

« on: September 02, 2018, 10:23:52 AM »

I'm tired of hearing how full featured software is "bloated"!
Is this the reason why Apple dumbed down iTunes?
Because they listened to the bloated software hype.

I'm using a refurbished ACER that I bought for $200 dollars.
The largest software runs just fine on my hardware.
It doesn't on yours?

What are you using?   
A netbook with Heathkit motherboard made with recycled resistors?

The bloated software critique is a blatant lie!
I don't notice any bloat with my $200 hardware!
Don't listen to them Steven!   It's nonsense!
Make your software as bloated as you wanna.

I want Steven to continue adding more and more features.
Satisfy everyone's wishlist requests.

8

General Discussions / Opportunity for Music Bee

« on: September 02, 2018, 05:00:48 AM »

I used to love Apple and iTunes until Apple decided to dumb down iTunes
and make me unable to resize my album cover artwork!
I am very upset about this and had to look for alternatives.
How I found Music Bee!

We got to bring competition to the downloadable music market.
Apple is messing around!    We need an alternative.
They want to kill downloadable for more profitable streaming!
Radio?    No way!    I gave up FM radio a long time ago.

In any case, I had this idea for a profit opportunity!
Music Bee can become Amazon's client music player!
Amazon will agree to give you 5% of their gross digital music sales receipts as part of the deal!
That way you'll have a revenue stream to fund Music Bee!

Music Bee is such a high quality music player that I feel Amazon may be very eager!
You must insist to keep creative control of the direction of Music Bee however.

You can also make a deal with Google to create a music app for the Google Pixel!
Google can compete in the iPod Touch market as well with an iPod Touch knockoff!

With Amazon providing the store, Google the device and Music Bee the music player,
that will be the consortium that can finally rival Apple's dominance!
Your music player is so good it can be part of this consortium!

How can you get this deal?
All the members of this message board could flood Amazon with mail insisting on such a deal!

What do other members think?
Is Music Bee better off with a deal like this or will it ruin Music Bee's independence and quality?
I don't want to start a poll about this without your permission!

With profit coming in, Steven will be able to do his work from the Bahamas!

9

Questions / Start Time of Songs Does Not Import from iTunes

« on: August 31, 2018, 11:38:58 PM »

I'm using version 10.6.3 of iTunes.
When I scanned for new songs with the first install of MB, the start time worked just fine.

However, I uninstalled and then reinstalled Music Bee once.
I wanted to see if I could resolve another bug by doing that.

However, now when I scan new files from the iTunes library,
the start time of the songs does not import.
The player starts at 0:00

When I change the start time manually in MB, there is an error message
that the file is being used by another process.

Do you recommend I use the latest version of iTunes?
Will that help?

Thank You

I'm learning how to use Music Bee!
Your program is wonderful.

10

MusicBee Wishlist / Floating Annotations and Jazzy Notes Editor

« on: August 31, 2018, 04:48:32 AM »

The potential of the multimedia computer is finally being realized.
We have music and pictures.
But what about text?
Let's bring text back in!

It's not the same this time with the auto-pick color scheme!
Text simply looks beautiful the way Steven handles it on the song list auto-pick panel!
What Steven has done with text is superior too.
Let the end-user add notes and mark up MB with notes giving us total control of the text too.

I'm using Green Eclipse StickyPad and Simple Sticky Notes programs to make notes.
But it would be nice if MB would offer a notes editor that is associated with an album or artist or individual song!
The notes would be saved inside the album, artist or song embedded data!

There is a comments box for each individual song.
But that comment box could be expanded upon.

Create a simple notes editor so we can add text to the albums, artists and songs.

With a toggle switch between Header, SubHeader and Text.

Also a toggle switch between 3 auto-pick color schemes and 3 user-defined.

We could have floating annotations that can be resized to fit anywhere on the screen and associated with the MB program!
Then specific notes that are associated with an album, artist or song.

The option to have an icon representing the notes on top of the album artwork in the left bottom corner or the option
of disabling the notes feature!

With Steven at the helm, we could have a superior notes editor to add notes!

A lot of people want to add tour dates and artist info to the artist or album!
Give us more power Steven!
Blow iTunes out of the water!

My vision is for a notes editor that is customized specifically for music!
The music is the dominant media.
But with text, the power of music can go further.

There is plenty of open source code to create a notes editor!
You can do this better too!
It should take you one week!

Thank you for what you have done so far.
MB is a success!

11

Questions / Scan for modified files creates junk numbers in the year field

« on: August 31, 2018, 03:38:20 AM »

When I run a scan for new and modified files in my iTunes library,
the modified files have junk numbers in the "year" field!

For example:   2008-11-11T:08:00:00Z

Another example:    2016-08-18T07:00:00Z

These junk numbers display in track information in the right panel
and in the Edit Tags panel.

12

MusicBee Wishlist / Total Control of Artwork

« on: August 29, 2018, 01:51:05 AM »

The most powerful music player software gives you total control over the music and artwork!
I want to focus on the artwork in this post.

The album artwork adds to the enjoyment of the music.
It would be nice if we could have more control over its size and appearance.

iTunes 10 was very powerful in terms of control of artwork
before Apple dumbed down the software with reduced features.

iTunes 10 had a slider that would change the size of the albums in
the album grid view.

This slider would have 6 to a row, 5 to a row and 4 to a row.
It would be nice if MusicBee could offer 4 to a row.
It's more pleasurable and graphically absorbing to have 4 to a row.

Right now, I feel the album artwork in the grid view is too small.
I also have trouble seeing it!
I'm getting older!     The population is getting older.
Make sure to make it easy on our eyes!
Some of the artwork is too small!

When I double click on the album artwork, I get a very large standalone image.
But I cannot adjust its size with resizing arrows!
Can you add this feature to resize the artwork?

Now the artwork is too big!    Let us control it to make it smaller!

We must have total control of the artwork (and music)!
Then your software will become the most powerful and popular software.
An incredible work of art because the end user will control and decide everything.

I think you did a wonderful job so far!
MusicBee is wonderful.
But it would be perfect with total control!