Messages

1

Questions / Re: Is there a way to show the file path in the now playing window?

« on: April 12, 2024, 05:23:22 AM »

I worked it out for the Playing Tracks Element and then realised there is a "Now Playing" element that you are specifically asking about.

So here is the instructions for the Playing Tracks element.
Mouse over where it says "Playing Tracks". An arrow should appear, click that and select Customise Panel.
You should have a window with a few elements listed. Artist, Title etc....
Click the down arrow on one of the blank ones and change it to "Filename". This will display just the filename. If you want the full path change it to "URL".
Click Save.

For the Now Playing bar you need to change the settings for Track Information first. I don't know if there is an easier way but I did it by dragging the "Track Information" element into the left sidebar. Close down the arrange panels window and then mouse over the "Track Information" heading and click the arrow that appears and then "Customise Panel"

Put a tick in the "Show file URL" checkbox and click save.

Now you can remove the "Track Information" element from your UI if you want.

In the "Now Playing" element. Mouse over the heading and click the arrow that appears, click on Track Information and you should now have the full path to the song displayed.

Edit: Actually you can change the Track Information settings from within the "Arrange Panels" window, just drag it to the left, it doesn't matter where you put it and then click the 3 dots button to the right of "Panel Settings".  Click "show file url", click save and then drag it back to the right. This way it doesn't mess up your UI at all.

2

Portable Devices / Re: Two Way Sync Is Greyed Out

« on: April 04, 2024, 07:39:47 AM »

You need to download one of the APK other users have compiled in the following thread
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=28093.1170

You will need to enable installing apps outside of the play store.

I'm on android 14 and it works for me. Well the sync part works. I can't confirm if the reverse sync works because you need the paid version of gonemad or poweramp to extract play counts from them. I'm fairly confident they will work as the main issue since android 12 is due to storage permission changes, nothing that should effect how the data is extracted from those 2 apps. My partner uses the app and reverse sync works with gonemad on android 12.

Usual disclaimer about installing things from strangers on the internet....

3

Plugins / Re: 3DBee (Cover Flow) Plugin

« on: April 03, 2024, 05:17:35 AM »

bro im sure coding makes ur mind go poof sumtimes
umm another suggestion btw i got was that u could maybe make it so that the album and artist text take the album art colors?
and the background as well rn its jus a black screen right instead of that make it so that it blurs the album art and uses that as the background?
sorry if im jus piling stuff on ya rn
if i could lend a hand i certainly would but idk anything bout coding oof

It can be pretty nuts. I've been down some god awful rabbit holes at times.

I spent pretty much all day yesterday on this antialiasing stuff. I got a shader working with FXAA but it only works on the internals of the image, not the edges which is the biggest problem. I really need multisampling for that. There is nothing on the internet about SharpGL and multisampling except people commenting they can't do it. Nothing in the documentation or samples, it's like they just completely ignored that functionality which is pretty bizarre. It's frustrating.

I've got one more thing left to try and then I'll give up on it and maybe just do the best workaround I can in the shader. At least that's one plus of updating to modern GL, I have options to manipulate the image via a shader which I couldn't do before. I'm not porting all this code to a different library, the jaggies will just have to stay if I can't figure it out. I tried adding a transparent border around the covers which did make a marginal difference, I might have to settle for that.

Making the background a blur of the album covers is a good idea, I'll see what I can do there. As I stated in the previous post, it doesn't have to be black, you can make it whatever colour you want in the Skin.ini file.

At this stage it is very unlikely I will do it for the album/artist info. I might be able to make them an averaged colour of the album cover colours but every letter would be that one colour and I don't think that's what you mean. I think I know a way it could be done but it's pretty complicated and will cause issues with transparency of the box they are drawn into.

I don't know how appealing it will be though. It might not be an issue when manually scrolling but if it's setup to scroll to the cover when the playing song changes, different backgrounds and lettering colours for each cover is going to strobe like crazy when shifting covers....I guess I could put a delay in updating the background so it's less abrupt. We'll see.

4

Plugins / Re: 3DBee (Cover Flow) Plugin

« on: April 02, 2024, 01:49:58 AM »

I don't know why everything has to be so god damn hard all the time. I've had so much stupid crap not work properly lately across different things for stupid reasons, this just takes the cake.

The author of the Foobar plugin has written it in C++ and used the GFLW library for OpenGL. To enable multisampling it's literally one line of code
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_SAMPLES, 4) //4 is the number of samples.

Mine is written in C# and I've used SharpGL as an OpenGL library wrapper. For whatever stupid reason the author of this library hasn't provided a wrapper for the command - glTexImage2DMultisample.

It's a really strange omission so maybe I'm missing something but google tells me a few other people are having problems implementing multisampling with SharpGL.

They go years without updating the library so I either have to update it myself and compile my own version, find some other way/figure out what I'm missing or refactor all the code and change to a different wrapper like OpenTK.

I doubt any of it will be as easy as the one line of code above, I clearly made some bad choices before I began coding this thing....

/ End Rant.

There are some other antialiasing techniques that don't require multisampling, I'll see how they go before I dive head first into that other crap.

5

Plugins / Re: 3DBee (Cover Flow) Plugin

« on: April 01, 2024, 11:41:03 PM »

the jaggies might be it but i more so notice the jaggies on the album art itself but yeah antialiasing i think shall fix it there is an option on the foobar equivalent called multisampling passes
2 other things could u maybe have the default foobar flow display thing as a flow option in musicbee? and an option to change how far the album art's are as in like maybe we could zoom in or sumthin rather than resizing the window itself?
thanks a bunch once again

Multisampling is what I need to research.... it adds a bit of complexity to the code so it might take me a while to nut that one out.

The default foobar display is very similar to coverflow already..... I'll think about ti.

You can manipulate the flow with the skin.ini files. Depending on your install they should be located in your appdata folder. Eg) for Coverflow you should have the following file
C:\Users\lolguy8321\AppData\Roaming\MusicBee\3DBee\skin\Coverflow\skin.ini

Obviously change "lolguy8321" to your user name.

Backup the file before changing things because there is a chance you will completely break the flow. I don't have too much error handling going on when reading this file so if you key in silly values or change the format it might just stop working. I'm going to integrate them into 3DBee eventually which is why I haven't done much on the error side of things, they are a remnant of the original code I used to make the plugin.

So here are some values you can play around with.
nbleftalbum and nbrightAlbum - Determine how many covers will be displayed on each side of the flow. Some flow types ignore these settings. EG) Vista is hardcoded to set nbleftalbum to zero.
horizontalangle and verticalangle - Change the angle of the flow. This can do some crazy things. Start with low numbers.
movehorizscene and movevertiscene - Changes the position of the flow on the screen. Just start with low numbers (under 10)  and see what happens.
zoomscene - Self explanatory, adjusts how zoomed in the camera is, be careful as you may move the scene behind the camera which will make it disappear.

These are legacy options from the original code, they are still functional at the moment but I'm not sure how useful they, I played around with the angle options the other day and it just made a mess of things. I'll look at implementing them better when I integrate the ini files into the UI. I actually haven't enabled them since moving to modern GL in the recent version but I will.

You can adjust where the artist/album info is displayed with these settings.
albumfontoffsetX=0
albumfontoffsetY=0
artistfontoffsetX=0
artistfontoffsetY=0

I think the rest of the settings are self explanatory, fonts, colours etc.... Keep in mind changing fonts won't do anything if you have the "Use Musicbee default font" enabled.
The tablered, tableblue etc... colours refer to the bottom half of the background screen.

If the table colours are the same as the back colours, the flow will have a uniform background colour. If you make the table colours different to the back colours, the top half of the background will be the back colours, the bottom half of the background will be the table colours and there will be a gradient in between them to create a horizon effect.

Have fun, remember to back up the file so you can just copy it back after you break something

edit: Sorry I put "Local" in the appdata folder link when it should have been "Roaming". Fixed it.

edit2: I also forgot to mention you need to restart Musicbee for any changes you make to the Skin.ini files to take effect.

6

Plugins / Re: 3DBee (Cover Flow) Plugin

« on: April 01, 2024, 03:17:22 PM »

ur version the album art looks hella strange and its like im looking at a 144pixel image the og album art im using is 640 so it should look better no?

I installed foobar and the coverflow plugin, it took me a way longer than it should to figure that one out......

I have some pretty terrible low quality album covers in my collection and they look just as bad in foobar as they do in 3DBee, likewise at the other end of the scale. The higher res covers look just as good in 3DBee as Foobar in the coverflow.

So I assume your issue is the jaggies that appear on the edges of the album covers when it moves around. Foobar moves quite quickly and stops abruptly whereas 3DBee slows to a crawl before stopping which really highlights the jaggies. I initially thought it was just the crappy album covers I have in my collection but it also happens with high res covers.

Looking at foobar's coverflow, they seem to have some decent antialiasing going on which I haven't really researched yet, I've tried a few simple options but they've done nothing so I've just worked on other things in the meantime. I'll take a closer look. Those jaggies have bothered me for a while, I've added an antialiasing option for the album/artist info in the next version but that wasn't as hard to implement as it will be for the covers.

Those other flow options are interesting but I'll probably put implementing them on a low priority unless someone specifically wants to use one of them.

7

Plugins / Re: 3DBee (Cover Flow) Plugin

« on: March 30, 2024, 03:39:21 AM »

I've got all the OpenGL code updated to modern methods. Stay in school kids, the maths involved with all this stuff is no joke.

So while I have how all this works fresh in my mind, is there any kind of flow someone wants that isn't included yet? If you can describe it in detail or better yet link to images/videos I should be able to implement it. I suspect most people are just using the basic cover flow but variety is always good. I did play around with a vertical flow but it didn't look that great and it reduces the space for the artist/album info.

I also considered maybe a side by side flow where it has the front of the cover on the left and the back of the cover on the right but I doubt too many people would have back cover images?

I've also fixed it so double clicking on the scrollbar doesn't start playing the album. A problem I introduced with the last version.

8

Plugins / Re: iPod & iPhone Driver Plugin 2.0

« on: March 30, 2024, 03:30:30 AM »

Well, I wouldn't phrase it so optimistically considering this thread
But it looks definitely easier than for the iPhone

There are a couple of links in that thread for custom compiled versions of the app. One of them is mine. It's worked without issue for my partner. And I'll make sure to keep it working for as long as she is using it. She is syncing a library of 40,000+ songs to her phone and it just works.

But you do have to mess around a little allowing permissions to install apps outside of the play store. And the security concerns of installing an app from a link on a forum from someone you don't know

The main problem is it needs a significant rewrite to handle the way google changed storage permissions in android 12 (I think) otherwise it will get rejected from the play store. So for now we are stuck with installing it outside of the play store. I'm at the tail end of fixing up my other plugin. I might have a look at trying to get the mobile app on the play store after that, or at least getting it up to speed for someone else to manage. I'm not really a programmer and the android stuff goes over my head a bit so not really sure I want to take that on.... depends how bored I get.

9

Portable Devices / Re: Wifi android device synching

« on: March 20, 2024, 05:26:06 AM »

Is it safe to just download the apk from here or something similar?
https://musicbee-wifi-sync.en.uptodown.com/android

Considering it has Steve's name on it and it's dated October 2023, which is years after he stopped releasing updates, it's either a dodgy file or they have scraped it from somewhere else to generate traffic to their site. Either way it's probably not going to work if you are on Android 13 or later.

If you go back a few pages in this thread, some people have provided links to updated versions that should work. One of them is mine but I compiled that a year and half ago, there might be better options.

10

Plugins / Re: iPod & iPhone Driver Plugin 2.0

« on: March 19, 2024, 05:20:21 AM »

Victory

iTunes version : 12.13.1.3 (latest version as of today)

Well done. I actually didn't know they were still updating the non store version of iTunes for windows. Looks like most of it is to add support for new iPads. I'd be surprised if they have fixed any of the API bugs.

The next time you need a new phone, consider that syncing an Android device to Musicbee can be done over wifi through an app. It's basically just a click and it's done. Works fast too.

I only use this plugin to keep my partners iPod up to date and I don't know how long she will bother with that as she keeps her entire music library on her mobile these days. It works for what I need it for and I don't think there is much demand for it to do anything else. There is too many bugs in the API to keep it working with up to date versions of iTunes and there is nothing I can do about that. So I probably won't be updating it any further. I might give it a look over once I've finished playing around with my other plugin but that won't be anytime soon.

11

Plugins / Re: iPod & iPhone Driver Plugin 2.0

« on: March 15, 2024, 04:25:40 PM »

I haven't worked out all the kinks from my process : currently I need to manually remove all playlist from iTunes for the playlist update to work (and even then it's a bit of a dice roll) => does anyone have the same issue ?

It's because you're using a version newer than 12.5.3.16

That's the latest version that works properly. Every version after that has some kind of issue.

Granted you probably have to for it to work with whatever version of iPhone you are using.

Also, one improvement to the plugin that seems easy to implement is the sync order between tracks, playlists and tags.

What gives you the idea it would be easy?

From memory, this is what it does (if you're using the right version).
- MB provides a list of tracks/playlists that match the sync criteria.
- The plugin adds them to iTunes while syncing ratings from MB to iTunes(if option selected)
- If the track is a playlist, it deletes it first in iTunes and recreates it. (has to be done to work around a bug)
- depending on settings it will remove anything in iTunes that wasn't included in the sync. (just realized this could result in lost play counts).
- Playlists in iTunes are populated with songs.
- Syncs Play Count and ratings back to MB.
- Resets play count to zero in iTunes.

Could we switch the sync order to :  tracks, then tags, then playlists ? And would it work

It wouldn't work. MB parses tracks to the plugin based on the options you choose when the sync is initialized. There is no way to alter that list once the sync process has started.

Alternatively, could we get an option to only update the playlists (without going through the full library update) ?

You can choose to only sync certain playlists. It will still sync back all ratings and play counts of everything in iTunes. It will probably delete playlists from iTunes though....
Honestly can't remember if this will work but if you uncheck the following setting it should leave everything previously synced in iTunes.
Hamburger button (top left in MB) -> Edit Preferences -> Devices -> iPod & iPhone Driver -> Configure -> Settings -> Delete files that are not on the auto-sync list from the device.

So if you untick that option and do a full sync of all songs/playlists. Then perform another sync with just one playlist selected, it should leave all the songs in iTunes. But it will probably delete all the playlist except for the one you selected. The songs of all the deleted playlist will still be in iTunes, they just won't be part of a playlist.

The other issue with this is it will only sync ratings from MB to iTunes (if option selected) based on the selected playlist.
But it will sync all ratings and play counts back to MB (if option selected) regardless of what songs/playlists are selected to sync.

Just to be clear, there is no way to update MB with playcounts/ratings from your device and sync updated auto-playlists back to your device in one pass.

12

Beyond MusicBee / Re: One-way sync from SD card to an iPhone.

« on: February 26, 2024, 05:29:54 AM »

Only way to do it is to copy everything on the SD card to your computer and manage it from there. If you are not prepared to do that then don't waste time reading the rest of the post.

If you import it into Musicbee, you can use playlists to choose what you want to be sent to the iPhone and use the iPod & iPhone driver plugin in Musicbee. There is a thread on how to use it in the plugins section of the forum, it involves installing iTunes to handle the copying of the songs to the iPhone.

As you found out, iTunes does not support OGG files but you can set Musicbee to automatically format them so they will import into iTunes. But this will basically store a second copy of all the songs that get transcoded in a temp folder on your laptop, its going to take up more space. Also you are bound to still get some that fail to copy just because iTunes is bloody terrible, there is more info on how to handle that in the plugin thread.

There is a way to sync Musicbee with your android device wirelessly. My partner does it just fine with 40k+ songs. The issue is also trying to sync it with an apple device. Apple stuff just doesn't play nice with others and even though what I have mentioned above will work, it's probably going to be slow and annoying to get it to work how you want. You would be better off just shelving that iPhone and getting something else.

13

Portable Devices / Re: Wifi android device synching

« on: February 15, 2024, 11:29:32 PM »

Anybody able to get Poweramp playcounts to sync in android 13+

You need the paid version of Poweramp for it to work.

If you have the paid version and it's still not working, the only thing I can suggest is changing to GoneMad as I know that works. You need the paid version for that too.

14

Plugins / Re: 3DBee (Cover Flow) Plugin

« on: February 13, 2024, 04:33:32 AM »

*Adding an option to sort by Album Artist/Year instead of defaulting to Album Artist.
*Adding an option to only display covers for albums in a specific playlist, instead of displaying the whole library.

Adding the functionality is easy enough but due to how everything is coded, it has implications I need to work through, particularly with buffered playlists.

I was going to work on re-coding all the OpenGL stuff but it's such a massive job I've been putting it off and making other improvements instead. But I really should nut it out so I can get rid of the buffer settings as they are just a workaround for the old inefficient OpenGL code.

But here is the to-do list I currently have. No promises what will and won't happen. Just a list I have of possible improvements.
- Re-code to use Modern OpenGL instead of immediate mode.
- Adding sort functionality.
- Limiting the flow display to playlist/files element/search etc...
- Add an option to change the flow to be vertical. Up and down instead of left and right.
- Migrate all the Skin.ini file settings to be configurable within Musicbee and allow skins to be created/deleted within Musicbee.
- Move the save settings confirmation message box to appear under the mouse instead of center screen. Apparently the only way is creating your own message box....

15

Plugins / Re: iPod & iPhone Driver Plugin 2.0

« on: February 08, 2024, 09:44:54 PM »

Just going through an old library of my dads. It has some horrid spelling mistakes and strange file names, he must of downloaded it from somewhere. A good chunk of them failed to sync so I thought it would be good to go through and figure out what was stopping them.
It seems anything with apostrophes, commas and ampersands (&) in the filename would fail.

I also had a few that appeared to be failing simply because they were spelled wrong which was bizarre. Here is a few examples of what it was originally and what I changed it to that worked.
memorys are made of this.mp3 - memories are made of this.mp3
the isralites.mp3 - the israelites.mp3
when your in love witha beauti.mp3 - when youre in love with a beautiful woman.mp3
saacrifice.mp3 - sacrifice.mp3

Thinking that can't be right I did a test with the following filename.
i love eo love.mp3

I changed it to "i love to love.mp3" relocated it in Musicbee then changed it back to "I love eo love.mp3", relocated it again and this synced successfully.

So I guess whatever the problem is gets solved just by relocating it in Musicbee. All I did was change the file name, attempt to edit the song in Musicbee which would display an error that the file could not be found. Then I would close the window and double click the song, MusicBee would prompt me to locate the file. This updated all the song info but maintained the play count.

Another thing I noticed is when performing the sync, make sure iTunes is showing songs and not albums. For whatever reason it's 3x faster if you have songs displaying in the iTunes window. You can test it while doing a sync, click on "albums" in iTunes and then "songs". Just another stupid quirk of the iTunes API.

edit:
And another strange one. I had a song in a folder "zager & evans". This synced successfully originally but when I changed the song file name to fix a spelling mistake, I left the ampersand in the folder name. When relocating in Musicbee, it now showed an album cover in Musicbee that wasn't displaying previously. It's embedded in the file. It now wouldn't sync. So I changed the folder name to "zager and evans" and relocated it again. This time it synced.