Author Topic: Play track via context menu opens MusicBee with Now Playing  (Read 6224 times)

cryscyman22

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When opening a folder and right clicking to select 'Play with MusicBee' I would like to see MusicBee open with the 'Now Playing' pane showing the selected track / artwork and overriding any other selections made in preferences.

Steven

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hi, i was just trying this out and as far as i can see its doing exactly this. I have now playing preferences to 'queue selected tracks next and play now' for example (which i believe is what you are using) and then from windows explorer, right click and 'Play with MusicBee' - it overwrites the now playing list and starts playing immediately.
Is this not what you are finding or have i misunderstood?

By the way, one of your earlier requests to play a cd by right clicking on the CD - you can do that already from within MB but i guess you are asking to do that from windows explorer. If thats the case i need to research how to do that so its not so straight-forward

cryscyman22

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hi, i was just trying this out and as far as i can see its doing exactly this. I have now playing preferences to 'queue selected tracks next and play now' for example (which i believe is what you are using) and then from windows explorer, right click and 'Play with MusicBee' - it overwrites the now playing list and starts playing immediately.
Is this not what you are finding or have i misunderstood?
This is exactly what I am finding but what is not happening is 'Now Playing' is not being (automatically) selected in the left column and the main centre panel does not show what is playing but will have what was left from the last playlist artwork although as you say the playlist in the right column has changed correctly and the artwork will have been selected in the bottom right pane.
It is all OK except that the centre panel does not show what is playing now because it will still show what was playing at last shut down.

By the way, one of your earlier requests to play a cd by right clicking on the CD - you can do that already from within MB but i guess you are asking to do that from windows explorer. If thats the case i need to research how to do that so its not so straight-forward
I have given up on this one because I now cannot even get right click on the CD Drive shortcut to bring up a context menu which shows 'Play with MusicBee'. I think this is because I do not have Autoplay in operation.
I realise it all works OK within Musicbee when right clicking the CD Drive.

These are the 2 remaining issues
1) Open with context from folder and show 'Now Playing' in the left pane and centre pane as well as the right pane.
2) How to establish a context item when right clicking the CD Drive shortcut on the desktop (explorer) and as before load MusicBee showing 'Now Playing' in the left pane and centre pane as well as the right pane. If this can be done it would be useful but not important. I have a right click item for 'Play with VLC Player' but that is not what I want. I tried everything in Windows to establish an item in the context menu but Windows flatly refuses. It would be a starting point if that could be included. Seems like it needs to set up with the player at installation and not after. Like I said if I had AutoPlay enabled it might help but do not want any more security issues.
Last Edit: December 21, 2009, 09:02:51 PM by cryscyman22

cryscyman22

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These are the 2 remaining issues
1) Open with context from folder and show 'Now Playing' in the left pane and centre pane as well as the right pane.
2) How to establish a context item when right clicking the CD Drive shortcut on the desktop (explorer) and as before load MusicBee showing 'Now Playing' in the left pane and centre pane as well as the right pane.
1) I am still hoping that you can achieve this so that when a CD Drive in Explorer is selected to Play with MusicBee it opens up with the left and middle pane Now Playing (as well as the right pane Now Playing) and not the left and middle pane defaulted to Library each time it loads.
It would be even better if this opening arrangement could be made user selectable.
2) I have now managed to create context menu items by adding new Shell keys under AudioCD in HKEY CLASSES ROOT of the registry. MusicBee can now be opened by right clicking the CD or CD/DVD drive in Windows Explorer but I haven't figured out the Command Data yet that makes the first track start playing.
VLC starts playing the first track and I see that it has the following Value Data for the Command ......
"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --started-from-file cdda://%1
The command I have for MusicBee is .....
"C:\Program Files\MusicBee\MusicBee.exe" %1
If I have the command as ......
"C:\Program Files\MusicBee\MusicBee.exe" --started-from-file cdda://%1
it still will not start playing the first track.
Do I need a slightly different command before the %1?

By the way I have also referred to the fact that I have achieved adding context menu items here ......
http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=587.msg2969#msg2969

Steven

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thanks for checking that out - i suspect i might need to program support to look for and play the first track but could you try this command and see if it works:
"C:\Program Files\MusicBee\MusicBee.exe" "%1" /Play

i thinks its important to have "" around the %1 as well

cryscyman22

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I tried the full command you gave and it does not work either.
I tried removing /play but having quotes around %1 and it still did not work (but later did - see below).
Having /play seems to throw up some odd things as it seems to start with track 2 with a cda CD and adds a track to the end of the last Now Playing list when opening a new commercial CD.
The VLC command did not have quotes around %1 and that works OK!

UPDATE
I have left the command at ......
"C:\Program Files\MusicBee\MusicBee.exe" "%1"
and it now seems to be working apart from the Windows error message ......
Windows - No Disk
Exception Processing Message c0000013 Parameters 75b6bf7c 75b6bf7c
and also the exceptional long time it takes to load a 20 track mp3 CD when cddb look up track data is enabled.

I tried again to see if it would work with /Play but it would't and now it will not work again with "%1"
Seems to be very inconsistent.
I think what is happening is that if I click a track to start playing and then close MB and re-load it will resume to the state it was before closing (ie play from explorer drive) because that is how I have it set in preferences, but there is not a preference to play on start up if opened from an explorer drive.

FREEDB PROBLEM
I have stopped MusicBee from throwing up lots of rubbish when opening an mp3 CD by un-ticking the preferences box in Auto Tagging to look up CD track details but then I lose track information for commercial CD's. I cannot seem to get this right.
See my problem here ....
MP3 CD's NOT OPEN CORRECTLY FROM EXPLORER
http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=587.msg2969#msg2969

I have since found out that it is Freedb look up that is causing the problem.
If I untick this box and just leave musicbrainz to look up track information then all is OK.
Last Edit: December 22, 2009, 12:38:08 AM by cryscyman22

cryscyman22

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Apologies. I've gone and done it again and modified my last reply after you have logged it.
I think the problem is that I cannot see that you have logged it until I have logged out.
I know there is message that pops up when you are logging it and I am modifying it but that is all I have seen.
I try to answer your question as quick as I can and then find it is more complicated than I first thought.

Steven

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now i know the appropriate registry entry i'll sort out the playing of the entire cd from windows explorer when i look at this.
re: displaying track information for commerical cd's, there is a lot of rubbish on freedb - if you are finding it bad, i just suggest you untick freedb only and leave MusicBrainz ticked. Its my understanding MusicBrainz is pretty good

Steven

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in the latest 1.2 beta the now playing panel opens when playing tracks from windows explorer