MusicBee Remote (Remote Control for Android)

[SimonBRT]

cheers for the update kelsos.  appreciate any development on this as and when... such great work so far.

[Maleko12]

Thanks for the update! And good luck with your thesis

[kelsos]

Either later today or tomorrow I will release a minor update for the plugin to fix an issue that causes MusicBee to crash (setTitle error). Keep in mind that it only happens in an empty now playing list.
Also I started on working on the now playing list support

Update
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2013-10-17
v0.9.6 of the plugin is now available it fixes the crash issue.

Update 2
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I also uploaded a new version of the android application [0.9.8] to Google play for the users of 2.2 if there is anyone interested, it fixes an issue with a crash in the settings.

Update 3
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Work in progress for playlist support

[eLr0n]

Welcome back.Playlist feature looks great. Cant wait for testing it

[erikerik]

Love the remote app.

I am wondering if you are able to add "swipe" navigation?

ie) swipe sideways to get the various screens would make things a lot smoother and easier to navigate, as compared to clicking the menu in the top left.

For example, if I am listening to a song, and in the screen where the album cover shows.  If I could swipe the screen sideways and have it then show the lyrics, swipe again and it shows the now playing playlist, etc. 

I believe this would be a great addition!  What do you think>?

[vivadavid]

Looking forward to this, kelsos!

[kelsos]

erik swiping would require a number of changes to the application maybe I will give it a try at some time later see how it works, actually you can also swipe the navigation menu though it has to be done on the very edge of the screen and some times it doesn't work as expected.

[landcross]

Hi kelsos,

I would like to use the remote, but I can't get it to work. I have the newest MusicBee, MusicBee Remote pluging and the newest MusicBee Remote App. I have a normal Windows 7 machine and a Nexus 4 with the standard Android 4.3 rom.

The problem is; I can't connect my pc and the phone. Not by scanning and not by adding it manually. I had some problems with connecting apps to my pc in the past, because of the Eset firewall (I should whitelists some ports, but I'm too lazy ), but even when I switch the firewall off, I still can't connect...

What am I doing wrong?

Although I haven't used it yet, I have a small improvement for the app: a white theme. Quite some Android apps have an either black (what you're using now) or white theme, which can be changed by the user in the settings. I would like to see a white theme too  (Or maybe even, as some apps have, multiple themes like white, red, blue, orange etc.)

Thanks anyway, for your effor of creating the app.   

[mrad]

Although I haven't used it yet, I have a small improvement for the app: a white theme. Quite some Android apps have an either black (what you're using now) or white theme, which can be changed by the user in the settings. I would like to see a white theme too 

FYI... white consumes far more battery than black on AMOLED displays, it is far better to use as much black onscreen as possible.

"...screens don’t have a solid backlight. Each pixel on an OLED screen is an “organic light emitting diode” that produces its own light. When the pixel is black, it isn’t producing any light. When the pixel is white, it’s producing light. In other words, if you use a black background on an AMOLED display, your display will produce less light. This will help save battery power, squeezing more battery life out of your device."

[kelsos]

Just to confirm the plugin is properly activated right?
Connectivity issues unfortunately are not that easy to troubleshoot. If you can rule out that the firewall is blocking somehow the connections there is another thing that comes in mind. Some routers include an option that isolates the wireless clients from the rest of the local network. If this is activated the wireless client can still has the Internet but not the other clients of the local network.

Also if you have a telnet client available you could also check if the plugin listens for connections properly.

[landcross]

FYI... white consumes far more battery than black on AMOLED displays, it is far better to use as much black onscreen as possible.

Well, my phone doesn't have an amoled screen (my previous one had), so I don't really mind. And, I'm not keeping my screen on all the time, it's a remote. But, that's also why I suggested to add it as a feature to be chosen by the user.

Just to confirm the plugin is properly activated right?
Connectivity issues unfortunately are not that easy to troubleshoot. If you can rule out that the firewall is blocking somehow the connections there is another thing that comes in mind. Some routers include an option that isolates the wireless clients from the rest of the local network. If this is activated the wireless client can still has the Internet but not the other clients of the local network.

Also if you have a telnet client available you could also check if the plugin listens for connections properly.

Well, I haven't thought of the router. I'll take a look in the settings, although I don't know if there's something that will make it work, since other apps are able to communicate with my pc over the network (when the firewall is disabled of course). But, I can better be sure, so I'll take a look. I'd love to get this working 

[mrad]

Well, my phone doesn't have an amoled screen (my previous one had), so I don't really mind. And, I'm not keeping my screen on all the time, it's a remote. But, that's also why I suggested to add it as a feature to be chosen by the user.

Yup, just thought I'd share in case you or other readers aren't aware Could even be why kelsos used black to begin with, to cover the bases.

[kelsos]

Also did you try changing the default port from 3000 to something else? if other applications can communicate there might be a chance that the port I use as default may be in use by something else.

I am already considering a light theme along with the dark one and it will probably implemented along with the UI redesign. You can see the proposal here https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/musicbee-remote/wgm029yfJnU

[eLr0n]

Hows the playlist feature going? Will there be a release soon?

[kelsos]

Unfortunately the playlist implementation is going a little bit slower than expected.

I did some work (experimentation) on the browsing functionality that I plan to implement, because it is going to affect how the playlist adding works in the future.

I have to figure out a few problems with the planned library metadata syncing in the next few weeks and depending on the outcome I may implement the browsing functionality first, or finish the playlist support in the current application functionality and change the way it works in the future.

At least with the current progress there is not a release planned soon.