Author Topic: MusicBee Remote (Remote Control for Android)  (Read 496977 times)

kelsos

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After considering suggestions by Steven and others, the application final name will be MusicBee Remote.

Help and documentation might be outdated

The application is build targeting the latest in Android OS, while keeping compatibility where is possible with older devices. At this points the entry level is Android 6.0.

You can find download links, help and information at the application website on https://mbrc.kelsos.net/

To opt-in for beta versions you can visit https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.kelsos.mbrc

Both the android application and the plugin are open source, licensed under GPLv3 and they are hosted on Github.
The application source code repository is hosted at https://github.com/musicbeeremote/android-app
You can find known issues and planned feature on the issues page https://github.com/musicbeeremote/android-app/issues

The plugin source code repository is at https://github.com/musicbeeremote/plugin

You can find the MusicBee Remote android application on Google Play

Feature requests are always considered and depending on the number of people asking for a specific feature it might get a higher priority than others.

I plan to add help on the new version in the following days, since there are many differences compared to the previous release.

Help

If you require help for can visit the help section

Plugin Installation

Info! Always make sure you use the suggested version of the plugin for your installed version of MusicBee Remote.
    
The user now has two options for the plugin installation, the one is the automated installer and the other is the 7zip archive. The installer should locate the MusicBee installation folder automatically. The other options is the 7zip archive, you may want to use the archive in case you are using the portable version of MusicBee. To install the plugin using the archive you should simply extract the contents to the MusicBee plugin folder.

The update process is the same with the installation you just have to replace the previous version with the new. The installer does this by default.

Info! In case you need it the default MusicBee installation folder should be either C:\Program Files (x86)\MusicBee\Plugins on a 64bit system or C:\Program Files\MusicBee\Plugins on a 32bit system.
Although the plugin has some default settings and it can function out of the box, it is suggested to configure it during the first run. You can find the plugin settings panel either through the MusicBee menu->Tools->MusicBee Remote or by MusicBee menu ->Edit->Preferences and then Find the Plugins option and locate the musicbee remote:plugin entry.




  • Is the status of the socket listener. If the status is Running then everything is fine.
  • It the port where the plugin listens for incoming connections. You will need it only if the automatic setup is not working or if you use the application over a Mobile wireless internet connection (3G etc).
  • The address filtering functionality is the same as in the previous version.
  • Is a list with the IP addresses of the interfaces of your computer. If there is only one then this is the one you will need in case of manual configuration along with the port number. It there are more then it will be one of them. (Wifi)


    Warning! Although it is possible to use the remote through a 3G or remote internet connection, the suggested operation model over a Wifi LAN connection. Use it only if you know exactly what are you doing. Support for the NAT configuration of your router will not be provided.

    Using MusicBee Remote

    Main Screen




  • The new version has support for 5 star rating. To display the rating bar you have to click on the cover. The rating bar will stay visible for 3 seconds.
  • A last.fm love button has been added, simply tapping the icon will toggle the loved status of the track. A long press will ban the track.
  • Clicking on the Application logo (Home Button) will open the Navigation Drawer. Another way to open the navigation drawer is by a slide gesture starting from the left border of the screen. The slide has to start from the edge.


    Search

    By pressing the search button on the action bar a text input will appear. The selected page represents the context of the search. So in the Genre tab you will search for Genres etc. You can change the current page by swiping.

    If no results match your search then the application will show you a corresponding message. Otherwise the list will be loaded with the search results. The short press action for each entry can be configured throught the options. The default action is to Queue Last. By pressing either the context icon (highlight in the red box) or by a long press you can get the context menu with the available actions.

    The available actions for the context menu are Queue Next, Queue Last, Play Now (clears the existing now playing list) and for Genre there is one more option to Get the Artists for the specific genre, for Artists the option to get the Albums for the specific Artist and finally for the Album the option to get the Tracks for the specific album.



    Now Playing



    There have been a number of changes on the functionality of the now playing list.

  • The now playing list supports search functionality. The search will play the first match for the keyword used.
  • You can now sort the now playing list my dragging each list item to a new position. You simple have to touch the drag indicator and move the item to a new position.
  • You can remove a track from the now playing list by touching the remove indicator and swiping either to the left or the right side to remove the track.


    Other than that tapping on a specific item should play the related track.

    Settings

    There have been a few changes on the settings screen.

  • The old settings entry for port and address have been replaces by the Manage Connections entry
  • An option to enable/disable the notification control widget has been added for devices running at least Android 3 (this will not appear on devices running Froyo (2.2) or Gingerbread (2.3.x) since this type of notifications is not supported by the specific platforms).
  • The user can select the default press action for the search functionality (Queue Next, Queue Last, Play Now).




    Connection Manager



    On the connection manager you can see a list of the connections stored. Only one connection will be used by the application each time, the one that is set as default.

  • The connection entry item represents a specific connection. The first line is the name of the computer, the second line contains the ip address (or host name), and finally a tick in the case of the default connection. By tapping the entry you can set it as default. Also by using a long press you can open a context menu with more actions like edit or delete.
  • The scan button uses is used for to automatically setup the application, detecting the remote plugin. It works only on a Wifi connection and requires UDP Multicast to function. The plugin must be activated in MusicBee for this to work.
  • In case the scan functionality does not work you can use the add functionality to manually add your connection settings.


    Warning! The discovery functionality may not work if your router disables UDP Multicast.
Last Edit: May 31, 2021, 07:50:17 PM by kelsos

Steven

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Iasc

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it works. nice job. are the pictures of the next version

kelsos

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The pictures at the end yes. The are a preview for the next version

Iasc

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windhero

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Spiron

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As pretty much everyone above has said, it looks good and works really well.  The screenshots and planned features for the beta/full version look even better.  So my question is do you have a planned timeframe for the beta release or are you just working off 'release-when-ready'??

MasterP

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very nice kelsos!
and i was afraid you had this project abandoned.  ;D
new UI looks sweet!

kelsos

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I am busy for the following two weeks with my exams so there will be no progress. After this ends I plan on doing some minor fixes on some known issues, tweaking a little bit the QVGA layout for devices with small screens and creating a HVGA layout that I know have issues displaying properly, after this, I am suspecting after 3-4 weeks I am going to release a version for testing. I have in mind a testing phase of about to weeks in order to find any issues I might have missed. Somewhere at this point I will also start searching on what is need to get the application on Google play. That's what I have In mind, after the release of the initial version at Google Play, I will start working on new features, like the ability to love/ban tracks in last.fm, and then I ll start working on the playlist management functionality along with the library search functionality.

sambice

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A big +1 for this whole idea!

The main thing I miss about my ex-player is the android remote.

Adantingtask

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Yes please! Just recently discovered Music Bee and really like the aesthetics of the version you are working on. Keep it up!

jpirez

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kelsos

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I am working on some minor things and hopefully in the next few days there will be a new version up for testing. After fixing whatever issues appear during this testing phase there will be the initial upload of the application on Google Play, and I will start working on new features.

brainfryd

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The anticipation is killing me... :-) am loving this media player in general and this will cap it off .. the new layout looks very cool

kelsos

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The plan is that unless something unexpected happens, either tomorrow or the day after there will be a test version uploaded.

Some parts of the new design may differ depending on the android version or screen size.