Winamp for Android Big Bugs/Features/Suggestions Topic

[kustodian]

I was on a train trip alone for four hours and I didn't have anything to do, so I started testing Winamp for bugs and what features would be nice to have. This is a list of bugs/suggestions I came up with for now. Some features were taken from topics around these forums. I would like to have this topic have all the bugs/suggestions in one place, so if you find any new bugs, or you have some suggestions, make a reply and I will add it in


Glossary of terms:
Streaming search results = results which are displayed before pressing the search icon or return)

Regular search results = results which are displayed after you press return or the search icon.


Winamp for Android 0.9.1

BUGS:

• Streaming/regular search results don't show album covers
  // It's much easier to find stuff if you can see album covers. Songs in the search results should also display album covers.
  
  
• Streaming/regular search results display non relevant results.
  // For example if I type "Wish you were here", besides many results it will display "Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band - King's Highway" from "Trouble is..." album, which has nothing to do with what I searched for.
  I have no idea how does the search work.
  
  
• Streaming search is bugged.
  // For instance if I yet again search "Wish you were here" it displays the album "Wish you were here", all songs from that album and many more songs, but it doesn't display a song with that same name from a different album/artist. This is very annoying.
  
  
• While in "search results" and you press the back button, it goes to search results which display all artists. It should go back to where it was before.
  // I have no idea why this happens.
  
  
• In History when you start scrolling it displays the large scroll bar on the side but it cannot be dragged.
  // Either make it possible to drag it, or replace it with a small scroll bar which cannot be dragged, like the one in the playlist. Not a big deal, but it should be an easy fix.

SUGGESTIONS:

• Rename "Play Queue" to "Now Playing" and add a separate playing queue, like in desktop Winamp.
  // This way it will have the same functionality like the desktop app, and now when you queue a track that is in now playing, it will really queue it, and not duplicate it to the bottom of the list, like it does now. Queue could be accessed from a Menu button while in Now Playing. The more the Android app feels like the desktop app the better.
  
  
• Remove the regular search results and make the streaming search results have all the functionality of regular results.
  // There is no need to press Return to confirm the search, since it finds everything on the fly almost instantly. If you don't want to remove them, at least give the streaming result the same or some functionality besides playing a track.
  
  
• On regular search results make the overlay of the search phrase more transparent
  // This should only need a change if you don't want remove regular search results, since it's very hard to see the bottom two results. You could also remove the overlay and put it in the title: "Search Results for 'search phrase'"
  
  
• Make it so that when you are in Artists and press the search button it only filters artists.
  // The same should apply for albums, songs, now playing, playlist and history. Search the whole library only if you press the search button in Winamp root and other irrelevant places. This should make it very easy and fast to find a specific artist, album...
  
  
• Make it possible to sort now playing, and playlists, in general by track name, artist, file path, etc.
  // This could be done via Menu button. I don't know one player that has this, and it's very important for playlist since it's easier to find songs if the are sorted.
  
  
• Make it easier to remove songs from Now Playing/Playlists.
  // Again this could be an option from the Menu button.
  
• Shuffle Implemented Incorrectly (Link)
  // When shuffle is turned on, and you press Previous song button, it forgets what songs were played.
  
• Sort by "A"/"An", don't ignore them
  // In every music app I used in the library when the artists are are sorted by name, if an artist started with either 'a' or 'an' it was sorted under A, but for 'the' it usually was excluded. Even desktop Winamp does it like this. The group is called "A Perfect Circle", and their name starts with 'A' not 'P'. This is not the same as 'The Rolling Stones", since you can pronounce their name without "the", while you could never say just "Perfect Circle".
  
  
• Make it possible to sort albums in library by release date
  //This could be an option in the settings or accessed from the Menu button while viewing albums from an artists - Sort by: Name/Release Date.
  
  
• Add support for compilations
  // While in Artist view all compilations should be displayed under "Various Artists" as the first artist, to make it easier to find them.
  
  
• Make the widget open Winamp when you press anywhere on the widget, except the buttons.
  // It's pointless to have a big widget and to still need to target the Winamp logo to open the player
  
  
• Make an additional 4x1 widget.
  // Some people like to use a smaller widget.
  
  
• Integrate the lock screen with the Sense/Default lock screen.
  // Atm the lock screen is useless, since we have to unlock the phone two times.
  
• Make the cover art on the lock screen fit by width, and not by height.
  // Atm the cover art looks very bad and you can't see the whole image.
  
• Always show Notification Tray icon if Winamp is running. (Link)
  // This could be very useful for fast and easy access to Winamp. This could be an option in the settings page.

SUPER FEATURES:

• Add an option to refresh the music library, so it checks all songs and reloads the ID3 tags and covers.
  // There is no application on the market that can do this and it's very handy, because when Android reads the tags from a song it never updates that song even if something was changed.
  
  
• Lyrics support.
  // I'm especially thinking of displaying synchronized lyrics which are embedded in the audio files.
  
  
• Support for more formats like flac.
  // I don't care about this one, but I saw a few people ask for this.
  
  
• Equalizer/Gain
  // I don't use it, but many people do.
  
  
• 3G synchronization.
  // I don't care about this one, but there are people who would like to have this functionality.

[captainnapalm]

These are all great suggestions with respect to the Winamp Android music player. Since this is also the forum being used to aggregate issues with the desktop player and its syncing with Android devices, I've got a few suggestions. I do agree that this would seem to be an issue with the desktop player and as such should likely be mentioned there, however a previous comment I made regarding issues with wireless syncing was moved to this forum by the mods.

WIRELESS SYNCING

• More robust discovery of Wireless Devices
  // Currently, the wireless syncing is buggy at best. I often have troubles getting the desktop player to find my Nexus One over Wi-Fi, and when it does, the syncing itself rarely works.
  
• Use or create the "Music" folder and place all music within
  // It would also be handy, as has been mentioned by almost everyone in this forum, if the sync used the Music folder (or created it if it is not already present).
  
• More straight-forward options of playlist synchronization
  // Currently, to sync with playlist(s), you not only have to go into preferences to choose the playlist(s), but you must also uncheck the option to sync the entire library if you don't want your entire library synced to your device, which is the case for the majority of Android users. An interface more akin to doubleTwist/iTunes for device music syncing would be ideal for mass adoption. doubleTwist may not be a perfect solution for Android syncing, but it's far easier to use at this point.
  
• Support for special characters
  // It seems as though some but not all special characters are supported for syncing. A few examples would include 'è', 'œ', 'ï', etc. 'é' seems to be supported.

[kustodian]

OMFG I can't edit my post anymore

Now I can't update the first post

I didn't know that mods moved all Android discussion to this forum, so that means we need to discuss the desktop synching as well.

Nice suggestions captainnapalm, and I like your formatting


Regarding the wireless discovery what I would suggest is that the wireless sync in the Android Winamp is something like the bluetooth discovery option which makes Winamp discoverable for a few seconds. That means you would go into Winamp settings click "Make discoverable for next 30s" and than you would press "Start Discover" on the desktop app to discover it.

[iron2000]

I wonder could the plugins system of the desktop Winamp be ported to Android?
Then the input plugins can be used to enable playback of other formats.

[DrO]

@iron2000: i don't think it is possible to do that especially if android is a linux type OS so would require making any plug-ins from scratch to do that (just like doing a 64-bit or any other port to a different OS).

it's not like there's not already patches for android to support some of the other formats provided by plug-ins like wavpack and flac (that i'm aware off) which if implemented natively then could be accessed via the media apis the Winamp app uses. as for additional formats in the app, i've not heard anything about expanding the support from what android is natively providing (at least not for the forseeable future as i'd assume adding things in requires making a different playback engine to cope).

i'm surprised it's taken so long since the app appeared for someone to ask for that, heh

@kustodian: there is a limit to how long a post can be edited after being posted (unless you're a mod / admin). and yes things relating to android have been moved into this forum as it's easier to deal with especially with what was being posted in the other forums which didn't belong there like wifi sync stuff which is pretty much related to the android support so would best make sense to be in here - also since no one giving the free tech support has a compatible device there's not much tech support to do in that case.

-daz

[kustodian]

Originally Posted by DrO

@kustodian: there is a limit to how long a post can be edited after being posted (unless you're a mod / admin). and yes things relating to android have been moved into this forum as it's easier to deal with especially with what was being posted in the other forums which didn't belong there like wifi sync stuff which is pretty much related to the android support so would best make sense to be in here - also since no one giving the free tech support has a compatible device there's not much tech support to do in that case.

-daz

Could you as a moderator edit the first topic then with all reported bugs, etc?

[DrO]

i could though i'm really not the best person as i don't have an android device (i'm only posting in here at the moment as no one else is) and i don't know what is a bug / feature request / expected behaviour for the app, etc.

plus this thread and the others are known about even if no one 'official' has posted.

-daz

[captainnapalm]

Found another huge bug.

I synced a large playlist (3300+ files) to my device using the USB sync. I set the location of music to /Music/<Artist>/<Album>/<filename> and to my horror, this has somehow erased all of my embedded album art. I am anal about having album art properly embedded and if I simply drag and drop files from using Windows Explorer, or even using WiFi sync (when it decides to work) I have no issues with album art.

[jimruthless]

The biggest bug in this is that it doesnt fucking work, It can play music for 30 seconds on a samsung galaxy s then it stops. FUCKING CRAP, I warn people from use winamp crapplayer for android. More bugs in that player than the flies flying towards the shit i dumped yesterday in the toilet, so fucking bad is it.

[kustodian]

Originally Posted by jimruthless

The biggest bug in this is that it doesnt fucking work, It can play music for 30 seconds on a samsung galaxy s then it stops. FUCKING CRAP, I warn people from use winamp crapplayer for android. More bugs in that player than the flies flying towards the shit i dumped yesterday in the toilet, so fucking bad is it.

It working fine here on HTC Desire, no playback problems whatsoever. Also it is a beta, which means it's not stable yet and you should expect bugs and things that don't work, so keep your CRAP for yourself until it gets to final version. If you really want to help you could give more details about your problems, like what Android version do you have, what third party software do you have, etc.

[kustodian]

SUGGESTIONS:

• ID3 Tag Editing
  // This would be more than awesome to have, but it will need to update the tags in the android library or Media Storage (whatever it's called).

SUPER FEATURES:

• Stream music from your Library
  // Many of us are waiting for Winamp Remote to work on Android Winamp.

[technoman87]

I have noticed the same album art problem when I sync via usb. The ablum art is removed from file and is not displayed in Winamp. I used MP3Tag editor to view the files and the album art is not there. Again it only happens when syncing via usb.

[jzaruba]

SUGGESTIONS:

• write Android native playlists
  // to get m3u from PC to Android for the default player to recognize them requires iTunes (WTF?) or doubleTwist (crap)... hoping I could get playlists from PC into the Android player made me install WinAmp once again, so I think this feature might attract more (PC) users even if they initially did not care for 3rd-party player

[kustodian]

BUGS:

• When in regular search results and you open an album that was found, when press the Back button, it leaves Winamp.
  // This one is very annoying, since it should come back to the search results.

[otis_bartleh]

SUGGESTION:

Please make an option for us to choose the name of the album art file. WinAmp is copying all my "folder.jpg" files (which don't show in my gallery), and creating a "folder.jpeg" which does show in my gallery. So now I have about 50 extra folders of album art in my gallery that I don't want there.

[racelike]

I would like to suggest a Stop Button, something like this:


These buttons are from then classic skin.
The Pause button would work as it is today, along with Play button.

[racelike]

iron2000, I don't use the syncing function too. But I will try to test just to see how it works.

Originally Posted by racelike

I would like to suggest a Stop Button, something like this:


These buttons are from then classic skin.
The Pause button would work as it is today, along with Play button.

A new ideia would be to keep 3 buttons. Play button keeps switching to Pause button when the music is playing, but if you press Pause for let's say more than 1 second, then the Stop button appears right above the Pause button, so that you can choose to Stop the music (meaning that it will go to 0:00).

[Myrlin1]

I feel that the ability to choose where to sync music to is an absolute must for wireless syncing. I use several different folders on my Android Desire to organize my media; i.e. Notification sounds, Ringtones, Music, Pictures, Videos, etc... While it doesn't necessarily hurt anything for the music to be synced to the root of the SDCard, it makes it much more difficult to manage the filesystem when I need to. It is possible to do this when syncing via USB, so why not Wireless? Other than that, I'm loving the media player.

I would also like to say that the lock screen control is a little awkward. Adding an additional step to unlock the phone is annoying, at the very least. The default Android player adds previous/[play/pause]/next buttons to the standard lock screen. Could the same be done for Winamp? The Album Art could be displayed as the lock screen background. That would eliminate the "multiple lock screens" issue.

One bug that I have noticed: Music is not removed from the device when you tell Winamp Desktop to do so. This is while I have my Android connected via Wireless. I have not yet tested to see if the problem persists while connected via USB.

[JunBringer]

I updated the app today and now it won't let me put music on my Evo wirelessly. It tells me that my device is full, when it has over a gig available.

[iron2000]

I would like a Stop button too!
I find it weird that all the portable players/music apps don't have the Stop function.

Also it would be good to add playback support for other file formats.

(Actually to me, the syncing function is of low importance. Ya, but its just me :P)

[joebloggscity]

like the new update so far, but can you add the following (really important for many of us who listen to podcasts):

2) Can you add for the podcasts/speech/Audiobooks the function to restart where last stopped left off? Very important as podcasts can be upto 90mins long or so.

3) Please add Smart Views if possible, it's one of the best things in Winamp and would be great to have it in here also

1) Add "podcasts" as separate to artists/albums etc... Makes them easier to find

2) For podcast/audiobook/speech need to ensure there is a "restart from where you last left off" option.

[keld]

I have a very annoying bug on my HTC EVO 4G.
If I'm listening to music through the phone's jack in my car (plugged on the car's stereo) and I have my bluetooth headset on and I get a call, the music pauses on pick up, I make my call then when I hang up, the music resumes and if I try to access winamp before the screen goes off (when I hangup from the bluetooth the screen lights up to show that I hung up), then android's desktop crashes and I can see it reloading the same way as if I restarted my phone and it takes at least 10 seconds before I can do anything with it again.
This bug happens 90% of the time, I almost want to uninstall it but waiting to see if the next release will fix this.

[stopasking]

I would absolutely switch over to winamp once it lets you listen to last.fm radio. I love the shoutcast support, but I also use last.fm a lot too. Having everything in one music player would be awesome!

[bolski]

I would love to have gapless playback and cross-fading.

Easier way to create playlists. Specifically, I would like a way to select multiple songs and send them to a play list rather than having to pick each song individually and add it, such as selecting an entire folder to send to a playlist. I can't seem to find an easy way to do this and also, when synching playlists from WinAmp on my PC to my droid, I can't find them on the droid.

Also, treble/bass controls and an equalizer would be great too.

[mimikish]

Cue file & gapless playback = win

[angelotseb]

unlock of the lock-screen player should unlock the phone!?!!

[joebloggscity]

Restart where left off.

For MP3s tagged as podcasts/speeches they are usually 60-90mins long and the problem is that you can't always listen to them all the way through.

Can you add an option that the player will restart that MP3 where you last left off even if you play something else in between? This is done in Winamp using the "History" plug-in.

That would be perfect.

[zeppelingitis]

SUGGESTION:

I got really used to features on my iPod Touch, mainly the rating and Genius features. They are actually the only features I miss about the only Apple product I have ever owned. Now that I'm on Android, I love using Winamp, but find my experience seriously hampered without the Genius playlist and being able to rate songs. I understand there's an equivalent feature for Genius, the Playlist Generator? It would be nice to see this on Winamp. I would like the rating feature even more, so that I know which songs to delete from my library later on.

Also, I agree with the lock screen suggestion. One extra step to unlock, ugh.

[zeppelingitis]

Also, the shuffle feature will repeat songs in the Queue.

[pizzapizza]

I use an ASUS Transformer Pad and winamp crashes and continually has to restart! It's a total farce! Where are the programs to fix this issue!?

Winamp on PC, no prob.

Winamp on tablet, shite!

[Brent2121]

1) Add "jump to song" while browsing the active playlist/queue.

2) Add an option to toggle behavior when a artist/album/song/folder is "played". One behavior is to have the active playlist/queue cleared and have the selection added to the active playlist/queue and immediately start playing. The other behavior (which I would use) is to have the selection simply appended to the end of the active playlist/queue.

3) Sync/copy the smart views from desktop Winamp to playlists/smart views on the Android device.

4) Fix the damn bug where embedded album art is removed (or just not used) from tracks when they are copied to the Android device from a PC.

[theoriginaljava]

USB discover crash problem
// Ever when i connect my LG Optimus Me P350 on the PC and try to "discover" it, the winamp crashes and closes itself. I've read that before, that the connection of USB sync is poor, will it have an solution?


Sorry about any error in english, i'm a brazilian that no had fluence yet.

[yoavniran]

features:
1) make the control buttons bigger. im really surprised that the buttons (play,back,forward) were designed so small. These are used on a touch screen with fingers not a mouse! how can you make them this small and so close to each other? very bad design. especially on the lock screen.

2) allow wifi sync to sync to the SD card and not the phones internal memory. This limitation makes the wifi sync useless even more than the fact that it seems to stop if the screen times out

bugs:

1) the lock screen at times will cause my phone to crash (Galaxy S, 2.3.4).

2) wifi sync stops when the screen times out