Winamp 5.5 Beta Preview 1 (Build 1550)

[kenwoods]

Hi!
I love the new version and the Bento skin.

Only problem I have is in the main window (where the album art appears), I can't remove the "Show Album Artist" in the File Info Components, it always appears!
even though it's not marked!

Thanks.

[Edit -> DJ Egg]
Reproduced. Thanks.

[Energie]

I would like to be able to rate my songs via a small standalone window, i.e window with five stars and by clicking on a star you've rated a song.

The library should be able to make use of this.

[Omega X]

For some odd reason, my system locks up when closing WA. (Vista HP)

I haven't found the cause quite yet.

[kafkef]

^^^ on my system (vista hp too (hp m8055)) winamp keeps restarting when i close it. also i can only use a few of the keyboards media control keys on winamp.

[denilson3]

Originally posted by denilson3
I've had several crashes on Vista when closing Winamp Bento in winshade mode while a track is paused. Winamp remains in the taskbar and I am unable to close or open other programs. Ctrl Alt Del works but then the Task manager does not start and a manual reboot is required. My laptop still responds with the usual "ding" when I unplug a USB device and dims the screen when I unplug the power cord. I think it may be a problem with dwm.exe because that has also crashed and recovered upon close of winamp at times (though this is a good thing as I am able to continue using the computer).

Though this has happened to me 4-5 times in the past two days, unfortunately I have been unable to repeat this with consistency. Perhaps someone else has encountered a similar problem and could shed light on the additional steps required to trigger the bug.

My specs:
Dell Inspiron 1720: Vista Home Premium + Centrino Duo 2.0Ghz + Nvidia 8600M GT + Intel HDA ICH8

[edit]
Just happened again after I typed this. Not a full system crash, just dwm.exe

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Dwm.exe
Application Version: 6.0.6000.16386
Application Timestamp: 4549aed1
Fault Module Name: uDWM.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.0.6000.16386
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549bdd7
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0001026f
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 8d13
Additional Information 2: cdca9b1d21d12b77d84f02df48e34311
Additional Information 3: 8d13
Additional Information 4: cdca9b1d21d12b77d84f02df48e34311

[Freaky_T]

I like the new unified skin, but I'd like to see the ability to move the playlist to the area where the media library is normally shown.

[cold c]

Hello, thanks for the new release.

Regarding the new Bento skin -

1) Will there be any way to move or dock the playlist editor within the main window (I noticed it is collapsible, but I would like it between the main window and the media library)?

2) Will there be any way to increase the size of the album art?

On the Album Artist data -

3) The Album Artist data seems to be populated from (and populating) the Band/TPE2 field. Will there be any way to get the Album Artist data to populate from an 'Album Artist' field instead??

Keep up the great work. Thanks.

[Mike9182]

steps:
add file to ipod

result:
at end of file transfer error reporting comes up. When the progress bar is at the end it says "Error. Unable to run reporter". Then winamp closes.

I am running windows Vista 64-bit.

[Edit -> DJ Egg]
What iPod model is it?

[Meshuggah]

Originally posted by DJ Egg

@Meshuggah
As referenced in the Notes in the first post, the cover art config/options have not been implemented yet.

Thanks for the reply...what about the star rating in the SUI skin? I find it very hard to read what star rating my songs are. Bright gold stars would fix this problem

[denilson3]

Originally posted by denilson3
My specs:
Dell Inspiron 1720: Vista Home Premium + Centrino Duo 2.0Ghz + Nvidia 8600M GT + Intel HDA ICH8

[edit]
Just happened again after I typed this. Not a full system crash, just dwm.exe

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Dwm.exe
Application Version: 6.0.6000.16386
Application Timestamp: 4549aed1
Fault Module Name: uDWM.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.0.6000.16386
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549bdd7
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0001026f
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 8d13
Additional Information 2: cdca9b1d21d12b77d84f02df48e34311
Additional Information 3: 8d13
Additional Information 4: cdca9b1d21d12b77d84f02df48e34311

just got the same exact error again when i hit f5 to reload the bento skin.

[soulstace]

Originally posted by cold c
Regarding the new Bento skin -

2) Will there be any way to increase the size of the album art?

Is this what you mean?

In default Audio view, for example, click the silver button Pane Options -> Album art -> Small, Medium, or Large

[kafkef]

i think he ment the one that shows the album art of the current track.

[hushypushy]

The new spectrum analyzer is great! It's exactly what I've been wanting for a long time--it works great with ReplayGain

[soulstace]

Wow, the devs have really knocked a lot of bugs off the list!

I may never need another woman in my life thanks to the new Winamp! I am that much in love <3 <3

LOL

[Mike9182]

Originally posted by Mike9182
steps:
add file to ipod

result:
at end of file transfer error reporting comes up. When the progress bar is at the end it says "Error. Unable to run reporter". Then winamp closes.

I am running windows Vista 64-bit.

[Edit -> DJ Egg]
What iPod model is it?

It is a 2gb ipod nano, with the latest firmware (v1.1.3). The model number is A119, which is 2nd generation.

[Perseid]

@DJEgg:

I'm using Windows XP SP2, Athlon 3700+, 2GB RAM, GeForce 7900GT KO. Here are the steps I can do to duplicate the error 100% of the time:

Use AVS. I don't know if other plugins do it.
Click the Visualizer tab.
Right click the window, choose Fullscreen
Single-click to get back to windowed mode.
Works fine (always)
Right click the window, choose Fullscreen (again)
Single-click to get back to windowed mode.
Glitched the second time (always)

It might be my video drivers. I've had nothing but bad luck with NVidia's 7900GT drivers. If DJEgg can't make this happen can someone with a 7900GT try it?

[screamin_jesus]

I like the new skin alot. Unfortunately when I try and sync my ipod video with this version it just crashes after 100% with a Visual C++ error. (Also bricked half the songs on my ipod) I had to revert to 5.35 and re-add everything. 5th Gen ipod Video works perfectly with 5.35.

[Serpher]

Winamp 5.5 (b1550):
- Shows VBR on mp3 files who are not a VBR mp3 files (Metadata)
- Scrolling text in main window is now 'slower'. I mean that fraps missing...

PS.
Bento skin is good but not the best ;]

[DJ Egg]

@Serpher
Both of those issues are listed in the Known Bugs/Issues section of the first post

@Perseid
No, I can't reproduce the problem.
Though I'm using an ATI Radeon card, not NVidia...
Anyone else?

@denilson3
Bug report logged

___________________________________________________

Re: iPod crashes etc
I'll leave those for Will to respond to...

Re: Bento skin
I'll leave those for Martin to respond to...

[Serpher]

Sorry I didn't looked there. Next time I will.
And thanks for the answer.

PS.
Are you thinkin' about multi-threading in Winamp?

[screamin_jesus]

Originally posted by screamin_jesus
I like the new skin alot. Unfortunately when I try and sync my ipod video with this version it just crashes after 100% with a Visual C++ error. (Also bricked half the songs on my ipod) I had to revert to 5.35 and re-add everything. 5th Gen ipod Video works perfectly with 5.35.

Alright I also sumbitted a bug report with a crash log. I hope these ipod crashes are fixed because There is no way in hell I am touching iTunes and I really like the new singleUI.

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....65#post2236865

[flocksoft]

Originally posted by Perseid
I'm using Windows XP SP2, Athlon 3700+, 2GB RAM, GeForce 7900GT KO. Here are the steps I can do to duplicate the error 100% of the time:

Use AVS. I don't know if other plugins do it.
Click the Visualizer tab.
Right click the window, choose Fullscreen
Single-click to get back to windowed mode.
Works fine (always)
Right click the window, choose Fullscreen (again)
Single-click to get back to windowed mode.
Glitched the second time (always)

It might be my video drivers. I've had nothing but bad luck with NVidia's 7900GT drivers. If DJEgg can't make this happen can someone with a 7900GT try it?

I confirm it, and add this: my test system is less powerful (Athlon 2800+, and nVidia GeForce FX 5200, so the second time (the glitched one), the Winamp cpu utilization goes to 100% (also with the very small AVS integrated in the File Info component, ~60x60 pixels) until I change skin (Winamp Modern Skin don't do it); with all the skins (classic & modern), Double-click in main window goes to fullscreen don't work (instantly goes to fullscreen and comes back to normal window)

PS: DirectX and video drivers are updated (latest official nVidia 162.18, WHQL certified 26-07-2007)

[JW]

Originally posted by Meshuggah
My question is, is it possible to add an options in Winamp options to instead of looking for album art where the mp3 is located, to look through a Covers folder and match up the ID3 tags to the cover?[/B]

X2, except I'd like it to pull the album art from an entry in the playlist. There was a plugin that would do that (HTML Viewer), but it got broken when MB functionality was tossed somewhere around v. 5.2x. A plugin was developed to bring back the MB functions, but it doesn't work in 5.5. That's a far more logical way to handle it than pulling from the ID3 tags (how does one handle the same file on multiple albums, for example - by maintaining several copies of the same thing, with different tag info?).

[Hayden_54]

With this new Bento skin (which is great ), it changes the way I use Winamp. Rather than briefly opening the media library, it is there all the time.
That's why I'm really hoping that before the final version of 5.5 is out, there is the ability to have smart views and playlists nested within categories, so that I can see all the different tree items easily rather than just having the whole thing taken up by just smart views.
With the SUI, extra windows look a little out of place so I have integrated plugins like Album List into the ML, so being able to easily access the tree item is a pretty important feature for me.

[DJ Egg]

@screamin_jesus

Please attach the zipped crash report to a new post in THIS thread.

I've locked your thread in the Bug Reports forum (and will be deleting it shortly), because that forum is currently for 5.35 reports ONLY.

The attachment feature is available via the "Post A Reply" button.

[screamin_jesus]

Alright, here it is.

I have a 5th gen ipod video (30GB) with latest firmware I believe. Winamp 5.35 syncs fine with it. When I try and sync it with the 5.5 beta it immediately crashes and the error reporter comes up and says "could not run error reporter". If I leave my ipod connected and start winamp again all the columns are gone until i start it without it connected. For example I deleted some songs with 5.50, it crashed and those songs are shown on my ipod but just no longer play. Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit, 3.0 ghz p4, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7600GS (163.69 drivers) Realtek AC'97 Sound.

Winamp caused an Access Violation (0xc0000005)
in module pmp_ipod.dll at 001b:0468530c

[iisdev]

Originally posted by Benski
[ url=http://stashbox.org/36899/1/bento.png][Image][/ url]

Benski? How did you remove Dashboard, Now Playing, Online Services, etc.. from the Media Library?

I've gone through the preferences about three or four times now looking for a screen like this:

MEDIA LIBRARY
Display the following items in the left pane:
[_] Dashboard
[_] Now Playing
[X] Local Media
[_] Remote Media
[X] Playlists
[_] Online Services
[_] Podcasts
[_] Portables
[_] Bookmarks
[_] Optical Drives

I haven't found it yet. How did you do it/where is it?

Thanks!

[Sawg]

When you install, you can choose what components you want to install (never blindly hit next). You can uninstall plugins you don't want at Preferences > Plugins > Media Library

[kiilu]

when did winamp get this ugly?? i know i sound mean but is it really that difficult to create the perfect GUI for a music player? winamp community used to be full of creative people... sigh...

[iisdev]

Originally posted by Sawg
When you install, you can choose what components you want to install (never blindly hit next). You can uninstall plugins you don't want at Preferences > Plugins > Media Library

Thank you Sawg for the quick reply!

I didn't realize that I had to choose (at installation) which items would be present in the left pane. That may be common knowledge to users who are familiar with the sofware but for new users it wasn't where I expected (the options) to be.

iTunes for example makes this task very easy; it's on the first tab of options under preferences:

[Edit --> DJ Egg] Damn imageshack images changed to url's [/Edit]

http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?i...optionssl5.gif
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/7...optionssl5.gif

http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?i...optionssl5.gif
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/7...optionssl5.gif


Here was my experience while trying to accomplish this task:

After starting Winamp for the first time I instinctively looked for a preferences/options dialog to adjust the left pane for my personal needs.

I looked first under 'General Preferences' (based on my previous experience with iTunes). I didn't find anything there and finally realized that the skin in use (Bento) had very dark tabs and that I was actually in 'Media Library' tab (very small rasterized fonts). I scrolled down the very long list of options until I found an entry for 'Media Library'. Then I saw 'Dashboard','Podcasts', and thought - "aha! that's where I should look". When I selected each of them I found no option for toggling the (feature's) display in the left pane. I didn't make the connection that these features (Dashboard, Podcasts, etc..) were actually plug-ins until Sawg mentioned it to me. Only then did I scroll further (past skins) to the 'Plug-ins' section. I selected 'Media Library' and then was presented with a list of names (and what appeared to be filenames) for each of the features. I thought "Ok - This is really it!" I selected the 'Nullsoft Dashboard v1.01 [ml_dash.dll]' and clicked the 'Configure Selected plug-in' button to find the option to disable the dashboards display in the left pane. To my dismay I was presented with the same screen that I chose when I had selected 'Dashboard' under 'Media Library' (directly under General Preferences). In the end as Sawg pointed out the only option left to me was to uninstall the feature completely.

I write all of this because I didn't necessarily want to uninstall the featuress - I just wanted to tidy up the left pane which was chock full of items added during the default installation (I hit next button).

I humbly suggest the following addition to every plug-in that is displayed in the left pane of the Media Library:


[Edit --> DJ Egg] and again (please read the instructions in the 1st post first) [/Edit]

http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?i...gestionur6.gif
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9...gestionur6.gif

http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?i...gestionur6.gif
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9...gestionur6.gif

That simple checkbox to toggle the visibility of the feature (without uninstalling it) would go miles to improve usability.

P.S. I'm sorry I had trouble getting the images to display correctly in my post.

[DJ Egg]

@kiilu
It's just a skin, and a SingleUI skin at that.
Winamp still comes with Winamp Classic (the default built-in skin) and Winamp Modern.
Winamp Bento skin is just another option, because that's what many users asked for, a SingleUI skin.
There's still thousands of other skins out there to choose from, including a fair few other SingleUI skins.
Some people love the Bento skin, some don't mind it, some will never use it, some hate it. That's the way it will always be with just about everything.

@iisdev
Installer Options
Uncheck items you don't want.
If you forget/ignore, then you uninstall ML plugins via:
Prefs > Plugins > Media Library > hi-light the plugin > click 'Uninstall'
(probably a good idea to make sure the ML window is closed at the time),
or just delete the respective ml_*.dll from the Winamp\Plugins folder.
That's the way it's always been, and isn't likely to change. At least not just yet anyway... but your points are valid and noted.
Note that 'History' has a Prefs option to show/hide it in the tree,
so I guess it would certainly be possible to do with other ml plugins
(though I doubt if we'd ever give the option to show/hide Local Media).

[Sawg]

Winamp isn't iTunes though, and you are expected to pay attention to the installer. That, and if you don't have an option in the left pane in the Media Library, there is no point of having it installed. Plugins can be uninstalled Preferences > Plugins > Media Library.

I wouldn't expect this to change.

[iisdev]

Originally posted by Sawg
Winamp isn't iTunes though, and you are expected to pay attention to the installer. That, and if you don't have an option in the left pane in the Media Library, there is no point of having it installed. Plugins can be uninstalled Preferences > Plugins > Media Library.

I wouldn't expect this to change.

Yes, I know that and don't mistake my post for an attempt to make it into iTunes. I could have just as easily referenced another media library with similar preferences. iTunes happened to be the first that came to mind as it is by far the most widely used application at my school.

What I am suggesting is to take a look at how iTunes solved a very similar problem. Winamp's solution only seems to be to (1.)not install it at all or (2.)if it is installed uninstall the plug-in directly. I don't think a typical user will make the connection between 'feature' (such as dashboard, podcasts) and 'plug-ins' - I know I certainly didn't. Having the plugins available if needed is a good thing. Having the ability to toggle the item's visibility in the left pane of the Media Library seems to be a trivial change. All that would be needed is a checkbox under the preferences and to set a 'isVisible' property to true/false depending on whether the checkbox is checked or not.

Anyway, it's a just a suggestion. Comparisons with other media players are inevitable. I don't think there is anything wrong with improving the usability for a wider audience?

[Forgotten00]

I've submitted a bug report already, but I've noticed Bento and Milkdrop have some issues. Milkdrop becomes overblown in the main visualizer (tab) and squished (mini spot between controls and playlist) every once and a while. Resizing the window fixes the problem. Here is a screenshot of the bug in action:

[Edit -> DJ Egg]
Huge images changed to url's.
Please read the instructions in the first post first.
No imageshack url's. Use stashbox.org and post thumbnails linking to the full image instead (note, admin/mods can still see the url's, even if it says 'url submitted by user' to everyone else).
--
[Edit -> Forgotten00]
Sorry for the massive images, now uploaded to stashbox with thumbnails

http://stashbox.org/37540/issuevk2.jpg

http://stashbox.org/37540/issuevk2.jpg

and

http://stashbox.org/37541/issue.jpg

http://stashbox.org/37541/issue.jpg

Lets see... Standard specs:

Windows XP Pro SP2 (32-bit)
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz
2048 MB DDR2 RAM
-
Winamp 5.5 BETA (build 1550)
Winamp Bento 0.7 #091
Milkdrop Plugin 1.04L

PM or email me for more info.

[NotAgOat]

The album browser in the ML now splits albums by artist. This is annoying when trying to listen to a movie sound track that has several artists.

EDIT:
Apparently I'm not allowed to post links so here is a tiny url.
*******.com/3bt4zt

EDIT2:
Replace the stars with "*******"

EDIT3:
wow... ok yeah if you can get there good.

[Sawg]

Select them all, right click "Edit Selected Items"
Set the Album Artist to something (eg. "Various Artists", "Soundtrack", or "Movie Name").

[NotAgOat]

Originally posted by Sawg
Select them all, right click "Edit Selected Items"
Set the Album Artist to something (eg. "Various Artists", "Soundtrack", or "Movie Name").

I would rather the bug just get fixed, I like to have the artists listed correctly. But thanks for the tip.

[Sawg]

It's not a bug. It's how it is designed to work. Album art is based on Album Artist and then Artist. If all the Artists are different and there is no Album Artist, it is considered a different album, since there can be albums with the same name by different artists.

[mynameisnobody]

4 suggestions:

1) Tooltips for Albumart-pane(only Icons), e.g. in the SimpleAlbumView it would be handy if there more Infos, maybe a handling like ATF.
Maybe a job for DrO?

2) more columns in the Albumart-pane(Infomode), on big screens there is many space wasted.

3)in the SimpleAlbumView it would be helpfully, if it would possible to decide to sort out singlefiles or Albums with less than xx tracks.

4)last but not least: cascadable SmartViews, please

[jmbattle]

Originally posted by iisdev
iTunes happened to be the first that came to mind as it is by far the most widely used application at my school.

Gosh, whatever happened to good old Microsoft Word?

In all seriousness though, showing tickboxes beside each item in the 'Media Library plug-ins' list is a rather good idea, allowing users to enable/disable plugins one-by-one, as opposed to uninstall them entirely.

Kind regards,
James
x