few pointers from iTunes.

[Velvet Sledge]

i've been using iTunes a bit lately... it's got a bunch of features i'd like to see implemented into winamp..

- the ability to prevent a song from being played automatically, with out acctually removing it from the playlist... iTunes does it with chech (tick) boxes.

- the Star rating/points system... i'm not sure if itunes star rating is any more then just a pretty feature, or if it plays the higher rated more often... but the latter would be useful. and as for the points system, say if you were to manually start a song, then it'd get a point, if you stopped or skiped a song part the way through, then it'd loose a point, and the songs with the most points got played more often, catch my drift?


- a much larger spectrum analyser in the main window, perhaps even a left/right analyser like iTunes. and the removal of some useless info like bitrate or stereo/mono, and the shuf/eq lights.

- the ability to apply id3 tags to many songs at once... just things like album, artist,

- the ability to automatically start a song part way through, 'cause there are some songs with crap at the start.

- automatically change the eq settings depending on the song playing. can be set with the id3 tag

others not in itunes

- the ability to lock certain parts of a playlist... ie override sorting, for example, i've got some skitz mix mp3z, and it's heaps better if you play it in the order it was on the CD. but with the song titles instead of the track number in there, it'll just automatically organise them...


and before you say "well if you love itunes so much why not use it all the time" winamp has some/more great features the iTunes, for starters it's much smaller. and if winamp could implement some of these features it would kick ass, more

[drewbar]

1. Why? Just remove it from the playlist

2. Already can (check the Media Library)

3. Already can. Use a different (modern) skin or use a windowed visualization plugin.

4. Already can. Check the Media Library once again. Select multiple tracks, right click and select Edit...

5. Already can. Check the Equalizer. There is the little Auto button and you can save them under the preset button.

[electricmime]

there are ratings in winamp.. in the ml you right click and go under rate items (by selecting multiple items, you can rate multiple items)

to do it in the playlist you need this plugin and to use it via plugins, you need this plugin

i think the main/only real purpose for ratings (besides looking nice) is to be used in sorting like in smart lists/views (smart lists in itunes, views in winamp) and you can say like "only show songs less than 7 minutes; 3 or more stars; and under the genre rock(or whatever you want)"

i dont think they will remove those things, because i think that will break the classic skins, but i think some people remove them/add stuff in some modern skins, plus i dont find them useless

in the media library (alt+l or right click and then click medialibrary) if you select multiple items, you can then right click and hit "edit select items"

how do you start a song part way through in itunes(and is it possible to make it end at a certain point... like telling burger queen to end at 6:30 instead of going the entire 22 minutes without physically cutting it)

i thought you could make the equalizer change per song(not sure, i dont really use it, so i dont know how) plus in the media library, you can choose to load a cd (or use the great, but could be better, album list)

also in the prefs in output plugins... right open up the prefs for the direct sound output and bring up the buffer-ahead on track change bar, and it will take away the gap between tracks (good for playing cds that have tracks that merge together)

[Velvet Sledge]

1. so you can still play the song manually with out haveing to dig around looking for it, it's handy trust me... might not be for everyone, but then again neither is abba.

2. hmmm... not a real huge fan of media library, never used it, and i try to avoid if when i can (which is always)

3. i don't know if you know what i mean... check out iTunes... but if you do know what i mean, can you give me an example, and i'm using the winamp modern skin now.

4. ahh ok...

5. oooo... interesting.

[Velvet Sledge]

Originally posted by electricmime
how do you start a song part way through in itunes(and is it possible to make it end at a certain point... like telling burger queen to end at 6:30 instead of going the entire 22 minutes without physically cutting it)

Originally posted by electricmime
i dont think they will remove those things, because i think that will break the classic skins, but i think some people remove them/add stuff in some modern skins, plus i dont find them useless

Originally posted by electricmime
also in the prefs in output plugins... right open up the prefs for the direct sound output and bring up the buffer-ahead on track change bar, and it will take away the gap between tracks (good for playing cds that have tracks that merge together)

in iTunes, right click on a song, go to option and you can change the start and finish times.

secondly, couldn't they make it an option? i personally don't see the point, that's not to say there IS NO point. i prefer to see those little bars dancing up and down... go little bars gooo... woohoo... *ahhhem..*

finally what i was refering to was locking the order, so that you have to unlock them later for them to change order when using the sort commands, not so much changing the time between tracks, i can do that. easiest way is to make the crossfade time 0.

[Velvet Sledge]

OH... and another one is a combined play/pause button other then a seperate play and pause... 'cause my keyboard only has a combined button so i gotta use another one for pause, 'cause the global hotkeys won't allow one button for two operations

and, when it comes to enqueing a song, i hate how if you enque a song, then sort the list, it won't go on to play the song... is there any way of using the acctual file name for enquing, rather then the refering to the play list?

[electricmime]

doesnt it do the same in itunes? thats what the playlist is.. its not meant to manage your music, its meant to play them in the order they are there... though i have all my songs in the playlist sorted by title... and i use jtfe to queue for special needs (hit q or alt click)

also... the media library is like itunes.. except instead of playing the music in the medialibrary, it insteads transfers whatever you choose in the media library (i think you can turn it, so it only plays/enqueues the song you click, but i prefer it to load the entire playlist/view i chose)

and how can you not use the medialibrary, its set up sorta like itunes... plus its the way you organize your music (all the cool editing things you want are in there) and unlike itunes, you dont have to add a file to your library to play it(if you just want to play a file and delete it, you can drag it to the playlist, if you did that in itunes, it would auto add it to the library and clutter up your library/views) thats one thing that i love about winamp.. but it would be nice to be able to mass edit from the playlist (though that would probably force feautres from the media library that some winamp users hate)

and yeah, that time thing would be cool... i would no longer have to make special cut files of songs, though i probably still would for playlists that i transfer to my ipod

also.. there is an option for it... "use modern skins" you cant turn it off because you wouldnt be able to use any classic skins, and if you make/get a modern skin that doesnt use it, then that works perfectly...

oh yeah, and i hate the way itunes play thing works.. if i ever want to restart a song i have to scroll to the beginning or double clicking, instead of just hitting play, but if you want it for your keyboard, go into global hotkeys, scroll to "playback: play/pause" and then i think if you hit that playpause button on your keyboard.. it should set it

also.. itunes can create views (right click on the tree thingy and click create smart list)

and they are basically the same thing.. i think the only diff is that the winamp has a few more list options (i dont think itunes lets you choose whats in the comment tag) but itunes is better for mixed cds, because you can say "smart list of 50 minutes" and then it will limit it to the song amount/time you set

also if you used the medialibrary (like itunes forces you to do) you wouldnt have to worry about deleting your songs from the playlist... because they would all be there, plus you would be open to so many new options

though could dro put that in jtfe... have an option "skip this song" and you hit s or something and instead of a number an x appears beside it, and you just hit s again for it to be allowed to play(plus there could be a seperate menu "skipped songs"

dont know if that would work, but it seems possible...

[DrO]

Originally posted by electricmime
though could dro put that in jtfe... have an option "skip this song" and you hit s or something and instead of a number an x appears beside it, and you just hit s again for it to be allowed to play(plus there could be a seperate menu "skipped songs"

an anti queue i've thought about doing it so that the disable playlist item feature could come back... but not for a while for the time being

-daz

[electricmime]

that would be cool... but would you be able to save anti-queue lists? so like if i load my entire audio view i can load "brothers music banned" and it will automatically unqueue the stuff i had entered in?

if thats too much to ask, thats okay, but still.. it would be a nice feature, and one more thing that itunes wont have on winamp (winamp is obviously better over itunes, but there are still a few cool features that itunes has that winamp has yet to improve/add)

[Gonzotek]

OH... and another one is a combined play/pause button other then a seperate play and pause... 'cause my keyboard only has a combined button so i gotta use another one for pause, 'cause the global hotkeys won't allow one button for two operations

Is this what you're looking for?
Prefs>Global hotkeys>Action>Playback:Play/Pause

Or if not could you explain it because I'm a little confused as to what exactly you need.

[Velvet Sledge]

AHHHH!!! yeah, wickid that's it.... i didn't see the play/pause option in the hotkey drop down... awesome, thanks

[electricmime]

dro... with your timed play... would this also work (not sure if it would work/you want to implement it in)

but with the thing that says "start the song part way through"

could you tell jtfe to play certain parts of songs like queue it in and then "play to 3:40"

and then if you wish, you could even queue the song twice and say "play to 3:40" and then another song normal, another song normal, and then decide that you want to hear the second part of the song so you say "play at 7:20"

of course it wouldnt happen automatically (like the request), but it would be cool... perfect for songs that are the last on the cd and have bonus songs after 5 minutes of silence, but you dont feel like physically cutting it

[Velvet Sledge]

well with itunes, you don't have the enqueue option, but with chopping a song, you can specify a start and finish time for the song, so it's kinda part of the ID3 tag... when ever the song is played, manually or automatically, it'll start at the specified time, and finish at the same. perhaps you could make it part of the ID3 tag, but when you jump to file, include an option for the songs that have a specified start time, to "start at beginning" or "start at user time" something like that, just a tick box that is greyed out if there is no user specified time, and of course a default option in pref, ie always on or off... would DEFINATLY be handy...