Improvements tips for 5.9+

[NJK]

Hereby I would like to invite other skinners to share their tips on the current version 5.8 but this time from the "skinner-point-of-view": what is annoying, what broken and what does not work properly while creating an awesome skin.

current version isn't the leaked beta 5.8 but 5.9 , slip of the keyboard?

[mornigstar]

Hereby I would like to invite other skinners to share their tips on the current version 5.8 but this time from the "skinner-point-of-view": what is annoying, what broken and what does not work properly while creating an awesome skin.

[levidos]

Maybe it's just me, but I'm unable to move Winamp by dragging from the title bar.

[Dr4go]

The only thing in the plugin that isn't working is drag & drop. The rest works in 5.9 Final. Download below.

https://winampplugins.co.uk/jtfe.html

Thanks for this - I didn't know this plugin until now. Although I'm staying at version 5.666 so far as I (personally) don't miss any features there. Hopefully the queue manager comes back to 5.9+ at some point in time and we don't have to deal with working (up until this point), but unsupported plugins. ;-)

[MrSinatra]

+10000

when was it removed?
I couldnt find it in the changelog.

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=458969

[quibe]

+1

+10000

when was it removed?
I couldnt find it in the changelog.

[MrSinatra]

I'd rather see both ReplayGain and R128 supported. Not on board with the whole opensource requirement thing since that would invariably expose APIs internals that are not open source or part of any currently released SDK.

totally fine with supporting both, but r128 (which is basically just the newer, now standard replaygain implementation) is the default now in other players. make it so one plugin or the other is active, but only one at a time, (or put both in one plugin and pick).

as to the open source argument, funny how long stretches make arguments repeat!

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=376592

i'm in favor of doing whatever it takes to make a plugin like RG open source; if that means updating the SDK or revealing APIs, then do it, why not? as i say in the thread above, other apps like media monkey, etc, already use winamp plugins and afaik vice versa is also possible.

we should want to encourage 3rd party development, no? not saying everything has to be open source, it doesn't, but if someone wants to make an open source RG r128 plugin if winamp won't, should that be discouraged or not allowed?

thanks for reading my long ass post!

[thinktink]

...

4. replaygain use the r128 standard and be an open source plugin. and for that matter, opensource as many of the plugins as you can. let the community learn and help build. anyway, i think winamp is the only major music player not using r128 at this point.

...

I'd rather see both ReplayGain and R128 supported. Not on board with the whole opensource requirement thing since that would invariably expose APIs internals that are not open source or part of any currently released SDK.

[MrSinatra]

lots of great stuff in this thread for 5.9!

my biggest 3 req/suggestions are in my signature, namely:

1. fix winamp so it doesn't skip short tracks. this really is a rather bad/sloppy and destructive oversight. maybe both the current playing song, as well as the next song in the queue, could be loaded into ram? idk, i'm not a programmer, but some kind of hard check where winamp makes sure what is supposed to be played IS in fact played, needs to be implemented.

2. compilation editing in ML. winamp is, as far as i know, the ONLY major music player NOT to display or edit the compilation tag/status. what a huge miss! i am NOT advocating for ANY change to winamps behavior due to comp status, but merely for winamp to display and allow the editing of comp status in the ML / file tags / file info dialog / etc. the need for this is so self evident as to not require further argument imo.

3. multiple column sorting. the ML has lots of columns, but, for the most part, winamp allows u to just sort any ONE column in any one pane, one at a time. a user should be able to, in any and ALL panes, rank the columns, so that the first user denoted column is the primary sort, the second column is the secondary sort as long as it respects the first column, the third column is the third sort as long as it respects both the first and second columns, and so on... this would allow, for example, the ability to show artwork in albumartist, year, album title order, (a 1,2,3 sort), something not possible today when multiple albumartists are shown in the artwork. it obviously would be useful in the tracks pane too, etc.

my signature goes into more depth with links to the 3 above. in addition, i would like to see:

4. replaygain use the r128 standard and be an open source plugin. and for that matter, opensource as many of the plugins as you can. let the community learn and help build. anyway, i think winamp is the only major music player not using r128 at this point.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=120918.0

5. a column in tracks pane that shows if a track has an associated artwork or not, and if its an embed, folder based, or both, [E, F, B]. (we already know embeds will be preferred)

6. the ability to enable / disable plugins in the prefs via a checkmark.

7. winamp based user profiles. similar to the EAC implementation: the idea is you could load/save different configurations of winamp (its settings, plugins, etc) via a saved profile.

8. support half stars... for now, just copy media monkeys rating implementation. 0-5 full stars is not enough, but 0-5 stars with half stars is, and is in line with what other players do. also support a "bomb" rating, a la MM.

9. the file info dialog should have a tab to show/dump ALL tags in a given file, regardless of if they are supported or not. allowing manual editing in the tab itself would be great.

winamp needs to recognize its user base is now power users, who maintain local collections. that means stop dumbing down the product for casual users who are using spotify or similar, not winamp.

to that end, "guessing" tags should be OFF by default, as well as 'using artist as albumartist.'

furthermore, ratings should be written to tags by default, not off as it is now. having it off by default is misleading, out of sync with other players default behavior, and frankly stupid, and very likely to lead to situations where users lose countless manhours of lost ratings without warning if the DB or HD, etc, fails.

Personally, the missing of JTFE will, for me, be the reason to stay on 5.666 forever, as long as a new version doesn't implement these features or at least allows to load the old dll, maintaining compatibility with it (while not officially shipping it with the installer).

jtfe works with 5.9.x

u either install 5.9.x over an existing install with jtfe, or clean install 5.666 first with jtfe then 5.9.x over top, or install jtfe on its own:

https://winampplugins.co.uk/jtfe.html

2. It would be nice to be able to sort in the main window with the artwork by album artist, then by year. Currently I have it by album artist and then it defaults to alphabetical order.

see my 3rd one above.

3. Coverflow would be a cool feature (I've seen it on foobar but you need a doctorate to get the program the way you want it)

what is that? the itunes thing where the art goes by like a flipbook?

4. Any thoughts for an app? For example, I still use aWARemote, which is a great program, but I think it hasn't been updated in years. It's clean, beautiful, and really doesn't need much work to it.

they are making apps, and it absolutely should include the ability to remote control a winamp elsewhere, like the way spotify does.

7. I wish we could have multiple libraries. For example, I like having my "officially released" music in one library and don't want to clutter it with bootlegs I get from archive.org or leaked demos from band studio sessions. But since they are not in my library, the only way I can play them is going into my folders in Windows Explorer and navigating that way.

you could use custom smartviews for this, but also see my #7.

... 5. Also add 'samplerate' and 'codec' columns in ML.

yep, fantastic suggestion, and there are other criteria like this that would be great to add, just look at mp3tag.

Oh, and let's not forget about a very useful one:
- Chromecast and DLNA playback (the same sort of thing WMP12 is capable of).

DLNA seems dead, no? i def advocate the built in playback to Chromecast devices, and would add airplay devices to that as well. mediamonkey or some other apps that use winamps plugin api might have plugins to do this already that would work with winamp, but idk.

i also have some ideas about how to improve shuffle, and multiple ratings support, but this is enough for now, ha.

[alexceltare2]

Oh, and let's not forget about a very useful one:
- Chromecast and DLNA playback (the same sort of thing WMP12 is capable of).

[ECraig]

Also WASAPI with 'pull' option (worked with out_notsoyasapi.dll in Winamp 5.666, but now it doesn't).

[alexceltare2]

- WASAPI as standard and added enhancements in 'Options' (bypass post-processing APOs, multi-stream support, buffer size....)
- 64-bit binary executable
- High DPI skins for 'Modern', 'Classic' and 'Bento Big'

[ECraig]

... 5. Also add 'samplerate' and 'codec' columns in ML.

[ECraig]

1. Option to view playlists with all columns of ML (i.e. replace ML window), and provide tabs for playlists
2. Format Converter should have 24, 32 and 32-bit float options also
3. Option to disable 'timer' and 'seeker' (less CPU stress, better sound reproduction)
4. Introduce drag and drop *from* Winamp

[Mikey7]

+1

The only thing in the plugin that isn't working is drag & drop. The rest works in 5.9 Final. Download below.

https://winampplugins.co.uk/jtfe.html