Murphy's dashboard

Simon 's reply to "Awesome Library Bar!" was just promoted to the most useful! Murphy and 3 other people think it's one of the best replies.

I have posted the first (alpha) release for the 'searcher' (working title) add-on:

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addons...

I do need feedback, especially on query performance. You can post there or email me at songbird.searcher@gmail.com

There is still a lot to do on the working of the URL bar and the the layout and working of the results panel but the core querying functionality is pretty much done (although I would expect some performance tweaking).

There would be an enormous amount to do to bring my (interim) playback mechanism up to scratch, so I will try to get to a feed to the NowPlaying add-on working while I work on my new playback mechanism "in due course'.

Murphy replied on August 05, 2009 05:09 to the idea "Interface redesign ideas from Firefox 3.7 and 4 mockups" in Songbird:

I noticed this blog post looking through the blog archive and I was surprised that native-looking feathers had been discussed and mocked up before (I must not have been such a Songbird hound back in 2008). I wish the default feathers were more native looking, because I believe that all programs should blend in with the OS by default and then let the user modify it from there. The Gonzo feather gives too much of an iTunes vibe by using the OSX chrome on every operating system. At the same time though, I think people like the OSX chrome in Songbird because it makes the program look more like a metal appliance, while the mockups in that blog post for Linux and Windows can look a little flat.



I think that they could be improved upon, however, to achieve a compromise between looking native and looking more like a realistic appliance. Things like attaching the previous and next buttons to the play button give the interface a more mechanistic feel on every operating system. What do you guys think about having more-native default feathers? Even on OSX, where Songbird looks most at home, things like the scroll bars, preference buttons, and the highlight color aren't native.

Murphy replied on August 05, 2009 04:32 to the idea "A-B Repeat & guitar players" in Songbird:

There have been some other similar topics if you want to check them out.
Features for musicians/transcription
Ability to alter pitch and tempo

Murphy replied on August 04, 2009 17:25 to the idea "Would be great to have a plugin for Songbird !" in Spotify:

You can also show your support in an existing topic about this request here: http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/to...

Murphy started following the idea "Would be great to have a plugin for Songbird !" in Spotify.

Murphy started following the idea "Spotify should create an add-on for Songbird" in Spotify.

Murphy marked one of klint's replies in Songbird as useful. klint replied to the question "How to list all tracks WITHOUT album art?".

Murphy started following the question "How to list all tracks WITHOUT album art?" in Songbird.

Murphy started following the idea "Folders for playlists" in Songbird.

Murphy started following the idea "add an group for the files with missing meta in artist/ album" in Songbird.

Murphy marked one of klint's replies in Songbird as useful. klint replied to the idea "add an group for the files with missing meta in artist/ album". Murphy and 2 other people think it's one of the best replies.

Murphy replied on August 03, 2009 21:49 to the question "Adding tag-box without removing genre-box?" in Songbird:

Perhaps if a tagging feature is implemented, there could be an option in Songbird's preferences where you choose how the tags should be saved. Either they could be saved into the genre metadata field to keep them attached to your audio files, or they could be saved to a database on your computer/online instead. I don't know if it would be possible to save tags to the metadata file apart from using the genre field, because I don't know if new fields can be added to the metadata. Does anybody who is knowledgeable about the IDv4 standards know if it is possible to add a new field/value to the metadata?

Murphy marked one of Fritz Gerlich's replies in Songbird as useful. Fritz Gerlich replied to the idea "Songbird customer service policy currently a self-fulfilling prophecy". Murphy and 4 other people think it's one of the best replies.

Murphy started following the idea "Can Songbird scrobble tracks from Shoutcast radio stations?" in Songbird.

Murphy replied on August 02, 2009 20:08 to the idea "Interface redesign ideas from Firefox 3.7 and 4 mockups" in Songbird:

Sorry I keep posting in here. I've just liked thinking about interfaces lately and I have noticed a few interesting things about them. It turns out this one was in front of me the whole time I was working on the mockups:



I don't know how I never noticed before, but Adobe did almost the exact same things with the interfaces in the CS4 applications that eventually developed in these Songbird mockups. The title bar loses its title, but actually gets bigger so it can hold the main buttons, making it feel like there is a hearty control panel at the top of the program. I really like how they branded the title bar with the program icon as well; maybe I could try that if I ever make another mockup of this in the future.

I also sought out a Windows screenshot to see how they approached it:



They even have the max/min/close buttons (although different from the standard Windows ones) centered in the title bar like I did in the mockup based on Tim's suggestion, so now I don't even feel like they are such radical changes.

A comment on the question "What was the last version of Songbird for Intel-based Macs running Tiger and where do I find it?" in Songbird:

*sigh* I know I say this too often, but amen on the global hotkeys. – Murphy, on August 01, 2009 22:16

Murphy replied on August 01, 2009 15:39 to the idea "Album Discovery would be great" in Songbird:

I know I've seen at least one topic before about discovering more albums from artists in your library, but I am having trouble finding any using GetSatisfaction's search. There is an add-on called Releases that tells you about future albums, but I don't believe there is any add-on that helps you find albums you are missing from an artist. It would be neat to have an add-on list the albums that you don't have from the artists in your library, provide details like when it was released and such, and make it easy to find more information about them or listen to tracks off of them. It could even be integrated with the stores like 7digital in Songbird and say "Buy from this store" or something, so it could help out Songbird as well.

Murphy replied on August 01, 2009 15:10 to the idea "Apoyo a su proyecto" in Songbird:

Voy tratar de responder a su pregunta, pero no hablo español perfectamente. No es una problema si pones un link sobre su sitio para Songbird como ya tienes el link "Descarga Firefox". Todo el mundo se anima a apoyar a Songbird por mencionarlo.

Murphy replied on July 31, 2009 20:08 to the idea "Show "Browser" in the Sidebar" in Songbird:

I made this mockup for a different thread, but one of the UI changes in it ended up being a new way for the browser to function in Songbird, so I thought it was worth posting here. In the mockup, the browser is an item in the service pane that you could click to access a new tab page of some sort; a generic way to access the web. It also shows how the tabs could be incorporated into the the service pane as vertical tabs, such as in this firefox mockup. This could remove some of the confusion that exists in Songbird by having both the service pane and tab bar visible at the same time. I also thought it would be neat if when the user clicked on a Bookmark item, it could slide into the Tabs area, since it would save room in the service pane and ensure that each website only appeared once in it.



Alternatively (maybe even as an option in the preferences), tabs could function horizontally as they do in most browsers; however, I still think that it would be a good idea to only show the tab bar up top if you have the browser item selected in the service pane, so as to keep the web pages contained within a certain area of the program.

Murphy replied on July 31, 2009 19:49 to the idea "An idea how Multiple Tagging might/should look like" in Songbird:

Could you perhaps post a screenshot of the program that shows how the tagging system works? I did a google image search quick but I didn't see any screenshots that had a definite tagging system.