Wishlist, winamp 2.x features and others.

Hello,

For over 10 years I was a happy user of Winamp 2.x/Audacious/XMMS. This slim and fast players have/had some unique nice features that I'm missing alot since I switched from Windows to Mac (I'm a hobby musician/sound engineer). I tried to use iTunes/ToolPlayer/and dozen of other gimped-beta-no_even_playlist?! programs.. lets say i don't want waste my keyboard to comment this piece of .... software.

Recently, to be honest, 3 days ago I've discovered a Songbird - and I must say.. I'm impressed, truly breath taking program... but.. after 3 days of digging in it.. well read below :)

There are a couple of small (easy to implement I suppose) features that could increase usability:

1. Better shortcuts:
-------------------------

My 1st idea is to create a additional tab inside Preferences window called 'Shortcuts' from user could easy customize shortcuts. Someone could say: 'What for ?"

Small example from a Mac world. To play next song from the queue I have to press CTRL + ->. This involves using 2 hands since Macbook Pro doesn't have right CTRL button.

I would be great to simplify this by using for example Winamp 2.x shortcuts:

n - next song
b - previous song

Next idea - shortcut for skip 5, 10 or 20 sec of a song - this was implemented in Winamp/XMMS (GStreamer) and worked just fine.

Another place that shortcut would be great is long-mouse-button-press on artist/song name to edit a text field. In combination with 'n' (or other 1 key shortcut) it would be a nice time saver :)

Summary:
Idea 1: New tab in Preference window with customable shortcuts
Alternative idea: Cleanup and refactorize (simplify) shorcut code to improve usability:
- less 2 keys shortcuts
- pre-defined templates from other programs: Winamp/Amarok/iTunes to help undecided people to change their players :)

2. Mouse scroll wheel in song progressbar:
---------------------------------------------------------

This feature is partly implemented already - but in volume bar. It would be great that user could 'scrub' or 'skip-next-5sec' on mousewheel up action - just like in volume bar.

This could be done by splitting volumebar/buttons section and song progressbar to 2 different "frames". I'm not a programmer but i think that GStreamer could handle this.

This is important for electronic music freaks (like me for example). Why ? Because el-music main melody line starts around 2:30min (first 60 sec its just basic beat build-up to help DJ in mixing 2 songs). Now I have to do to miles and miles with my mouse to skip first 1-2min. For this feature many DJ would sold their mothers :P - only sophisticated DJ/Music production software like Ableton Live/ Serato System/ NI DJ Traktor or maybe Mix Vibes have similar features :)

3. HTML Generated Playlist (like in Winamp 2.x):
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This feature was implemented in Winamp 2.x. How does it works ? Its simple. It takes ID3v2 Tags and put's this information into predefined HTML template with additional summary: how many songs, total play-length, average song length etc. Screenshot below:

http://nunzioweb.com/winamp/wa-total-...

Simple and very useful for people who use 3rd party software to search songs in their whole cd/mp3/dvd collection in HTML/txt files.

4. Deleting files from HDD:
------------------------------------

Songbird can easily find and select file in users filesystem. My idea is to move a bit further with file management and add under CSM 'Delete' option 'Delete from HDD' option. Think what a useful tool it could be in combination with Exorcist addon - powerful music library management tool.

For this purpose now I have to use Winamp 2.83 working on my Mac under Crossover (comercial Wine fork). How lame is that ? :)

5. Mass ReNamer:
-------------------------

Another CSM option - 'Use ID tag information to rename a song file' - pretty much self explanatory ;). Something oposite to Metadata Tools addon (http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/...). How I would done it?

Another tab in preferences called 'ReNamer'. There could be a text field where user can create naming tempate, for example:

(IDTag_artistname) - (IDTag_trackname)

From now on user can select mp3 file, click right mouse button and choose 'Use ID tag information to rename a song file' or 'Rename song using ReNamer' to rename 101_madonna__frozen.mp3 to 'Madonna - Frozen.mp3'. This can be done one by one or by choosing more than 1 file.

A mixture of CTRL+T option in Windows Commander and Tag Renamer tool :)

6. Enqueue in Songbird option:
-----------------------------------------

Simple scenario:
1. Songbird is opened in the background, there are 20 song in a playlist.
2. Mark another 25 songs in nautilus/rox/explorer/finder
3. Open with Songbird - all 25 songs are added to Library

My idea is a copy/paste function from Winamp 2.x:

3. Open with 'Enqueue in Songbird' - this 25 new songs are added to ongoing playlist, not to library.

Songbird is a light in a Mac world tunnel. A world filled with cutting edge movie editors like Final Cut Pro or music sequencers like Logic / Pro Tools, a world filled with bloatware like iTunes with no (except Songbird ofc) small, fast and useful alternative for old farts like me, who grown up using xmms/winamp.

I'm a Software Test Engineer - my job is to hunt for bugs in software. I'm willing to help in in depth testing each of this feature, but not only. I want to contribute in this project because I believe that is already the best music player on Mac.

OK, enough of this Obama style speach :)

What do You think about this features ?

All comments (negative also) are welcomed :)

P.S.
Sorry for my horrible English.

--
TJ,
GNU/Linux Debian Freak,
Ableton Live Freak,
Songbird Addict :)