Gmu V0.3.2 Released

[wejp]

I have released Gmu 0.3.2.

New things in this version include:

* Improved performance (scrolling, especially while playing mp3s, is much faster now)
* UTF-16 support for ID3v2 tags
* Multiple filter masks can be specified for the selection of the cover image, such as "cover.jpg;front.png;*.jpg"
* Files can be deleted from the file browser and playlist browser (this is disabled by default you can enable it by removing the comment characters "#" from the corresponding lines in the keymap.conf file)
* If the cover image would stay the same after a track change Gmu will not reload it anymore, but reuse the already loaded image

Website: http://wejp.k.vu/projects/gmu/

Default skin:

Example of another skin (Liquido skin by pedator):

 

[prairiefire]

WEJP: This is awesome WEJP!! I just started using gmu after the previous release and love it! Going to download the next version immediately. One question - would it be possible in the future to add info to the track, such as artist/album/track using gmu? I can do this on my PC but sometimes on the road I realize I haven't filled in this data and have the urge to correct it before I forget. finally, are there any plans in the works for toggling the track time to time remaining and total track time?

Pedator: If you're reading this, I just want to thank you for all of the liquido skins that you've put out there. I'm using it on my Gmenu2x, regular GP2X menu, and now Gmu. Cheers.

 

[jimmyslam]

Hi I use GMU a lot ! Thank s for this brilliant program I find it 2 things that can be improved (one easily and the other one is more difficult).

1-I really would like to select a folder an add all the items of that folder into de playlist. It is quite annoying to be adding them specially when u have lots of music files such MOD.

2-U have impoved a bit wuth this version but, If i use this software the batteries goes quickly (same as playing) SO from Gmenu i am using it at 150Mhz which sounds ok for me, but If you reach a higher level of optimizacion our batteries are going to appreciate it a lot.

I really like this. Keep up the good work. Brilliant!

 

[wejp]

Hi I use GMU a lot ! Thank s for this brilliant program I find it 2 things that can be improved (one easily and the other one is more difficult).

1-I really would like to select a folder an add all the items of that folder into de playlist. It is quite annoying to be adding them specially when u have lots of music files such MOD.

This is already possible since the last release. You can add whole directories with all its subdirectories to the playlist. By default this can be done by pressing the Y button in the file browser.


As for editing tag data with Gmu, the biggest problem I see there is, that the GP2X does not have enough buttons to enter text comfortably. Maybe I will add tag editing functionality at some point, but right now this does not have a very high priority.

 

[jimmyslam]

Ah you travelled back in time just to do the feature .. i appreciate that

thanks!

 

[wejp]

Ah you travelled back in time just to do the feature .. i appreciate that

thanks!

Hehe, that's right.

 

[starpause]

* Multiple filter masks can be specified for the selection of the cover image, such as "cover.jpg;front.png;*.jpg"

this is cool, but i would still like to see a character or way to indicate the name of the file currently player (minus the extension) in the filter mask.

i would also like to see cascading as i mentioned in the 0.3.1 thread, where if you specified

*.jpg, *.gif, *.png

it would search first for any jpg, then any gif, then any png

* Files can be deleted from the file browser and playlist browser (this is disabled by default you can enable it by removing the comment characters "#" from the corresponding lines in the keymap.conf file)

RADICAL! i've been wishing for this feature for a while :wub:

but it would be really nice if delete file was available from the file info screen as well. i leave gmu on random play and on the file info screen so i can see the cover of what's playing. currently i have to switch screens to delete the file, then go back to the file info screen once the next track is playing.

btw, VERY slick that the next track in the playlist starts as soon as you delete a file!

gmu remains king of the gp2x music players h34r:

edit: good design means choosing what features are included and what are not, i think that editing id3 tags is really a job best done on the computer. a virtual keyboard or text editing system is a lot to code and almost every way to implement it is cumbersome use.

 

[wejp]

* Multiple filter masks can be specified for the selection of the cover image, such as "cover.jpg;front.png;*.jpg"

this is cool, but i would still like to see a character or way to indicate the name of the file currently player (minus the extension) in the filter mask.

I know, and I will add that in a future release.

i would also like to see cascading as i mentioned in the 0.3.1 thread, where if you specified

*.jpg, *.gif, *.png

it would search first for any jpg, then any gif, then any png

Actually, this should be possible now. If there is a problem with that, please tell me exactly what does not work. Any combinations of filter masks should be possible, so the one you mentioned should be valid too (except that gmu expects a ; as the seperator instead of , and no blanks should be used).
This:
CoverArtworkFilePattern=*.jpg;*.gif;*.png
should do exactly what you wanted, when I got that right.

* Files can be deleted from the file browser and playlist browser (this is disabled by default you can enable it by removing the comment characters "#" from the corresponding lines in the keymap.conf file)

RADICAL! i've been wishing for this feature for a while :wub:

but it would be really nice if delete file was available from the file info screen as well. i leave gmu on random play and on the file info screen so i can see the cover of what's playing. currently i have to switch screens to delete the file, then go back to the file info screen once the next track is playing.

btw, VERY slick that the next track in the playlist starts as soon as you delete a file!

gmu remains king of the gp2x music players h34r:

edit: good design means choosing what features are included and what are not, i think that editing id3 tags is really a job best done on the computer. a virtual keyboard or text editing system is a lot to code and almost every way to implement it is cumbersome use.

Yes, that's right and that is also a reason for not giving it a high priority.

 

[jimmyslam]

Hi again, Cause you said you improved performance , you have done that only on the menus, right?

Cause i tried to play mp3 files at less than 150 MHz and they dont work well. The menus are quicker now, much quicker. What do you thin about when you toggle of the album info and the picture stays there alone, why not make it bigger? I have some covers that are really difficult to know what is on the picture when they are that small. Probably a few pixels more wont help . but ... who knows?

Good work, yeah this is the best music player for GP2X at the moment except for the battery usage...

 

[wejp]

Hi again, Cause you said you improved performance , you have done that only on the menus, right?

Mostly, yes.

Cause i tried to play mp3 files at less than 150 MHz and they dont work well. The menus are quicker now, much quicker. What do you thin about when you toggle of the album info and the picture stays there alone, why not make it bigger? I have some covers that are really difficult to know what is on the picture when they are that small. Probably a few pixels more wont help . but ... who knows?

That would be possible, but it would require another resize operation which is rather cpu demanding (especially if the source image is large, which should be avoided anyway for obvious reasons), though it seems loading the image file from disk is worse (in terms of cpu usage), so maybe another resize does not do much harm. I'll check that and if it works nicely I can add it in the future.

 

[starpause]

Actually, this should be possible now. If there is a problem with that, please tell me exactly what does not work. Any combinations of filter masks should be possible, so the one you mentioned should be valid too (except that gmu expects a ; as the seperator instead of , and no blanks should be used).
This:
CoverArtworkFilePattern=*.jpg;*.gif;*.png
should do exactly what you wanted, when I got that right.

AWESOME, this is verified to work correctly.

thanks again for the great work wejp. this music player is killer, for general listening and sorting netaudio i prefer it over my iRiver w/ rockbox!

i've had gmu freeze up when trying to play particular mp3 files. it's hard to nail down the exact behavior but i could send you the files if you wanted to see if you experienced a bug as well.

 

[bluey]

This is awesome, great work!

Is music seeking coming soon? Maybe Hold+L e R, since left and right move the text.

I notice that music changing is a bit slow, and seems to freeze the player, why is that?

Are you planning on adding crossfading (if not I'd add a vote for it ) or would it consume too much cpu?

I implemented a lame ogg player for an university project this semester, and did crossfading by keeping playing the old player thread, creating the new one and fading the volume in, fading the volume out of the old player and killing the old thread when the music is off. Since I was feeding the pipe in the same cycle I did the fading, I couldn't check for how long the fading takes, I just decremented the volume each cycle until it reached a minimum audible level.

Creating sub threads for each playing song I can keep the low level audio manager loose on his own thread not freezing when I'm changing songs. It's lame, nevertheless. :unsure:

 

[beb]

Great player... But all versions got a flickering screen.
I'm the only one who have this bug ???

thanx

 

[wejp]

AWESOME, this is verified to work correctly.

thanks again for the great work wejp. this music player is killer, for general listening and sorting netaudio i prefer it over my iRiver w/ rockbox!

i've had gmu freeze up when trying to play particular mp3 files. it's hard to nail down the exact behavior but i could send you the files if you wanted to see if you experienced a bug as well.

That would be great if you could supply me with a sample file that freezes the player.

This is awesome, great work!

Is music seeking coming soon? Maybe Hold+L e R, since left and right move the text.

I probably will add seeking at some point, but I can't tell you when this will be ready yet.

I notice that music changing is a bit slow, and seems to freeze the player, why is that?

If changing the track seems slow, this is usually caused by a large cover image.
If no cover image is in the directory at all, there should be next to no delay when changing tracks.
You can either disable cover images all together or use images with a smaller size. Cover images from amazon have a good size for example.

Are you planning on adding crossfading (if not I'd add a vote for it ) or would it consume too much cpu?

Most likely not. As you know, crossfading requires to decode two streams at the same time (at least for a while) and that means twice as much cpu time is required to do that (and probably even a little more than that).

Great player... But all versions got a flickering screen.
I'm the only one who have this bug ???

thanx

I have never heard of that before. The screen should not be flickering at all (at least not more than in any other program), though you might see some flickering if you have a MK1 unit, but this has nothing to do with Gmu. The only explanation that comes to my mind is, that the dark screen of Gmu's default skin makes the flickering more obvious.

 

[beb]

when I add a directory full of mp3, the player "freeze" for a moment (normal) and the screen is clean at this time. When playing mp3 or mod, you can see a little flickering. I tried different skin for the same result.

My GP2X is a MK1 and after adjustment the screen is stable on many tools, games or emulators... not on GMU...

Argh ! I got a borken gp2x ? ;(

 

[wejp]

when I add a directory full of mp3, the player "freeze" for a moment (normal) and the screen is clean at this time. When playing mp3 or mod, you can see a little flickering. I tried different skin for the same result.

My GP2X is a MK1 and after adjustment the screen is stable on many tools, games or emulators... not on GMU...

Argh ! I got a borken gp2x ? ;(

Sorry, there is nothing I can do about that. The flickering is probably caused by the varying cpu load and thus varying power consumption. This is a common behaviour for early MK1 units.

 

[prairiefire]

I'm also getting certain music files that will consistently freeze the player. I also am finding that some music files will not play... gmu skips past them (and they play fine in the stock musicplayer). Could it be issues with the ID3 tags? I do find that the ID3 tags in the stock player read properly also. If you have any insight to what could be the problem or have some ideas... feed them by me and i'll check the mp3s.

 

[doc5avage]

Hey, thanks for GMU. I use it at work to listen to mp3s and mod files.

Can you tell me where I can find the liquido skin for gmu?

Cheers

 

[wejp]

I'm also getting certain music files that will consistently freeze the player. I also am finding that some music files will not play... gmu skips past them (and they play fine in the stock musicplayer). Could it be issues with the ID3 tags? I do find that the ID3 tags in the stock player read properly also. If you have any insight to what could be the problem or have some ideas... feed them by me and i'll check the mp3s.

I have no idea, what could cause that freezing, but most likely these files are broken in some way (which does not mean they won't play on another player and which should definately not freeze the player). If you could send me an example file which freezes the player I could try to find the problem.
My guess is that the mp3 decoder is causing the freeze. It is pretty unlikely that my ID3 parser crashes the player, even if the ID3 tag is badly broken it should just ignore the tag.

Hey at thanks for GMU. I use it at work to listen to mp3s and mod files.

Can you tell me where I can find the liquido skin for gmu?

Cheers

You can download it at the gp2x.de download archive: http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,50,1927