GP2X Interest In Mpd-based Music Player For Gp2x?

[mwolson]

Is anyone interested in seeing a music player for the GP2X that works with MusicPD?

I've been kicking around the idea of porting my Emacs Lisp front-end for MPD (emms-player-mpd.el, part of EMMS) to Common Lisp, and using some lightweight Common Lisp implementation (like Hedgehog) to run it on the GP2X. I haven't yet decided whether to do it, though. If there's enough interest, I'd probably start working on it.

It would be fairly basic to start with, perhaps just an ASCII interface coupled with sterm to start with (much like my ASCII Nethack port). An SDL front-end could be added later, once I get the basics working.

Here are some features it would definitely need to have.

• Configurable directory path where music is stored
• By default, automatically add the contents of that directory to the playlist
• Let MPD continue playing music in the background, unless explicitly stopped
• If MPD is playing something, and the front-end is started, get the contents of the MusicPD playlist instead of overwriting it
• Allow server name and port to be specified, probably in a configuration file, in case someone wants to remotely control a MusicPD instance on another machine
• Be able to add files, entire directory trees, and the contents of other playlists from the main interface
• Be able to save the current playlist to some location
• Allow commandline parameters to specify the playlist to start with, and whether to start playing right away

Here are some issues that would need to be resolved.

• Is it worth looking into the custom iPodLinux branch of MusicPD to see if they've added significant speedups or improvements specific to portable devices
• Where to store MPD's configuration file, if it should even have one
• Where to store MusicPD's metadata, or if we should just prevent MPD from ever using stored metadata
• How to cause metadata from the current playlist to be gathered
• What to do about a file that has the same name of a file whose metadata was stored earlier, but has different contents -- I would run into this because of the scripts I use to copy music to the GP2X
• Should we save MPD's state somewhere, since there is no "shutdown" procedure for the GP2X that would save it for us
• Should we allow for MPD to be started at boot time, via the autorun feature in firmware 2.0 and higher?

 

[mwolson]

I've been kicking around the idea of porting my Emacs Lisp front-end for MPD (emms-player-mpd.el, part of EMMS) to Common Lisp, and using some lightweight Common Lisp implementation (like Hedgehog) to run it on the GP2X. I haven't yet decided whether to do it, though. If there's enough interest, I'd probably start working on it.

Meh, Hedgehog isn't Common Lisp compatible like I thought it was. CLisp might be doable.

 

[fury]

MPD is a daemon that runs in the background right?

We could have music playing in the background (even when playing games). Would this work if the game tries to play audio as well? If it would it would be cool, but if it breaks games, then it's useless.

It can be controlled over lan/internet so it could be used as a home media player? But is see no point in controlling it from the PC if you can just press buttons on it.

So, forgive me for my noobness, but what advantage would a player like this have over say CraigAMP/GMU/Integrated? I must be missing something

 

[mwolson]

MPD is a daemon that runs in the background right?

Yes.

We could have music playing in the background (even when playing games). Would this work if the game tries to play audio as well? If it would it would be cool, but if it breaks games, then it's useless.

It depends on what they use for sound drivers on the GP2X. If it's ALSA, it would be possible to mix the sound from different sources using dmix. But that's not really the point of playing sound in the background.

It can be controlled over lan/internet so it could be used as a home media player? But is see no point in controlling it from the PC if you can just press buttons on it.

I don't particularly care. It's just a built-in nicety of MPD.

So, forgive me for my noobness, but what advantage would a player like this have over say CraigAMP/GMU/Integrated? I must be missing something

Listening to music while reading an ebook. Playing background music while showing pics to someone. Playing music as soon as the GP2X is started, right from where you left off, even in the middle of a song (great for using this as a music player in the car).

 

[bluey]

This would be nice. Do it if you can.

 

[Norwat]

Please lol please code that app ... a music player that would run in the background would be fantastic ... it kind of sucks not having a "multi-task" enviorment ... ear music as you browse thru files watch pics, play a lightweight game etc ... I need it

 

[Yod4z]

Please lol please code that app ... a music player that would run in the background would be fantastic ... it kind of sucks not having a "multi-task" enviorment ... ear music as you browse thru files watch pics, play a lightweight game etc ... I need it

there's already avaible player that can play music in background. It's madplaygp2x