TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

TOMPlayer is a simple AudioList Player that will always remember your last playlist, your last track in the list as well as the position of the last active track. This makes TOMPlayer ideal for listing AudioBooks on your BlackBerry®.
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TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by pevinsghost »

The TOM beta feedback link takes you here to the Little Brother thread, should probably have an entry of it's own.

I did see that TOM works great with playlists made with the blackberry media player! That's great and makes playlist editing all the easier.

It would be nice if there was a way to navigate to a specific spot in a song or other audio easier. It can be tedious if you want to fast forward to scroll through a few seconds at a time.
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TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

Please let my know your thoughts/suggestions/problems you have with TOMPlayer - TIA
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

pevinsghost wrote:The TOM beta feedback link takes you here to the Little Brother thread, should probably have an entry of it's own.
100% right - It's just that setting the website and all the other things up takes almost the same amount of time then actually create the application...
pevinsghost wrote:I did see that TOM works great with playlists made with the blackberry media player! That's great and makes playlist editing all the easier.
It should work with all App's that can create m3u files [even Apps like WinAMP]
pevinsghost wrote:It would be nice if there was a way to navigate to a specific spot in a song or other audio easier. It can be tedious if you want to fast forward to scroll through a few seconds at a time.
Did you notice, that you can move the focus to the progress bar at the top and use the trackpad LEFT and RIGHT to fast forward and rewind? [of course that only works for devices with a trackpad - so this function is unfortunately not available on the Storm & Storm2]
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by Trogdor »

How about some basic "put playlist here" and "m3u path requirements"?
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

Sorry - but actually I have difficulties to understand your request
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by pypk »

What is the format of the m3u file?

I have two mp3 files in one directory.
I create a simple .m3u file with the names of the two files in the same directory.

When I open the playlist, TOMplayer only show the first mp3 file.

What am I doing wrong?
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by punk0001 »

I hope this is the right thread, if not, administrator feel please to move.

I bought my first Raspberry (Storm 9530) a week ago and it has got to be the worst phone I've ever purchased. The media player can't remember the track position, the SMS application is hideous. The only thing keeping me from slegehammering it is I paid hard earned £s for it!!!

Anyway, TOMplayer (5.23) solved my 'remember track placement' problem but TOMplayer is not without problems. Initially I set up 7 music shows from BBC 6 music and all worked like a dream. A real pain that the fast forward / rewind function doesn't work on the storm but hey, at least is remembers where you are.

Then yesterday I decided to remove what I'd listened to, and add more to the playlist (using the built in abortion of a media player). When I came to starting TOMplayer, it crashed. I tried a re-boot (battery pull) but still the same. After the initial freezing of the gooseberry (can you tell I love my phone :cry: ) the TOM player simply would not start.

I deleted the application and re-installed, and it worked again. Not only that, it even remembered the track position of the 3 hour show :) I was listening to. A great relief seeing as it is quicker to listen to the 1 hour and 45 minutes than snail forward it.

Question 1. What did I do wrong?
All the songs and playlist were on the device memory. New additions were placed on the memory card. I have also moved the playlist onto the memory card since failure (not before).

Question 2 Is there a correct procedure to remove items from the playlist?
I really want to avoid this happening again.

Question 3. If the TOMplayer fails due to not finding items it expects to see in the playlist, it there any way to reset the playlist without starting the application so it asks to where you want to go?

Question 4. Are there any plans to allow manual track placement on the crashberry storm? Begging :)

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you may have.
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

punk0001 wrote:Question 1. What did I do wrong?
buying a Storm :mrgreen: Sorry could not resist
punk0001 wrote:All the songs and playlist were on the device memory. New additions were placed on the memory card. I have also moved the playlist onto the memory card since failure (not before).
Actually you should not modify an existing playlist - it actually should not crash the app (I will investigate this) - but at the bottom line you can have as much playlists as you like - so simply create a new one each time.
punk0001 wrote:Question 2 Is there a correct procedure to remove items from the playlist?
I really want to avoid this happening again.
"Normally" you should be able to do so - but (cause of performance issues) when you start TOMPlayer the app will not check if the audio files exist - this will be only done when you open the playlist for the first time... But I have to admit that I never tried to modify a playlist... so I will check the code...
punk0001 wrote:Question 3. If the TOMplayer fails due to not finding items it expects to see in the playlist, it there any way to reset the playlist without starting the application so it asks to where you want to go?
The "only" reset that exist is the RESET of the remembered track positions - the only way to get rid of the playlist is to move or rename it...
punk0001 wrote:Question 4. Are there any plans to allow manual track placement on the crashberry storm? Begging :)
Even with the Storm1/2 you can ff and rewind by pressing the << and >> buttons (you have to press it multiple times to increase the movement speed)... My wife is using my old Storm2 so actually I would have already a good motivation to make this happen - but I did not found a way so far - sorry.
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by punk0001 »

punk0001 wrote:What did I do wrong?
emac wrote:buying a Storm :mrgreen: Sorry could not resist
:cry: You are right. I need my head examined. I bought it as I could use the keyboard acurately as that extra press is required. It also received a great media player review. Now I regret my purchase. I expected more from a Canadian firm, I'd expect it from an American offering. Still looking at the bright side, at least it isn't a Die Phone :D
emac wrote:Actually you should not modify an existing playlist - it actually should not crash the app (I will investigate this) - but at the bottom line you can have as much playlists as you like - so simply create a new one each time.
Ah okay. I won't. I've just hand edited 5 playlists using Metapad on my XP machine and TOMplayer sucessfully opens and plays them all. Thanks for the tip. I also think that before deleting a playlist, I should move TOMplayer over to a new playlist. If player refuses to function again, I will delete the playlist as you suggest.
punk0001 wrote:Are there any plans to allow manual track placement on the crashberry storm? Begging :)
emac wrote:Even with the Storm1/2 you can ff and rewind by pressing the << and >> buttons (you have to press it multiple times to increase the movement speed)
That is the only bad part of the player. It simply is not fast enough. I don't know about other phones, but the Storm forwards 1 second each press. If you keep the button depressed, it stops forwrding so to get to 90minutes into the show would take ages and I'd probably have put a hole in the screen by then :lol:
emac wrote:My wife is using my old Storm2 so actually I would have already a good motivation to make this happen - but I did not found a way so far - sorry.
So you were conned and bought a Storm - hahahahahaha! :lol: May I make a suggestion without causing offence? How about adding an option to set the skip time? So with each press of the FF REV button you skip x minutes? User changable. Could be anything from 1 to 15 minutes? If I had the choice, I'd set it at 1 minute so if a rubbish song come on, 3 or 4 presses and the song is gone. ( crap songs are usually long to add to their tediuosness or irritation value) If you want to get to the 2 hour mark, set the skip time to 15 minutes, and 8 presses later to are there. I realise this would be inaccurate with mp3s of variable bit rate.

I've not written any code / script for any sort of Smartphone so feel free to laugh this suggestion out of the water as I don't know if this is a massive or easy job. I only mentioned it in the unlikely event you hadn't already thought of it and it could be easily done. I'm only thinking of you :?: and trying to save you from a nagging wife or having to buy her a new phone before she throws it at you :)

Thanks very much for your reply. It helped very much.
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

punk0001 wrote:That is the only bad part of the player. It simply is not fast enough. I don't know about other phones, but the Storm forwards 1 second each press. If you keep the button depressed, it stops forwrding so to get to 90minutes into the show would take ages and I'd probably have put a hole in the screen by then :lol:
Have you tried pressing the ff button multiple times after each other? - With every press the jump ahead should be increasing (in the same way as the volume adjustment is accelerating)...
punk0001 wrote:So you were conned and bought a Storm - hahahahahaha! :lol:
Actually I just "bought" one BlackBerry since then I am just using the devices that I have won during the DevChallenges over the last 3 years ;-)
punk0001 wrote:May I make a suggestion without causing offence? How about adding an option to set the skip time? So with each press of the FF REV button you skip x minutes? User changable. Could be anything from 1 to 15 minutes? If I had the choice, I'd set it at 1 minute so if a rubbish song come on, 3 or 4 presses and the song is gone. ( crap songs are usually long to add to their tediuosness or irritation value) If you want to get to the 2 hour mark, set the skip time to 15 minutes, and 8 presses later to are there. I realise this would be inaccurate with mp3s of variable bit rate.
Just try the auto accelerate function - even then the max jump is 40sec (I think) it might be worth to make this maximum user configurable...
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by punk0001 »

emac wrote: Have you tried pressing the ff button multiple times after each other? - With every press the jump ahead should be increasing (in the same way as the volume adjustment is accelerating)...
Yes. It does jump slightly quicker with each press. It took me half a minute to skip 5 minutes so assuming I want to move an hour ahead, this would be 6 minutes maximum? Still a long time. Okay to skip one track.
punk0001 wrote:So you were conned and bought a Storm - hahahahahaha! :lol:
emac wrote:Actually I just "bought" one BlackBerry since then I am just using the devices that I have won during the DevChallenges over the last 3 years ;-)
Okay, there's no need to be so smug :wink: :) Well done that person!

emac wrote:Just try the auto accelerate function - even then the max jump is 40sec (I think) it might be worth to make this maximum user configurable...
Auto accelerate function? Have I missed that or do you mean keep punching the FF button? It's a shame you can't just hold the button down to have it forward automatically but better than that I'd *really* love it if you did add a user customisable set jump at some point though, that would be a great aid to navigation (for Storm users). Say FF was set to 1minute and REV to 10 seconds, it would be quick and easy to get to the point you want. I realise that this function would only be of use to Storm users seeing as other users can use their track ball, therefore I think that even if you considder this alteration it will be of low priority.

Please don't think I'm unhappy with the player, I'm very pleased with it. I don't mind creating m3u playlists myself either. To be honest, it's a darned lot easier typing ;
file:///SDCard/BlackBerry/podcasts/622MarcRiley.mp3
into a text file than trying to find what I want to add using the really daft exclude folder setup on the built-in media player, what ejit thought that it was better to exclude rather than seek out the folder you actually want! Did they actually pay someone to come up with that rubbish?

Without sounding like I'm grovelling, if I had a hat I'd take it off to you for your common sense TOMplayer, for without it, I would have dumped my storm on someone I really didn't like that much :D Cheers Emac.
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

... I think with the next release of TOMPlayer we can consider this issue as solved... I have found a way to repeat the current action while the button will be kept pressed... I hope this will work for your Storm as well...

And have you realized, that you can create PlayLists with TOMPlayer too?
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by punk0001 »

emac wrote:... I think with the next release of TOMPlayer we can consider this issue as solved... I have found a way to repeat the current action while the button will be kept pressed... I hope this will work for your Storm as well...
That is great :D Top person!!!!!! :D :D :D
emac wrote: And have you realized, that you can create PlayLists with TOMPlayer too?
I did notice that 'Create Playlist' existed in the menu, hadn't tried it as I read that it wasn't working yet. Following your last post, I tried it out and what can I say aside from it absolutely suits me down to the ground. Select a folder and wait.....Wait.....Wait....Just about to give up when BAM! 'Save playlist as' appears. While it's a long wait (presumably as it had to a:- search the directory and b:- write the 54 entries to the playlist) it's still far quicker than typing it manually by about 20 minutes. What I like more than anything is that it sorted the shows in filename order rather than use the metadata. You see, I arrange the filenames of the shows I like in date order eg. 01GC.mp3, 01MR.mp3 and 02TR.mp3, 04JC.mp3. 01 being the day of the month. For interest only : TR Tom Ravenscroft (son of John Peel), GC Gideon Coe, MR Marc Riley, JC Jarvis Cocker Sunday service.

I am looking forward to the next release. Thanks very much for your superb support
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

punk0001 wrote:What I like more than anything is that it sorted the shows in filename order rather than use the metadata. You see, I arrange the filenames of the shows I like in date order eg. 01GC.mp3, 01MR.mp3 and 02TR.mp3, 04JC.mp3. 01 being the day of the month...
You can also change the sort order (for playlist creation) when you enable the keyboard and press SHIFT+O (change order NAME, DATE, TYPE) SHIFT+I (revert sort order)
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by punk0001 »

emac wrote:
punk0001 wrote:What I like more than anything is that it sorted the shows in filename order rather than use the metadata. You see, I arrange the filenames of the shows I like in date order eg. 01GC.mp3, 01MR.mp3 and 02TR.mp3, 04JC.mp3. 01 being the day of the month...
You can also change the sort order (for playlist creation) when you enable the keyboard and press SHIFT+O (change order NAME, DATE, TYPE) SHIFT+I (revert sort order)
That's a good trick.

Yesterday I reported that it takes an age to create a playlist. Wrong!!! It seems you only have to highlight the directory you want listed whereas I was actually entering the directory. I had the 'back to previous directory' highlighted therefore it was doomed to fail. I guess I only got it working yesterday by mistake :lol:

A non issue that I only noticed because I was doing it wrong and the screen was there forever - The spash screen that appears when you select 'Playlist from Directory' shows (recursive). It imports the playlist correctly though. I'm really not being anal here as who cares, but I know if it was my script / code I'd want to know every last thing. Lets face it, when the end user has a brain as does it properly (unlike me) this screen shows for less than a second. Blink and you've missed it.
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by soccer_fan1 »

Is it possible for the TOMPlayer to recognize .m4b files? When I select the directory with .m4b files it tells me that the folder does not contain audio files.

Thanks
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

can the native BlackBerry Player can play this kind of files ?
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by punk0001 »

It depends if it is DRM'd I guess. Native player and TOMplayer will play m4a files which I believe are a very similar format to m4b if you exclude the fact m4b can be copyright protected. I've only got a Storm to test on by the way. If I were you, I'd experiment and load an m4b into your chosen phone or SC card directory, then search it out using applications/files filefolders, select the file and see if it plays. If it does, it is unprotected so to get TOMplayer to see it, just rename the extension from m4b to m4a. If it doesn't play using the native player there is no point renaming and you will either need a media converter that converts DRM files or a device that can read Apple DRM such as the i-pod or aye-tunes
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by soccer_fan1 »

It works by just renaming the extension to m4a.
Thanks
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Re: TOMPlayer open BETA Feedback-Thread

Post by emac »

TOMPlayer v0.9.0.3 arrived - Last.fm Scrobble Service & FF/REW Enhancements - all details incl. OTA update link:
http://www.emacberry.com/tomp/tomp_04log.html
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