Xion Community

Thanks so much for the bookmark plugin. It works great for my audiobooks. I'd like to suggest an addition though, a Quick Mark. A one click bookmark option that would add/update to a default name. That way one could quickly add a mark without having to type in a new name each time. This would be handy for a quick save when called away, while still having multiple bookmarks available.

Another suggestion I just now thought about would be to save and reload the playlist if one was running.

Again, thanks a lot

tazem (Toni Clark)

tazem Wrote:Thanks so much for the bookmark plugin. It works great for my audiobooks. I'd like to suggest an addition though, a Quick Mark. A one click bookmark option that would add/update to a default name. That way one could quickly add a mark without having to type in a new name each time. This would be handy for a quick save when called away, while still having multiple bookmarks available.

Another suggestion I just now thought about would be to save and reload the playlist if one was running.

Again, thanks a lot

tazem (Toni Clark)

Hi tazem,

It's great to hear you are enjoying using Xion!

I could add something similar to your marking idea in the future, however in the mean time, if you close Xion and then re-open it at a later time, it will automatically remember where you were in a song and resume when you launch it again. (As long as you don't stop the song before closing)

As for your other suggestion, I'm not sure I follow? Currently if you right click on an empty part of the Playlist Window you'll get a menu with File options, including Open and Save of a playlist. Is that what you were looking for?

Cliff

I may be mistaken, but I think he means that if you load a bookmark from a song, the rest of the playlist should load with the track, if you bookmarked with a playlist running. I think so anyway...

Peace, Lance

Cliff Cawley Wrote:I could add something similar to your marking idea in the future, however in the mean time, if you close Xion and then re-open it at a later time, it will automatically remember where you were in a song and resume when you launch it again. (As long as you don't stop the song before closing)

Yes, that part works great! I think what I am looking for is actually two things.
1. A Back button, like in a browser, for when I accidentally double click on one file while listening to another.
2. Update for bookmarks, so theres not need to create a new one each time.

Lance Wrote:I may be mistaken, but I think he means that if you load a bookmark from a song, the rest of the playlist should load with the track, if you bookmarked with a playlist running. I think so anyway...

Yes, that's what I (she) mean. Now if I start a bookmark it will play from where I marked it, then stop. I then need to reload the original playlist, after noting the track. I believe the bookmark only records the mp3 file and position. This is fine for single file audiobooks but some have been broken up into dozens or even hundreds of little files.

Boy I guess I real am lazy All this just to save a little bit of typing...

tazem (Toni)

Aah my apologies for the gender bending Toni I'll keep that in mind for next time
And cool, at least I understod your other request. And I still think it's a good logical idea.

Peace, Lance

the previous track button should serve as a "back" button right?

Yes, but it doesn't continue playing from where it was, it would start from the beginning.

The 'browser back button' feature is difficult to implement, because it would change the way the player behaves as normal. You expect the previous button to go to the last played song and play it from the start. Changing this would break it.

Then I suppose a new button would have a slightly different feature to play from last position on last song. Makes sense and I don't think it would break anything as long as it was a different button and didn't interfere with the previous track code. But then you could also add that if you have a bookmark on a particular track then "previous track" will play from there and if not start from the beginning although that would slow down "previous track" by a few milliseconds lol.

Yes, it would need to be a new command button. Maybe RETURN is a better name.

By BACK/Return I mean for example: you are listening to file A position 3:42, you click on file B, listen to position 0:10, hit BACK/Return, and go to file A 3:42.

I can see how this is different than the browser BACK as web pages are static while playing a file is not. Browsers keep a history of each page loaded at the time of loading. This type of BACK/Return would need to store file/position info at the time of change. And maybe only when that change occurred during PLAY or was configurable on/off or number of records to hold.

This would probable only be of use for audiobooks or long tracks such as DJ Mixes where many songs have been joined into one MP3.

I run into the problem of doing several things at once and sometimes they interfere with each other. I have a friend who is visually impaired and am setting them up for him and others is the same situation. Usually I am listening to one audiobook while also creating playlists, repairing tags, etc.

Often while doing this a file or playlist will get loaded when not wanted, which loses the info for the original file.

Hmmm... I guess I could un-associate MP3's and M3U's. I'll have to give that a try.

But I still think BACk/Return is a good idea

tazem
p.s. Sorry for the ramble ...

tazem Wrote:But I still think BACk/Return is a good idea .

Rather than a new button for this (which would require existing skins to update), how about holding either Ctrl or Shift and clicking the Previous button gives you this 'Back/Return' functionality?

I.e. You're playing Song A, you're at 1:10 and you press Next or double click Song B. If you now press Ctrl or Shift and click the Previous button it will skip back from Song B to Song A and move to position 1:10.

This way you can choose when you'd like to use this feature and when not to.

How does this sound tazem? Are the visually impaired users able to use the keyboard in this manner, or do they rely on mouse input only?

Cliff

Cliff Cawley Wrote:

tazem Wrote:But I still think BACk/Return is a good idea .

Rather than a new button for this (which would require existing skins to update), how about holding either Ctrl or Shift and clicking the Previous button gives you this 'Back/Return' functionality?

I.e. You're playing Song A, you're at 1:10 and you press Next or double click Song B. If you now press Ctrl or Shift and click the Previous button it will skip back from Song B to Song A and move to position 1:10.

This way you can choose when you'd like to use this feature and when not to.

How does this sound tazem? Are the visually impaired users able to use the keyboard in this manner, or do they rely on mouse input only?

Cliff

I think that's a great idea I never even thought about having to update the skins at all, this would be the best of both world for those who already have a fav skin!

Holding the shift or ctrl key would not be a problem. The shift key is the biggest key on the left and the ctrl is at the bottom so both are easy to find. Either one would work.

I looked at your latest beta the other day and I believe that will solve the size problem with the scale ability. I currently have Bill set up with the same skin I use, ewrbar. He has a dark desktop so the white lettering shows up well. When the new version comes out and I can scale it up to 300 it will make it that much easier. I showed his wife, Tammy, how to create and load the playlists and to set the bookmarks.

They both send their thanks by the way, WMP and WinAmp were too difficult for him to navigate. Your program works perfectly!

tazem (toni)

Cliff
How does this sound tazem? Are the visually impaired users able to use the keyboard in this manner, or do they rely on mouse input only?

imo accessibility/usability should mean multiple means of input rather than just 1
also clearly marking such items with perhaps a tooltip with key combinations and also high contrasting marker point

i've never bothered using the bookmarking feature, does it allow for notes and links to be added too?

SLoB Wrote:Cliff
How does this sound tazem? Are the visually impaired users able to use the keyboard in this manner, or do they rely on mouse input only?

imo accessibility/usability should mean multiple means of input rather than just 1
also clearly marking such items with perhaps a tooltip with key combinations and also high contrasting marker point

I've never bothered using the bookmarking feature, does it allow for notes and links to be added too?

It really depends on the type and severity of the impairment. Those with no sight at all so must rely on the keyboard, as the mouse pointer could be anywhere on the screen. Most of these use special software with voice and they can tab through the command locations.

Bill, whom I've know for over 20 years, has center vision blindness so only has limited peripheral vision. If things are large enough he can make them out. Hold your fist about a inch away from your eyes and look straight ahead, this is the way Bill sees things.

Others may have full field of view but can not bring things into clear focus, as with cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, and macular degeneration Many of the elderly are low sighted.

He, as most with limited sight have their monitors set to a low resolution so that everything is a large as possible. Fancy 3D graphics and artistic fonts are totally lost on them. What they need are large, high contrast displays. Tooltips showing the hot-keys is a good idea as long as they are configurable. Many of these popup and disappear before even I get a good look at them

About the Bookmark plug-in; right now you can not annotate only create and remove bookmarks. You have to create and name a new bookmark each time as there is no update. That is one of the things I would like to see added along with a quick marker that would use a default name when you hit the button.

Thanks for your interest in this. I tend to focus most on the use of Xion with audiobooks as this one area where computers/media players can really make a difference in a persons life. Braile is very difficult to learn later in life and the free "audo books for the blind" are mostly like text-to-speech.

tazem

I do plan to improve the Book Marker plugin for the next release, adding the features that you've requested here as I think they are good additions.

Another project I've worked on is actually a Voice Commander plugin. It allows you to use your voice to control Xion by saying things such as 'Xion play', 'Xion stop', 'Xion next', etc.

I actually only created it because I thought it would be cool to bark out commands from another room instead of walking to the computer to change the music, however I can see now that this may be of benefit to more users than just geeks who think controlling things with their voice is fun.

The only reason I never released it, was that because it was constantly scanning for voice input, it would consume about 25-50% of the CPU. Perhaps I should release it anyway

Cliff

Cliff Cawley Wrote:The only reason I never released it, was that because it was constantly scanning for voice input, it would consume about 25-50% of the CPU. Perhaps I should release it anyway

Now now... I just eliminated a problem with my video card that caused my CPU to idle at 25%. Now you bring up the possibility of releasing an optional add-on that brings my load up again? Count me in