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Topic: Find & Play (Read 18491 times) previous topic - next topic
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Find & Play



Find & Play: download

Feature rich plug-in for foobar2000 that finds and plays music. Works great with youtube and your own media library.

FEATURES

Display & play:
- full album and track discographies
- top tracks, similar artists, similar songs, decades
- top 100 charts (current and historic back to 1952)
- can use queries or track matching with last.fm tag database (so files don't need to be tagged in any special way to identify tracks of specific genres, mood or artist locale)

Auto DJ:
- auto DJ option with automated weighting algorithmn that can use last.fm or own data to help select better tracks

Other features:
- operates on a minimum number of playlists, so there's no awkward playlist management
- nowplaying pane that provides feedback or displays configurable info on current track

USAGE

To load & play music:
- click items in album & tracks pane or use context menu.
- click the +  in album & tracks pane for multiple items.
- choose 'Auto DJ...' or 'Find tracks in library...' on context menu. Loads a new selection in a chosen style.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #1 –
Looks good! We have totally different mind-frames about how it should be done (online vs offiline, data sources, etc.), no doubt, but definitely is a great utility :)

Requires ie9 so I have not been able to test many things, since the config panel seems to be broken without it. I have managed to make it work just for auto-dj with only library tracks, so wine or non ie9 users should be able to make it work too for that use-case.

Only feedback I can give about that part is the way it's being handled. Using only library tracks I expected it would not be capped at 5 tracks. I have found a property which lets you change that, but I find strange that every time a track is played it repeat the search again thus losing any speed advantage of having a large selection (?) I was expecting a playlist refresh when near the last track, not on every new track (and data quotas don't apply here since all tracks are offline). Maybe I missed some option, as I said many things are broken on my side.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #2 –
The number is configurable on the options > playlists tab > auto DJ. On the other item - good spot - it affected the library [own data] mode.  Other auto DJ modes seem to be working correctly. The issue should be fixed in the next version.

Thanks for the feedback.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #3 –
Another nice tool Wilb!

Re: auto DJ, prefs>playlist>maintain 25 tracks,
the display informs that Auto DJ has 2887 tracks available, but when I create an auto DJ playlist, it is always <25 tracks - last 2 were 14 and 12 tracks?

Display issues (per attached);
font awesome installed, but no icon indicators (bio panels do display them assuming same implementation)
Image cycling works for artist images, but not album images?

Re: Find & Play

Reply #4 –
Quote from: WilB on
The number is configurable on the options > playlists tab > auto DJ.
That's the point. Options is broken without IE within foobar, so I had to got directly to the properties panel to change it.

Quote from: mjm716 on
Another nice tool Wilb!

Re: auto DJ, prefs>playlist>maintain 25 tracks,
the display informs that Auto DJ has 2887 tracks available, but when I create an auto DJ playlist, it is always <25 tracks - last 2 were 14 and 12 tracks?

Display issues (per attached);
font awesome installed, but no icon indicators (bio panels do display them assuming same implementation)
Image cycling works for artist images, but not album images?
According to the config, pool sizes may vary every time for Auto DJ. Not sure if that's your question. It's a bit ironic reading the config panel with firefox but...

Re: Find & Play

Reply #5 –
@mjm716  Thanks for the feedback.

Auto DJ playlist count: it seems to be working correctly here. If YouTube look-ups fail to find a match then the playlist count can drop below the target. I'm not sure if it's that or something else. If you think that isn't the reason, then if you provide an example auto DJ that exhibits the issue & confirm the exact auto DJ type (e.g. Youtube tracks, Prefer library tracks etc) I can take a look.

Nowplaying panel: I went for a clean look: only icon is a faded last.fm icon top left in feedback mode with auto DJ when last.fm is data source. Context menu is used to toggle with album & tracks pane.

Cycling album covers isn't supported. That's biography only.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #6 –
On reflection I think the reason for the shortfall in auto DJ playlist count was because foo_youtube wasn't installed.

Either way the next version will have a warning message, and an advisory to use the auto DJ in library mode if foo_youtube isn't installed.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #7 –
Wow, great work! And, darn, if the option menu is not awesome!
Am I correct to assume that this is a successor for youtube track manager?

Oh and a few bug(?) reports:
- `Lock/Unlock` button for track tracking does not change, i.e. the text always remains as `Lock`, which is a bit confusing.
- `Lock/Unlock` button state does not seem to persist between panel reloads.
- `Load from cache` icon is hard to see when used in themes with dark background.

IMO, the script name just doesn't do justice to it's features.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #9 –
Thanks for the feedback.

Yes you are correct, this is a successor to YouTube Track Manager, but it should be better implemented with extra enhancements. It also works better in media library modes and doesn't require a youtube api key.

I've changed the lock to a padlock for next version for greater clarity & fixed persistency.

'Load from cache' icon. I've changed the detector for a light vs dark icon to use the background colour rather than the text colour, which hopefully fixes the issue. This will be in the next version.

Do you have an alternative name to Find & Play? I didn't really want to badge it as a youtube thing since it does a lot with the media library. I also wanted something snappy & all embracing of it's features, and Find & Play was best I came up with.

foo_spotify: well I don't have a Spotify Premium account. Presumably there would also have to be a way of spider monkey panel being able to communicate with foo_spotify so it does requested searches? I also wasn't sure how long-lived foo_spotify will be in light of recent posts or how that ended up being resolved.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #10 –
Quote from: WilB on
Do you have an alternative name to Find & Play? I didn't really want to badge it as a youtube thing since it does a lot with the media library. I also wanted something snappy & all embracing of it's features, and Find & Play was best I came up with.
I don't have one in mind yet, but I will try to think of something.
`naming variables` is the second hardest problem of programming after all =)

It's just I have a feeling that this script is being ignored just because of the name...

Quote from: WilB on
I also wasn't sure how long-lived foo_spotify will be in light of recent posts or how that ended up being resolved.
Fair enough, and I have my doubts as well...

Oh and thanks for the fixes :)

Re: Find & Play

Reply #11 –
Quote from: TheQwertiest on
It's just I have a feeling that this script is being ignored just because of the name...
This script is always present in my layout. Everything is simple in it - you find a track and play it. In addition, the script is very well implemented, therefore, there are a minimum of questions. A very necessary and useful thing.
 

Re: Find & Play

Reply #12 –
The name is actually a little misleading, but I love to use the script for its AutoDj function. I am very grateful for all the work that has gone into the script.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #13 –
@WilB , not sure if it's a bug or feature, but I can't reduce the margin below 10

[edit]: and a few other things:
- long logo style overlaps with the other menu items if the width is too small
- logos on the start screen ("click to continue") are overlapping as well

Re: Find & Play

Reply #14 –
Thanks for the feedback.

Those items are fixed for the next version.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #15 –
Still making my way through the new Find&Play coming from YTTM. @WilB: As always great work and I think much improved UX compared to YTTM.
I am still trying to find a way to store autoDJ search results. It is basically the same question I had for YTTM (see here). So far I did not find a Soft Playlists option, and checking 'Find results as top tracks playlists' did not lead to a filled playlist on my side.
Is this feature still availible in Find&Play?

Re: Find & Play

Reply #16 –
The feature is still available in Find & Play. As before the option is available for library tracks.

Switch mode to 'Find tracks in library':
context menu > autoDJ > change to 'Find tracks in library' [near bottom]

Find uses the same track pools as those obtained by using the autoDJ with library tracks. As find loads the whole track pool, you can choose the tracks rather than the auto DJ. By default this uses the Find & Play Selection playlist, which will be overwritten on choosing a new selection.

To save the playlist:
options > playlists tab > save as playlists > find results as top tracks playlists [tick]
This will save the playlist as a 'Top Tracks' playlist

Re: Find & Play

Reply #17 –
New Version: Find & Play 1.0.0

Fixed
- query issue in some auto DJ modes
- increased youtube search timeout to stop searches being cancelled before completed with high numbers of consecutive searches
- overlapping start up logos in narrow panels
- reduced likelihood of overlapping buttons in narrow panels
- rare error in chart mode

Changed
- lock icon now uses padlock & made persistent between restarts
- light or dark icon selector now uses background colour instead of text colour, so dark icon shouldn't get used on dark background with dull fonts
- margin is no longer clamped at a minimum 10
- improved search text handling:
    - added support for font kerning
    - added support for double click (select all)

Added
- option to reset display of start up logos (options > display tab)

Removed
- panel properties & configure from internal menu
    - use right click of find & play while pressing the windows key + shift instead
    - works better as also gives access to all package features

Re: Find & Play

Reply #18 –
Quote from: WilB on
The feature is still available in Find & Play. As before the option is available for library tracks.
I guess that is my point: I would like to store the complete list of found tracks (e.g. 500 tracks) from an AutoDJ search to a playlist as well for the search type 'Youtube tracks' or 'Prefer Library tracks'. That would mean that the full list of both identified library tracks and youtube tracks is sent to a playlist.
Thought this was possible at YTTM, but couldn't reproduce... so probably wrong...
Anyway - big thanks for this great plugin!!

Re: Find & Play

Reply #19 –
You can remove Find & Play limits by using your own last.fm api key. Paste in maintenance tab. The auto DJ playlist size is not then limited to 25 tracks. But please be aware:
1) If you use the YouTube api for searching YouTube, then that's limited to ~ 100 searches per day (~6h new music)
2) If you use the web method there is no actual limit, but use sensibly as YouTube may not tolerate very high levels of calling.

So this may work best where auto DJ list sizes aren't too extensive, e.g. similar songs.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #20 –
@WilB: Thank you very much for the explanation. Now I understand that there are youtube limitations. I will try your suggestions!

Re: Find & Play

Reply #21 –
Thank you for Find & Play!
When loading a found album, the covers and information are not immediately displayed in the playlist,you just need to start playing and restart foobar2000 then all the information is drawn.Is there any way to fix this?
Windows 10,foobar2000 1.6.7,Columns UI,SMP 1.5.1

X  X
YouTube Music

Re: Find & Play

Reply #22 –
Thanks for the feedback.

There seem to be 2 things going on here. One is a design decision. The other is issues with certain playlist viewers.

1) To provide correct metadata Find & Play sends artist\album\track numbers\title etc to foo_youtube since it knows them. This means they can be accurately shown in the playlist. So foo_youtube is operating in metadata override mode. In that mode foo_youtube doesn't get further stuff from youtube like thumbnails or view counts etc until the track is played. The stuff is cached so it's available immediately if the track is played at a future time. The reason for delaying retrieving the stuff like thumbnails & view counts etc. is to stop the add locations dialog box flashing up and popping up whenever a track is loaded. This is especially annoying in some modes, like autoDJ mode

So the expected behaviour is that upon playing a track the thumbnails & view counts etc should show immediately. If the stuff is already cached by foo_youtube it will show any way.

2) You shouldn't have to restart foobar2000 just to get the thumbnails to show.  This is an issue with the playlist viewer.  While many playlist viewers work correctly & don't have this issue, as you found out some are problematical.

The following all work properly
Standard DUI playlist view (metadata only)
Es playlist
Sim playlist: note the default groups\column\front pattern of [%album%] doesn't work well with youtube tracks as these often lack the album name. Try [$if2(%album%,%artist%)]
JS Smooth Playlist. JS version works as it seems to handle stub images a little differently to the SMP version. SMP version seems to work if no stub image is set in album art\front cover patterns.

The following didn't work properly:
CUI & it's in-built playlist viewer. As the CUI artwork panel worked properly, I expect the playlist could be fixed easily.
El playlist. Does have a refresh all on menu which worked.

Re: Find & Play

Reply #23 –
I use my  BomBAZ Mod  and exclusively Artwork view and Playlist view
The problem has not yet been solved.
https://youtu.be/pjLBH4IEaRk
YouTube Music

Re: Find & Play

Reply #24 –
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

But as far as I can tell you're playing an mp3, not a youtube item???.

foo_youtube gets the images and extra metadata. I have no control over that. That occurs on playing a particular track, according to the behaviour in my previous post. So the thumbnail should be obtained on playing the 1st track, with metadata added as each track is then played, if you really want to see it. All cached so available immediately if played again

It seems you're using CUI playlist view, which I think is missing an image refresh callback so may not show the thumbnail on initiating playback anyway, as stated above.

What happens when you play the youtube video and use a different playlist viewer like es_playlist? es_playlist works for me. Artwork view also works for me.

As far as I can tell there is nothing I can change unless you have an idea.