[mythtv-users] MythMusic rewrite

[Richard Morton]

Evening!

Sorry I'm sooo late to this particular party but I have been thinking
about this on and off, hope I'm not too late.

R

I think Pandora functionality is a little more than a re-write of the
UI and maybe more than intended by those who opened this up for
discussion....

However I to would however love to see a play-radio based on this seed
type functionality; it is by far and the way the most relevant
interface I've used for my music listening habits these days; it's in
my favorite windows media player (jrmediacenter). It;s also fab for
parties or when people pop round for chats and you just want some
background music.

It's also simple to use; which is the point of why a HTPC appliance
style user interface is created...  in my opinion.

So a big big please... for a pandora/seeded-radio playback feature.

Other ideas (described briefly below):
Coverflow view
Coverart view
quick search
playback handling of track transitions
telnet control
mythweb
controls
or alternatively changes to
existing playlist screen
&&
controls


Coverflow View
============
I would also like to see (but less so than the above) a coverflow
style interface

I would like to see a coverflow interface with alphabetical search by
(coverflow view & configurable which is default when opening
mythmusic)
 - artist (cover being art from earliest album with coverart or the
highest quality coverart for that artist?)
 - album (all albums, alphabetically by album name)
which view that opens would be configurable, or remember last state?


In the following text I have provided examples on how it could work
going as far as proposing keybindings, of course this is
implementation and done to aid understanding.

So this apple-esq layout would require high-quality coverart on a hd
monitor. It would also require multiple pages to be created.

Page 1:
the screen would be split into three areas;
 - cover-flow area (60+% of the vertical height)
 - alphabet
 - selected media information

Coverflow area:
With just the horizantally sliding cover-art flow rotating into
full-front view and sliding out and tilting as it exits to the side of
the display.

the horizontal arrow keys would move one cover, page-up/dn  could move
multiple (possibly a screen full). pressing down would move the focus
to the alphabet (below)

When selecting a cover being shown the behaviour would be different
based on the coverflow view selected above
 - when showing an album
    - it should be easily possible(from the users point of view)
       - to show a different screen showing all tracks represented by the cover
       - to play all media from the cover that has focus
       - to "mark" the media represented by the cover
       - to drill into the next level (still in coverflow view) from
artist to album if in artist view


Alphabet area:
A horizontal list of letters, with the effect of a spotlight being
shone on the letters(or letters) as the coverart moves (changing the
colour of the letters being emphasised from grey to bright white for
example). This is always kept in sync with the coverflow album being
displayed above.

the user is able to move focus to the alphabet area and jump to a
specific letter (with a short delay before the move and if jumping
many albums them an emulated/animated blurred move could possible be
played).

Media Information Area:
once paused on a album cover for a short period the lower area would
appear with basic information about the selected artist/album shown.

on an artist; show artist name and possibly dob, short bio, genres
#albums #tracks
on an album: show artist, album title, year, and other relevant metadata



Track view
--------------
Could be a page that shows a bit of artist bio and a list of tracks
passed to it by the coverflow page.


coverart view
==========
 - incorporate a coverart view (as opposed to coverflow)
 - coverart/coverflow view;
http://www.pix01.com/gallery/8D12431D-7EA0-495D-9EA2-775091458CB9/Theater_View_13.0.140/9057916741.jpg
- able to use mouse for scroll?


quick-search/filter
==============
search for artists/tracks by name - keyboard entry
quick to access realtime search/filter

show answers in existing three pane style view showing matching
artists, albums and tracks

playback
=======
 - crossfade playback between tracks when music tracks are not played
sequentially of the same album; otherwise gapless playback

control
=====
 - change from solely using number buttons to making them cursor
selectable options (visualisation, shuffle, playlists/my music etc) -
but this is because I use a keyboard as primary input.

Telnet
=====
 - enable full telnet control without resorting to using keypress simulation



On existing playlist creation screen:
 - split the screen into 2 full width main areas:
      - top half - in the top half four main columns;
         - create new playlist / edit existing playlist / clear
current playqueue / add to current playqueue / My library management
         - Artist
         - Album
         - Tracks
      - bottom half - file information - lists file information.




MythWeb
========
I would like to see an enhancement to MythWeb for managing media
files, metadata, coverart, renaming files to match metadata and
extracting data from the filename and inserting it into the metadata.
Grabbing coverart and able to place it in the files, or in album.jpg
or folder.jpg