MusicNow
- Thread starter mzetko
- Start date
Ali El
New member
What is scrobbling? I see it everywhere in the request... Just asking 
Nice! Work! I'm curious how you indexed the music. Is it a database? Or how?
Nice! Work! I'm curious how you indexed the music. Is it a database? Or how?
jomarr
New member
What is scrobbling? I see it everywhere in the request... Just asking
Nice! Work! I'm curious how you indexed the music. Is it a database? Or how?
Scrobbling is a last.fm feature where you can track your playcounts. For music buffs like me, it's extremely important! I love MixRadio but the lack of last fm integration turns me off.
Hello friends!
Thank you for being patient, I have quite a few new screenshots for you this week and I am going to work on MusicNow over the holidays now starting Wednesday, so if everything goes well, the app's beta will be released soon!
I will get back here on Thursday with screenshots and updates and we will progress from there in a quick pace towards the release .
Have a great day!
Sincerely
Martin Zikmund
Thank you for being patient, I have quite a few new screenshots for you this week and I am going to work on MusicNow over the holidays now starting Wednesday, so if everything goes well, the app's beta will be released soon!
I will get back here on Thursday with screenshots and updates and we will progress from there in a quick pace towards the release
.Have a great day!
Sincerely
Martin Zikmund
UchilHasmit
New member
rizzo183
New member
Dude, this is reaaally slow! At this point i'm not even sure you're working on anything at all.
You've said that you're busy with school. That's understandable. But you shouldn't make promises you can't keep. It's been 5 months since you announced an upcoming app, and 3 months since it's initial release date. So far you've only given us screenshots. Which, quite frankly, isn't much to go on.
If you've scrapped the project, let us know.
If you're actually making progress, let us know!
If you're not gonna give us a pre-alpha or an alpha OR a beta, at the very least, give us a video of the app running on your phone.
You've said that you're busy with school. That's understandable. But you shouldn't make promises you can't keep. It's been 5 months since you announced an upcoming app, and 3 months since it's initial release date. So far you've only given us screenshots. Which, quite frankly, isn't much to go on.
If you've scrapped the project, let us know.
If you're actually making progress, let us know!
If you're not gonna give us a pre-alpha or an alpha OR a beta, at the very least, give us a video of the app running on your phone.
Master Chaos5
New member
^ Yeah. That's why you don't trust anyone without a proof.
Anyways about the dev, I know building apps takes ALOT of time (I'm a dev too, not a pro one tho). And he is busy with school, but it's been 5 months and its pretty pathetic that he couldn't even release a BETA version of the app.
Also, I'm sure, IF it gets released it is still going to be buggy :/
Imo Xbox Music is pretty decent now, I have no problems with it. But still if you want you should try zbox or OneMusic both of them are decent player (zbox is just too awesome and it's free, I use it as my main music player).
Also you can buy Music Hub Tile ( I know it seems like a Rip Off, but trust me it is NOT). You lose the ability to create playlists (but you can always create them in Xbox Music app, and they'll appear in Old Music Hub) but the new update gives you Live Tiles.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't wait for this app, but while you do, you can try others which are much sophisticated (just think the dev have yet to release a BETA, You'll probably see a full fledged app in more 3-4 months).
I'm don't hate dev, but it's just, that waiting anymore is non sense.
Sorry Dev.
Peace.
Anyways about the dev, I know building apps takes ALOT of time (I'm a dev too, not a pro one tho). And he is busy with school, but it's been 5 months and its pretty pathetic that he couldn't even release a BETA version of the app.
Also, I'm sure, IF it gets released it is still going to be buggy :/
Imo Xbox Music is pretty decent now, I have no problems with it. But still if you want you should try zbox or OneMusic both of them are decent player (zbox is just too awesome and it's free, I use it as my main music player).
Also you can buy Music Hub Tile ( I know it seems like a Rip Off, but trust me it is NOT). You lose the ability to create playlists (but you can always create them in Xbox Music app, and they'll appear in Old Music Hub) but the new update gives you Live Tiles.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't wait for this app, but while you do, you can try others which are much sophisticated (just think the dev have yet to release a BETA, You'll probably see a full fledged app in more 3-4 months).
I'm don't hate dev, but it's just, that waiting anymore is non sense.
Sorry Dev.
Peace.
rizzo183
New member
^ I agree with you 100%. If i don't see a video response from this dev in the next 3-4 days, i'm out.
I have tried zbox and onemusic (lucky for me it was on myappfree couple weeks ago). They're both awesome. But this dev promised ALL the features of ALL the music apps out there combined into one app. Hence the wait.
I still use xbox music as my daily app, cause it's basically flawless for me right now. Album art, artist background, fast startup, background library update - everything's there (for me).
I have tried zbox and onemusic (lucky for me it was on myappfree couple weeks ago). They're both awesome. But this dev promised ALL the features of ALL the music apps out there combined into one app. Hence the wait.
I still use xbox music as my daily app, cause it's basically flawless for me right now. Album art, artist background, fast startup, background library update - everything's there (for me).
UchilHasmit
New member
Relaaxxx.. Its not like you've already paid for it.. Why don't we just forget about this and pretend it never happened?
rizzo183
New member
No, i didn't pay for it. But just cause this 5-month-long wait was "free", doesn't mean it's not frustrating when there's nothing at the end of it.
I'm not cursing or threatening the dude in any way. I am relaxed. All i'm asking is for him to give us some kind of assurance so we know it's worth the wait, OR that we should "forget this ever happened". :smile:
perfectthumb
New member
AldoNovendi
New member
Master Chaos5
New member
Hi all,
I am very sad about what you are writing here. I work on the app all the time. To explain, why is was silent last days - when I wanted to do another batch of screenshots at the beginning last week, something wrong happened - all database data were coming back "scrambled". When the app music collection discovery finished, all tracks had less than a second long play time and genres like "18,a,9000000xxx". I could not believe my eyes, but it was everywhere. All files were returning these impossible values and the collection was completely unusable.
I have spend all my time since then trying to find a fix for this. I haven't changed any of the discovery code and haven't changed any project properties or anything that could have affected this. Even more crazy is the fact that this behavior now happened even with a completely blank new project and on all devices I have at home...
But it didn't stop there, even worse things happened when I tried to run the app in Release mode - which caused some kind of fatal error in Visual Studio 2013.
Long story short - now after more than a week of headaches I finally found out the causes for both of these issues.
To all developers who will attempt this in the future, here is what happened:
1) The Release mode not working
This one is a bug in the compilation process of Visual Studio when a portable class library contains localized RESX files. It works normally in debug mode, but once the release is switched on, the environment has problems compiling the localized resources and fails when it can't find the output in the build folder. The only solution is to use the localization via RESW files in the Universal Shared Project. This causes duplication of code if you intend to add other platforms later (Xamarin), but no other fix is available now as far as I know. For a sidenote, Windows Apps are okay for some reason and this problem doesn't affect them.
2) MusicProperties going mad
This one got me extremely unhappy. Not only the problem was very cryptic and impossible to debug, but the solution is even weirder. The issue here is caused by some kind of bug in Windows Phone 8.1 Runtime (I need to report this to the Windows Phone team somehow). To enumerate all music files from Music Library I was using the dedicated API - await KnownFolders.MusicLibrary.GetFilesAsync( CommonFileQuery.OrderByName ) - I normally got all music files (the whole file structure, of the music library), but couldn't query the valid values for Genre and Duration - or more precisely I could, but the values were all wrong). This problem must have started in the last Windows Phone updates somehow, because it worked flawlessly previously and it is present on both Developer Preview devices and Denim update devices.
The solution in the end is painfully simple but unpleasant at the same time. Instead of MusicLibrary API we have to use the normal folder traversing techniques: await folder.GetFilesAsync and folder.GetFoldersAsync. This solution is sadly much slower for large collections with complicated folder structure (because of the filesystem access broker process in the system each request has to go through adds additional time delay to initiate and return results), but for some reason, in this way, the properties are so far returning correctly. I couldn't get it working with any variation of the original code. I don't know the underlying reason for this... I will report it and hopefully it will get fixed in the future releases.
So this is what was keeping me busy... Now I finally know the "workaround solution" and will now rebuild the collection discovery code accordingly...
Thank you for your patience...
Sincerely
Martin Zikmund
I am very sad about what you are writing here. I work on the app all the time. To explain, why is was silent last days - when I wanted to do another batch of screenshots at the beginning last week, something wrong happened - all database data were coming back "scrambled". When the app music collection discovery finished, all tracks had less than a second long play time and genres like "18,a,9000000xxx". I could not believe my eyes, but it was everywhere. All files were returning these impossible values and the collection was completely unusable.
I have spend all my time since then trying to find a fix for this. I haven't changed any of the discovery code and haven't changed any project properties or anything that could have affected this. Even more crazy is the fact that this behavior now happened even with a completely blank new project and on all devices I have at home...
But it didn't stop there, even worse things happened when I tried to run the app in Release mode - which caused some kind of fatal error in Visual Studio 2013.
Long story short - now after more than a week of headaches I finally found out the causes for both of these issues.
To all developers who will attempt this in the future, here is what happened:
1) The Release mode not working
This one is a bug in the compilation process of Visual Studio when a portable class library contains localized RESX files. It works normally in debug mode, but once the release is switched on, the environment has problems compiling the localized resources and fails when it can't find the output in the build folder. The only solution is to use the localization via RESW files in the Universal Shared Project. This causes duplication of code if you intend to add other platforms later (Xamarin), but no other fix is available now as far as I know. For a sidenote, Windows Apps are okay for some reason and this problem doesn't affect them.
2) MusicProperties going mad
This one got me extremely unhappy. Not only the problem was very cryptic and impossible to debug, but the solution is even weirder. The issue here is caused by some kind of bug in Windows Phone 8.1 Runtime (I need to report this to the Windows Phone team somehow). To enumerate all music files from Music Library I was using the dedicated API - await KnownFolders.MusicLibrary.GetFilesAsync( CommonFileQuery.OrderByName ) - I normally got all music files (the whole file structure, of the music library), but couldn't query the valid values for Genre and Duration - or more precisely I could, but the values were all wrong). This problem must have started in the last Windows Phone updates somehow, because it worked flawlessly previously and it is present on both Developer Preview devices and Denim update devices.
The solution in the end is painfully simple but unpleasant at the same time. Instead of MusicLibrary API we have to use the normal folder traversing techniques: await folder.GetFilesAsync and folder.GetFoldersAsync. This solution is sadly much slower for large collections with complicated folder structure (because of the filesystem access broker process in the system each request has to go through adds additional time delay to initiate and return results), but for some reason, in this way, the properties are so far returning correctly. I couldn't get it working with any variation of the original code. I don't know the underlying reason for this... I will report it and hopefully it will get fixed in the future releases.
So this is what was keeping me busy... Now I finally know the "workaround solution" and will now rebuild the collection discovery code accordingly...
Thank you for your patience...
Sincerely
Martin Zikmund
Hello all,
to ensure you know I am still committed to this project - here is a sign-up survey for the first private beta version. This short beta will be only for those who sign up. It is going to be private to ensure the app actually works on all kinds of devices before I release the beta publicly for everyone.
In case no major, app breaking problems will be found, the public beta will start soon after that.
When the beta will be ready, I will reach out to you via the e-mail and send you the link for download. For progress check this thread, please.
Thank you all again, and happy new year to everyone!
Martin Zikmund
to ensure you know I am still committed to this project - here is a sign-up survey for the first private beta version. This short beta will be only for those who sign up. It is going to be private to ensure the app actually works on all kinds of devices before I release the beta publicly for everyone.
In case no major, app breaking problems will be found, the public beta will start soon after that.
When the beta will be ready, I will reach out to you via the e-mail and send you the link for download. For progress check this thread, please.
Thank you all again, and happy new year to everyone!
Martin Zikmund
Hello audi360,
sadly I don't own any Samsung device now, could you give me some examples of how this feature works?
Sincerely
Martin Zikmund
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