Music player tweak/ slideshow bug ?

[Guikd76]

Greetings everyone!

I've been silently using XBMC on my end for a while, enjoying the experience quite a bit I must say!

there's a couple things I'd like to know/do and I've looked for answers here and elsewhere but to no avail so far. English being my second language, it might have to do with my choosing the wrong keywords, so I'm allowing myself to ask for guidance on here.

First thing, my screensaver is set to slideshow which displays just fine! The thing is when some music is playing at the same time, at times a nifty lil' player thumbnail shows up in the bottom left hand corner of the screen with information as to what the music playing is and at other times, for some reason, this music thumbnail just won't appear. Is this a known bug or is it just me not knowing what button combination to push to make it appear ?

Lastly, I would like to tweak the home screen music thumbnail in the bottom right hand corner in that I would like to display a lil' jpeg picture consisting of the artist/band's home country's flag. Is this doable ? If so I'm not asking anyone to do the heavy lifting for me and show me how to do it, I just would like to know what specific part of the XBMC wiki/documentation I need to study to know how to do it. I've briefly perused thru it before but didn't find anything that could help me achieve the aforementioned tweak.

In both cases, any help/suggestion will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

[xman]

Greetings everyone!
First thing, my screensaver is set to slideshow which displays just fine! The thing is when some music is playing at the same time, at times a nifty lil' player thumbnail shows up in the bottom left hand corner of the screen with information as to what the music playing is and at other times, for some reason, this music thumbnail just won't appear. Is this a known bug or is it just me not knowing what button combination to push to make it appear ?

That will usually appear at the start of each song for a short period. You can also bring it up at any time by pressing one of the small buttons on a controller. This button also changes the operation of this feature but just bear in mind this feature is also skin dependent. Some skins, pushing this button simply turn the info on or off where others utilize the display for short period, not on at all operation.

Lastly, I would like to tweak the home screen music thumbnail in the bottom right hand corner in that I would like to display a lil' jpeg picture consisting of the artist/band's home country's flag. Is this doable ? If so I'm not asking anyone to do the heavy lifting for me and show me how to do it, I just would like to know what specific part of the XBMC wiki/documentation I need to study to know how to do it. I've briefly perused thru it before but didn't find anything that could help me achieve the aforementioned tweak.

In both cases, any help/suggestion will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

Again, this is more skin dependent that XBMC itself. I'm sure one of the skin devs could mod one of there skins for this feature. If you have no luck, if you put a file in your music list with "exactly the same name" as the music file but change the .mp3 ( example), to .jpg or .tbn and supply a picture in this new file, the machine will select this picture as your (quote), "lil' jpeg picture".

[GoTeamScotch]

Hi Guikd, welcome to the forums!

To clarify, is the problem that you're not seeing any thumbnail icon at all or is the problem that the thumbnail icon IS appearing but the picture is the default/generic one and does not relate to the specific music artist you're playing?

If you see an icon for some music and not for others, it's possible that the online database that XBMC uses to download thumbnails from does not have info for the specific artist you're trying to play. It's unlikely, but not unheard of. What is an example music artist are you trying to play? Also, can you tell us which skin you are using? Hint: if your home screen looks similar to the picture below, then you are using the skin Confluence Lite.


Lastly, have you scanned the music you're playing to your music library or are you trying to play it as a file? You'll know it has been scanned to your music library if you see it listed under Music > Artists or Music > Albums (as opposed to Music > Files).

[NOTTHESAME]

If you want the bands flag of country to appear, this can be done its not gonna be that hard, add a code to the visuals to appear with the flag of the band, tgi can be done manualy once i implant the code, but also will depend on how you sort your artist and albums, like if its a band no doubt you can that flag lf country american flag, if its black sabbath you can just drop the brtish flag, but lets say you have a 70s mix with abba and grand funk rail road, thats out of my league, you may need someones expert help, if any body got a better idea give it a try, but if not ill make a simple mod for you Guikd76

[Guikd76]

hey guys!

thank you very much for taking the time to provide me with some good answers. I forgot myself to provide you with one important piece of information, confluence is the skin Im using!

That will usually appear at the start of each song for a short period. You can also bring it up at any time by pressing one of the small buttons on a controller. This button also changes the operation of this feature but just bear in mind this feature is also skin dependent. Some skins, pushing this button simply turn the info on or off where others utilize the display for short period, not on at all operation.

Based on what you said, here's what I did to find the solution : entered music player mode (by pressing the X button), pushed the white button once to have the music player bottom bar always present, exited the music player mode, waited for the slideshow screensaver to start and voilà, the music player thumbnail is right there in the bottom left hand corner. Doesnt go away tho'. it stays there forever as long as the slideshow continues. So it's either all or nothing. If I just wait for the slideshow to start without doing what I described above, I don't get the music thumbnail at all. Must be confluence or my XBMC built I guess. (Im running XBMC 3.5.1 r32990, compiled on 05/31/2015)

Again, this is more skin dependent that XBMC itself. I'm sure one of the skin devs could mod one of there skins for this feature. If you have no luck, if you put a file in your music list with "exactly the same name" as the music file but change the .mp3 ( example), to .jpg or .tbn and supply a picture in this new file, the machine will select this picture as your (quote), "lil' jpeg picture".

They say a picture tells a thousand words right ? So here's a screen cap I did with XBMC onto which I've added with The Gimp a little flag icon to let you perfectly understand what I have in mind. I'd like to display the year of release as well somewhere in there. Doable ?

If you see an icon for some music and not for others, it's possible that the online database that XBMC uses to download thumbnails from does not have info for the specific artist you're trying to play. It's unlikely, but not unheard of. What is an example music artist are you trying to play?

I've kind of put on hold the whole "let xbmc retrieve info online" thing for the time being. I can see the xbox appear on my home network but every time I've tried to get the weather to work, it failed. So, music wise, I gather all the song files I want in a folder, I fire up a nifty program called "mp3tag", point it to the song folder, and pretty much check manually that everything is a-ok. Especially the cover/art attached to each song file. And then I transfer them all to my trusty ol' xbox Yes, a bit annoying and time consuming but what can you do ? I'll admit to not being very educated when it comes to what you can do online with XBMC as a dashboard. Also, about the music again, a lot of the songs on my playlist are really obscure heavy metal stuff, demo songs, bootlegs... So I'm not sure if I used XBMC's music scrapping features that it would work out for me as well as it does currently.

Lastly, have you scanned the music you're playing to your music library or are you trying to play it as a file? You'll know it has been scanned to your music library if you see it listed under Music > Artists or Music > Albums (as opposed to Music > Files).

I'll confess to not being very knowledgeable about the Library mode either. It's enabled but I hadn't really messed around with it all that much until a few minutes ago when I scanned all my music folders to my library. Indeed now Im given more options in the Music sub menu! (But none of the artists/bands have a dedicated thumbnail and the grouping by genre is kinda off a lot. Looks like more work in mp3tag. GREAT!

Before scanning all my music files, when accessing the current playlist by pressing the start button and then selecting the playlist icon on the right, none of the band thumbnails I had attached to each file with mp3tag were displayed but since the scanning has been done, they are displayed just right! What's funny is when I try to access the same playlist from the Music > Playlists > playlist name > playlist content, unless I've included a tbn file named after the song file, most of the songs display the generic song thumbnail. As if I was viewing them thru Music > files. Go figure ahah!

Last but not least, NOTTHESAME, thank you for your input! Unless I'm wrong, you're saying it's easier to display the American and British flags over others ? Why is that ?

[xman]

Based on what you said, here's what I did to find the solution : entered music player mode (by pressing the X button), pushed the white button once to have the music player bottom bar always present, exited the music player mode, waited for the slideshow screensaver to start and voilà, the music player thumbnail is right there in the bottom left hand corner. Doesnt go away tho'. it stays there forever as long as the slideshow continues. So it's either all or nothing. If I just wait for the slideshow to start without doing what I described above, I don't get the music thumbnail at all. Must be confluence or my XBMC built I guess.

Yes, Confluence skin dependent that is why it is on or off. Using a skin like PMIIIHD and the white button doesn't perform quite like that. It's cycle is on momentarily, on all the time and off.

[Guikd76]

Yes, Confluence skin dependent that is why it is on or off. Using a skin like PMIIIHD and the white button doesn't perform quite like that. It's cycle is on momentarily, on all the time and off.

A couple things :

1) Any way to tweak confluence so its behaviour is that of PMIIIHD ?
2) By default, confluence will not display the music thumbnail when slideshow starts, any way to make the thumbnail appear by default ?

[NOTTHESAME]

I can do that flag hack it wont take much ill do it tonight with confluence lite, this is the most i can do and maybe the best.

[hawsey]

I would love this tweak as well .

Sorry if this is thread hijacking but it is regarding a music tweak that I have been chasing for years , as a music lover I find the info really sparce for albums in my collection
What I would like would be an info bit on the screen when the album art is showing that you could turn on and off with a remote press .
It would include :

1: Band Members
2: Recording studio
3: Instruments used including any session musicians
4: Extra info say tales/stories about what happened during recording etc .
There is a great audiophiles site called Discogs where this info could be scraped from but that's not what I am asking for as that would be a huge ask , I could copy and paste what I need in to a file inside the album folder
What do you think ?
Would this be possible without a mountain of work .
Apology in advance if this has already been done and I am not aware , I tried years ago on the old xbmc forum but gave up .
Cheers

Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

[NOTTHESAME]

Okay, heres a screen shot of the hack for bands country



heres the file you need just download and replace with this file, ftp to your confluence lite skin.
it should only be one file https://www.dropbox.com/s/fe29jscljt9zf ... n.xml?dl=0

example q:/xbmc/skin/confluence lite/720/ drop inside and your done.

how this works?

simply download the flag of the band, as you can see in the image above, download the image and rename
it to flag.jpg and drop inside your group and it should show up, as for now this works only in music visuals.

enjoy!

[hawsey]

Great work thanks I'll use this as well.

Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

[NOTTHESAME]

Great work thanks I'll use this as well.

Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

If you can post a image of what ypu want, like say the rock band uses sg guitars and marahall amps, only for one band is alot but. Not sure how exactly how to set this, asj about the nfo files tgat can be done by the user, which us you me and who uses xbmc4xbox, the thing i can do is make possible for images and not text, say a little area to show the mix machine and who was recording but by text i cant really say if its poaaible, someone with more knowing of what you might want,
Like the flag i can set it so that you can drop a image of the bands name or guitar or drums they used, http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/forum/viewt ... f=6&t=1694 go here and read more

[hawsey]

@NOTTHESAME,
Thanks for the reply I think it was text I was after really , here is an idea of the sort of thing I was after


There are sections like moods/ styles that that I want replaced do you see what I mean , year released etc

Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

[Guikd76]

Thank you for your time NOTTHESAME and effort too !
So the music visualization xml file is the one to fool around with to modify the home screen music player thumbnail settings ?

[NOTTHESAME]

@NOTTHESAME,
Thanks for the reply I think it was text I was after really , here is an idea of the sort of thing I was after


There are sections like moods/ styles that that I want replaced do you see what I mean , year released etc

Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

Im sorry thats out my department, that needs to be modded by someone that wants to add this feature to xbmc4xbox, all i can say is http://redmine.exotica.org.uk/projects/xbmc4xbox/ report the feature on that page and hopefully it can be done, good luck

[NOTTHESAME]

Thank you for your time NOTTHESAME and effort too !
So the music visualization xml file is the one to fool around with to modify the home screen music player thumbnail settings ?

Hey, your welcome, no the home.xml for home and where else did you need this feature?? Its possible to add it to home you can add it your self but you will need to recalibrate the location where you want it, its up to you but i can help when i can, copy and paste the code in the music section where it has to go, all you would need to do is fix the postion of posx and posy, then when playing it will appear where you want it? Also the image i set it, if you wannt move it go into the file i send you and type in search flag and it will come up, now posy and posx are what makes up and down move that image.

Again i can help or if ya wanna learn thats okay let me know ok i was not sure if where the flag is , is a okay or if you wanted to change it, im at work but i can have some time tonight. About messing with the home music screen home menu, what did you have in mind?

[hawsey]

Cheers , thanks for looking I will look over at mainline Kodi and see if anything like this has already been done ...

I think movies are well served on xbmc and kodi but not music , well at least not if your a bit geeky about music , it is lacking a bit or maybe what I want is available in one of the many skins .
Thanks againb

Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

[NOTTHESAME]

@hawsey you can use nfo file, offline database, but im not sure how to set it up , sorry i could never get it to work, atleast a few years ago i might give it a try heres the page that shows you how this works http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/wiki/Import ... _nfo_files
It might give you want you want or how you want your music set up. Good luck

[hawsey]

Cheers , that looks promising
I am posting on the Kodi forum now , will report back any success ...
Cheers

Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

[Guikd76]

Hey, your welcome, no the home.xml for home and where else did you need this feature?? Its possible to add it to home you can add it your self but you will need to recalibrate the location where you want it, its up to you but i can help when i can, copy and paste the code in the music section where it has to go, all you would need to do is fix the postion of posx and posy, then when playing it will appear where you want it? Also the image i set it, if you wannt move it go into the file i send you and type in search flag and it will come up, now posy and posx are what makes up and down move that image.

Again i can help or if ya wanna learn thats okay let me know ok i was not sure if where the flag is , is a okay or if you wanted to change it, im at work but i can have some time tonight. About messing with the home music screen home menu, what did you have in mind?

Hey mate

I need this feature in the music player mode (as pictured above by your screen cap) and in the lower right hand corner home screen music thumbnail (as pictured above in my screen cap). Thing is, Im very partial to Confluence at this time, and I 've wanted to get my hands dirty (understanding) editing and tweaking the code for a bit, so this is a great opportunity to do it. Guess you'll be my go to person if things don't work

Lastly (but not least), most of my mp3 files are from very different sources hence having a noticeable disparity in terms of sound volume. I've tried to fix that using xbmc settings (use track volume or album volume if I remember well) but didnt hear any difference. Anyone experience this too ? Am I doing it wrong ?