awy;613507 Wrote:
>
> The existing API used by mixers does not fit well with this philosophy.
> In fact it is a really bad match.
>
And it's currently a mess from a third party API perspective, so it
really needs to be changed even if onebrowser never gets released.
I personally like the SqueezePlay version which is launched from the
context menu (opened with Add button), but unfortunately that can't be
used on IP3K and web interface since neither of them implements a
context menu.
I've previously said to Ben that the Play-Hold mixer in SP feels
unnecessary when it's already available in the context menu as a
separate item.
awy;613507 Wrote:
>
> There are probably three classes of play-hold functionality:
> 3. from a context-menu item - for example, the "Album" item of a
> track context-menu (how useful is this?); note this is not the same as
> an item in a context menu that specifically invokes a mixer.
>
It's very useful to be able to launch a mixer from a context menu item
but instead of a launching a mixer it would be even better if a new
context menu could be launched from a context menu item.
The scenario is the following:
1. Show track details
2. Select the Artist which produce the track
3. Launch a mixer for the artist, this is not the same as launching the
mixer from a track. Look later in this post and you will understand why
when I describe how I use mixers in my plugins.
Instead of launching the mixer in point 3, I'd love to be able to
launch the context menu for the selected artist.
awy;613507 Wrote:
>
> Is there anyone who would be interested in:
> 2. Taking ownership of the MusicIP plugin as a third-party plugin
> and porting it to the new API above?
>
This worries me a lot but probably not for the reason you think. I'm
not worried about loosing the MusicIP functionality because it provides
too much interesting functionality to die, there is definitely someone
who is going to provide something similar if it isn't supported by
Logitech anymore. We already have the SugarCube plugin which also
integrates with MusicIP application.
Instead, my worries is how you plan to test the API if you don't have
any plugin that actually uses it. Based on previous experience I've
seen that Logitech tends to break or mess up API's which they don't use
themselves, there is nothing strange with this, if you don't have
anything that uses it, it's easy to forget about it during testing.
So as long you have some strategy how to test and keep the API working
in the future, I don't see a problem if you drop the MusicIP plugin.
awy;613507 Wrote:
>
> I have in mind a basic API:
>
I need to take a look at the XMLBrowser and the onebrowser branch
before I comment on your design thoughts in detail, but one thing that
is important is that the mixer usage in MusicIP is a bit different from
mixers implemented in other third party plugins.
The issue is that the IP3K and web interface doesn't have any context
menus, but they do have mixers. Due to this third party plugins, mostly
mine, have been using mixers to provide actions on various objects.
For example:
- TrackStat: Provides a mixer that for example shows up on an artist
and when clicking on the mixer icon, you will be able to browse the
statistics of the selected artist. I definitely don't want to end up in
the "Now Playing" screen when the TrackStat mixer is launched.
- Dynamic Playlist + SQL Playlist: Provides a mixer that makes it
possible to launch a dynamic playlist with the selected item as
parameter. For example, you can launch the mixer from a genre and then
a list of all dynamic playlists which can be parametrized with a genre
and when one of them is selected the playlist starts to play.
- Custom Browse: Provides a mixer that makes it possible to browse
related data to the selected item, can for example be launched from a
year to make it possible to browse all genres which music that year is
related to. I definitely don't want to end up in the "Now Playing"
screen when the mixer is launched.
- SQL Playlist: Provides a mixer that makes it possible to create a new
SQL Playlist with the selected item as input, for example select an
artist and create a SQL Playlist that produce tracks from that artist.
I definitely don't want to end up in the "Now Playing" screen when the
mixer is launched. It's also worth to mention that this mixer is only
available in the web interface and it doesn't make sense to have it in
the IP3K and SP interfaces as those interfaces don't have the necessary
editing possibilities.
- Custom Skip: Provides a mixer that makes it possible to configure the
selected item to be skipped when it's generated from a random mix or
dynamic mix playlist. I definitely don't want to end up in the "Now
Playing" screen when the mixer is launched.
awy;613507 Wrote:
>
> The SP-UI implementation would map to 'play-hold'; the ip3k Player-UI
> implementation to the 'create_mix' function (itself mapped from
> play-hold in Default.map; the Web-UI implementation would map to the
> *M* icon.
>
Just remember that there can be more than one mixer icons in the web
interface, one icon for each mixer which is available on the item. This
could of course be changed, so you have an intermediate menu that lists
available mixers when the M is clicked and the real mixer is launched
after you have selected it from the list.
awy;613507 Wrote:
>
> I guess it would be easy enough to have single- and multiple-mixer
> versions of the command but is that really worthwhile?
>
There definitely have to be support for multiple mixers but I don't
think it's that important to have both variants, maybe we always can
show an intermediate menu that shows available mixers and then let the
user select the mixer he/she likes to launch.
--
erland
Erland Isaksson ('My homepage' (http://erland.isaksson.info))
(Developer of 'many plugins/applets'
(http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/User:Erland). If my answer
helped you and you like to encourage future presence on this forum
and/or third party plugin/applet development, 'donations are always
appreciated' (http://erland.isaksson.info/donate))
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