Nova Media Player (minimalistic) v0.5.5 202kb

[idle]

It's something I've been doing for myself, though it started out as a PurePunch that just got to large to shrink

[v0.5.5a]
Redid media library
Resolved issues of same song different artists and albums named "Greatest Hits"
Changed wma tag reader to trap read errors
Fixed window drawing issue on horizontal and vertical sizing
Capture mouse over buttons

[v0.5.4a]
Changed Control window

[v0.5.3a]
Fixed drag and drop
Fixed scanning issues
Changed Queue select to Double click
Added short cut to show and hide media library "CTRL" (when main window active)
Included Add to Queue, hold "CTRL" down Double Click an item
Changed title Scroll to smaller text

V0.55 NovaMP.exe ~202kb



http://www.idlearts.com/novaMP.exe

Windows only

Note for Vista and Win7 users
you need to manually set your recording source to waveout mix or stereo mix for the visualization to work
you can find this in your sound control panel, though you may need to enable it first!

Currently only plays mp3 and wma
Visualization Nova Attractor
Media library (artist albums songs queue)

Should be fairly intuitive to use

Right click
Toggle Full Screen mode (media buttons display if you move mouse to top of screen)

Left click
Random nova (when it's not playing music)

Search button or "ctrl" Key
Open and closes media library
Media menu -> Add Media
Search all drives or selected folder

Nova button (star)
Open Nova controls

Drag and Drop a Folder on screen
Queues it up (Recursive scan adds songs to current queue)
won't add to media library

Single click on media
browse media
Single click Artist gets Album list and populates song list with first album

Double Click media
Replaces current queue and plays
eg: Double click an Artist gets all Albums and Songs
Double click an Album gets the Songs
Double click a Song gets the Song

Double Click media + "CTRL"
Adds to current play queue

Double Click in Queue (jumps to selection)

The media library, won't add any duplications though it's currently filtering out the same song by a different artists
It may not preserve track order (it's not reading those tags yet)
It won't add tracks under 512kb to the media library
It won't fix up your tags

To Do

Add Seek functions
Add Play modes
Add support for other audio formats and tags
Add video support if anyone really requests it

Any bugs please let me know

[Micko]

funny, tested on seven ultimate

[idle]

funny, tested on seven ultimate

Thanks, I'm assuming it worked then.

[utopiomania]

Nice Can you post the source for us?

[Vera]

Hi idle,

today I found some time to let your NovaMedia play aloud. (animated me to dance around later )

here's a mixture of what I experienced so far (XP SP2):

- left click doesn't random nova (in no mode; like in former version)
- the initial created list only starts working after restart
- media window now misses the exit button (Alt+F4 works, no ESC), but it's quite unhandy to toggle it via top-button (maybe assign a hotkey?). Using Alt+F4 in windowed mode works fine, but in fullscreen the programm exits. Also: after closing via Alt+F4 the reopened list will be empty.
- only dblClick on a song adds it to the queue, dblclick on Artist or Album always exchanges the whole queuecontent (it can't be added to contains)
- the possibility to recall the complete songlist, as it shows on startup, is missing to me
- dropping a single file onto the app evokes reading the whole directory (non recursiv)

- a lot of my mp3 won't be loaded as they don't have any ID3-tags. But I found out, that a song gets loaded if only a single ID3-tag is assigned and if it's not the songtitle the song will be added as empty line (but played of course )
- I found one album to be loaded and played alright but not sound will appear. What could be the reason, what specifics could I look up?

As for personal taste I'd prefer the smaller sized undertitle from the former version.

And one FutureFeatureRequest came to my mind:
I downsized the window to eg. 300x250 (to have it just alongside), so there I had the idea I would like to toggle off the titlebar & facitilies - a 'small windowed fullscreen display'. (think that would look nice )

I'm curious how you'll improve your NovaMPlayer, but at the moment it's out of competition to the splendor NovaAttractor

cheers ~ Vera

[idle]

- left click doesn't random nova (in no mode; like in former version)

You need to turn off Visualize in the nova controls, then it will do it

- the initial created list only starts working after restart

Yes there's some thing not quite right there, thanks

- media window now misses the exit button (Alt+F4 works, no ESC), but it's quite unhandy to toggle it via top-button (maybe assign a hotkey?) Using Alt+F4 in windowed mode works fine, but in fullscreen the programm exits. Also: after closing via Alt+F4 the reopened list will be empty.

I removed the close button for the media window so it would maintain it's state, a hot key would by a good idea, thanks. I didn't think to block the alt+F4 to window not sure if I should or not.

- only dblClick on a song adds it to the queue, dblclick on Artist or Album always exchanges the whole queue content (it can't be added to contains)

Yes, it really needs modes like add, subtract or replace

- the possibility to recall the complete songlist, as it shows on startup, is missing to me

Yes that could be done

- dropping a single file onto the app evokes reading the whole directory (non recursiv)

oops, I will have a look

- a lot of my mp3 won't be loaded as they don't have any ID3-tags. But I found out, that a song gets loaded if only a single ID3-tag is assigned and if it's not the songtitle the song will be added as empty line (but played of course )
- I found one album to be loaded and played alright but not sound will appear. What could be the reason, what specifics could I look up?

I can use the file name when it's missing a title tag instead.
Is the file playing in windows media player? I don't know what the problem could be.

As for personal taste I'd prefer the smaller sized undertitle from the former version.

I had just been playing with Stargates typeface include, it opens up possibilities but yes you are right it's too large

And one FutureFeatureRequest came to my mind:
I downsized the window to eg. 300x250 (to have it just alongside), so there I had the idea I would like to toggle off the titlebar & facitilies - a 'small windowed fullscreen display'. (think that would look nice )

Yes that could be done easy enough, I was also playing with a round rect region to dock the buttons to the top of the desktop but it destroys the window theme.


@utopiomania
Yes I can share the source, once I've depunched the code a little

[Vera]

Hello idle,

Thanks for you detailed reply
and of course I'm looking forward to that small fullscreen display.

yes - turning off Visualize & Blend helps to reach the random mode.

I had a closer look at the mp3 files and can say it's not due to their high bit-sizes (what I suspected first) and then I realized that from 2 (in one process each generated) albums, both contain files whose musik will either be played or not played. (they all work well in other players, incl. WMP) But I think is better to wait and see if the other changes might affect this as well.

Today I found a major misschief. You can dblClick on artist / album / songtitle - but beware to dblClick on a queued song. That'll freez the app totally, but leaves the musik playing. Even the taskbarbuttonmenu has curious effects. Better test this in windowed mode, so it's easier to kill the app

greetings ~ Vera

[idle]

Hello idle,
Today I found a major misschief. You can dblClick on artist / album / songtitle - but beware to dblClick on a queued song. That'll freez the app totally, but leaves the musik playing. Even the taskbarbuttonmenu has curious effects. Better test this in windowed mode, so it's easier to kill the app

greetings ~ Vera

It was causing a deadlock, I will fix it.

[idle]

fixed up some bugs, will add restore play list soon

I've added a border less dock to top mode in this file

http://www.idlearts.com/novaMPa.exe

Don't know if it will calculate the right offsets in Vista or Win7
it's supposed to look like this



Right click up by the buttons will dock / restore window

Right click below buttons Full screen / restore window

[Vera]

found an easteregg ~ NovaArt


(click for big)

only available on resizing the window strictly horizontal or vertical
have fun with this feature as long as it's enabled

cheers ~ Vera

ps: the dock works fine

[idle]

Good observation, bit weird why it only does it on vertical or horizontal, I'll take a look at it.
When the window is sized the screen blend sprite which over lays it is also sized and it also has to track where to draw
So what you saw was a half screen sprite overlay and the lower half which was normal and not getting cleared

If you turn visualize mode off and use blend the sprite (accumulator) isn't active and it will keep drawing to the screen
so you can make some interesting pictures (as long as you drop the alpha down otherwise it'll white out)

[idle]

Redid media library
Resolved issues of same song different artists and albums named "Greatest Hits"
Changed wma tag reader to try and trap read errors
Fixed window drawing issue on horizontal and vertical sizing

Still haven't got the exe below 200kb Next update maybe

[c4s]

Still haven't got the exe below 200kb Next update maybe

Try UPX. Using "--ultra-brute" it just has 129.024 Bytes

[PB]

> Try UPX. Using "--ultra-brute" it just has 129.024 Bytes

Cool, my app was 303 KB with "--best" from UPX, but using "--ultra-brute"
made it 276 KB. Mind you, it took 72 passes on my exe and made Avira
freak out, but still... impressive. The original exe was 774 KB in size.

[c4s]

made Avira freak out, but still...

Yes, even if UPX is well known today, antivirus software still has some problems with it. That's why I stopped using any exe compressors for my applications because customers were afraid of viruses etc.