Video Jukebox - download now available!

[Rebel Oz 69]

It's been quite some time since I've had anything to report, as for the last year or two things have been pretty hectic, but I've been gradually redeveloping/migrating this project over to a multi-platform environment in my spare time.
That said, this project is now at the point where I reckon it's ready (enough), so, (at long last), here it is!


As of now, the support for a secondary display is not enabled (who would have thought having two windows running in a single instance of Flutter would have been so tricky?), but that's the next major code change planned.


Some of the key changes over the prototype version:

• Licensing options:
• In the 'FREE Forever' version, the media library will be fully populated, but there will be a limit of 24 items made available. I figure that's what you got in a 'real' classic Jukebox, and for some, that'll be all that's needed. For those of us who want more, licensing options will be available on right-click menu.
• During the initial Public Beta stage, the software will 'expire' 90 days from release date. It will still be fully functional, but playback speed will be reduced (as a reminder to come back and grab the latest version). This limitation will be removed once the Beta phase is complete.

• Multi-platform support:
• While the initial release will be for Windows, we will release Linux and Android versions also (planned for early July).

• Video support:
• Now enabled: video skin support! You want to see the platter spinning and the colour tubes cycling? Well, now that's possible.
  Basic wallpaper support is ready to go.
         
         
• Zooming. When video media is playing in the 'mini display', pressing the 'BTN_ZOOM' key (mapped to 'Z' by default) will smoothly transition the video to full-screen mode (and back, by hitting the same key again).
         
         

• Touch Screen support:
• Full support for touch screen, with swipe gestures to navigate through song cards, tap to select tracks, etc.

• Colour Palette:
• The pre-defined (named) colour list now contains over 7000 items (though a couple hundred are aliases for a given colour value - eg 'Dark Gray' and 'Dark Grey').
  Can be viewed in 'ColourSwatches.html' (generated on demand by setting 'ExportPaletteSwatches' to true in the jukebox.ini file) in the program directory.
• Sortable by either HSV, Name, RGB Value, or Rainbow.
• Custom colours can be specified as 0xAARRGGBB (Alpha, Red, Green, Blue), or 0xRRGGBB.

• Metadata:
• We now have multiple metadata collection methods. If the first fails to collect any meaningful data, we try the second. If that doesn't yield anything, we try the third, etc. We then combine the results.
  Can be slow (especially on large video files), but usually gets good results. With good tagging of files though, it's SUPER quick.
• If 'UseID3' (metadata tag collection) is turned off (or doesn't yield useful info), we examine the filename.
  With well-named files (ie, 'AlbumName-DiskNumber-TrackNumber-Artist-TrackTitle') it's pretty fast.
• The framework is in place (though disabled) for MetaBrainz Identification of tracks.
  This will allow the creation of a unique audio fingerprint for each file, then look up that fingerprint in the AudioBrainz online database and retrieve the track information.
  Comprehensive, and quite accurate, but significantly slower to generate our index.
  Requires an active internet connection when creating the index.
• Improved filename parsing for better track naming.
• Improved cover image collection.

• Performance optimisations:
• Sorting media (which can now be by Album, Artist, Title, Type (audio/video), Random (to 'scramble' the song list), or Popularity) used to take many seconds - sometimes minutes.
  Now, it takes microseconds; eg. 3000-odd media items - 7 thousandths of a second. And that's sorting TWICE (eg, by Artist, then sub-sorted by Title).
• With checksum generation disabled (which is currently the default; we'll enable this for use with media de-duplication later), reading media metadata and populating the database is orders of magnitude faster.
• Startup is now complete in under 2 seconds (including skin loading time); Usually much quicker.
  For example, in testing I loaded the default skin, with no previously created database (so, populate from nothing), read and store info for 3319 media items, sort by Artist - took 43.6 seconds (including extracting and writing to file any MP3 cover art metadata) on my old core i5 laptop.
  Same scenario, same media, without the database generation: 1.04 seconds.

• Media card text sizes (for Artist or Track Title) can be either set for the entire collection, or per 'item'.

• By default, we'll be adapting the font size in real time to match the current content on display - to use every available pixel to the maximum, and allowing window resizing on the fly.

• Screen saver has had a facelift:
• Now with multiple options (Blank, Bubbles, Lines, Mondrian, Rain, Slideshow, Stars, Tron, Warp, or Random).
• As you see below, we can optionally also display cover art (where available) blended with the screen save effect.
• If no options are specified, a default configuration will be supplied.
• Media information is 'split', and each item (ie: title, artist, album, runtime) bounces independantly.
• Lines - A kaliedoscope using alpha blend modes for silky smooth transitions and fades, now also allows multiple lines at once, and an improved kaliedoscope effect (with adjustable segment count, rotation, speed).
  If you prefer the 'classic' look, that's still in there.
  
• Bubbles - Rising through the screen, reminiscent of a carbonated beverage in a glass...
  
• Maze - Draws a maze, and walks through the solution. Can also save the maze (with & without solution) separately.
  
• Mondrian - The classic random rectangles.
  
• Pipes - Various pipe-like structures built around the screen.
  
• Rain - My spin on 'Digital Rain' (Inspired by The Matrix).
  
• Slideshow - Display images in a folder of your choice, with sub-title.
• Stars - A twinkling night sky (coloured, or monochrome).
  
• Tron - Last light cycle left standing wins.
  
• Warp - A starfield rushing past as you trek along (coloured, or monochrome).
  
• Random - Pick a new one from the available list each time the screen saver activates.
• None - If you'd prefer no interruptions.
• A lot of options are customisable (editable within the 'Jukebox.ini' configuration file), with more coming soon. Also, we've added a (removable) button the the 'lines' screensaver, to access options with 'point and click' functionality.

Some things that aren't quite right yet:

• Media overlay:
• Currently we're not displaying the media overlay information (at least, not in the way the settings in the ini file were designed for) - this will be added after we have dual monitor support fully operational.
• Media waveform / graphic equaliser - disabled while we get dual screen working.

• DW-Juke Skin options:
• DW Juke skins should read in fine, but some things have been deprecated, and other things (like skin timers, for example) have not been implemented (yet).
  Check out the included skins for examples.
• INI file processing is much more robust, and should handle most things case insensitively.

• Skin swapping:
• The key action bindings are there, but real-time transition between skins isn't quite ready for prime time - it works for SOME things, but it's not all fully baked yet...

• Selector Keys:
• There are still a few issues with mapping the displayed key combination to select a song on Dual-track cards. For now, best option is to click/tap the item (or highlight it using cursor and selecting it that way). Doesn't appear to be an issue with single-track cards. - working.

• Skin Editor GUI:
• This will not be available for some time yet, but it is on the roadmap...

• Show Keys

The link should get you the V0.959b download; please let me know if you have any difficulties.

Please note, this version of the program is run with the 'StartJuke.bat' in the app directory (not the 'obvious' icon). Just uncompress it all wherever you like and run that (If you don't provide a configuration, one will be created for you, or copy in your old DW-Juke config.ini & jukebox.ini - it should 'kinda' work...)

Configuration is (like the awesome DW-JUKE) via the jukebox.ini file, so set your songpaths and other things by editing that file (if you can't find it, run once and exit, then it'll be there in the main program directory).

The program linked below is fully functional, with the limitation that it will only use the first 24 tracks in the library; please contact me if you'd like to acquire a license to remove this constraint. I'll be setting up the email address shortly, so in the meantime, PM me here.

One final thing; this version relies on Visual C++, so you'll need to have the VC Runtime (from Microsoft) installed to run it.

Link below. Enjoy!


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SYoj1yL6aEQeaHM80gn2URMVwDD_KMjW/view?usp=drive_link
[/list]

[Rebel Oz 69]

It's my brother's birthday today, so to celebrate, I'm releasing an update!

This version has a few more bugs squished, so Next/Previous Alpha buttons work properly, along with improvements to sorting algorithms and better font handling for legacy skins.

The 'Popular' display is also much better (behaving more like you'd expect), so now, all the buttons on the 'Default' skin work properly.

The most exciting change, though: skin-swapping now works MUCH better, with transparency on the strip grid, strip cards and icons changing properly, and a notification popup displaying the skin info (which can be disabled in the jukebox.ini if you prefer).

Download it here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G9LlpljCa0_PFu3acWk0PpZ2qXVmYInw/view?usp=sharing

[Rebel Oz 69]

Another update, with some major performance improvements.
Skin swapping is now almost fully complete.
Song selector enabled, with (customisable) focus box.
'UseZero' skin option now works correctly.
Screen saver now much smoother.
Quite a few little bugs fixed.

We've switched from G-Drive to using a OneDrive folder for uploads.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Download here:

https://1drv.ms/u/c/0e0ef07ab6aa89ee/EYhP_q0cePZCisz6017O5FoBhp6IDcmGZyh52EM6qjWJFA?e=hFQcLG

[Rebel Oz 69]

A quick update (V0.962b) to fix an annoying bug I introduced, where the 'Coming Up' message icon was prevented from being displayed.
I've also changed the method for updating texts in all displays, to populate the displays even if not currently visible (so when they become visible, they have correct values already prepared) - marginally quicker.
I've also tweaked the mini-media display transparency, so if no video is playing, the queue / popular lists display more clearly.
Also fixed the sound-effect volume calculations, so sound effects should now more accurately respect the jukebox.ini volume settings.

Link here:
VideoJuke - 0.962b

[jonrome]

HI, I have VideoJuke running happily, how do I upgrade to remove the restriction please? When I right click I get the form but it won't allow me to enter any details.
Thanks
Jon

[Rebel Oz 69]

HI, I have VideoJuke running happily, how do I upgrade to remove the restriction please? When I right click I get the form but it won't allow me to enter any details.
Thanks
Jon

Hi Jon,

Glad you like it!

I've sent you a PM - looks like the form handling code has gotten broken along the way; I'll fix that and upload an update, then be in touch to make sure it works properly.

[Rebel Oz 69]

A quick update (V0.963b) to fix another bug I introduced, where the optimised code for handling dialog borders prevented the Registration Information dialog from holding keyboard focus (thus preventing typing).

Some other changes:

• Addition of a few new Dual Strip card variants (simple plain labels, with a couple of colored lines for Artist in the middle).
• Optimised display writing (so screen updates are performed much faster now).
• Improvements to keyboard buffer handling.
• Fixed error where under some conditions, the snackbar dialog would display (even when disabled).
• Added ability to dismiss snackbar notifications by clicking/tapping anywhere on-screen.

Link here:

VideoJuke - 0.963b

[Rebel Oz 69]

Another update (V0.964b).
Some of the changes in this release:

• License activation request handling now works. Now when you right-click, enter your details & hit Save, an activation request (activate.txt) will be created in the program directory. PM me for further info.
• In-progress selections are now preserved during skin changes.
• Improved performance of display position/size/text/color updates.
• Skin change: Now updates all display text correctly.
• Skin change: Next/Previous button functionality improved.
• BTN_CLEAR_QUEUE: Now clears down correctly (ie. only to the item after the currently playing item), preserving previous item history.
• Added 'Instant cancel' capability to Snackbar notifications.
• Fixed auto-dismiss functionality for the version display dialog box.
• Improved some logging labelling.
• Added Selector 'Marching Icons' border effect (not yet wired up).
  
  
• Various code cleanups and optimizations.

Link here:

VideoJuke - 0.964b

[Rebel Oz 69]

Another small update (V0.965b).
Some of the changes in this release:

• Fixed: Skin change issue, where number of lines per sub-display wasn't reset reliably.
• Fixed: Skin change issue, where maximum skin number was off-by-one (so highest number skin would be skipped when changing skins).
• Fixed: Bundled skin 'Stereo-Touch' name typo in jukebox.ini.
• Fixed: Alpha-numeric search function now works correctly (if key pressed is not a selector key).
• Fixed: Sometimes screensaver would be closed if a snackbar was dismissed at the wrong time.
• Fixed: Master Volume value now logged correctly.
• Added: Direct skin change keys (ie BTN_SKIN_1..BTN_SKIN_20) to jump straight to the numbered skin.
• Added: Conway's 'Game Of Life' simulation (life) screensaver (because, why not? It's only a couple hundred lines of code).
• Refactored startup sequence to improve performance.
• Refactored Player Event handler to improve performance.
• Optimized media metadata retrieval (on average, about 25% faster when indexing).
• Tidied up skins to optimize strip grid usage.
• Bug Hunt: The very first track played at startup sometimes causes track information snackbar to appear twice (if snackbar is enabled and Radio Mode is enabled).
• Bug Hunt: When resizing screen of changing skins, if track title is long, scrolling functionality gets messed up.
• Bug Hunt: When changing skins, Mouse-over Tooltips are not updating correctly.

Link here:

VideoJuke - 0.965b

[Rebel Oz 69]

Another update (V0.966b).
A massive re-write of large sections of the code, along with some key structural changes behind the scenes.
Some of the changes in this release:

• Added: Display management sub-system (for upcoming multi-screen mode).
• Added: Long Press now opens Options Menu.
• Added: Auto-hide mouse cursor functionality.
• Added: Option to blink the credit display if you have zero credits available.
• Added: Waveform / graphic equaliser display for audio-only media.
                                 
          Supports zoom to full screen, with configurable transparency (By default, "KEY_SLASH_PAD" = "BTN_TRANS_DOWN" and "KEY_ASTERISK" = "BTN_TRANS_UP").
          This allows full control of the media selection, whilst still displaying the visualiser.
• New Option: Jukebox.ini > settings > 'VisualiserMode' allows you to select an audio visualiser mode.
           Valid options are: Waveform, Bars, Zoned, ZonedLED, and None.
• New Option: Jukebox.ini > settings > 'WaveColor' allows you to pick the color used to display the waveform.
• New Option: Jukebox.ini > settings > 'BlinkCredit' allows the new credit blink function to be disabled.
• Fixed: Annoying flicker when mouse enters/leaves media player zone has been resolved.
• Fixed: Wallpaper video no longer restarts when UI is rebuilt (No more flicker).
• Fixed: Tooltips now update correcty when skin changes.
• Fixed: Long title scrolling. Now pauses for 5 seconds before looping. Also fixed resizing glitch that caused text to be displayed twice sometimes when resizing.
• Fixed: Bug in duplicate checking.
• Fixed: AutoScreenSaverCancelTimeout option should now work correctly.
• Fixed: Snackbar queueing system more intuitive.
• Fixed: Bug where screen saver was cancelled if next media is video.
• Fixed: Mouse hover zones no longer appear on non-clickable icons.
• Refactored: DW Display build logic (In preparation to better handle multi-screen).
• Refactored: Screen Saver trigger/cancel logic - now has a state manager for more precise control.

I'm particularly pleased with the audio visualiser, which required a re-write of the entire playback state management sub-system. As I could find no way for the video player component to expose raw waveform or FFT data for audio stream analysis, I've split audio-only media and videos into their own stream handlers. The re-design makes the media handlers much more modular, and the logic is much cleaner and more efficient in the backend now. This has also paved the way for audio beat detection (not currently exposed).
There's one limitation though: M4A (AAC in MP4 container) is currently not decoded in the audio-only engine, so it will be treated as a (blank) video.

The improvements to snackbar handling make it much nicer. We now prevent duplicate consecutive notifications, with the ability to auto-cancel any snackbar being displayed, which makes it feel way more responsive/timely.

Refactoring the DW Display build logic has yielded a nice performance gain, especially when screen saver activates. We now preserve UI state in the background, but prevent unnecessary rendering (improving screensaver rendering speed), and when screen saver closes, the UI is already built and ready, which makes resuming from screensaver lightning fast.

We've also optimised the icon build process, so each icon is only ever rebuilt if it's actually changed.

All combined, these changes nett us around a 20% improvement in UI creation times, so skin changes are super quick, but there's an issue I'm tracking down with the orientation/scaling logic (affecting media player window on some skins) when skin changes right now, so I'd advise against using it for the time being.
This will be fixed for the next release.


One final note: The licensing routine has been updated, which means we will need to re-issue licenses for those who have purchased the application.
Please contact me for a replacement license.

Link here:

VideoJuke - 0.966b

[Rebel Oz 69]

Well folks, this is the moment we've all been waiting for: MULTI-SCREEN MODE is here at last!



Some of the important changes in this release:

• Added: Multi-screen mode. If enabled, the system will use your (user-defined in jukebox.ini) primary display as the screen for interaction, and auto-select the largest available secondary display for displaying media / audio visualization.
• Added: Improved logging. In the process of modernising to use emojis for easier identification of key processes.
• Option - moved: Jukebox.ini > Settings > 'PrimaryDisplay' has been discontinued, and has been relocated to Jukebox.ini > Display > 'PrimaryDisplay'.
• Option - moved: Jukebox.ini > Settings > 'SingleScreenMode' has been discontinued, and has been relocated to Jukebox.ini > Display > 'SingleScreenMode'.
• Fixed: Skin swapping is now fully functional, and performance has been dramatically improved when switching skins.
• Fixed: Skin background video metadata extraction now yields accurate video dimensions (if available). Will assume 1080P if metadata is not present.
• Fixed: Selecting 'Windows' for your screensaver now works properly (if one is defined at system level).
• Updated: The skin files have had a little long-overdue maintenance. Improvements to scaling logic have enabled more accurate positioning of skin elements.
  The 1015 skin has had a bit of a cleanup, and sub-screens / Strip Grid repositioned to reveal more of that iconic beauty.
• Refactored: Strip Grid and Icon Deck performance optimisations.

With the arrival of multi-screen mode, there are a few points worth noting.

As shown above, we've moved a couple of display configuration options in the jukebox.ini file (from 'settings' section to 'display' section), as that seems the more logical place for them.
These two options are now fully active, and are the key to customising the app to suit your personal display configuration.
If you're using an older ini file (ie, one without these options in the correct place), please be aware that the system will default to using the two largest displays (where available) if those options aren't found.

If no secondary display is found, we'll (obviously) revert to single-screen mode.

You can always enforce single-screen mode if you wish, by setting 'SingleScreenMode' to true in the jukebox.ini file, which will still respect the PrimaryDisplay setting.
This will still enable the mini-display visualizer for media playback (or not, it's your choice), just as before.
    Eg.

In multi-screen mode, the BTN_ZOOM function serves no purpose, so it is disabled.

There are no limitations on display size/positioning/orientation - there's no need to 'tweak' your monitor configuration at system level. We'll detect and adapt to suit, and exclude any mirrored displays. If your graphics card will handle two 4K displays, so will we. 

In single-screen mode, orientation changes will reactively update the app layout (ie, if you're using a Windows tablet, rotating the screen between portrait and landscape mode will work, on the fly).

If multi-screen mode is activated, fullscreen mode is automatically activated, and the 'Toggle Fullscreen' option (in the right-click options menu) will not be shown.

Screensaver (if enabled) will only affect the primary display. Any media playing on secondary will continue to play uninterrupted when screensaver activates.

When there are two or more monitors attached to your system, here's how we handle it:
  *  Your primary monitor is selected (either by specifying it in the ini file, or by being auto-selected as the largest available).
  *  From the remaining monitors, the largest available is elected as the secondary. If more than one exists, the lowest numbered (by the system) will win.
  *  The application sets up the 'master' window, to cover all the screen real-estate between the two displays. So, if (for example) you have three displays, and you specify the rightmost one as your primary and the system selects the leftmost one as your secondary, the app window will 'blank' any intervening displays.
    Eg.

Just as before, any mouse pointer currently active on your system will be automatically hidden if it is positioned over the media playback.


Notifications:
  *  Notifications for media information will be displayed on the secondary display (if enabled, otherwise we'll use the primary display).
  *  Notifications for other information (eg. Pause/Resume/Screenshot saved, etc.) will be displayed on the primary display.
  *  Setting 'NotificationsEnabled' to false in jukebox.ini will turn off ALL notifications.
  *  Tapping/clicking anywhere on either display will automatically dismiss the current notification.


Since the startup sequence has been updated to query the Operating System for display information and calculate the desired layout, startup time may be slightly longer than previously, but should still be no more than a couple of seconds.


Note: If you haven't updated since V0.965, please be aware that the licensing routine was updated in V0.966, which means we will need to re-issue your license.
If this affects you, please contact me for a replacement.

Download here:

VideoJuke - 0.967b