MP3 Jukebox Software (Touchscreen, With mp3+g, Video and WMA Tag Support)

[Barry Barcrest]

I think we are finally on the home run, the last version has been confirmed working by at least one person off here, admittedly with some tweaking that won't be required for this one...

Rapidshare (4mb)
http://rapidshare.de/files/3779322/setup106.zip.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/3790630/setup107.zip.html

Fixed the config.exe (Sorry!)

[NinjaEpisode]

My Review Thus Far:

First of a few numbers about the collection that I'm working with, it'll help those that are working with large collections and are worried about having to walk away for hours upon hours while the software does it's thing. (which by the way you won't have to do).

2080+ Albums
3500+ Artists
27000+ mp3s
99% Album Art Complete

My prereqs are basically to be able to handle this type of load on a networked drive without a reasonable amount of lag and have a front end that is very easy, yet robust enough that the average guest to my house can walk up to our jukebox (yet to be built) and be able to figure it out on their own. 

Thus far Freebox excels in my needs.

Remember fellas, this software is ALPHA, not Beta.  That means there are going to be bugs.

But, my results thus far knock VMJ and PCJukebox, the two that I was highly considering out of the park. 

The config for this application, where it scans for files and builds its database took a total of 20 minutes.  VMJ averaged 60+ minutes.  PCJukebox, well let's just say after an hour I gave up.

The search function works well and will be especially functional for touchscreens.  Barcrest has said he's going to make some improvements including graphical display of albums when you search, which I think will work quite nicely.

Oh, and this app does go fullscreen mode without the "Windows" feel.  I don't know if its able to be used as a shell replacement, but I can definitely see placing this in my startup folder and being able to boot the jukebox up and let it launch right into this app with no problem.

All in all, this app is worth a shot fellas.  I've been testing pretty heavily for Barcrest over the last several days, and he's more than helpful and extremely responsive to questions and issues that I've had.

Thus far, it's a contender in my mind. 

[Barry Barcrest]

  Thanks for the feedback there, it has helped me get some renewed enthusiasm...

Here is a shot of what i have done to the search screen based on the discussion we had..



Basically when you select a song from the list, this window pops up. Don't know if that is what you were thinking or looking for, you will have to let me know. You may also notice i added an Album view button on the left side to return back to the album view from any screen. There are normal BACK buttons to do this as well, but this makes it a little more obvious (Also there was no room for a back button on the top20 so it was needed)

What I am working on now...

Bug fixes (As always, let me know what you find and i will try and make it go away

[str1der]

Ok I tried version 108. Installed on 2 different systems. I ran the config.exe and selected my music folder. I then hit generate library. It chugged for a few seconds and said it found soem 8000 objects. I hit OK and the progress bar along the bottom started increasing. It got through 3 or 4 notches then I get a runtime error 9 subscript out of range. This happened on two different systems.

[Barry Barcrest]

You didn't already have a records.rec file in that folder did you from a previous build?

Also what path were you building the library using?

If you can let me know i will take a look and see if i can work out what is going on, i should have know things seemed to be going too smoothly today

[str1der]

I've never had any problem with these files before. Strange. Anyway a suggestion would be to send the errors to a log file instead of having to OK through them. That way the library generation doesn't stop and you don't have to sit there and baby sit the screen during the generation. I know mine stopped about 20 times last night before I finally gave up and went to bed. I'll finish it up tonight when I get home.

[Barry Barcrest]

I fixed that and made it go to a log file when i realised what a paind it was you must have got the version before i made that change...

Anyway 2 bugs were pointed out to me in the app so i fixed them and here is the new version.

Now you can search unless the string is 3 or more characters
Also if using the 1st art found for covers you can now see the cover in the search

http://rapidshare.de/files/3812758/setup111.zip.html

P.S. this has the new config in, i am not saying the mp3's wre corrup as such but they must contain frames not supported by the ID3V23 standard or something... I am working on fixing this, but it involves a lot of work recoding the DLL.

[str1der]

Ok got her running. Here are a few issues and suggestions.

The page number gets confused when jumping forward and back.
The album button disappeared
The scroll bar is to small when trying to select a song
Options page should be password protected
Display play controls works opposite when you check the box.
Jump to artist doesn't work
Play now should be the smaller button and add to Queue should be larger.
Need more options managing queue like select a track to move to the top position in the queue.

[Barry Barcrest]

Ok got her running. Here are a few issues and suggestions.

The page number gets confused when jumping forward and back.

Fixed this now, it was only when you went back and was an oversight on my part :S
Now Working

The album button disappeared

Can you give me a little more info on how this happened? I can't recreate it.
This was linked to the show player controls bug.. That check box was also affecting the Album button for some reason.
Now Working

The scroll bar is to small when trying to select a song

This is because some parts are still using window listboxes and i can't set the size of the scrollbar :S I will however code a custom method to replace these. This effects the Search Results, Queue and track listing as far as i am aware.

Here is the new track listing screen...



Now Working

Options page should be password protected

Already supported, see bottom of post.
Now Working

Display play controls works opposite when you check the box.

This is fixed, it was working correctly but it wasn't actioning the correct setting when loading up a saved setting, that was then causing it to be confused if you had turnewd it off and saved the setting.
Now Working

Jump to artist doesn't work

This is only working in browse mode at the moment and then only if you have your music set up in a certain way. I am working on this as now.

Play now should be the smaller button and add to Queue should be larger.

I hadn't thought about this but you are correct as the ADD TO QUEUE button is really the default. I have swapped these around on all screens effected, i also noticed a font bug on the history screens buttons that i have now fixed at the same time.
Now Working

Need more options managing queue like select a track to move to the top position in the queue.

I added move up and move down buttons on the queue screen, this all works correctly now. There was a bug with clear song and play now showing even though a song wasn't selected this is also fixed.



Now Working

I just thought i would point out the options page is protected via a pin. Turn on require pin in the options menu and you will need to enter the pin number. This is 666 at the moment and you can't change it but in the next version you will be able to specify your own pin.

What else is new...
I also added the ability to click the album cover displayed on the search results play now screen. This jumps you to that album as requested by Ninja Episode.
Fixed a bug in the search, you now need 3 characters or more to search, yesterday i made it 4 and forgot to add it to the artist search. It is now working correctly.

The Downloads (ALL UPDATED 08:52)

Local Copy
http://baja.ods.org/setup112.zip (4.3mb)

Rapidshare
http://rapidshare.de/files/3839088/setup112.zip.html (4.3mb)

Feebox.Exe only upgrade from last version, just overwrite your old one.
http://baja.ods.org/freebox112.zip (0.4mb)

NOTE: Some of the file included for the skins were property of The PC Jukebox, these have now been replaced with files created by myself as per a request by Andy. The next version will only include the alien and metal skins because of this.

[Barry Barcrest]

Here is a new version. This fixes a few bugs that crept in with all the changes i made to the last one. Since i dropped the extra skins and files that were not longer used it has dropped down in size quite a bit.

Local link
http://baja.ods.org/setup113.zip (1.3mb)

Rapidshare Link
http://rapidshare.de/files/3844125/setup113.zip.html (1.3mb)

UPDATE:
I am working on the jump to artist now this isn't quite as easy as i first thought. I have it working but it is too slow with large collections so i might have to change the way the config sets up your database file. Once i have it working at an acceptable speed i will post back here with a release. Then aside from bug fixes and requests i may call that the Release Candidate for V1.0 The other planned features i think i will put into V2.0 as it should be a fully working jukebox solution once the jump to artist function works correctly at an acceptable speed. Obviously i am always open to suggestions and will impliment them if i can as soon as i can.

UPDATE2:
Ok i have this working 100% now, it has slowed down the loading time but it means you don't need to rebuild any music libraries. I am just trying to fix a couple more bugs and i will post a release.

I fixed a bug where it was loading a blank entry when loading the queue back after a shutdown with save queue on exit.

[Barry Barcrest]

Finally....  This has got the working jump to artist. Should be bug free in normal operation.

Local Copy
http://baja.ods.org/setup114.zip (1.0mb)

Rapid Share
http://rapidshare.de/files/3857743/setup114.zip.html (1.0mb)

Have fun guys... Phew, can i go to bed now 

[NinjaEpisode]

Finally....

[Barry Barcrest]

I asume you are having no trouble with the previous version? I did do a full uninstall and re-install on my touchscreen machine to check that was working corectly before i released it. Typically i am at work today and cannot access either install file :S It will have to wait until i get home so i can check out the error sorry.

Hmm just a thought it might be using an old ini file with a reference to a skin file that has now been removed, that would cause it.

[NinjaEpisode]

Nope, no such luck.  I just deleted the ini file and reinstalled and still the same error.

[str1der]

   Ok looking better. I still have an issue with the page numbers. they go up and down fine but the calculated total pages is wrong. When I set it up for 12 covers per page it says I have 644 pages of covers when I really only have about 55. So when I reach page 55 of 644 then hit next it gives blank screen and changes to 56 of 644. this goes on and on up to 644. Also the use current directory button doesn't do anything when in browse mode. I still have to manually type in my startup path.

   Another question. What is the purpose of the flashing words in the white box at the top of the screen (play now, add to queue....) Seems like a waste of screen space. I don't use or see a reason for credit mode. Speed is looking pretty good. Great work.

    Once everything is running smooth we defintely need to get a sweeter looking skin. Maybe some oval buttons instead of the rectangles.

[NinjaEpisode]

Nope, no such luck.

[NinjaEpisode]

Also, in 113, the Jump To Artist doesn't really jump to the letter in the alphabet for me.  Instead, it's almost as if it does a Page Down type thing.  The albums move, but not to where they are supposed to.

[NinjaEpisode]

Also, on occasion for whatever reason, it thinks I selected an album and jumps to what I think is supposed to be the album view with the album, but it's blank

[Barry Barcrest]

Getting

Runtime Error: '76'
Path Not Found

When I try to launch.....

This i think was to do with your music directory changing since you built the database you are using. I put a fix in for this so hopefully it will work for you now as the only code i changed from 113 to 114 was to do with the jump to artist code and this uses a chack on the files from the database on loading.

Also, in 113, the Jump To Artist doesn't really jump to the letter in the alphabet for me.

[str1der]

One possibility for using the freed up realastate might be showing what the next song in the queue is. then if you touch it it would jump straight to that track. Just a thought.

Check out this site for buttons.

http://free.alphabutton.com/?ref=16&search=33

[Barry Barcrest]

One possibility for using the freed up realastate might be showing what the next song in the queue is. then if you touch it it would jump straight to that track. Just a thought.

Check out this site for buttons.

http://free.alphabutton.com/?ref=16&search=33

Nice buttons, i have a copy of XARA webstyle that does the same thing... Maybe you might want a bash at making a theme. If you get a set of buttons together i will add support for loading them and make a quick skin from them. I have been playing around with a lot of new ideas today, can you give your thoughts on the following.

Tabs on the album view... For Albums/Singles/Videos each with an icon customised by the skin
Skin creation tool, this would save messing with notpad on the skins.ini files

These are the 2 big things i have in mind, and as we speak i am looking at the tabbed album view support. What do you think? I can post a mock up so you can get an idea if you like.. I was just thinking it gives a bit more space.

I will look at getting the next song on the main page for you if this is what you want.

UPDATE:
The way i was going to do the tabs worked but skinning it ment it made the program so slow it was unusable when switching tabs so i have removed it all out. There was an afternoon wasted... How did you find the new version BTW Str1der?

[str1der]

The tab would definitely save space. You might want to make it an option to display that because a lot of people don't fool with singles or videos.

Do you have some kind of skinning tool? I've never tried to make a skin for anything but I could give it a go.

[Barry Barcrest]

Hey i will get working on a skin creation tool, it will be much easier than trying to do it manually with notepad. Give me a few days though as it won't be a five minute job as i don't have anything started yet. Anyway here is todays setup release, the big new addition is the configurable animated help. I quite like it but let me know what you think....

When enabled it will display when the jukebox has timed out, I.E. when it would automatically switch to the now playing screen. You can disable that though under the animations options within the jukebox. Alternatively the unused Genres button is now a help button that will call it up, clicking on it or one of the other main buttons will get rid of it again.

12-08-05
What

[Barry Barcrest]

I have now added support to play the videos on a second monitor. This was really required as no one woul want to play videos they couldn't watch because people were selecting songs taking the jukebox off the now playing screen. I just need to add some setting to enable/disable this setting and i will get another release out.

On my test machine it slows down when the videos are playing but i am pretty sure this is because the second graphics card i am using only has 1mb of ram  but it was all i had availble to set up a dual screen system. Hopefully you guys will fair better, i will test it some more if i can get another graphics card tomorrow with more memory on it.

[Barry Barcrest]

UPDATE
Hey guys i finally cracked the dual monitor support. It was the 1mb card making it all slow down i put a 4mb in and it worked fine playing the videos full screen on the second monitor at 640 x 480 really i suppose TVOUT will be the real use for this so you can the output coming out of your projection TV or whatever you are using.

At the moment nothing is displayed on the second screen if no videos are playing so any ideas on that would be welcome, i was hoping to get a working visualisation using winamp plugin support but that would take a while to get coded in i think.

On another note, i was in a bar with a video jukebox yester and grabbed some snaps on my phone for reference. It uses tabs to select between videos and music like i was suggesting so i might go down that route. One thing i did notice about was how clunky the whole thing was. There was a NEW SEARCHJ button that did nothing unless you had already picked a category and then when you did get the search up it let you choose if you wanted to search mp3,video or both anyway??



I also saw another couple of things on it i might use, like displaying the date and time on the screen. It also had an events calednar but this was unused and to be honest i don't thinki will be adding that.

Downlaods

Local Copy
http://baja.ods.org/setup118.zip
http://baja.ods.org/setup119.zip

Rapidshare Copy
http://rapidshare.de/files/4032655/setup118.zip.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/4036659/setup119.zip.html

Fixed a bug in DATABASE MODE where random play would only pick off the first page if the DIR was not set the the same DIR you used to make the database from. Also fixed a resize issue when dropping back out of full screen.

UPDATE:
I have sorted out the visualisations now, it plays thoose on the second monitor if you are playing an MP3 as opposed to a video. They are not used if using a single monitor set up as i couldn't really see where to put them on the screen.

[menace]

I apologize if I missed it but what are the minimum system requirements for your program (if you've been able to determine that) What processor/ram combo delivers basic useable service?  thanx--it looks good so far and once i get my touch screen i'm hoping to put it through its paces 

[Barry Barcrest]

Well the lowest spec i have used it on is P2 700mhz with 256mb ram running windows 2k. On that machine it will work perfectly with the exception of the animations, these are a little heavy on the cpu. Also that machine has only got a crappy graphics card so you may get away with a slower system if you have a better graphics card and more memory.

On my P4 it flies with the animations all on and the dual screen, but to be honest it should. I am looking at removing the animated gif to improve performance as i don't really think it adds enough to the overall look to warrant the overhead it creates.

Anyway let me know how you get on, i look forward to the feedback. P.S. you could just run this on a pc with a mouse to test it which is what i do on my P4, it's the slower P3 with the touchscreen (Intergrated).

If you can try it with a second monitor for the videos and visualisations (Not released that version yet as there is a bug but maybe tomorrow) as it really looks the business in this config. I have the touchscreen sitting bellow a TFT screen, i am looking to get it all in a cab once i complete the software.

[damono]

Coming along nicely, but cannot find out how to play music videos through this. Also a nice skin would really top it off, but not essential as getting it working sweet would be the best bet.

Another thing, it'd be cool if you had a playlist of the artist/song name off to one side, so people know whats coming up, also, when you click another song it automatically adds it to the playlist rather than clicking it to select it, then having to click add to playlist

Just a thought.. Cheers

[Barry Barcrest]

It doesn't automatically add it to the playlist? YOu have to click add to queue or play now

[str1der]

It doesn't automatically add it to the playlist? YOu have to click add to queue or play now

[Barry Barcrest]

  Gottcha, one touch play should not be a problem i will get that added. The reason the release of the next version is delayed, actually there are a couple of reasons.

1/ I am thinking of dropping the animated GIF or switching across to an OCX file which i am now testing as it would speed the jukebox up a fair bit.

2/ If the juke is started with random mode on in database mode (Maybe also browse mode) occasionally it will not play any songs? FIXED: It was to do with the visualisations... All working now.

3/ I found a bug when i mis interpreted what was siad about one touch play, if you select a song and select play now then sometimes every song you select whilst still in that album will play now. FIXED

4/ If you pause then select a song to play now it will start playing but the rest of the jukebox thinks it's still paused and it will act strange after that until you click pause again. FIXED

5/ Skip to next track just starts re-playing the current track. FIXED

Once i have all these problems fixed up i will release the next version, it should also have the option for one touch play added. I am happy with the second screen videos and visualisations now to be able to move on and get these bugs fixed up... Hopefully in time for a weekend release.

Update:
Just need to decide about the animated GIF and it will be ready for release, i think sometime within the next 24 hours.

If anyone wants to make a skin just grab the screen and make a 1:1 scale mock up bmp file and i will try and transfer it to a skin. Obviously it would be easier if i just released some skinning tools but that will take a few days...

Another Update:
Arrrrg... I was going to post up the version i have and save the animated GIF decision until the release after. However during some testing this morning the program quit with no warning and no error I relaunched it within VB and it did the same and also closed VB down  Strange, i looked in event viewer and found nothing. In task manager there were some strange looking processes and i closed thoose. After which it seemed ok but then it was too late to even burn off a copy for further testing here at work. So i will have to run a couple of hours burn in tests tonight on my test machines, if all goes to plan then i will release it as planned. Fingers crossed....

Thanks again for your support and advice.

[Barry Barcrest]

Looks like it was something to do with the animated GIF that was causing problems anyway, i have not had the strang close problem since so here is the new version. Would be great if someone could try out the dual screen support and the visualisations.

Download
Rapidshare (1.3mb)
http://rapidshare.de/files/4147950/setup120.zip.html

[NinjaEpisode]

Barcrest,

What logic are you using to determine if an MP3 "appears to be corrupt"?

This version is kicking out all kinds of text in the error.txt file saying mp3s that I know work fine are corrupt.

[Barry Barcrest]

I am not saying they are corrupt, i did mention this before. What is actually happening is they contain frames in the IDV2 tag that are not supported by the jukebox. I put the errror.txt in there just to prevent the subscript error. One big thing i did find out testing this was if you have imaged embeded mp3's it don't like thoose  I will see if i can fix it up for the next version.

[NinjaEpisode]

Ok, things are looking better.

A couple things I'll point out:

1.)  For some reason when I launch it now, I get this "screen" in the background, that is full screen, but it's black with a dark grey outline.  Can I turn this off?  It won't matter when I go full screen so it's not that big of a deal.

2.)  Jump to artist still isn't working perfectly.  I can select Jump To Artist, Select a Letter, and the list jumps to that letter.  But....but the rest of the albums on the screen aren't the same letter.  For example.  I select the letter "S," and only the upper left album shows up with the artist first letter as "S" but all the others show up as a different letter, like "C"

[RetroBorg]

Looks like it was something to do with the animated GIF that was causing problems anyway, i have not had the strang close problem since so here is the new version. Would be great if someone could try out the dual screen support and the visualisations.

Download
Rapidshare (1.3mb)
http://rapidshare.de/files/4147950/setup120.zip.html

I thought I would download your program to check it out but I am having trouble downloading from this link, does it work or does it have something to do with my download manager?

[Barry Barcrest]

Ok, things are looking better.

A couple things I'll point out:

1.)

[menace]

Ok installed it last night on a win98se box (just for fun cause i wanted to see the touchscreen work) anyways I got a mscomctl.ocx missing error--so Ire-registered that file (apparently this is a problem installing and uninstalling programs, it becomes unregistered) but the program takes forever to start--its on a p3 667 with 128mb ram (old system I know) would more ram help this or am i just expecting too much out of the p3?

[Silver]

Hi, tried installing the v20.

Big database, 6500 songs, 400 "corrupt".

On opening, 1st screen shows the 6 album window, but only 1 has a pic. other 5 are blank - when clicked on they open a blank window, with lots of songs listed as "Label63" in the song list. You can not select any of them.

If I click forward, it shows me more albums, then I click back, and where there were blank albums it now carries over the album picture from the previous page, but when clicked on they go back to the blank "label63" list. Not sure why there are these dummy entries, but they seem to cause havoc with real entries?

Also, I hit "top 20" after playing about 3 songs, and it errored with a "file not found: mydir\freebox\\images\imagenotfound.jpg"

note the double backlash, also there was no file imagenotfound.jpg in the images folder. Freebox then crashed out completely.

Note this feedback is to help you kill bugs - this has come a huge way in a very short time, and I love the fact it can deal with my large db very quickly.....

[Barry Barcrest]

Ok installed it last night on a win98se box (just for fun cause i wanted to see the touchscreen work) anyways I got a mscomctl.ocx missing error--so Ire-registered that file (apparently this is a problem installing and uninstalling programs, it becomes unregistered) but the program takes forever to start--its on a p3 667 with 128mb ram (old system I know) would more ram help this or am i just expecting too much out of the p3?

Did you build the database first and how many songs were in it? My Touchscreen is only a P3 700 running win2k and that only takes a minute or so to start up with 1200 albums. However i do have 256mb of ram so maybe you need to look at increasing that.