foo_scheduler, Plugin for scheduling actions like play, stop, system shutdown/wake up Options

[Mr. Molly]

This is a great plug-in, and it's easy to see why it's one of the most popular. Thanks for making it.

I've noticed some strange behavior and was wondering if anyone can relate. I've got a daily shutdown event designed to put the computer into sleep mode every night. Normally, it works fine, but on days when I manually put the computer into sleep mode, I find the shutdown event activating at seemingly random times in the morning or afternoon the next day.

This problem occurs using foo_scheduler 4.06 with foobar 1.1 on WinXP. I upgraded to foobar 1.1.7 this morning and will report back if the problem continues.

[andrew_smolko]

On a random playlist, After an 'end of file signal' (its the only event i can send remotely from foo_http control)
Switch to 'sleeptime' playlist and start playing it. It works, but the problem:
at the end of 'sleeptime' which contains 5 songs, the event starts over (since its triggered by an 'end of file signal')

If you set playback order to random or shuffle, EOF will not be triggered, but as I understand you want to play exactly 5 songs, which is impossible with random or shuffle... Possibly the next version of foo_scheduler will contain a new action to wait until N tracks played.

I've got a daily shutdown event designed to put the computer into sleep mode every night. Normally, it works fine, but on days when I manually put the computer into sleep mode, I find the shutdown event activating at seemingly random times in the morning or afternoon the next day.

Interesting... Should investigate.

[shdowmyst]

If you set playback order to random or shuffle, EOF will not be triggered, but as I understand you want to play exactly 5 songs, which is impossible with random or shuffle... Possibly the next version of foo_scheduler will contain a new action to wait until N tracks played.

The EOF signal comes from me via the remote control.
Anyway the real missing feature in scheduler is to enable or disable an event with another.

[DouO]

If you set playback order to random or shuffle, EOF will not be triggered, but as I understand you want to play exactly 5 songs, which is impossible with random or shuffle... Possibly the next version of foo_scheduler will contain a new action to wait until N tracks played.

The EOF signal comes from me via the remote control.
Anyway the real missing feature in scheduler is to enable or disable an event with another.

Yes, I hope you can add this feature , that is necessary if I want to shutdown my computer at a special time but util the playing song reached end.

[Robertina]

Possibly the next version of foo_scheduler will contain a new action to wait until N tracks played.

It would be fantastic if that action could be implemented, Andrew. We could easily make foobar2000 doing something after N tracks have been played, instead of adding their total length to the current time to get as a result the time of day when an action shall be applied. I never liked that kind of nasty mental arithmetic.

[andrew_smolko]

Meet 4.07! See the first page for the changelog.

[D.Sync]

Thanks for this amazing plugin. Now I can set my PC as my alarm clock xD. I wonder what other event could I make..

[Robertina]

Thanks for the update, Andrew. I seem to fail to get the new action "Wait until N tracks played" reliably to work, possibly due to a misconfiguration or misunderstanding on my part:

In order to achieve foobar's pausing until N tracks, I assigned a menu item event 'wait until x tracks played' [Final action = Disable event] to an action lists item 'wait until x tracks', which consists of the two actions 'Wait until 2 tracks played' and 'Pause/unpause playback'.

Usually foobar2000 plays tracks from the queue and its cursor doesn't follow playback, when I open Scheduler's preferences to adjust the number of tracks to wait until fb2k shall pause. After applying that change Scheduler's status window remains empty and fb2k's menu File>Scheduler shows "wait until x tracks played".

However often foobar doesn't pause as expected: instead it either plays and never pauses or it pauses when I wouldn't expect it anymore. In that latter case, from time to time it even pauses although I had the event deactivated because it had not worked as expected before.

Could it be that Scheduler cannot find out the correct number of track changes due to my configuration? Or what else could I do wrong?

[andrew_smolko]

"Wait until N track played" must appear in status window. Something prevents foo_scheduler to start the new action, maybe another plugin. Can't even say what... Are you on foobar2k 1.1 or later?
Did you initiate menu event by selecting 'wait until x tracks played' menu item? I ask because of this:

After applying that change Scheduler's status window remains empty and fb2k's menu File>Scheduler shows "wait until x tracks played".

This post has been edited by andrew_smolko: Aug 23 2011, 07:31

[Robertina]

Did you initiate menu event by selecting 'wait until x tracks played' menu item? I ask because of this:

Your question guided me to understand what I have been doing wrong: I thought ticking that event in the Event list in Scheduler's Preferences dialog (as I am used to for my date/time- and player events) would run the assigned action, but it just activates the menu item, where I have to start the action from, right? Since I didn't do the latter, nothing happened and also Scheduler's status window remained empty. In my helplessness I clicked then the menu item after all without realizing that this step initiates the action which I didn't expect to happen anymore. Now I see that when I choose the menu item, the action is both displayed in the status window and properly performed as well.

So it was my blemish, sorry for my confusion.

[SleepyPrince]

feature request:
Add a 'now' (or now +1 min) button for the time setting OR a 'run now' option for an event, because sometimes I just want to start an event instantly

[andrew_smolko]

Use menu item event.

[delusion]

Changelog: 4.07 ... New action "Wait until N tracks played".


thxalot for this feature, andrew!!! you rock!!!

[q-stankovic]

I have three questions in regard to all the player event:

1. What exactly are the difference between the three subevents of "on playback stop"?
2. Can anybody give me examples for a sensible usage of the other events: on playback start, on playback pause, on playback unpause, on new track?
3. What is the difference between "on new track" and "start new track" from "on playback stop"

By the way:
Found a glitch in the status window. The status windows starts in minimum size without scroll bar and ends in minimum size with one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0-y8rTwgSU

EDIT:
Maybe my 1. question is badly phrased: stop command means playback is stopped manually and EOF is ending of playlist. But still don't know the sense and meaning of "start new track" and why it is possible to enable multiple event?

This post has been edited by q-stankovic: Sep 3 2011, 22:53

[Robertina]

Hello, Andrew,

I am using the new action "Wait until N tracks played" intensively. The gain for my daily work flow is enormous!

Again, thank you very much for adding this feature.

[dubwai]

Must have plugin. Wake up function from hibernate and set volume with fade is amazing alarm tool for me. Now my morning starts with good feelings. Thanks you andrew_smolko.

This post has been edited by dubwai: Sep 8 2011, 05:21

[Robertina]

When invoking the "Wait until N tracks played"-action's context menu item "Edit..." the OK-button gets automatically the focus. Would it be perhaps possible to have the "Num tracks:"-field beeing pre-selected instead?

That way users could immediately overwrite the old number with the new one and then press OK. Currently, we first have to mark the actual number with the mouse before we can edit it, although this adjustment has to be done often (at least how I use it).

[shdowmyst]

Hi!

I found a bug.
I have several menu items scripted with scheduler.
the first 5 works fine, but I cant assign hotkeys to the last 4.
(i'm using a 3rd party app to remote control foobar via hotkeys)

here is how its looks like: link

If i try to assign a hotkey to any other than 4song it shows random from last 4 menu items:
like 4song, or 1song every time its added and removed.
At the menu it looks like I assigned alt+1 to every entry,
however I can't select anything after 'reset'

Here is how it looks like in scheduler: link

And this is how it looks from hotkey editor: link

The items works fine if i click them but cant assign a hotkey to them.
seams like foobar cant identify scheduler's menu items if its more than 5.

I'm using 1.1.7 foobar and 4.07 foo_scheduler

Please fix this.
Thanks for the great plugin and the 'stop after n song' feature!

[andrew_smolko]

Thanks for bug reports! I'll release a new version as soon as possible!

[Crespire]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks so much for the new option "Wait until N tracks played".

I just have a usability suggestion. At the moment, you must set it to 2 if you want the scheduler to do some action after 1 track is played (or more accurately, finished playing). I believe this is because the plugin (or foobar, I'm not sure) counts a track as "played" as soon as you hit play, as opposed to once the track is over.

I would rename it "Wait until N tracks started" to clear it up because to me, a "played" track is one that is started AND finished. Perhaps it's because I am unfamiliar with foobar (and like I said, I managed to figure out it), but I just think it would make more sense for most people.

Anyway, keep up the great work, really appreciate all you put into this plugin. I wake up on time every day because of it!

[288db]

Is it possible to add a function that acts like the File/Next Playlist and File/Previous Playlist? With Playlist Dropdown, you can select a playlist and view it without it interferring with the playback. Using the Change Playlist, actually activates the playlist, so if you are listening on another playlist and Change the playlist then playback follows the new playlist. Hopefully I made sense. Other than that, thanks for the useful component.

[fbuser]

so if you are listening on another playlist and Change the playlist then playback follows the new playlist.

You could deactivate "Playback follows cursor" to prevent this.

[288db]

so if you are listening on another playlist and Change the playlist then playback follows the new playlist.

You could deactivate "Playback follows cursor" to prevent this.

It is deactivated. Do you experience the same as me, if you tested what I described and have "Playback follows cursor" deactivated?

[delusion]

feature-request!

as i mentioned above, i really love this tool and implemented it in our community radio station...

so, andrew, do you have planned an option to copy/export the event/action-list?

we use it to change genre-playlist every x minutes, play jingles-playlist in-between and
because of focussing/skipping different genres on special daytimes i cannot create one action list for all.
and my action-list is really long ... about 80 events in 3 hrs.
it's okay to do it once for 24hrs, but in future I'm limited in changing just little things.
it would be much easier to handle.

what you think of it? is it needfull? is it technically possible?

however, from 4.07 on, you rock my world anyways ;-)
keep up the fabulous work!!!

[andrew_smolko]

4.08 bug fix release.
Please recreate all menu item events! Sorry for inconvenience.