hummm, if I may...
I was hoping I could get some feed back from some of you full album music lovers as to how you like my freeware application PartyTime Jukebox v2.5.
Fear not... this is not another windows explorer type jukebox !
It takes a much more visual approached to the whole music listening process...

Anyway, I had initially developed the software for helping me with my DJ jobs but soon realized that it would also be useful as a stand alone pc jukebox unit to have at home or in the work place so I've adapted its interface to be flexible enough to be used in all types of environments.
I'd like to share it with you guys and would be happy to hear some of your comments.

I could tell you much more about the software but it would be wiser to just provide you the link to my web site where you can find all the info on it there.

Cheers!

Hey PTJB; This is actually pretty cool. It'll take some time to scan a bunch of
CD covers to load in, in order to appreciate its full functionality, but overall,
I like what I see so far.

The one thing I would suggest, however, if you want to get more feedback from this
forum: let people select there own media player, especially Foobar2K. I don't know
how hard that would be to implement, but its a thought. Also, you might want to consider
adding your own integrated player. Software such as BASS makes this
not to dificult to realize.

But, good job so far.

Dex

Edit: I just discovered one little "bug", or at least it seems like one.
When your software starts, it places two WinAmp icons in the system tray.
It almost seems like its trying to run two instances of WinAmp. Then, when
you shutdown PartyTime JB, it leaves one still running. When you do a
mouseover, you get the "hourglass" cursor, implying that its trying to run
or hung up. May not be much of an issue, but just seems strange.

Edit2: One area where this software really shines: My wife isn't very
computer savy, and consequently, never uses it to listen to our music
collection unless I'm home. With this software, I simply created a user
profile called JukeBox, with no sign-on password, and have the shortcut
placed in the startup folder. Now, everyone in the family can play music
whenever they want. One more "attaboy" to ya PTJB.

Thanks Dex4now for your feedback,

I'm glad you do like it.

OK, without going into technical details, the easiest way to communicate with or integrate a player to an application is to use the player's own API's (Application Programming Interface). Since the folks at nullsoft makes these freely available to developers, it makes it a relatively easy task to integrate it to any applications.
Another reason I also chose Winamp 2.x is for all of the neat audio plugins available for it (most of them for free) That is not to say that Foobar2k is not worth looking into... From what I see, it seems a well like player here on this forum, so I’ll see what I can get from its developer(s) but I can't promise you anything yet.

I haven't had time to check into this yet but will as soon as I get a chance.
It would surely be feasible also to integrate my own internal player for PartyTime JB but I honestly doubt that it could outperform Winamp's sound engine as for sound quality and versatility goes!

That is correct, there is always two instances of Winamp running with PartyTime JB. One is used for main audio playback and the other is used for headphone monitoring and a few other tid-bits. Upon closing, only one use for main audio remains.
The hourglass icon though, should only appear during the initial loading of your collection. Are you saying you are getting the hourglass icon even after your collection has finished loading? If so please let me know, I have never had this bug reported to me yet.
Well thanks again for this feedback and please feel free to spread the word around

Cheers!

Hey PTJB; you were right, the "hourglass" does go away after awhile.
I guess it just takes it some time to scan my collection. It does, however,
leave one instance running in the taskbar after shutdown. This isn't a problem
of course, you just lose 1 point for "neatness".

Using a player other than WinAmp isn't an issue for me personally, because
WinAmp is my player of choice for exactly the reasons you mention. It will,
however, limit the number of folks who try it here.

Having played with Jukebox a bit more now, I have a few more suggestions/wish-list.

1. The option to not start playing on startup.
2. An integral button to log-off user/shutdown would be great.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I've created a user-name of Jukebox.
Anyone can start the computer up and select Jukebox to play music. It would
be nice if they could just hit "Log-off" or shutdown, when they're done.
3. After having spent several hours trying to find and download cover art,
how about having an album art repository on your webpage, so folks could
share what we've already downloaded/scanned.
4. This might be hard to implement, but it would be nice if one could keep all
there album art in one directory, and associate it with playlists/folders in
another way.
5. It would be nice if the program didn't show the "unregistered/warning/you owe me
$150 in mode two. (Scares people. ) I realize thats only in the password protected
"options" mode, but it scares me too.

Anyway, this is fun to play with. Now I just need a "touch" screen to make it perfect.

Dex

This would probably get him into trouble much like cdcovers.org was forced to stop sharing their scanned CD covers.

Hey wynlyndd; I didn't even think of that. You're probably right.
I wonder if this would fall under the "fair use" provision.

Dex

Remember the service of mp3.com where they ripped CDs in advance and then you inserted your (presumably) legit copy so they authorized you to use their rip? An admirable extension of fair use that was knocked about by the powers that be.

Hi Dex4now, I like what you've suggested so how about I'll implement, well... # 1 and 2 of your suggestions in the next version. I've already started working on the next version so now is a good time to throw any ideas you have at me.

wynlyndd is right on this one, this is something I intended to offer at one time but unfortunately it was against my web site hosting company's policies so I had to drop the idea. I've heard lately that one may be able to get around this by providing other information along with the artwork such as CD's track tittles etc. but I don't think I'd have time to get that involved in it right now.

You're idea is good it's just that I was aiming for the easiest way possible to update one's collection.
I thought since pretty well anyone is able to place or paste an image inside a folder these days, this would be probably the easiest way to do it.
You probably know this already but, your collection always gets updated when you start PartyTime Jukebox, so if you've added a few more albums since the last time it was run, they will automatically appear.

My biggest hurdle now is to have PartyTime Jukebox be as convenient as possible to personal end users while also prioritizing the business modes. Since these will be the ones mainly used by businesses purchasing the software, and since I'm always trying to keep the size of the exe down, it isn’t always possible to offer the features everyone would like in mode 2. If it does require little time or lines of code to implement a feature however I won't mind then adding it in.

Anyway, here is the full story behind the warning message:
After much struggling thoughts I decided to distribute a fully functional unregistered copy instead of opting for grayed out menus and missing functionalities (something that always turned me off when trying a software) but then I had to somehow convince the people that would be using it commercially (making money with it) to share their wealth with me!. This was a bit of a dilemma for a while and in the end it boiled down to having this "unruly" warning message displayed (regardless of mode used) in all of the unregistered copies.
The proof that this alone was enough of a deterrent (fear of customers/people noticing the "unregistered copy" warning) was confirmed when one company purchased several registered copies for their fleet of DJ's, even though they were all using it in mode 2 for their gigs. B)
I really have no problem with people using in any mode they desire at home, still that would not imply that they pay me anything. My only quirt stands with companies using the software in their establishments and making money with it but not intending to pay out anything for it! so that message is only really there for them.
Also, the registered copy they receive from me will display "Registered to" (their name of business) in place of the 'unregistered message".

You can btw set a password in mode 2 if you so wish.

I’m hoping to complete the next version in a couple months time.
Keep in touch!

LOL - I didn't know about that one! Thats a pretty bogus interpretation of "fair use".

PTJB: You've obviously thought this through pretty good.

What you're saying about the nag screen is right on the money. (no pun intended.)
I didn't even thnk of that. Glad to see that you might implement #1 and #2.

I can see why #3 would be a problem, and #4 is really only an issue the very first
time one "sets up" their system for PT JukeBox. Once I have everything I have
loaded up, it won't be hard to keep it up-to-date.

Dex

(Sometimes I'm a bit slow. I just made the connection of the acronym of
your screen name. Up to now, in my head, I was calling you:
Peanut butter and jelly! )

I've only lightly tried out PTJB 2.5 so if I complain about something that is in there, but I didn't know it was in there, please ignore that and go on.

First off, as a DJ I just don't comprehend the notion of organizing by album. I never play tunes by album; for my use, each tune is independent of all others. Instead of reading the tracks as they appear on an album, I prefer to organize my tracks into playlists. Even the old jukeboxes played singles, not albums. But that's just me; others may be just fine with the way you do it.

I see some useful DJ features of Winamp are not available when using PTJB, like options you get when you right click on the stop button. I find it useful at times to have the play stop at the end of a song without having to watch closely to catch it in time. With PTJB those options don't show.

In the preferences, I have selected to NOT have the playlist window disappear automatically; but as soon as the mouse pointer moves below the center line, the playlist window disappears automatically. I prefer to keep the playlist in view until I choose to see something else.

Over all, a good program, nicely layed out, clean and easy to see all controls. I'm sure it will be just the thing for those who prefer this type of interface. But for my own use, I'll stick with the MEXP plugin for Winamp. Best wishes on your development of PTJB.

Hi LCtheDJ sorry I could not reply earlier to your post, got tied all day.
Well I can't resist replying to what you said about organizing music by albums...
Not that I want to purposely disagree with you there but I was a DJ also for a few years myself and was always amazed at the number of people asking me to play a tune that they couldn’t even remember the title, who sung it or the name of the album it was on.
Maybe alcohol had a lot to do with this temporary lost of memory.
I'd just let them browse PTJB and sure enough a few minutes later, they'd find what they were looking for.
Sometime it was a bit annoying because I'd get people making up excuses just to browse my collection.
OK now as for :
With PT Jukebox You'd use F8 on the keyboard.
I should probably start including this in the readme.txt as well (another TO DO note) here are the Keyboard shortcuts (Special functions) you can use with PT Jukebox.

F1................. Skip back to previous playlist selection (ALL MODES)
F2................. Play or start over current selection (ALL MODES)
F3................. Pause (ALL MODES)
F4................. Skip ahead to next playlist selection (ALL MODES)
F5................. This gives out a preset amount of selection credits for each customer (MODE 1)
F6................. While in mode 0 or 1, this temporarily (until main jukebox area is collapsed) activates all of mode 2 right click menus and playlist functions.
F7................. Display / hide search query box (ALL MODES)
F8................. Once the current selection ends it will automatically cue to the next selection and wait (ALL MODES)
Escape...........Can be used to quickly exit when no numeric password/keycode has been set in mode 2 or will stop the collection loading process in all modes

OK, that will only prevent the main foreground window from collapsing to the bottom of the screen automatically, not the playlist window, but what you mentioned could be handy to have too so I'll throw that in the next release as well.
Well thanks for your comments here, if you need more info just give me a shout.

Cheers!

Very cool. Nice work.

I'd like to see support for more resolutions...I don't want to have to alter my desktop resolution each time I fire it up.

Hey thanks SiliGoose, I'm almost afraid to ask though... what resolution are you using?
I’ve test run it at 640 x 480 resolution before but I really didn’t like it. That low of a resolution really doesn’t do the software justice so that’s why I set the minimum at 800 x 600 pixels.
I could have made it automatically resize to anything higher than 1024 x 768 but I got lazy and never finished working out the resizing code for the control panel.
Once I'm done working this out and if time permits me, I'll include it in and there wont be any resolution limit then.

Also, while I’m here... B) was wondering if anyone had tried PT Jukebox on an NT box yet?
I have never been able to find out if the software works fine on that OS yet so if any of you have, could you let me know.

Thanks a bunch folks!