Yep, I got it... and I just implemented it...

I added a check box next to double click action that says
[ ] refresh query on double click

if it is checked it will refresh the query before it does the double click action... this way even if your action is Do Nothing, you can still use the double click to populate the query, and if your action is one of the playlist items, it will populate the query then send over the playlist....

How quickly you did! Works fine here, thanks a lot!

Now it covers all the functions of playlist switcher, albumlist and playlistgen_ex for me, just amazing!

Hi,

there very few features I still miss from the plugins I left behind since I use Playlist tree. One of these is Albumlist's "Database View" which allowed, by single-clicking on a specific folder, to browse your files in a dedicated playlist window without affecting the active (playing) playlist. Great way to manage your files and playlists while listening to something else.
As far as I know, this feature is not very easy to implement in Playlist tree due to its design achitecture. But I'm not a developer and maybe I'm wrong...

If Media Library view is not possible (or, why not, in addition to it), there is another small feature that may help to work on files and playlist without affecting the playback. It was present in original Albumlist but not in its panel version. It is a simple checkbox in the Preferences pane: "Start playback when send to playlist". If you uncheck it, you can create new playlists without playing them automatically. Very handy if you just want to edit your files or playlists while still listening to your current playlist.




Thank you very much

I had quite a lot of crashes while trying to drop folders up to some days ago. One day I made some extensive testing during which I installed and uninstalled playlist tree, I nuked and rebuild database, etc. Well, since then I never had a crash again. I don't know how and why, though....

Hi,

Perhaps it would be a good idea to create a help button in the playlist tree perferences window which displays the playlist tree speicific variables so other users know they exist...

%size% 100 megs 10 gigs
%size_abbr% 100 MB 10 GB
%size_abb% 100 M 10 G
%size_raw% 100 102400

and here is a modified playlistt_tree.bmp with better looking open and closed folders as well as two other modified icons for anyone who wants to use it: http://www.randomcrap.net/uploads/files/0/playlist_tree.bmp

p.s. what do the icons represent in that bitmap aside from the first two and the last which are obvious?

Here's what I did...

I changed the options for double click to

--> Do Nothing
--> Send to active playlist
--> send to new playlist
--> Send to xxxxxxxx (where you can specifiy the name of the playlist)

and I added an option to start playing it on send... if you send to active playlist and select the start playing option it will clear the current list...

If you set the double click action to send to xxxxx and name the playlist something like "media library" you should be able to get similar results to what you want.... I may add an option for adding files to thte xxxx folder when you single click...

let me know what you think of it...

It's hard to narrow down the problem because I get the crash in every possible combination: playlist tree in panel stack/not in panel stack; in sidebar/ not in sidebar; playlist tree as separate window etc. It alway crashes when I drop items from the playlist tree into the playlist switcher.
The crash location is always ole32. I can post a crashlog if it helps.

Nuking database etc. didn't help either.

edit: The new option to create new playlists without starting to play them lets me avoid the problem though it doesn't solve it.

edit 2: When closing foobar2000 I sometimes also get a winow popup: "metadb_handle leaks, 9 objects"

cwbowron: You aren't setting the pUnkForRelease member of the STGMEDIUM structure in calls to node::GetData.

Adding the line
fixes the crashes with dragging to the playlist switcher.

Great job!

I like very much what you did. I love the 'Start playing on send' checkbox, so I can finally listen to a song from the beginning to the end, without truncating it by misclicking around...

Just a couple of notes, as I started testing it right now...

Send to xxxxxxxxxx works pretty much like I wanted it. I just think there is a little bug somewhere, as if you open 'Medialibrary', then you create an 'Air' playlist via context menu and then try to double click on any folder, Playlist tree will replace the content of the 'Air' playlist instead of 'Medialibrary'...


This would probably improve the usability, as you could browse by clicking and create new playlists by double clicking. If you set doubleclick to send to xxxxxxxxxx, now you have to create new playlists via context menu. Still nice and easy, just a little bit less intuitive and direct.

Anyway, thanks for your great work!!!

I just uploaded a new version that implements what I call "Browse Selection" which will automatically send the selected node to a specific playlist that you can specify...

I redid the distribution files... now foo_playlist_tree.zip has the dll and the readme in it, foo_playlist_tree_extras.zip has the msvcrtd.dll file and bitmap that some people need, and foo_playlist_tree_src.zip has the source code... this way dont have to keep downloading files you dont need...

I also added the line that musicmusic suggested that should hopefully stop the drag and drop to playlist crashes... Thanks musicmusic...

Excellent ... I will test it immediately (if you remember my request once refused a few days ago ....)


Tested .... works fine

The crashing issue seems to be resolved!

One new problem with this version: Unselecting items (undo bold) with ctrl+left click doesn't work anymore (hope it's not just me again).

Regards,
The Link

Four questions/ comments :

1/ Is it possible to have the tracks unselected when using "Browse playlist"


2/ Would it be possible to have several instances of the panel with different settings (at the moment all instances seem to share the same settings)?

3/ I've noticed that the search function ignores special caracters like 'é' 'è' ....

4/ could it be possible to have the search area instead of the whole panel in red when nothing matches (See Firefox for instance) ... and if possible a lighter color (or the ability to choose one)

Looks quick and smooth, no problem whatsoever!

Just a question: is there any specific reason why when you browse or create a playlist all files come selected in the main window? I mean, this may become a useful feature when foo track info panel will support multiple files info. However, I think that deselected tracks should be the standard behaviour...

Again and again, great work!!!

P.s. I'm also happy that musicmusic is getting interested in this plugin... Help from the Columns UI guru is much appreciated!!!

Fixed.

I'm happily suprised that someone's actually using that feature.

Now they should no longer be automatically selected.

Hi cwbowron,

I'm getting an error wile loading your latest version.



Also, in the last version, I had again the problem of using characters like ● and □ replaced by ?. In the edit window the characters are not reversed to ?.

BTW, I guess that there's no way of keeping down the fb2k loading time with your plugin (unless disabling refreshing on startup). I have around 15 queries, it takes around 1 min to load, I guess the only way would have to reduce my nodes/trees

And there goes another overkill for you :

I know that this isn't supposed to be included in your plugin, but as your plugin covers all album list features, it's what I would call a customizable media library ([dynamic + static] playlists + extended playlist generator + search + other stuff I'm surely missing) for fb2k, and you have the possibility to refresh on start up the component queries, maybe adding the possibility of auto-scan the database (on startup and on manual request) could be extremly useful (and in my opinion will close the media library concept) and a lot of fb2k users (including me) will see their dreams come true.

I don't know if you're interested in implementing that, or maybe isn't a good idea of implementing that in your plugin, I don't know... But as an user having the option inside your plugin seems natural.

Anyway, if you're interested some work as been already done my mig who post the sources of the unfinished component:
- Source code: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....omatic+database
- Initial post: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=209342
- Related discussion: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=211125

I think the load errror could be related to the msvcrtd.dll file? do you have that still? its availabe in foo_playlist_tree_extras.zip if you don't have it...

I'm not quite sure what this databse update thing would do... could you go into some more detail? I looked at the links a bit but I'm still not positive...

No, I have it in the foobar/components folder. Quite strange, since previsou version worked fine


Auto-update database on startup: It should do the same thing as
1) Hit 'scan' button under preferences>database (in fact it rescans database for new/changed files)
2) then 'remove dead entries from database'

Then if you apply your 'refresh on startup' playlist tree you'll have an up-to-date database everytime you start fb2k (cool also for noobies).

Great. I think it works fine now.

As jkwarras pointed out, Playlist tree is really becoming a meta-plugin, which comprise all the best feature of various other plugins in a nicer, simpler and more usable GUI.

I was thinking that something more can be done for the search function. There are many different ways to implement a search feature. One is the one you already made: you search the tree untill you find the first occurence (a bit like the one in Ms Word or Notepad, etc.). Another is the one you find in Windows explorer: you enter the keyword, then a list of files is generated and stored in a Search folder. Maybe this is something that might be interesting for Playlist tree...

So, I'm thinking of a different search style to add to Playlist tree which one could probably select from the Preferences pane in alternative to your tree search. It should work like this. You enter a keyword. If this is contained in any of the tags or filename (might be configurable eventually), then a Search folder is created at the bottom of the tree. This folder will contain all the results. Note: if 'Browse selection' is activated, you'll have all the files you were looking for in the main window under the Playlist tree tab.
(A variant: first time you search, a main Search folder and a <keyword> subfolder with the results will be created. Every new search will create another <keyword> subfolder).

I'm not thinking about anything too complicated. If one wants to search something very specific with lots of conditions, he/she can create a dynamic folder with a very complex query. On the contrary, this search should be something as simple as google. You just type in a word or a part of it (might be the artist, the title, a part of the filename) and a list of results will come up. Nothing to think too much about for the user.

Maybe foosion's dbsearch might be helpful for you, or more probably there are already all the tools you need for such a feature. When the search is started, maybe you just have to create a dynamic folder where the query is something like this: $strstr(<keyword>,%artist%)$strstr(<keyword>,%title%)$strstr(<keyword>,%filename%)...
This string may be customisable, as well as the sorting and display, just like other dynamic folders. Only, default settings should probably be set in the main Preferences...

Well, I should stop babblling because I still don't know if you are slightly interested in such a thing. Just let me say my last (big?) request for the day
It would be great if you could implement the search window as a separate toolbar, so that it could be always accessible and arranged wherever the users feel like. Just a white rectangle and a Search (Go) button for both kind of searches (this search or, if selected somewhere, your original tree search).

Sorry if I'm asking too much, I just enjoy using and testing this plugin.

Have a nice time with your work!!!

Thanks for the new additions! This plugin has improved a lot in such a short time.

sorting folder based on the last modified information in explorer would be a good feature.

I changed the way the search works, specifically, I added an "All" button... from the readme.txt:

Search
When you open the search box, it will incrementally search for your query as you type it... If you hit enter it will find the next matching item... Escape will close the search box and return to browsing the tree... If you click the "All" button, every matching item will be added to a node in the tree named "search::<keywords>"

I also fixed the special codes in the label issue mentioned above...

Hi cwbowron

Just a quick thanx for the great plugin!

Also just to let you know i got the same error message as 'The Link'


(Using Build - Dec 19 2004 11:50:28)

Anyways thanx again!

Again, thanks for this great component and happy to see it still getting better and better.

Here are some bug reports and a request.

1)If "start playing" option disabled, double click action "-> active playlist" doesn't replace tracks but just adds tracks to the end of the playlist.

2)Search function doesn't accept unicode.

3)In the config, External bitmap and Auto Load/Save don't work correctly if filepath has unicode chars.

4)[request] Make it configurable to change font in Query config so that it could show unicode strings. (unicode in query works fine already, but the font used there doesn't contain my system code chars.)

I guess that 'start playing' means 'Send files to playlist' and if isn't checked it's adding the files, that's why tracks in active playlist aren't replaced. At least that's how it was named before, but cwbowron changed that some versions ago. I find it quite logical

Ok, I got it. Since "Browsing playlist" replaces the playlist without "start playing" option, I misunderstood its function. But I still would like to have the option that replaces active playlist without starting playing. ("Browsing playlist" is almost OK for this, but I use different title format for single tracks, so it'd be handy if it could send specific dynamic query to specific format playlist.)

I just uploaded a new version that has 3 checkboxes for double click

1) Replace
2) Start Playing
3) Refresh Query

1 will replace the contents of the specified playlist, 2 will start playing the new contents and 3 will refresh queries before the contents are sent over... 1 and 2 operate independantly ie you can replace and start playing, replace without playing add without replacing and start playing first added item, or add without starting the new item...

start playing with no replace might not work correctly if the first item added is already in the playlist...

I think i fixed the metadb_handle leaks... It looks like when you removed a file from a list it would not release the handle... that has been fixed and I think all the other handles are released...

Hi cwbowron,

thank you very much for listening to my request once again. I played around wih the new search feature for a while, although I didn't have much time for foobar in the last couple of days... Anyway, here's my first impressions:

1) If the keyword you want to search is not very common, the search is ok. However, if you write a word like 'Beck' or 'Beatles', the search is pretty slow, since the function highlights every item it in the tree before creating the folder. Could you avoid all the tree browsing?
2) If you search the tree instead of the database, the folder will contain a number of repeated entries according to the number of database views (or other queries) you have in the tree. I think that your tree search is nice and cool, but if you want to add a 'search for all' mode, this should be based on database and not on the tree.
3) The plugin freezed a couple of times when I searched for very common keywords. I still don't know if this depends from the quality or the quantity of the results though.
4) This may be a personal opinion, but I'm not so in love with the 'search as you type' feature (I don't like very much to see the tree expanding frenetically just because I type a few insignificant letters ). Is it possible to have an option to disable it?
5) I know that this is not a priority but I quite like the idea of the searchbox as a very simple but separate toolbar (box and a button). It could be easily moveble, always available (no need to hide), you wouldn't need a cancel botton, it would appear as better integrated in the interface, etc. Maybe in a future version....

Well, I think it's enough for today...

Thank you for you great work!!!!

Hi cwbowron

Using the new version,

When i've got all three checkboxes selected and double click, the first track on the
playlist starts playin but instead of just that track being selected the whole playlist
is selected. Didn't do this before and i can't see any practical reason for this so i'm
assuming its a bug.



Been playin around with the plugin for a few hours and havn't seen it again, so all appears well.

Thanx again.

I fixed a few things...I'll cover your remarks one by one...

1) I fixed this... Now when you click all it doesnt select each item in turn... it just finds them all then adds the node...

2) Perhaps I will try to make it so that duplicate entries are ignored when getting search results... My thinking for using the tree rather than going to the database is that if you want to do a search of the database you can do a dynamic query rather than just doing a search, but if you want all the entries in the tree its harder to do.. (you can do it using the $node() function but its more of a hassle)

3) Hopefully the fix for 1 and 4 will help with this...

4) I changed this so that the incremental search doesnt start until you've typed at least 4 characters...

5) I'm looking into it...

After playing with the new %systemdate% variable, it works great, thanks
again I'll share my query in order to dynamicly track fresh files,
where fresh is defined as added to database max. a month from today. (you
need %added% tag)



BTW, I think that this plugin now rocks and it's in a very stable stage (I
didn't get any crash in any of latest version apart some troubles while
loading the plugin but that was solved by deleting completely the plugin
and installing it again). I think that more than a playlist tree, it's a
very customizable Media Library. May I suggest you cwbowron to :

- Rename the component to Media Library (or something similar). It'll get
more users (which is good since it's a very useful plugin) and it's more
simple to identify what it really does. Right now the name it's not
directly pointing what the plugin is really capable of. For me, at least it's a Media Library (and Smart Playlist, Static Playlist creator), I don't know what others think.

- Upload it (also) to the third party plugin site, but apparently it didn't work for you.

- Open a new topic with a more descriptic title or just edit the first topic on this one and add a little description of what your plugin does (in a very few words). Also if possible add version numbers to your releases and changelog (so users know exactly what changes).

I hope that this suggestions makes sens to you and helps the future of your amazing plugin

Edit: Added Sort criteria to shared code + suggestions.

...And there goes another request, I hope this one will be of your interest

One of the features that I will like to be able to mimic in fb2k is the 'feels like...' from moodlogic software. In fact, what it does is to look at the file being played and create a mixed playlist that seems similar. For this, it looks afaik at some values tagged into the files i.e. artist, mood, tempo, album, genre, subgenre, etc...

Fortunely, if we were able to get tag information fom the currently 'now playing' track via this component, it'll be quite easy to get the same feature.

i.e. let's say we want to create a playlist mix of 50 random tracks that will 'feels like now playing' track. If we can get same %genre%, same %styles%, same %mood% (or %tones%), same %tempo%, etc... (we can go as far as we want, or as general as we want), then we create a $node that will look like this:

+ Feels like now playing
---+Same genre
---+Same styles
---+Same mood
---+Same tempo
---+Same rating

Then we could create another node that will call this one and get random 50 tracks and you're done! Something like



But, only cwbowron knows if this is too hard to implement, or if other users will find it useful.

BTW, I like the new search feature (the search all that brings all results into a tree ). Thanks.

My other overkill request that I know will be the last for this year (), it's the same I posted some time ago in the columns UI topic without luck, that's what I really will like to see to a easy and customizable media library. The link to the post and mockup image is here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=255551

Thanks...

I dont think that I am going to rename the plugin, but I have edited the first post to make it more descriptitive of what the plugin has become.

The plugin is available the foobar2000 3rd party plugins page at http://pelit.koillismaa.fi/plugins/general.php#96

As it's read on the third party site, 'Tree Based Media Library' is much more descriptive and directly point to the capabilitites of your plugin Great job.

Thanks for the update!

And new '%systemdate%' feature is also very nice! It's pretty useful for dynamic playlist as jkwarras said above. You really do a good job, thanks again.

Has anyone else had this experience...

I've set up three dynamic playlists:
1. Sorted by rating
2. Sorted by artists
3. Sorted by album

All of them worked as desired. When I exited F2K I was prompted to save my tree; which I did. This morning I fired up F2K and the only dynamic playlist that still worked was the "sorted by rating" I right clicked on the other dynamic playlists and selected "edit" only to discover that all of the strigns had been replaced with sequences of garbage.\\

Any thoughts on this?

new feature from today's readme.txt

$playing()

Allows you to get tags from the currently playing item in your dynamic playlists. For use only in foo_playlistgen format queries.

Usage:

$playing(%artist%) will return the artist tag of the currently playing item.


In a query you could do

artist IS $playing(%artist%)
[x] foo_playlistgen

Madre mia! You're the man! Can't wait to get home to play with it. Thanks.

$drop queries are not working on my PC anymore with the latest version. I seem to get every track in my database showing under each $drop query node. I have Format set to %title%, foo_playlist_gen unticked and the Sort Criteria radio button set to None.

post a drop query string if you can... maybe something is wrong in the formatting... $drop seems to be working on my version...

They are all just the playlist file name surrounded by $drop()

For example: $drop(E:\My Music\Beck\Midnite Vultures\Beck - Midnite Vultures.m3u)

I'am also getting crippled "Querystrings" of a query. Do it like this:

Start from scratch. (There's only the folder "All"). I like to see my Albums like in foo_uie_albumlist. So I added a Query. If you just press ok it shows my Albums (already changed my Explorer-directory in the settings). They are however not sorted, so I set sorting to default and let the querystring empty! Now everything looks fine. I see my Albums alphabetically sorted by artist (Format is: '%artist%|%album%|%title%' without the ''). So I thought: great I ended foobar and saved the collection. When I restart the query is suddenly empty again and the icon shows also a questionmark - so I took a look into the query this is, what the querystring now says:

'%artist%|%album%|%title%%default%T' (without the '')

This is the content of the collection:

0=
-
1=Query
Q%artist%|%album%|%title%%default%T

Obviously an empty querystring isn't accepted. I'm a newbie with this plugin (though I read the thread from the beginning). Can anyone help me. What querystring should I set? It works ok, when I for example write just a single letter (i.e. 'l') into the query string. But what is the sense of it? The querystring obviously gets the content written in the collection except the first letter?! This should be a bug I think.

So go on with your really good work - when I get this working, it is the replacement of albumlist

Is it intended, to delete the folder "all" and set a query at the first position?



Have to play a little longer with this thing.
What about adding foo_playlist_gen formatstrings into the readmefile?

Good evening
Chaser

Ok, I see what the problem is here...

If you want a node that has all your database files in it, don't leave the query blank, but rather put a "1" in it and unselect the playlist_gen format box, then it should work... the query strings are getting read incorrectly when the query string is empty... i will fix that but for now, just put a 1 for the query string...

Yeah, a basic documentantion would be cool for begginers, the problem is that as Playlist tree covers album list panel + EPG + formatting strings it should be also included in order to someone that doesn't know anything to fb2k to know what to do. The readme is very good but you really have to know formatting stuff about fb2k to understand something

Maybe some users around here could help you cwboworon if you wish, to write a very basic tutorial. I could have some time next year in january when I come back from holidays. Anyway, I think that collecting (with authorization) what others have writte about EPG and album list around here and make it readable and applying it to this component should cover most of the needed stuff. I'm not very good at that stuff really (writting tutorials/manual/documentation).

Another idea could be some sort of 'preset' or 'default' collection (*.col) for that plugin, with basic 'by artist/album' and some other basic configuration to people to download and apply if they wish.

BTW, is there anyway to export your configuration, I mean, if I export my *.col and import it in another computer, will this work or it's this linked somehow to the databsae and it'll not work at all?

It's been fixed.. blank queries should now work, although I advise against it stilll...

If some users wanted to put together a basic tutorial and a sample collection file to include in the distribution that would be great... I'm not really all that familiar with all the possibilities of the formatting strings and whatnot... I've only been using foobar2k for about 2 months...

The collection files should be for the most part exportable... its basically just a text file, with folder names and file paths for static playlists and queries are stored using a '\b' character as a delimiter... so the static playlists will have issues be passed around because two people won't have the files in the same location, but all the queries should be transferable...

If anyone was interested in having a repository for some example collections files I could create one on my webpage... if anyone wants to send me some samples I could put them there...

I just uploaded a new version that has the playlist tree search available as its own toolbar... its the same dialog box as the popup under playlist tree but it might get modified a bit in the future...

Thank you for your answer. Thought already so. Am programming myself a bit and so it wasn't that hard, to figure out, that the blank query was causing the problems. Now I have to look, wether I can achieve s.th. like sort by directory structure - if not, it's no problem neither.

Good night.. already 10pm..