Using Trial
I loaded Winamp fresh (never was on this machine before) and the plugin came with HB, and even after a reboot, I'm still not able to start Winamp playing from the property change or even using the sample remote or one I made for testing.
Once I hit Play in the Winamp window, I can control it with HB locally and remotely till I stop it. Then I can't start Winamp thru HB at all. I've tried a bunch of combinations of settings to see if anything helped - no progress. Any hint on where to look next for this problem?
Once I hit Play in the Winamp window, I can control it with HB locally and remotely till I stop it. Then I can't start Winamp thru HB at all. I've tried a bunch of combinations of settings to see if anything helped - no progress. Any hint on where to look next for this problem?
- rb
When WinAmp is NOT running and you have a valid Play Source set, does changing the A/V Status to playing produce an error (in the error log) when it doesn't start WinAmp.exe?
If the Instance property isn't set, try setting it. I'm wondering if this property is causing problems, since the old version of the Device that I run in my system doesn't have this optional property.
If the Instance property isn't set, try setting it. I'm wondering if this property is causing problems, since the old version of the Device that I run in my system doesn't have this optional property.
Scott
I think I found the issue. It is my expectations that are the problem. I expected Winamp to play whatever was in its internal playlist when I hit Play in HB or from an HB remote. What I'm finding is the Internal playlist in HB is NOT the internal playlist within Winamp, so Play doesn't work unless I have something in the HB playlist, whether internal or external.
I expected it to work the way Winamp works - Winamp remembers the last playlist it had when it was closed. I open Winamp, and the playlist is available for immediate playing (I could set it to start playing upon opening Winamp, too). Just hitting Play in HB under this condition, however, doesn't play the last-used Winamp playlist. I have to choose or make sure a playlist is in the HB screen.
Maybe it's just that the plugin can't see what's already in Winamp.
Since I load a premade playlist into the Internal HB list, and Winamp plays this in random mode, I also cannot use the Next and Previous buttons on the HB remote to move to the next random song, as I can with Winamp's buttons. That is, using an internal HB playlist that is a Winamp playlist M3U file, with Winamp in random mode plays the songs randomly, but the Next/Previous buttons don't work.
It appears that external playlists can not be played in random mode. If this is due to HB feeding songs to Winamp one at a time, this would be the expected behavior.
While this is good, I was expecting the plugin to act more like a Winamp remote control. Winamp's random mode is not often undertsood by many people. It randomizes the existing playlist by jumping to the next song at semi-random intervals within the playlist. It does not actually re-order the playlist, as most other players seem to do. Personally, this, and the open extensibility and programmability, is why I use Winamp.
Is there any chance the next version of the plugin will make the internal Winamp playlist accessible, and the Next/previous buttons will work in random mode? Or at least see a remote control of the Winamp interface buttons reflected in HB?
I expected it to work the way Winamp works - Winamp remembers the last playlist it had when it was closed. I open Winamp, and the playlist is available for immediate playing (I could set it to start playing upon opening Winamp, too). Just hitting Play in HB under this condition, however, doesn't play the last-used Winamp playlist. I have to choose or make sure a playlist is in the HB screen.
Maybe it's just that the plugin can't see what's already in Winamp.
Since I load a premade playlist into the Internal HB list, and Winamp plays this in random mode, I also cannot use the Next and Previous buttons on the HB remote to move to the next random song, as I can with Winamp's buttons. That is, using an internal HB playlist that is a Winamp playlist M3U file, with Winamp in random mode plays the songs randomly, but the Next/Previous buttons don't work.
It appears that external playlists can not be played in random mode. If this is due to HB feeding songs to Winamp one at a time, this would be the expected behavior.
While this is good, I was expecting the plugin to act more like a Winamp remote control. Winamp's random mode is not often undertsood by many people. It randomizes the existing playlist by jumping to the next song at semi-random intervals within the playlist. It does not actually re-order the playlist, as most other players seem to do. Personally, this, and the open extensibility and programmability, is why I use Winamp.
Is there any chance the next version of the plugin will make the internal Winamp playlist accessible, and the Next/previous buttons will work in random mode? Or at least see a remote control of the Winamp interface buttons reflected in HB?
- rb
Glad to hear you at least figured it out. What you figured out is truly the way it works. There is no control over WinAmp playlists, just manually feeding WinAmp the HouseBot playlists.
I'm not sure if the API allows for control of the WinAmp playlist. If it does, it certainly makes sense to allow this at some point. The reason I wrote it using HouseBot playlist is that my hope was to have the HouseBot Music Library plugin grow into something more than it is now. Having a common music library in HouseBot would allow you to switch to different audio plugins (other than WinAmp) and keep the library intact (something I hate now when messing with WMP, MusicMatch & WinAmp). Unfortunately, I never wrote anything other than the WinAmp plugin to exploit this feature, so it does seem odd to NOT use WinAmps lists.
I'm not sure if the API allows for control of the WinAmp playlist. If it does, it certainly makes sense to allow this at some point. The reason I wrote it using HouseBot playlist is that my hope was to have the HouseBot Music Library plugin grow into something more than it is now. Having a common music library in HouseBot would allow you to switch to different audio plugins (other than WinAmp) and keep the library intact (something I hate now when messing with WMP, MusicMatch & WinAmp). Unfortunately, I never wrote anything other than the WinAmp plugin to exploit this feature, so it does seem odd to NOT use WinAmps lists.
Scott
Well, I'm glad I'm reading it right, and the explaination makes perfect sense, Scott. Especially when you consider the wrapping of the media center-style software.
I personally settled on Winamp, Shoutcast/Icecast, and Slim Server a long time ago, mostly as a low-cost way to stream my own content on my LAN or on the Inet, and because I can get a lot of bang for the buck if I run it on Linux. That's pretty much all I use now as I have a set of VBScripts that do all kinds of things for my playlists and song files management and manipulation.
Are any of the plugins' source code available so I could look at it and learn how to use/modify it for my own uses? I pulled down the SDKs but have yet to sit down and devote anu time to them.
I personally settled on Winamp, Shoutcast/Icecast, and Slim Server a long time ago, mostly as a low-cost way to stream my own content on my LAN or on the Inet, and because I can get a lot of bang for the buck if I run it on Linux. That's pretty much all I use now as I have a set of VBScripts that do all kinds of things for my playlists and song files management and manipulation.
Are any of the plugins' source code available so I could look at it and learn how to use/modify it for my own uses? I pulled down the SDKs but have yet to sit down and devote anu time to them.
- rb
There are sample plugins in the SDK, but there is no source for any of the product plugins.redbeard wrote:Are any of the plugins' source code available so I could look at it and learn how to use/modify it for my own uses? I pulled down the SDKs but have yet to sit down and devote anu time to them.
Scott