Constructive Feedback Needed: Windows MP3 Player

[Aleksbgbg]

Hello,

 

I recently developed a program, currently named 'Windows MP3 Player', inspired by the lack of media players across all platforms, with the ability to restore your playlist whenever you open the program again. It will resume your full playlist; your revert history (songs you changed); your watch folders; plus the song you were listening to at the exact time where you left off (minus 3 seconds).

 

I built the program for myself initially, however it turned out really well so I plan on releasing it to a wider spectrum. However, building it for myself means that I only built whatever I need, and I haven't received any feedback from others in terms of what might be missing. It's been a while since I built this program, so I am going to rebuild it with additional features and improvements. Which is why I'm posting here.

 

Please note that the program version is 2.0.0.0 Alpha, meaning that it is in the Alpha stage of development - it is nowhere near complete, and there are potentially features which do not work or are missing. Also, there are certain known ways to crash the program, for example by playing non-mp3 files, which can be by selecting an 'All Files' filter when adding/replacing files. This is intentional, and it is up to the user not to crash the program.

 

Windows MP3 Player can be downloaded here if you wish, or you can provide feedback simply from the screenshots below. I will also include brief explanations of some features that may not be as straight forward to understand after each screenshot.

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

- Add Watch Folder: Adds a folder which updates your playlist whenever .mp3 files are added/renamed/removed from the folder. A list of 'Watch Folders' is available as shown by below screenshots, and they can be removed or opened.

- Add Extra Files: Appends selected files to your current playlist

- Replace Current Files: Overwrites your current playlist with new selected files

- Set 'Resume Playback.xml' file location: 'Resume Playback.xml' is used to store and resume your playback. By default, it is stored at your %TEMP% location. You can store it in a specific folder if you wish.

- Load Legacy File: The way playback is stored often changes with new versions of the program, meaning that your playlist won't be able to be loaded by the program on the first launch of the new version. As such, the program will inform you, and you can load a file from previous versions of the program. Any parameters stored in those files will be resumed as usual.

 

- Order: Orders your playlist in alphabetical order, and keeps playing from wherever your current song ends up in the playlist.

- Shuffle: As above, but rearranges the songs in a random order.
- Show Current Song: Scrolls to the location of the currently selected song in the playlist.
- Revert Last Song Change: Goes back to the previous song that was played, resuming the time that you left off as well. Used in cases of miss-clicking or if you want to listen to another song, then come back to the previous.

- Play Favourites: Only play songs checked as 'Favourite'.

- Search: Filter your current playlist.

 

The 'Revert History' tab shows all songs recently skipped by you, with the time skipped, the name of the song, the time you left off, the total duration, and the ID of the song in your playlist at the time. Clicking any entries here will play the song from the time left off. This tab works most of the time, but there are certain things that aren't behaving properly at the moment, though this is only noticeable during long-term use of the program. These issues will be fixed in the new version.

 

This tab contains a list of watch folders, which update your playlist automatically. You can also open a context-menu for each folder, allowing you to open to its location, or remove it from being watched.

So there you have it - the whole program. Please inform me of any bugs you find, or any features and any aesthetic improvements you feel should be added.

[DiamondShark286]

can try it right now because I'm at school but one feature you should implement is the ability to create a playlist but uncheck songs you don't want to play like in iTunes i love having this but almost no one does implements this.

[TetraSky]

I would suggest changing the name when you can.

Quite frankly when I see a software that starts with "windows" and isn't made by microsoft, I automatically assume it's some kind of malware.

[Jetfighter808]

OPUS support please. But then you'll have to rename it.

[Crossbred]

In-house conversion.

[Aleksbgbg]

49 minutes ago, Tb428 said:

can try it right now because I'm at school but one feature you should implement is the ability to create a playlist but uncheck songs you don't want to play like in iTunes i love having this but almost no one does implements this.

Yeah definitely! You are already able to uncheck songs you don't want to play, however at the moment the program is limited to 1 playlist. I will add support for multiple playlists as well.

 

44 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

I would suggest changing the name when you can.

Quite frankly when I see a software that starts with "windows" and isn't made by microsoft, I automatically assume it's some kind of malware.

I agree with your point entirely. I had no original name ideas - so I called it Windows Player. I was thinking about naming it MP3.NET or something like that (similar to Paint.NET), however that is still not entirely original. I'll work on a name. Thanks!

 

42 minutes ago, Jetfighter808 said:

OPUS support please. But then you'll have to rename it.

Supporting other file formats is definitely in the works. At the moment, files you can play are .mp3, .mpg, and .mpeg. As you can see, it is quite limited. I am looking for ways to add support for other file formats, but I can't guarantee anything. I may not be able to support things like OPUS, but I hope to at least add some other common formats, such as .wav.

 

7 minutes ago, Crossbred said:

In-house conversion.

Wow, that's an amazing idea! I'll do my best to research how this could be implemented and add it, though not necessarily as soon as version 3.0.0.0 Alpha, as it seems like a feature that would need quite some work.

 

Thank you all for the helpful feedback!  

[Raen]

As a fellow .NET developer. You can use youtube-dl to download the audio stream from youtube and then send the output to ffmpeg to convert the youtube audio track straight to MP3. Takes 2-5 seconds to convert a song.

 

If you're interested in adding in the conversion  It only takes about.. 20 lines of code.

[Aleksbgbg]

6 minutes ago, Raen said:

As a fellow .NET developer. You can use youtube-dl to download the audio stream from youtube and then send the output to ffmpeg to convert the youtube audio track straight to MP3. Takes 2-5 seconds to convert a song.

 

If you're interested in adding in the conversion  It only takes about.. 20 lines of code.

Ideally I'd prefer to make youtube-dl as well as the rest of the stuff. I'm competent in python as well, so that would hopefully work out.

 

However, if I can't do it, then I'll definitely use youtube-dl. Thanks for the tip, I didn't know about it!  

[Guest]

Maybe some user configurable skins?

[Aleksbgbg]

2 hours ago, deXxterlab97 said:

Maybe some user configurable skins?

Yep! Good idea as generally I made the colours suit my taste. Thanks for the feedback!