Minirok news
I’ve released Minirok 2.1, which fixes several bugs (including a crash under PyQt 4.6), and drops the dependency on lastfmsubmitd to make Last.fm submissions. Now Minirok it’s able to do submissions without needing any external programs.
Tarball and Debian package are available, NEWS entry follows.
IMPROVEMENTS
Submissions to Last.fm or a Last.fm-compatible service are performed directly by Minirok now, and the lastfmsubmitd daemon is no longer a dependency. If you were previously using lastfmsubmitd, you will need to provide Minirok with your username and password in the preferences dialog now.
If listening to music offline, or if the Last.fm server is not responding, submissions are stored on disk by Minirok and submitted later on. For this functionality, the “simplejson” module has been added as a dependency. This module comes already with Python 2.6, see the README file for details.
Allow to enqueue/dequeue selected tracks with a shortcut (Ctrl+E by default).
Allow for a global shortcut to be configured to the Stop, Next and Previous actions. (No default shortcut is provided, but one can be set by the user.)
BUGFIXES
When running from source, correctly show the playlist controls toolbar (was not being displayed at all).
Fix crash when using File->Open directory if no directory has ever been opened in the tree view.
Fix the following warning when running with PyQt 4.5 (which becomes a crash under PyQt 4.6):
WARNING: skipping invalid entry in column config: ‘<PyQt4.QtCore.QVariant object at ...>’
Also, if you had experienced this warning and saw the columns in the playlist come up in a weird default order, that’s been fixed too.
OTHER NEWS
- Python 2.5 or later is required now.
The long overdue Minirok 2.0 release is out! Not many new features, but it’s all been ported to KDE 4, yay. It should be well tested, but please report any bugs. Tarball and Debian package available, NEWS entry follows.
PORTED TO KDE 4
Minirok now uses PyQt4 and PyKDE4. As a result:
global keybindings work natively, without needing KHotKeys.
the set of buttons in the toolbar can be configured, as in other KDE applications.
the DCOP interface is gone, replaced by DBus. See README.Usage for details.
IMPROVEMENTS
The playlist now supports Undo/Redo functionality.
If you don’t use the search in the tree view, it is now possible to disable it, saving Minirok from having to recurse your entire filesystem tree each time it starts.
Command line arguments that are directories will not be discarded. Instead, all playable files underneath them will be added to the playlist.
When changing directories in the tree view, if the new directory had already been loaded, it won’t be scanned again and search will be available instantly.
OTHER NEWS
Support for Amarok’s classic “funky-monkey” theme has been dropped. Sorry!
Last.fm submissions are disabled by default now, instead of enabling themselves opportunistically upon the presence of lastfmsubmitd (which could be not configured). If you want Minirok to continue submitting to Last.fm, you’ll have to enable it in the preferences dialog.
I’ve released Minirok 0.9.2, which finally fixes those nasty and random crashes that popped up some time ago. Qt 3 does not support sending signals across threads...
BUGFIXES
Fix crashes that randomly happened while moving from one track to another.
Minirok no longer hangs on exit, which had started happening with Python 2.5.
I’ve released Minirok 0.9.1, to fix a bug whose symptoms Boyán described to me on the phone, and which I could diagnose after a quick debugging session on his laptop.
BUGFIXES
- Don’t die when setting the tooltip for tracks with no artist tag. This manifested in the slider not moving for those tracks, and the player not jumping to the next track when reaching the end.
This year I’ve participated with Minirok in a free software contest for college students. This past weekend the winners were disclosed, and Minirok won the first prize in its category. Yay!
I’ve released Minirok 0.9, possibly the last release for KDE 3. The changelog is small this one time, I just needed to get this out the door:
NEW FEATURES
- The slider in the statusbar can now be used to seek within a track.
BUGFIXES
- Unbreak saving the list of paths from the tree view combo box.
NEW FEATURES
The tree view can now quickly scan for changes in the filesystem (via a new Refresh button), instead of having to re-read all directory contents.
New action “Open directory” in the File menu to select with a dialog the directory to load in the tree view, instead of having to type it.
Dropping tracks while holding down the Control key will always append them at the end of the playlist, independently of the position they were dropped at.
IMPROVEMENTS
Key shortcuts for toggling random mode (Ctrl+R by default) and cycling through possible repeat modes (Ctrl+T).
The labels in the statusbar that tell the position in the track will now blink while the player is paused.
Completion of directory names works in the path combo. (The code was there, but wasn’t working due to a small PyKDE oddity.)
Make the creation of the tree view faster by avoding lots of useless calls to slot_populate_one() when iterator.current() is a FileItem and not a DirectoryItem.
Read ID3 tags in a separate thread, to improve UI responsiveness when the audio files live in a network filesystem over a slow network link, eg. sshfs over wireless.
(The same is planned for reading directory contents for the tree view, probably once ported to Qt4, because I’m having trouble with the main thread blocking when reading directory contents in a separate thread, that seem solved in PyQt4.)
BUGFIXES
- Does not discard length information for MP3 files without any ID3 tags; formerly, the length for such files would always be reported as 0:00.
OTHER CHANGES
- Improve the handling of non existing directories in the tree view combo box.
NEW FEATURES
Calculate the length of tracks when loading them into the playlist, instead of just when starting to play them, unless reading of tags is disabled.
The systray icon will show the currently playing track as a tooltip.
New function in the context menu to crop selected tracks, that is, to remove from the playlist all tracks except those selected.
The context menu can handle enqueueing several tracks at once.
Compatible with lastfmsubmitd 0.36, which introduced a new API; compatibility with older versions (0.35) is maintained.
BUGFIXES
When adding tracks to the queue while playing the last track in the playlist, the Next button would not get enabled.
Then length of tracks is calculated with Mutagen instead of GStreamer, which fixes several cases where GStreamer would get the length wrong.
Ctrl+LeftButtonClick works to select several items in the playlist.
Exit the engine thread cleanly, so that there are no unhandled exceptions when quitting.
NEW FEATURES
Repeat mode: repeat track or repeat playlist.
Random mode.
Handle the return key in the playlist search line, starting to play the first item that matched the search; and in the tree view search line, appending matching items to the playlist and starting playback if the player was stopped.
Minirok accepts files to load into the playlist as arguments.
New command line option -a/—append and accompanying DCOP function appendToPlaylist to append given files to an existing Minirok instance. For —append, if no instance is running, a new one will be started.
BUGFIXES
Searching in the tree view handles non-ASCII characters case insensitivity. Formerly case insensitiveness only coped with ASCII.
“Stop after current” works even if the currently played item is not present in the playlist (i.e., has been removed).
The Next button is enabled when at the last item in the playlist, but with items still left in the queue.
Items don’t get added more than once to the playlist even if they’re present multiple times in the drag object (eg. when doing Ctrl-A).
Minirok does not cancel logging out when the main window is visible.
OTHER CHANGES
When reaching the end of the track marked as “stop after this track”, playing stops but the current track jumps to the next track. Formerly it would stay at the just played track.
The playlist scrolls automatically to ensure the currently playing item is always visible. This is particularly handy for random mode.
If the list gets cleared while playing a certain track, and then that track gets added to the playlist while still being played, the playlist will mark it the current track.
If Minirok is docked in the systray when logging out of KDE, it will be there as well when restoring the session. Formerly the main window would always be shown.
Empty directories are not shown in the tree view. This includes directories that contain no playable files. Directories which only contain empty subdirectories are not shown as well, recursively.
BUGFIXES
- Handle lastfmsubmitd being installed but not configured.
First public release, woo!