Audio Canvas / First User Tests

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Malte Reißig

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Sep 7, 2010, 7:04:02 PM9/7/10
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dear deepamehta friends, i made a new canvas prototype online available !

it's webpage is currently at http://inputgeil.de/apps/Audi0-Browser.html so check it out if you like !

i'll leave it to another mail to start introducing this new javafxscript codebase.. for now it's just the question can someone use it on his machine and for later the questions hopefully are: how do we want to interact with such an audioplayer. when i think of this app as it is now, i don't know why i started to develop it but i think it was motivated by something like: to make it work shouldn't be a big deal but once again i realize, to do it right, is always much more effort than one thinks in the first moment.. important is just for now: the most basic functionality should be working, at least so that you might be able to run and test it our for me on your machine after dropping some sound files into the deepamehta client.

so, what i am curious to find out now is:
a) which type of audiofile can you play and hear on which operating system and machine (this is crucial because i don't know yet if it makes sense at all to develop such a player in javafx)
b) can anyone already sucessfully listen to any audio file streaming from the freemusicarchive ?
note: in the most current version of this app there is a freemusicarchive handle dialog in the bottom left, just don't use it it's currently broken, though the "Commands" => "High Five, FMA !" Button works to get a short answer for b)
c) how was the first startup experience of the application and how was the second one (possibly via desktop shortcut?)

one last question direclty to jiri cause i wonder: can we re-use your new synchronizing feature possibly to recursively introduce (and synchronize with all new) files (and folders) below of a given path e.g. ~/Music ? with being able to do so the personal music library of a user could be introduced to deepamehta with a fingersnip, aight ?

that's it, hopefully cool!

cheers,
lucky malt !

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x28

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Sep 8, 2010, 8:43:50 AM9/8/10
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For me (with Firefox 3.6 on Windows XP) it starts only after going
directly to the jlnp file http://www.inputgeil.de/apps/Audi0-Browser.jnlp
(i. e., not via the Launch button on your HTML page), and when I
doubleclick on an audio file topic, it does not play but displays an
error that pops up too short to transcribe it or draw it longer, see
http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~x28/deepatest/audio0err.PNG

> i don't know why i started to develop it

I think music files are a great example for housekeeping beyond mere
hierarchical folders, since musical genres typically DON'T lend
themselves for "pigeon-holing" but need multiple connections (of
similarity).

Jörg Richter

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Sep 8, 2010, 9:15:23 PM9/8/10
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Congratulations to your JavaFX audio playing canvas!

Its a special feeling to see and use the familiar content of my personal DM database in a completely different 3rd party user interface.
Great work!


On Sep 8, 2010, at 1:04, Malte Reißig wrote:

> one last question direclty to jiri cause i wonder: can we re-use your new synchronizing feature possibly to recursively introduce (and synchronize with all new) files (and folders) below of a given path e.g. ~/Music ? with being able to do so the personal music library of a user could be introduced to deepamehta with a fingersnip, aight ?

Good idea! We should do this.

However, the existing synchronization feature doesn't fit completely and could not be used directly.
(a) The sync feature is part of the deepamehta3-foldercanvas plugin and is bound to a special kind of topicmap, a "Folder Canvas".
(b) There is no recursive directory scanning and there is no file hierarchy represented.

Anyway, with some extra work we can realize your idea, and we could it make even more generic (not limited to music files).

Possible conception:
- Model: a file hierarchy (from the file system) is represented as File and Folder topics with directed relationships.
- Usage (1): dropping a folder on the DM canvas creates this topic hiearchy in the DB. The canvas would show just the dropped folder (and because it is related to the contained files and folders these would be displayed in the detail panel as usual, ready for navigation).
- Usage (2): each Folder topic could provide a "Synchronize with file system" command that recursively re-scans the underlying folder and updates the DB accordingly.

This conception could be realized in a separate plugin "deepamehta3-filesystemsync". This would use the services of the existing deepamehta3-files plugin, in particular (see FilesPlugin.java):
Topic createFileTopic(String path)
Topic createFolderTopic(String path)
(these calls are available via server-side Java-call and via REST API)

The actual synchronization behavoir could be adapted from the deepamehta3-foldercanvas plugin (see model class FolderCanvas.java):
SyncStats synchronize()

The "Synchronize with file system" user command could be attached to the Folder topic type (as defined by the deepamehta3-files plugin) by means of the new client-side command system. The actual synchronization would perform at server-side and could also be invoked via REST API.

The overall result would be a bridge between the file system and DM. While accessing your existing file hierarchies you would benefit from DM's working contexts and stable display. You could assemble files in working contexts and view files without obscuring the working context. Context on the left-side, detail (text, images, audio, video, PDF) on the right.

This is just the first sketch. Lets discuss it further.

Cheers,
Jörg

x28

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Sep 9, 2010, 5:43:59 AM9/9/10
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These are great ideas. But I would definitely schedule them as a
second step AFTER gaining a wider audience, because there are many new
challenges involved:

- In the current synchronization specs, there was no need to consider
MOVING a file from one folder to another;
- There may be an implicit but unwanted deletion of topics from sub-
folder maps;
- It must be considered how to deal with and display associations of a
file in one folder with another file in a sub-folder (or with a
shortcut);
- Windows users are already used to such automated collection of all
music files, and additionally, may have many metadata (incl usage
preferences) already in the windows media database (located, for
example, in
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\x28\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten
\Microsoft\Media Player\CurrentDatabase_nnn.wmdb );
- Window7 does even more for major file collections, and transcends
the folder concept by the "libraries" construct, so it would need a
lot more considerations to offer the great new enduser-oriented
functionality to the OS that many of them use.

Matthias


Thilo

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Nov 1, 2010, 1:00:44 PM11/1/10
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Hi Malte, Hi All

i just found out, that WFMU is rebuilding their livestreamer in HTML5,
with jplayer http://www.happyworm.com/jquery/jplayer/. isn't it
possible to use this for dm3 instead of javaFX?
I think it would be a neater experience than the "install any
audioplayer-plugin within your browser" solution which is working
right now.

or is this just my luser mind speaking?

cheers
Thilo

On Sep 8, 12:04 am, Malte Reißig <m...@deepamehta.de> wrote:
> dear deepamehta friends, i made a new canvas prototype online
> available !
>
> it's webpage is currently athttp://inputgeil.de/apps/Audi0-Browser.html
> -http://blog.deepamehta.de
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