ex rocket player user trying to work out all the differences

[trev]

hi all!

it's been a long time coming but i'm finally making the transition from rocket player to gmmp.

i had been using rocket player fairly happily for many many years, but recently it has been getting quite buggy and i was getting tired of the increasing issues.

i'd heard long ago that rocket player was based off of gmmp, and i think i tried out gmmp many years ago once i found that out but i'd already paid for rocket player and didn't see the point in paying to switch at the time.

since i've been having issues with rocket player though, now it is time to finally jump over to gmmp.

i'm on the trial period for gmmp at the moment, but will pay to continue soon and use it as my main music player. it really is a great music app, with some amazing features.

there's quite a few features that weren't in rocket player even, and gmmp looks to be a lot more customisable than rocket player.

but i have to say that changing settings in rocket player was a lot easier! i'm having trouble figuring out how to tweak some things to be the same or similar to what i'm used to.

so a few questions, in case some are easy to fix and i just can't seem to figure it out as a newbie:

ideally i'd like the mini player to be always displayed at the bottom of the screen when in any view other than "now playing" - can this be done?

at the moment it only shows in library views, but doesn't show in any of the main other tab views: eg. artist view, album artist view, song view, year view, queue view, playlist view, effects, etc.

one of the main benefits of having the mini player at the bottom is tapping it can be a direct shortcut back to the now playing screen.

so if that can't be done, is there a way to have some sort of global quick shortcut to the now playing screen? so that wherever you are, you can do a gesture or tap something and go straight to the now playing screen?

can the star ratings on the now playing screen be tap-able / adjustable?

at the moment it only shows for me as a "read only" type display of what the rating currently is, and to change it i can't tap it directly - i have to tap the star button above it which gives me the pop up window to then change the rating.

in rocket player you can just directly tap the rating stars on the now playing screen to rate the current track, which is much easier.

similar to that, i'm using the "GMMP Resize 4x1 widget" on my home screen and am using it in 4x2 configuration (4x is the max width of my portrait view screen) on my home screen. i have it so it shows the artwork square in the 2x2 left hand side, and the right hand side 2x2 can show the metadata.

but even with the custom metadata view, i can't get more than 2 lines of user custom metadata to appear on the widget, the 3rd line shows on the custom preview, but doesn't show on the widget.

my current top line is artist, my second line is track name, and i'd like the third line to be the star rating.

with rocket player this was a default widget option, and the star rating in the widget was directly tap-able and adjustable too, can that be done with GMMP?

when you are viewing an artist, and their picture is at the top and the albums are underneath, the artist name is aligned left. is there a way to make this centered?

also, i've noticed the toggle force mono icon when used as a button stays the same when in stereo or mono mode - it would be helpful if the icon itself could change to show if the current mode is mono or stereo. maybe taking away one of the bracket shapes in the icon, say going from this (o) to this (o, or going from this (o) to this (oo)? so you can tell by looking at it if you are in mono or stereo mode. currently if i want to check the status of the toggle, i have to go to the effects tab and see if force mono is switched on or not.

is there a way for the audio-cast button to be displayed on the now playing screen?

currently i have to click the 3 dots on the top right of the now playing screen, then tap "cast" (which is the top option) but it would be nice to have the cast icon directly tap-able in the top right corner somewhere.

i think that's about it for now.

thanks again for such a great music app!

[GoneMAD]

i licensed gmmp's audioengine to rocket player dev like 10 years ago, so for a long time gmmp and rocket player were running identical engines. Around... 5 or 6 years ago JRT studio ended up buying the IP from me (allowing me a perpetual license to still use it in gmmp), so i cannot say for sure how and if rocket player diverged at that point since he got the source code.. but i cant imagine there were many differences.

"but i have to say that changing settings in rocket player was a lot easier! i'm having trouble figuring out how to tweak some things to be the same or similar to what i'm used to."

UI based settings are typically in the actual UI and not in the settings. Almost every view has a customize menu under the 3 dot menu with tons of options. The rest that are not tied to anything in the UI are under the settings or advanced settings.

"ideally i'd like the mini player to be always displayed at the bottom of the screen when in any view other than "now playing" - can this be done?"

No now playing is its own view with controls so having a mini player visible in it doesnt make sense at all (i'll say im not familiar with how rocket player looks now but i never recall RP having that)

"can the star ratings on the now playing screen be tap-able / adjustable?"

No, gmmp features a heavily customizable / custom markup language for all of the metadata throughout the app and making the stars clickable is not compatible with that (android api limitation for what the custom language is using). Tons of documentation of that here: gonemadmusicplayer.proboards.com/thread/1066/gmmp-3-custom-metadata-info

Just click on the star icon in now playing to adjust the rating.. it should be one of the default button but if its not you can add it via customize menu -> buttons, where you can add the rating button

"similar to that, i'm using the "GMMP Resize 4x1 widget" on my home screen and am using it in 4x2 configuration (4x is the max width of my portrait view screen) on my home screen. i have it so it shows the artwork square in the 2x2 left hand side, and the right hand side 2x2 can show the metadata.
but even with the custom metadata view, i can't get more than 2 lines of user custom metadata to appear on the widget, the 3rd line shows on the custom preview, but doesn't show on the widget.
my current top line is artist, my second line is track name, and i'd like the third line to be the star rating."

imgur.com/a/ziOnQSI

No issue with 3 lines on my s20. Try something other than rating and see if the 3rd line works. Android's widgets are MUCH more limited in the UI elements they can use and it might not support whats used for the rating stars (the code used in now playing and everywhere else custom metadata shows is shared). If thats the cause of the rating not showing up i'd have to look into it more

"when you are viewing an artist, and their picture is at the top and the albums are underneath, the artist name is aligned left. is there a way to make this centered?"

See link i posted above about custom metadata.. you can make it look however your heart desires

"i've noticed the toggle force mono icon when used as a button stays the same when in stereo or mono mode"

Thats just a shortcut to toggle instead of using the effects view, the only icons that actually update based off state is the shuffle / repeat and play pause. I'll make note but a lot of those were simple actions that took me a few seconds to add to help out whoever requested it. The force mono is pretty niche setting and i dont spent much effort on it as other things out prioritize it. trello.com/c/Nef5zLZm

"is there a way for the audio-cast button to be displayed on the now playing screen?"

Use the drawer view or when 3.5 is released, the bottom navigation view. Tab navigation does not have the space to show the icon. The various navigation modes heavily reuse views from the other nav modes. I do not have the time to write things over from scratch. Tab navigation happens to just throw anythign that was in the toolbar into the menu since the majority of the toolbar is now taken up by the tabs

[trev]

thank you for the replies! it'll probably take me a while to work my way through everything, cause I'm still learning how to do this advanced level of customisation.

Sept 28, 2024 13:24:30 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

No now playing is its own view with controls so having a mini player visible in it doesnt make sense at all

yes I agree. but what I meant was for the mini player to be at the bottom of all the other tab views. currently it's only there are the bottom of library views.

eg. from now playing, if I scroll to the "album artist" view the mini player isn't there. but if I then tap on an individual artist (say "The Beatles") it then appears at the bottom again.

is there a way for it to remain at the bottom of the screen in all tabs / views EXCEPT now playing?

[trev]

Sept 28, 2024 13:24:30 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

No issue with 3 lines on my s20. Try something other than rating and see if the 3rd line works. Android's widgets are MUCH more limited in the UI elements they can use and it might not support whats used for the rating stars (the code used in now playing and everywhere else custom metadata shows is shared). If thats the cause of the rating not showing up i'd have to look into it more

maybe it depends on the widget type and size? cause I can get 3 lines on other widget formats, just not on this custom widget format:

i.imgur.com/GOUxU4R.png

if the star ratings in the widget are not interactable like in the rocket player widgets then I won't bother with using the star rating in the metadata, but I'd still like to be able to use more than 2 lines in the space shown in the pic how I have my widget. but even with other metadata, it's not showing anything after the 2nd line.

[GoneMAD]

Sept 28, 2024 19:47:00 GMT -5 trev said:

thank you for the replies! it'll probably take me a while to work my way through everything, cause I'm still learning how to do this advanced level of customisation.

Sept 28, 2024 13:24:30 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

No now playing is its own view with controls so having a mini player visible in it doesnt make sense at all

yes I agree. but what I meant was for the mini player to be at the bottom of all the other tab views. currently it's only there are the bottom of library views.

eg. from now playing, if I scroll to the "album artist" view the mini player isn't there. but if I then tap on an individual artist (say "The Beatles") it then appears at the bottom again.

is there a way for it to remain at the bottom of the screen in all tabs / views EXCEPT now playing?

Not with tab navigation. Use drawer. Tab navigation was only added for fans of gmmp classic (which also had no mini player)

I'll be honest the app is not intended for tab navigation. It was thrown in to appease classic users who were pissed off I had rewrote the app (despite making the original available to everyone via gmmp classic). Drawer or the upcoming bottom nav is the focus

[GoneMAD]

Forgot to respond to the other post. Nx1 widgets only supports 2 lines I believe. All the presets should be 2 lines only for them. If need to use one of the other sizes (Nx2 or Nx4) to get more.

[trev]

Sept 29, 2024 9:27:52 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

need to use one of the other sizes (Nx2 or Nx4) to get more.

oh, cause none of the Nx2 and Nx4 allow for a full 2x2 album art when resizing to 4x2 total.

would that be possible? to have a widget that is Nx2 and positions the album art in the left side 2x2 square, with metadata in the right side 2x2 square?

[trev]

Sept 28, 2024 13:24:30 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

"when you are viewing an artist, and their picture is at the top and the albums are underneath, the artist name is aligned left. is there a way to make this centered?"

See link i posted above about custom metadata.. you can make it look however your heart desires

so i tried this, but the metadata only changes how the albums underneath are displayed - it doesn't change the artist title above that, it remains aligned left no matter what.
i'm talking about the artist name that appears overlapping the bottom of the image of the artist. was hoping this could be centered, via an adjustable option.

Sept 28, 2024 23:47:03 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

Not with tab navigation. Use drawer. Tab navigation was only added for fans of gmmp classic (which also had no mini player)

I'll be honest the app is not intended for tab navigation. It was thrown in to appease classic users who were pissed off I had rewrote the app (despite making the original available to everyone via gmmp classic). Drawer or the upcoming bottom nav is the focus

so an update on this. i'm now using drawer mode as you have suggested, and have found that adding all the "tabs" i wanted access to into the library view works quite well! the mini player is always there at the bottom of the library view, and i can get to everything in tabs within the library view.
so while being in drawer mode, i just don't really use the drawer button (3 lines in the top left) - instead i have a gesture on the now playing screen to bring up the library view, and then i can scroll around within the library as if i'm in tab mode. and the mini player remains at the bottom all the time for easy access back to the now playing screen.

so if you are planing any changes for new versions, please don't mess with the above setup being workable! hahaha

i've purchased the upgrade version by the way, thanks for your help so far getting a few things working how i'm used to on my end.

[GoneMAD]

Sept 30, 2024 3:56:57 GMT -5 trev said:

Sept 28, 2024 13:24:30 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

"when you are viewing an artist, and their picture is at the top and the albums are underneath, the artist name is aligned left. is there a way to make this centered?"

See link i posted above about custom metadata.. you can make it look however your heart desires

so i tried this, but the metadata only changes how the albums underneath are displayed - it doesn't change the artist title above that, it remains aligned left no matter what.
i'm talking about the artist name that appears overlapping the bottom of the image of the artist. was hoping this could be centered, via an adjustable option.

Sept 28, 2024 23:47:03 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

Not with tab navigation. Use drawer. Tab navigation was only added for fans of gmmp classic (which also had no mini player)

I'll be honest the app is not intended for tab navigation. It was thrown in to appease classic users who were pissed off I had rewrote the app (despite making the original available to everyone via gmmp classic). Drawer or the upcoming bottom nav is the focus

so an update on this. i'm now using drawer mode as you have suggested, and have found that adding all the "tabs" i wanted access to into the library view works quite well! the mini player is always there at the bottom of the library view, and i can get to everything in tabs within the library view.
so while being in drawer mode, i just don't really use the drawer button (3 lines in the top left) - instead i have a gesture on the now playing screen to bring up the library view, and then i can scroll around within the library as if i'm in tab mode. and the mini player remains at the bottom all the time for easy access back to the now playing screen.

so if you are planing any changes for new versions, please don't mess with the above setup being workable! hahaha

i've purchased the upgrade version by the way, thanks for your help so far getting a few things working how i'm used to on my end.

yeah my mistake on the first one. i didnt read it fully. The headers on the details views are not customizable. The UI element used doesnt allow for the customization like in the rest of the app