RockOn - Music Player

[JohnnyLicious]

RockOn

RockOn is a music player for Android (http://code.google.com/android/). It has a nice all-graphic UI interface making it the player of choice if you prefer browsing your music library by album art. The main features are:


Cool album art navigation UI
Location-aware concert info of your library's artists (uses Last.FM API).
One of the most effective album art fetchers we know (uses Last.FM API).

Screenshots:

http://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-gnrappetite.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-menuingrid.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-concert-search-1100.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-land-gipsy.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-land-bloodred.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-search-ingrid.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-search-alo.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-songlist-animalalpha.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-britneyall3.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-ray.pnghttp://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-linda.png

Review -

Well, I'm running the latest magic firmware which lets me run this program for a while then it crashes =( so I can't do a FULL review but from the look of the screen shots and how I tested it to my fullest its a very neat visual music player for the android platform :]]

Website -
http://abrantix.org/rockon.php

Download -
http://abrantix.org/files/rockon/RockOn.apk


Please try it and tell me what you think :]]

[deserttopping]

force closes at startup splash.

rats, i was looking forward to trying it.

[JohnnyLicious]

force closes at startup splash.

rats, i was looking forward to trying it.

okay it wasn't me or my firmware aaha

i get the same force close error =(

i already email dev hope they fix so i can use it on my phone ahaha.

[deserttopping]

thanks, johnny. man, we need a good music player.

off-topic: have you posted anything on the magic port's player?

[bosewicht]

installs and plays fine for me and im rooted. pretty nice but doesnt show all albums and music, when i search it seems to know them though. seems like it may end up being a slick app

[JohnnyLicious]

installs and plays fine for me and im rooted. pretty nice but doesnt show all albums and music, when i search it seems to know them though. seems like it may end up being a slick app

hmm really? thats odd

could you give us a little pro / con about this app so far :]]

wish it worked on my phone =(

[DesignDawg]

VERY nice first version. The album library on the right scrolls smoothly and it even grabbed missing album art before it started playing. I did experience one small bug on the very first play where it was showing me the wrong album art/artist info for what was playing, but it hasn't done it again yet. I didn't find the controls to be all that intuitive, just because we're so used to the customary transport buttons in media players. But after a couple of minutes of messing around, I figured out most of the functionality. Of course, there is a diagram under the help menu that tells you all you need to know. I find the horizontal layout to be a bit nicer-looking than the vertical...almost makes me think it should always be that way, or the vertical could be redesigned a bit to make better use of the space? At any rate, this is a neat player, even if only to show off to friends, and if it keeps getting developed, I will definitely be following it. Is it on, or going to be coming to the market?

[jrdulog]

Already considered better than TuneWiki? For some reason, I just like using that more than the stock app (which I've probably used maybe like three times max...)

[LazyGenius]

[quote=DesignDawg;162954 Is it on, or going to be coming to the market?[/quote]
thats what im wondering... i would like to see an update but i would not want to revisit the website to get it seeing that i will probably forget....

[jrdulog]

Really, all I need from any Android music player is to allow me to hard press the volume keys to go previous and next track that I so desperately miss from my BlackBerry...

[JohnnyLicious]

Is it on, or going to be coming to the market?

I'm not sure i can email the dev and ask them also, let hope it does get to the market lol

i heard they could be charging for this app also. :confused:

[DesignDawg]

IMO, it still needs a lot of work before it can be charged for. After using it a little more, I have some cons to share: It doesn't gracefully let you out of the program to do other things. It would be nice to have a notification in the tray to let you know it's playing, what song is on, etc. like the other players do. When I try to go out to the desktop, I've had it crash on me a time or two, but otherwise, it will keep playing, just without notification.
Ricght now, the selection of the album is a one-way street, in that, you can select from the album list, and it will slide the current album out and the new one in, which is reasonably slick...but when you go past the last track in the album, or when you are in shuffle mode, when the player changes the album, it doesn't show the correct album on the right. In fact, it never seems to "lock in" on an album on the right. When you scroll, it just lands wherever, rather than "settling in" on an album. Really this app is emulating some things about Coverflow, but not quite implementing them all fully.
The share feature is sorta neat, I guess, but it seems a little gimmicky, maybe like it's just a bit of an easy feature to implement, because really, since this is a player of your own tracks, you're not really "discovering" any new music with the app. --So emailing your friends "Hey, you have to check these guys out!" seems a little unlikely. Nonetheless, it's a feature, and as long as it's not in there at the expense of leaving others out, it's nothing to complain about.
Lastly, the concerts feature is a novel idea. It appears to scan your music library for artists and give you concert dates for the artists therein corresponding to a radius you set around your location. I would assume this is why it needs course positioning (WiFi GPS) when you install it. The only problem is, it looks like it scans the entire music library. I have about 7 GB of music on my G1 right now, and after we got about halfway through the artists beginning with "B", I gave up. I imagine it would have been a neat feature, but without a way to limit the search, it's a real time-sucker. Perhaps it only needs to do the full scan once, after which it refers back to a database or something like a cache of artists to speed things up?
All in all, as I said before, it is a neat player with a lot of visual appeal and a lot of promise, but I believe it will need to be put into the market to really catch some legs. As for myself, this is something I would like to install form the market and allow the market to notify me when updates come out, to keep a close eye on it until it can replace MixZing as my default music app.

[JohnnyLicious]

new version is on their website

hope this fixes the force close

i still get it but im on magic firmware so im thinkin that is the problem

but yeah :]]

[Guiso0623]

Thanks for the tip. This app rocks!!!!

[XDViPeR]

I've just downloaded it, installed, and first run it crashes.. From the screenshots its looks pretty neat

[JohnnyLicious]

someone suggested to delete the Rockon folder on your sdcard

uninstall,
reinstall,
and launch

hope that works.

[deserttopping]

deleted the folder & reinstalled. still force closes at startup splash.

[fabrantes]

hey all,

I'm the developer of RockOn and guys let me say that I am really happy to see interest from the community on the app. I just posted the app yesterday and I was amazed to see this post on a google search just a few hours ago.

So,

1. Thanks a lot to Johnny for creating the post, we have exchanged a few mails already and I am going to take this night off to solve the bug that is preventing you (and others) from using the app. Anyhow, sleep is overrated :-).

2. Thanks a lot for your feedback, I am going to analyse all the ideas you guys have put on the table, and most of them I agree.

2.1 For instance the song playing in the notification bar is surely something I will be introducing in the next releases.

2.2 Dont give up on the concert feature just yet. I know it can take a long time to analyse if you have 8gb of music, but the first time is the hardest. In the first time you run it, it goes on to get all the info from Last.FM and this can take a while. the next time you run it, it will be faster. And I think this is a really nice feature... so give it one more try.

2.3 Sharing... right now this is a very basic functionality, just a plain email... I'm planning on evolving this somehow in the future but I am not completely sure on what would really make sense here... your feedback is most welcome.

2.4 Crashing... apart from the bug I am trying to solve now, the app still crashes every 10 or 20 times you open, rotate or close it... I am working also on fixing this but it is a hard to find memory leak problem.

2.5 Using the vol buttons to go to next previous... that would be an interesting feature. For a long time I though that having some real buttons to do common tasks would be really nice (I'd say that start/stop and next song are the most needed functions - and we only have 2 vol buttons).

2.6 This is for sure ongoing development and also I am planning to put this on the market in the next couple of weeks. Also, I plan to charge $1.99 when putting it on the market, but the free version will always be available on the website... this is my plan ATM but I am also seeing people's reaction. In the end I don't want anyone who likes the app not use it because of money... but I guess it makes sense to compensate all the sleep I have been missing...so, for having the market convenience $1.99, if you go through the web have it for free :-).

2.7 what else... did I miss something... looking forward to your feedback.

3. Ill be getting out a new version later tonight that will hopefully fix the force close bug that many of you have been having...

Cheers,
Filipe

[constellanation]

Hey that's really cool filipe! (Especially 2.6 ;) keep us up to date on it here and we'll definitely throw you some feedback (and probably some cash) I'll give it a try soon as I put music back on my sd.

And welcome to a.c.

[JohnnyLicious]

Welcome to AC Filipe and yea still having problems but thanks for signing up on here and actually interacting with us users great job =D

can't wait for new updates

i wouldn't mind paying for this also. once this version is stable and all

[LazyGenius]

all riiiiight! another dev joins the community. welcome my friend, welcome.

[fabrantes]

Alright guys, a new version is available for download at the website:

http://abrantix.org/files/RockOn.apk

Whenever you have the time to try it out please share the outcome. I'm confident that at least one bug was solved (Matthias was kind enough to send me the log of one the crashes... not sure if he is this board, anyhow big thanks). Let's if that was the bug that was preventing other people as well.

Other bugs...

1. It was mentioned that the UI showed different art from that that was actually being played. This might happen if you added music to your sdcard shortly before starting the app (and thus removed and inserted the sdcard in the phone). This should occur rarely and will be fixed in future releases. Anyhow after Android's internal MediScanner has finished reading the sdcard the app should work with no problems...

and missing features...

1. The lock-in of the album on the album list in the right... this is maybe something to implement in the future as well, however im not totally convinced. So far I have looked at the album list really as the browser for your music (so you can move it freely while music is still playing). Maybe something similar to after X seconds of you stop moving the album list, the list scrolls back to the position of the currently playing album, could be added. What do you think?

[konzern]

downloading right now

[Shel]

and missing features...

1. The lock-in of the album on the album list in the right... this is maybe something to implement in the future as well, however im not totally convinced. So far I have looked at the album list really as the browser for your music (so you can move it freely while music is still playing). Maybe something similar to after X seconds of you stop moving the album list, the list scrolls back to the position of the currently playing album, could be added. What do you think?

Thanks for this program! Just downloaded it, and I'm checking it out.

I personally would like to be able to use the images of album covers on the right to scroll through my music collection, and see what songs I'd like to hear next.

As it is (unless I'm missing something...), if I scroll through the album images, and then tap on one of them, the player changes to that album, so there's no way to see the songs on each album, without changing to that album. I'd like to be able to browse songs, while continuing to listen to the song I"m currently listening to.

Also, RockOn has now quit twice, while listening to songs. It seems to play for about five, six minutes, then simply cuts out and stops playing. Just an FYI.

How about play lists? Ideally, it would be GREAT if, while listening to a song, I coud scroll through my music and add random songs to a playlist, and either save the playlist for future listening, or simply use it for that particular time.

Notification bar- Should have a play symbol, along with the current song playing, and if/when user brings down the notification bar and taps on the song, it should take you immediately to RockOn.

Hope you don't mind my suggestions, if anyone agrees or disagrees, feel free to chime in.

GREAT start! Thanks again for what's looking like a very nice music playing app! I'll have NO PROBLEM paying $2-3 or more for this program!

[konzern]

ok so i downloaded this and its stuck like on an endless loop of "loading album art"

[Shel]

ok so i downloaded this and its stuck like on an endless loop of "loading album art"

It initially took about 15 minutes for it to get all of my album art work. It obviously depends on how much music you have on your memory card.

Be patient. Once it has the art, it won't need to do that again, until/unless you add new music, and then it should only take a few seconds to find the latest music you've added.

By the way, I don't see where to find what version number I'm using. How do I know if the latest update is newer then what I have ?

[fabrantes]

Thanks for the feedback. For the continuous loop of album art that might be because the phone is without internet connection... is it? If it has internet connection then it should be somehow quick (1 minute maybe depending on the size of the library) - it just needs to download the missing art from Last.FM...

@shel thanks for the suggestions. I like the hold the album and see which songs are there while still playing the same song, will be adding that in the near future.

As for playlists they are a bit further down the road, I haven't quite thought enough on how to integrate them in the UI, but will keep it in mind.

Cheers

[konzern]

Thanks for the feedback. For the continuous loop of album art that might be because the phone is without internet connection... is it? If it has internet connection then it should be somehow quick (1 minute maybe depending on the size of the library) - it just needs to download the missing art from Last.FM...

@shel thanks for the suggestions. I like the hold the album and see which songs are there while still playing the same song, will be adding that in the near future.

As for playlists they are a bit further down the road, I haven't quite thought enough on how to integrate them in the UI, but will keep it in mind.

Cheers

going to try it again, i do have internet connection, hmmm it still did the same thing it was on "loading album art" then just force closed

[fabrantes]

My experience is not more than a few minutes but of course it depends on the size of your library and also the speed of the internet connection (if you can do it over wifi that would be the best). 15 minutes seems a bit too much - you have a really large library... or a really slow connection :P.

Also, if you want you can press the back button to dismiss the dialog and try immediately the app. The album art fetcher will continue to process and will reload you album list when it finishes.

No version info at the moment I will be adding something shortly.

As for it stop playing music after a few minutes I believe it is out of my control. Android automatically closes background apps when other apps need memory, so if you are using other apps intesively android might close RockOn. But I will investigate this, maybe there is some parameter I can set in the media player service that makes it the last program to be closed...

thanks again for your feedback.
Cheers

[Shel]

fabrantes
Don't want to add to your "To Do" list, but this is a biggie... probably needs to be added before you release to the market....

Need to have app pause music when a call comes in, and restart when the call ends. I just had a call come in, and music was blasting in the background while my caller tried to speak over it.

Again, NOT a complaint, I realize this is a work in progress, and really appreciate your feedback on this forum, but allowing calls to pass through, while pausing the music seems like a biggie.

Thanks! Great work so far... can't wait for the updates!

[fabrantes]

oops, I must admit I have never tried this before and I should have......

For some reason I assumed Android would do that automagically... but yes this is a must, thanks!

[deserttopping]

uninstalled, deleted rockon folder, rebooted phone, installed the latest version...

...still get a force close, and then if i don't do anything, blank screen and android.process.acore doesn't respond.

[fabrantes]

:mad: so it seems the problem was not this bug. I will add some debug features in order to make this debugging process easier to follow... will get back to you tomorrow!

Cheers

[deserttopping]

thanks! great to have another dev on AC.

[JohnnyLicious]

yeah im still getting force close hmmmm.
good luck on finding this bug!!

good job on this also.

[fabrantes]

ok, so I was not smart enough to fix the bug last time,but now I _think_ it is tried and tested... let's see... new version available @ the website:

http://abrantix.org/files/rockon/RockOnv1.0.3.apk

(Also if you want to check the version count just access the dir in the server

http://abrantix.org/files/rockon/

it will show you a list of versions- RockOn.apk will always point to the latest)

Also, this release should already interrupt the music when receiving a phone call (and resume after it).

(Thanks Matthias again for providing the logs)
Cheers

[Celf]

hello Fabrantes, i'm new in this discussion and downloaded the latest version from your last post.....force close...sorry.

could this have something to do with last.fm shutting down support for 3rd party programs?

[fabrantes]

Hi Celf,

Im sorry to hear you still get force closes. I got some reports already that this latest version fixes the force close problem for some people. I believe Last.FM shutting their API would not cause the app to force close.

If they, in fact, shut their API the consequence would be that rockon would not be able to get the album art nor the concert information, however I think that they were only blocking the streaming api (which RockOn does not use, at least not yet!). If they do shut their full api I will have to look for other albumArt and concert APIs (which would be a shame because I think theirs works really well).

If you are a developer yourself I would ask if you could provide the output of Logcat (it helps tons). In the meantime I'd suggest you retry installing (maybe something went wrong in the installation?), and I will also add nicer debugging functionlity to ease the process.

Cheers

[themyth69]

So we can down load this from your link above and then what process do we use to put it on the phone. Do we just extract the files to our sd card? Thanks for the help. Is it in the market, I couldn't find it.

[fabrantes]

not in the market yet...

if you download it from your G1 phone you can open it directly and it will install itself (you need to have the unknown sources option enabled in the settings-> applications

also, sorry for the website not being optimized for the G1 (nor IE6/7)...

[Celf]

Hi Celf,

If you are a developer yourself I would ask if you could provide the output of Logcat (it helps tons). In the meantime I'd suggest you retry installing (maybe something went wrong in the installation?), and I will also add nicer debugging functionlity to ease the process.

Cheers

You don't need to feel sorry...that's part of beta software. I like what you are doing with this app but I can't help you because I'm not a developer....just somebody seeing a nice app in progress ;)

[drauks]

With the first release I also got force closes. I fixed it by deleting the RockOn folder from the SD card and restarted the app. Maybe it helps.

[jdwme]

I'm getting force close also, running the latest version per this thread

[jdwme]

Ok, here's the message I'm getting.

[quote] The applications RockOn 9process org.abrantes.filex) has stopped unexpectedly [\quote]

that give any help to force closes?

[fabrantes]

thanks for trying it out. that message is not of great help... I will work on a version that enables more high level debugging so we can work this out.

Thanks everyone for helping.

Cheers

[fabrantes]

Those who are still having the force close issue, please tell me (either here or by email not to pollute the thread too much) exactly when the app crashes (always when fetching the album art?) and where have you downloaded the app (website, andappstore,... - im not sure if it might be something related with version mix in andappstore or other)

Cheers

[short/y]

Those who are still having the force close issue, please tell me (either here or by email not to pollute the thread too much) exactly when the app crashes (always when fetching the album art?) and where have you downloaded the app (website, andappstore,... - im not sure if it might be something related with version mix in andappstore or other)

CheersI just downloaded the app from your web site. It force closes before I have any chance to interact with the app. Behind the force close dialog, I can see <unknown> and one piece of album art at the top right of the screen. Of course, the force close dialg obscures most of the rest of the screen but, at the bottom left, I can see Alarm5 (one of my notification tones) and what looks like an uninitialized piece of album art on the lower right which looks like a stylized record platter. I've tried deleting the RockOn folder from my SD card and I'm still seeing a force close.

HTH

[Mr. Moe]

I get the force close when I try to open the app, but when I select the force close It flashing the loading album art dialogue box then closes.

[deserttopping]

latest version starts to fetch album art, then immediately force closes.

weird that some people aren't having this issue.

[JohnnyLicious]

latest version starts to fetch album art, then immediately force closes.

weird that some people aren't having this issue.

same here hope this fix this :]]

[fabrantes]

Hey guys... for sure this is some bug, as many of you are experiencing this. I'd like to ask who of you would be willing to help me figure out what the bug is all about. This means installing stuff on your pc, and doing console-level stuff in order to get the most verbose error output... I will guide you throughout the process (if anyone uses linux on their desktops that would be even better).

So who will be the brave one?

Cheers

[jdwme]

Hey guys... for sure this is some bug, as many of you are experiencing this. I'd like to ask who of you would be willing to help me figure out what the bug is all about. This means installing stuff on your pc, and doing console-level stuff in order to get the most verbose error output... I will guide you throughout the process (if anyone uses linux on their desktops that would be even better).

So who will be the brave one?

Cheers
I will do it, but won't be home for another 3.5 hours

[konzern]

Hey guys... for sure this is some bug, as many of you are experiencing this. I'd like to ask who of you would be willing to help me figure out what the bug is all about. This means installing stuff on your pc, and doing console-level stuff in order to get the most verbose error output... I will guide you throughout the process (if anyone uses linux on their desktops that would be even better).

So who will be the brave one?

Cheers

ummmmm does that involve the sdk?

well i havent downloaded the latest version of your sofware but like the rest of the ppl here i get that force close, but just pressing back while its searches the album art lets u use it, and i must say its very promissing

im about to download the latest version

[ChicagoPete]

Is this the kind of thing you're looking for? I copied the last few successful album art fetches all the way until the final death rattle :)

I don't know how to embed that scrollable text box, sorry if this is too long of a post.

I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224559779187
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/The Who - The Who Sell Out.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224559789000
D/dalvikvm( 703): GC freed 279 objects / 198184 bytes in 83ms
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/The Who - The Who By Numbers.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224559807160
I/LastFM ( 703): Album with no Art It's Hard
I/filter ( 703): The Who
I/filter ( 703): It's Hard
I/global ( 703): Mar 30, 2009 3:18:57 PM java.io.BufferedReader <init>
I/global ( 703): INFO: Default buffer size used in BufferedReader constructor. It would be better to be explicit if a 8k-char buffer is required.
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/The Who - It_s Hard.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/The Who - It_s Hard.jpg
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/The Who - Face Dances.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224559956675
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/The Who - Endless Wire.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224559963426
D/dalvikvm( 703): GC freed 2440 objects / 317976 bytes in 89ms
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/The Who - A Quick One.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224560006631
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/Van Halen - Van Halen.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224560028706
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/Van Halen - Balance.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224560037082
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/Van Halen - 5150.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224560051239
D/dalvikvm( 703): GC freed 346 objects / 162264 bytes in 86ms
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/Van Halen - 1984.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1224560062010
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/CNET.com - Buzz Out Loud.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1225572204610
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/Night Ranger - Midnight Madness.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1226818851381
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/Night Ranger - Dawn Patrol.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1226818854525
D/dalvikvm( 703): GC freed 239 objects / 159040 bytes in 89ms
I/CREATE ( 703): /sdcard/RockOn/albumArt/small/Two Plus Two Publishing - Two Plus Two Pokercast.jpg
I/SCALEBM ( 703): /sdcard/albumthumbs/1227194565508
W/dalvikvm( 703): threadid=17: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x4000fe68)
E/AndroidRuntime( 703): Uncaught handler: thread Thread-9 exiting due to uncaught exception
E/AndroidRuntime( 703): java.lang.NullPointerException
E/AndroidRuntime( 703): at org.abrantes.filex.LastFmAlbumArtImporter.createSm allAlbumArt(LastFmAlbumArtImporter.java:501)
E/AndroidRuntime( 703): at org.abrantes.filex.LastFmAlbumArtImporter.getAlbum Art(LastFmAlbumArtImporter.java:282)
E/AndroidRuntime( 703): at org.abrantes.filex.LastFmAlbumArtImporter.<init>(LastFmAlbumArtImporter.java:87)
E/AndroidRuntime( 703): at org.abrantes.filex.Filex$24.run(Filex.java:408)
I/Process ( 47): Sending signal. PID: 703 SIG: 3
I/dalvikvm( 703): threadid=7: reacting to signal 3
I/dalvikvm( 703): Wrote stack trace to '/data/anr/traces.txt'
D/dalvikvm( 99): GC freed 2207 objects / 115704 bytes in 192ms
D/dalvikvm( 143): GC freed 152 objects / 6192 bytes in 272ms
D/dalvikvm( 695): GC freed 4591 objects / 278280 bytes in 114ms
I/Process ( 703): Sending signal. PID: 703 SIG: 9
I/ActivityManager( 47): Process org.abrantes.filex (pid 703) has died.
I/WindowManager( 47): WIN DEATH: Window{43149268 Loading Album Art}
I/WindowManager( 47): WIN DEATH: Window{43165b48 org.abrantes.filex/org.abrantes.filex.Filex}
W/ActivityManager( 47): Scheduling restart of crashed service org.abrantes.filex/.PlayerService in 5000ms
I/PackageInstaller( 695): Finishing off activity

[konzern]

sorry still does the same if i press back it works for a bit but then it shows this
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m278/konzern_one/rockon.png
BUT ITS STILL KEEPS PLAYING SONGS AFTER I GET THE FORCE CLOSE MESSAGE

[fabrantes]

ChicagoPete, that's it! Thanks a lot I will see what might be wrong and I'll get back soon with a new version.

Thanks a lot!

[ChicagoPete]

I just downloaded the app from your web site. It force closes before I have any chance to interact with the app. Behind the force close dialog, I can see <unknown> and one piece of album art at the top right of the screen. Of course, the force close dialg obscures most of the rest of the screen but, at the bottom left, I can see Alarm5 (one of my notification tones) and what looks like an uninitialized piece of album art on the lower right which looks like a stylized record platter. I've tried deleting the RockOn folder from my SD card and I'm still seeing a force close.

HTH

Glad to help, I'm looking forward to getting to try out the app soon!

Similar to Short/y, after the force close I can see one of my ringtones on the screen, like it was trying to download album art for that. I wonder if you might want to keep your app looking only in the music folder?

[dazzawright]

Hi, jst thought i'd let you know that i have downlaod the new version from the website and it works like a charm. The app looks awesome, thanks so much for your efforts with this. Blinding music app.

[fabrantes]

ok, new version

http://abrantix.org/files/rockon/RockOnv1.0.4.apk

I did not figure the root of the bug but Ive put some verifications that should allow the app to proceed. Yes maybe it has something to do with ringtones... I was not really checking if it the media was music/ringtone/whatever ...

please let me know if this fixes the problem, and ChicagoPete, even if this works I will still be interested in your log output :P (just to see what might be causing the problem...)

ah almost forgot... the new version includes also notifications on the statusbar and shortcut to the app in the notification tray.

waiting for your feedback!

[JohnnyLicious]

ok, new version

http://abrantix.org/files/rockon/RockOnv1.0.4.apk

I did not figure the root of the bug but Ive put some verifications that should allow the app to proceed. Yes maybe it has something to do with ringtones... I was not really checking if it the media was music/ringtone/whatever ...

please let me know if this fixes the problem, and ChicagoPete, even if this works I will still be interested in your log output :P (just to see what might be causing the problem...)

ah almost forgot... the new version includes also notifications on the statusbar and shortcut to the app in the notification tray.

waiting for your feedback!

Fabrantes!!

Great job it works now, no force close love the updates on this :]

can't wait for more.

[dazzawright]

another release already. wow

again, this version works perfectly for me.

[Jayb222]

It still crashed on me right after grabbing all the album art. After I pushed to enjoy, abrantes.filex crash! Hopefully you get it straightened out. The app looks sweet. I'll be waiting to try again.

[jdwme]

update works, but the notification stays in my window, also it doesnt download all of my album art, which is also stored on my sd card so is there an option to get it from there?

[fabrantes]

I'm happy to hear that it now works at least for some more people. [I will not rest until everything is sorted out though :P].

Notification... what behaviour would you prefer for this (at the moment it is designed so that it does not leave the tray, maybe I could remove it if the player has been paused...)?

Manual album art is not yet possible, but I will put it on the todo list with some priority as quite some people have already mentioned it.

have fun!

[short/y]

Works for me now, too! Great job!


Notification... what behaviour would you prefer for this (at the moment it is designed so that it does not leave the tray, maybe I could remove it if the player has been paused...)?I'd prefer some sort of Exit option. I do NOT want it to remove the notification just because I've paused the player -- there are a lot of reasons I'd hit pause and it'd be really nice if I could just hit the notification area to get back to RockOn. Some apps use Back and Home differently -- if the user hits Back, it signifies they want the app to exit whereas Home means they want the app to continue. Me, well, I think this is a bit subtle for most people and sort of in contrast with usual methods of operation so I'd recommend against it.

I prefer a specific Exit action in the menu.

[Vimes]

All versions prior to 1.0.4 worked great for me, my only issue was that it was also including the mp3 files that I have in my alarms/notifications/ringtones directories.

Stepping up to 1.0.4, I am now getting force closing on a frequent basis.

[konzern]

good job NOW WORKS FOR ME! not giving me a force close anymore

[konzern]

the only thing i really think needs inprovement is the FF/RW its a little clunky

[Shel]

I prefer a specific Exit action in the menu.

I'd second this suggestion!

I think the notification should remain in the notification bar, display current song and allow users to quickly bring up RockOn, BUT... when I'm done listening to music, there should be an EXIT button or menu item, so that I can leave RockOn, and all signs of it in the notification disappear.

My two cents... great update, by the way!

[Shel]

opps... sorry for the quick second post (what happened to the edit command on AC??)

I'm also seeing voice recordings/other items in my Album list on right side of RockOn screen. This should be eliminated, so that only music is displayed....

[deserttopping]

1.0.4 fetches album art. i get a different splash afterwards ("something, something...user interface...rock on"), then force close.

still applauding your effort to get this resolved. :)

[fabrantes]

still applauding your effort to get this resolved. :)

and im grateful for your feedback and persistence in trying all the updates

[fabrantes]

opps... sorry for the quick second post (what happened to the edit command on AC??)

I'm also seeing voice recordings/other items in my Album list on right side of RockOn screen. This should be eliminated, so that only music is displayed....

One question... how do these ringtones/alarms/recordings appear on the the player. Do they have their own album entry or do they just appear in the <unknown> album? I don't have the G1 (just emulator) with me right now, so I cannot try.

BTW, Im getting force closes (mainly due to memory leaking issues) every ~10 times I open/rotate the app, what has been your experience?

Cheers

[djunio]

This is a great program so far but where is the play, fast forward, rewind, pause and stop buttons.

[fabrantes]

play/pause is on the big album image

next song is a tap on the song title (below big album image)

ff/rw you can go by sliding your finger over the song progress (fast swipes are better)

[fabrantes]

ooops, sry forgot... there is no previous button

[omnibot]

.apk link on the original post is no longer working.

rehost?

[JohnnyLicious]

.apk link on the original post is no longer working.

rehost?

just go to website

i will edit apk right now.

[djunio]

play/pause is on the big album image

next song is a tap on the song title (below big album image)

ff/rw you can go by sliding your finger over the song progress (fast swipes are better)

Thanks for the help, how can you end the program, task manager couldnt kill it either

[ChicagoPete]

Fabrantes,

I downloaded the new version and it worked! I have the log from startup to the first song beginning to play. It's pretty long, you may want to PM me your email address and I'll send it through email.

djunio,

In addition to the gestures others have mentioned above, I also found that a long press on the song title will bring up a list of all the songs on the album, so you could go to the previous song that way.

Pete

[Shel]

Just curious, is landscape view no longer working?

I haven't been able to get it to switch to landscape, either by accelerometer or menu option (which I don't see)

Thanks!

[dazzawright]

BTW, Im getting force closes (mainly due to memory leaking issues) every ~10 times I open/rotate the app, what has been your experience?

Cheers

Hi, The app for me plays just fine under normal usage, but, like you, I get force close if I switch between landscape and portrait in quick succession 5 or 6 times (approx)

[fabrantes]

Unfortunately this memory leak problem is a little harder to track down, but that's the next step...

Cheers

[fabrantes]

ChicagoPete, the email is on the website http://abrantix.org/rockon.php and also in my profile I believe.

Cheers

[kaysesoze]

I will test this out today when i go to work

[mightykc]

Is there any way to have the album art not save to where the album images show up when looking through pictures on the phone?

[ChicagoPete]

That was stupid of me not to check that out, sorry about that. Anyway, email sent.

[chrisrj28]

I have tried the new version 1.0.4. I downloaded the file, renamed it from zip to apk and installed it. I am getting the same force close. It starts and then before it even starts looking for album art I still get The appliscation RockOn (process org.abrantes.filex) has stopped. I have my apps on my SD card. Could that be a possible cause?

[funbacon]

My feedbacks :
1. No play, stop, next, previous button
2. No songs list
3. Do not read album art from file (default Music player and MixZing can read)

[fabrantes]

What do you mean by album art from file. The art that is embedded in the MP3 is loaded as in Music and zing (just let the album art cycle finish, whatever art exisits is loaded from the file, what is missing is fetched from the internet). Or do you mean manually selecting the album art from a file (this I intend to add in the future).

Song list it also displays (you have to hold the song name for 1-2 secs to show the list of the songs of the currently playing album).

As for the buttons they are not there, you have to use gestures (tap song name for next song, tap album cover for play/stop, slide finger over song progress for ff/rw). Do you guys prefer buttons? Is this rather unintuitive or what? I like it this way more... but im open to suggestions.

feedback is welcome as always.

[jdwme]

All my mp3's have album art embedded in them and show up in the default player, but it does not show up in RockOn

[fabrantes]

@ everyone for which the app still force closes

Who of you would be willing to spend some time creating error logs (this means installing software on your PC - I will guide you throughout the process). Send me an email please.

[fabrantes]

All my mp3's have album art embedded in them and show up in the default player, but it does not show up in RockOn


Hmmm... I will look into this to see what might be wrong. It is not the intended behaviour!

[fabrantes]

All my mp3's have album art embedded in them and show up in the default player, but it does not show up in RockOn

One question, have you tried redownloading the album art -> use menu->get art

Another question, the album art does not appear at all or it shows different album than what you have?

cheers

[fabrantes]

Thanks for the help, how can you end the program, task manager couldnt kill it either

Next version will have an explicit exit button, will upload it tomorrow or so, just wanted to see if any of the guys still having force closes could provide me a log...

[fabrantes]

Is there any way to have the album art not save to where the album images show up when looking through pictures on the phone?

this might be possible... maybe if we dont use .jpg as file extension... will look it into and include in next release if it works

thanks

[mightykc]

I just downloaded the newest version and your update seemed to do the trick. I don't see the album art in with my pictures anymore.

Thanks

[fabrantes]

I just downloaded the newest version and your update seemed to do the trick. I don't see the album art in with my pictures anymore.

Thanks


I havent made the change yet :p. so maybe the mediascanner has just not found the album art yet :p.

Im just now checking this to see if it works. tomorrow or so a new version will be out, possibly including this!

[jdwme]

One question, have you tried redownloading the album art -> use menu->get art

Another question, the album art does not appear at all or it shows different album than what you have?

cheers
yeah i tried that several times and nothing has changed

[fabrantes]

If you would like to help and provide a Log output whenever you have crashes, the process to acquire the log is the following:


1.Install Android SDK from:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/1.1_r1/index.html

2.Then follow steps 2 and 3 in the 'Setting up a device for development' section of:

http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html

3. Then Open up the ddms application under the folder 'tools' of the android SDK:

then if everything went ok, ddms has started and your device is listed on the left panel. Just click on it and start RockOn. Once the app has crashed use the 'export selection as text' (disk icon) of the Log panel on the bottom of the ddms window.


So good luck and tell me how it goes in case you try it!

Cheers
Filipe

[miro]

I know you're dealing with much bigger fish right now, but does RockOn scrobble tracks back up to Last.fm? I have scrobbledroid installed now but it's a) buggy and b) only works with the default music player.

[fabrantes]

I know you're dealing with much bigger fish right now, but does RockOn scrobble tracks back up to Last.fm? I have scrobbledroid installed now but it's a) buggy and b) only works with the default music player.

no, not yet. It is planned for future releases, and I will speed its development if the community shows strong interest.

[miro]

I posted my first question while I was downloading the application, now that I've been playing around with it I am really impressed! No errors for me so far, album art took about 2 minutes for roughly 2GB of music, although I am pretty diligent about tagging.

A couple of things:
When I am listening with RockOn, if I press the connect button on the headset adapter the default music player starts up. It would be great if you could have RockOn either disable that button or use that button for the same controls: one click is pause/play, double-click is next track.

Also, I really like the concert feature... I would suggest adding a "no concerts found" message after the scan completes, just showing the blank screen is a bit confusing. You would get huge points for integrating this feature with maps!!

I would already gladly pay for this application.... keep up the great work!

[miro]

Another thought regarding events - there is an API (user.getEvents) that is already available for Last.fm users that returns events, so if a user was able to add their login name from Last.fm into your application, you could just use it to do the event retrieval instead of looping through all of the artists. :cool:

The response data for this call has the latitude/longitude coordinates, so mapping the locations would be relatively simple (I don't know the Android SDK, so that's an assumption).

Here's the detail:
http://www.last.fm/api/show?service=291

Sorry to keep adding detail, but you can probably guess I am a huge last.fm user & I really like where you're headed...

[fabrantes]

Hi all,

My holidays finished yesterday so now development is going to slow down a bit (not one release per day anymore, now 2 days per release :P).

Anyway, thanks for all the input it is really appreciated. Also thanks to the ones that could send me logs of the errors. I have put up a new version online that Im not sure will fix the force close to the ones still getting it, but is worth to give a try... tell me how it works for you... (and if it still crashes send me a log if you can! it is really helpful).

The new version includes also an exit menu option, and puts the album art somewhere where it does not show on the pictures viewer. (the only art that appears is the only already on your music dirs - I could make something to hide those too, but it'll be messing around with the users files, which i prefer not to - maybe I can prepare a separate app that does just that, remove images from your music dirs, if you guys think it is useful it of course.)

Regarding the input and the features planned for the near future releases, I think first dedicte to interpret the media button (it is from the headphones right?), which should be pretty easy, and then make the list scroll to the currently playing album when it not being used, which should also be somewhat fast. Then in second maybe include tighter last.fm integration (scrobbling, user events at first). I also plan to add last.fm's events near you (even if they are not from artist in your library).

Also, adding some custom behaviour to the volume buttons might be possible...

What do you think? Keep me posted on what prevents you from having RockOn as your default music app.

Cheers

[jdwme]

I got all my album art to show up, I checked the RockOn folder on my sd card and it had a sub folder in album art called small where a lot of my albums had blank photos so I added my album art for what was missing to that folder, left it intact and removed the program. Upon reinstall it pulled up all my album art :) Now I can see my music without having to guess what album it is before selecting it. It's a great app, off to download the new version.

[fabrantes]

Hi jdwme,

Cool that you got it working, I think I have an idea of what might be happening in your case and I will be doing something about it shortly.

One thing you might have to change in the next release:

the album art directory has changed (so the art does not appear on the pictures app), so you have to move your art again to the new dir... sorry for that... the new dir(s) are:

/sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn
/sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn/small

[chrisrj28]

Yeah I finally got this to work too but it was after my phone crashed and I had to hard reset. My apps were on my SD when it wasnt working and now my apps are temp on my phone and it opens just fine. When I redo my apps to SD I will retry it, that may have been the cause.

Anyway as to your question about being the main music app, for me if you can get the headset button to work and incorporate a full-screen mode for the currently playing music I would replace MixZing. I like how when you select a new album it slides in from the left. If you could make it, maybe after 5 seconds, slide into a full screen mode like how MixZing displays album art, then have a gesture to go back to your album list.

If you could get those going I would gladly donate to you and make this my default.

[jdwme]

Hi jdwme,

Cool that you got it working, I think I have an idea of what might be happening in your case and I will be doing something about it shortly.

One thing you might have to change in the next release:

the album art directory has changed (so the art does not appear on the pictures app), so you have to move your art again to the new dir... sorry for that... the new dir(s) are:

/sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn
/sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn/small
I downloaded the update and it worked fine, I haven't gone through and removed to original folder yet but it seemed to find all of my album art on the first try this time. Everyone I show the player to really likes it :D

[GMemorySolutions]

This is a really nice music app. Honestly reminds me of itunes :) and yes, I do love my ipod.

::watches for any apple haters::

:D

[fabrantes]

Hi everyone,

I have released a new version (not many modifications), it has intiial support for the media button however it is untested. I have put it on the the Android Market (costs ~$1.99) but its still free through the website (will always be).

In the meantime I'm deciding on which features to implement next (tell me what you think):

0. full integration with the mdia buttons
1. more concert filtering options, and faster concert search...
2. access song list from albums in the album list
3. last.fm scrobbling
4. ?

Id like to thank you all for the support you ve given me so far. I wouldn t be able to troubleshoot the app bugs without your help!

[Jayb222]

I'd vote to go in this order
0. full integration with the media buttons (headphones)
3. last.fm scrobbling
2. access song list from albums in the album list
4. Add full screen view of image like mixzing
1. more concert filtering options, and faster concert search...

Then this would be my default. Good Job so far!

[fabrantes]

Hey guys, I will link to this post on the market description. If this is a problem please let me know.

[fabrantes]

Hi guys,

new version 1.0.7 is out! and this one brings a huge bug fix! FINALLY, I could detect what was causing the memory leak which in the end forced RockOn to close after every few rotations... - because mem usage was always adding up...

Now that's gone. You can rotate it as you like with no force closes, great huh.

Im a bit excited about this because it actually took a long time to figure out, and it wasn't easy, sorry...

have fun,
Filipe

[JohnnyLicious]

Filipe,

GREAT JOB on the constant and quick updates i love it :]]

ima try this out again.

[hyperdroid]

Hi guys,

new version 1.0.7 is out! and this one brings a huge bug fix! FINALLY, I could detect what was causing the memory leak which in the end forced RockOn to close after every few rotations... - because mem usage was always adding up...

Now that's gone. You can rotate it as you like with no force closes, great huh.

Im a bit excited about this because it actually took a long time to figure out, and it wasn't easy, sorry...

have fun,
Filipe

I just started using the app today and I do like it, not sure which version I have though, I just downloaded from the link in the first post. To answer a question you asked before, please don't implement back/forward,pause,play buttons, they will take up too much screen. I like the layout right now, just take a bit to get used to.
Also what do you mean about screen rotate? Like when you open up the keyboard, or is it supposed to switch to landscape automatically by using the accelerometer? Because for me it only went to landscape when I slid open the phone.

Gracias!

[fabrantes]

I just started using the app today and I do like it, not sure which version I have though, I just downloaded from the link in the first post. To answer a question you asked before, please don't implement back/forward,pause,play buttons, they will take up too much screen. I like the layout right now, just take a bit to get used to.
Also what do you mean about screen rotate? Like when you open up the keyboard, or is it supposed to switch to landscape automatically by using the accelerometer? Because for me it only went to landscape when I slid open the phone.

Gracias!

totally agree with the buttons thing :P... at this point there is still many people that want buttons, but I sure like it using gestures... Maybe I could implement some more advanced gestures to make the interaction seem more natural/intuitive... dont know


screen rotation, yes, what you said (ie. when you open the keyb) - now you can rotate as much as youd like. The fix also affects when you leave and later on reenter the app. Before the fix RockOn would add some 70Kb to the memory usage everytime you rotate the screen or reenter the app (this caused force closes after using it for a while).

cheers

[fabrantes]

Hi,

There is a new version available (v1.0.12), that maybe fixes for those who still get it after or during album art download. Check it out and tell me if it does indeed fix the problem.

Cheers

[JohnnyLicious]

thanks again for updates,

will check this out.

the other previous version worked well for me also :]]

[chrisrj28]

Hey I would love to see all those features you mentioned implemented but I would like to see a full screen mode for the currently playing album. Then maybe a gesture to have it swing back and get your album list again.

[fabrantes]

Hey I would love to see all those features you mentioned implemented but I would like to see a full screen mode for the currently playing album. Then maybe a gesture to have it swing back and get your album list again.

agreed! I'm adding this to the list :P, not sure in what order though... in the meantime im still solving force close for some people. If someone has a log of a persistent force close please send it to me

cheers

[fabrantes]

hi guys,

there's a new release available (v1.0.14). Includes the fix for people with >200 albums + a new fullscreen view of the album list that helps when you dont have the album art (you just need to slide your finger left on the main screen to access it). This was a nice suggestion from cyberaddict fo xda-developers, thanks!

tell me how you like it!

Next steps will be:

1.ability to choose a playlist (btw do you guys think that maintaining the song order of a playlist is important?)
2. current playing album full screen view
3. last.fm scrobbling + more extensive last.fm integration
4. other stuff :)

(still open to feedback on next steps)

[fabrantes]

sorry forgot to include the new screenshots

http://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-albumtextview-marsvolta.png

http://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-land-albumtextview-blackkeys.png

[SilleeString]

I like your taste in music. That is all. :)

2 questions: Is this a battery murderer? Also, how feasible is it that this would sync up with, for example Winamp in such a way that playcounts and the like would sync both ways? I can clarify if that sounds vague, but most should know what I mean.

Thanks!

[themyth69]

Is there a way to get rid of the stock music app, and if not can you make Rock On the default music player?

[simplyTravis]

I love the addition of the large album view! I had a ton of cd's without any art so it was really killing me when trying to find music. The program is looking really good and I will be testing it out a lot more once I get my usb to aux converter this week!

Also, please add an equalizer or at least a few presets!

Looking good so far and I'm glad I bought it instead of just downloading it for free from your site. You might need to add the new functionality to the help screen also.

[Rusty]

I have had issues with RockOn continuing a song improperly after stopping and going to the home screen.

One time I stopped RockOn. Made a call and it automatically restarted after the call even though it was off before the call.

Other times I will stop RockOn exit and the RockOn still shows as playing in the notification bar even though no music is playing. The only way to get rid of that was to reboot or uninstall.

Also it does a poor job of remembering the last song that it was on after exiting and returning.

Other than that I really like the gestures for controls and the album art display.

[fabrantes]

Hi all,

thanks for the feedback!

1. Its not a battery murder anymore than any other music player, from my experience. It may take a little bit more memory depending on the number of albums you have but thats all.

2. Making it default - you mean for files that you opne from the browser of the file system right? I will be adding this shortly. It should be already the default player when you hit the media button from the headphones!

3. Syncing with other desktop apps would be possible in theory but this I have to take a look in a case by case scenario... it is not a priority at the momento but I will look into it.

4. @Rusty - will look and fix at all those issues you ahve mentioned.

Thanks all for the feedback

have fun!

[deserttopping]

hey, filipe,

fyi, i no longer get force close w/ the new version. thanks!

[ChicagoPete]

REALLY nice addition with the large album list Filipe!

[fabrantes]

I think the next addition(neglecting bug fixes) will be the inclusion of playlists, but here I really need your help - what do you think is most useful?

Having never really used playlists makes me a playlist noob, but I want to make it something special that really makes sense.

My initial thoughts are that dynamic playlists would be the most useful (recently added music, genre music, most played, etc). My question is if you do create your own playlists much (work, chill out, study, car, etc). And is it always in the m3u format? I see that at least in my music dirs there are a lot of m3u's that are just garbage (basically they refer to an album) and I didn't want to be including those so... the options are:

1. not including m3u automatically, and if you have m3u's available you add them manually. Only dynamic playlists would be shown by automatically...
2. include m3u's automatically... this would put every m3u in your music dirs available and pollute the list a little bit...

what do you think?

(ill be double posting this on xda-devel)

[hitemup054]

I LOVE THIS PLAYER! I am using it as my default player now!

I don't use playlists much, except for adding a couple of songs that I want to play next. It would be nice to keep the existing song playing while I add other songs to play after that.

also, I like the background on the landscape view better, but i never use landscape cuz i always have my keyboard closed. But the other background is not bad.

Although i would rarely use this option, maybe you should also have a "text only" list, so we can search by artist. Just some suggestions to a great app!

[short/y]

I too would like to be able to add songs to the list of curently playing songs -- I like to browse my music library and select songs to be played based on what I feel like hearing at the time. It'd also be really handy to be able to save the playlist of songs that are currently playing. As far as format, I use playlists a LOT, m3u and pls almost exclusively. Your idea for dynamic playlists is a really good one -- my Windows and Linux players all support that and it's very handy, particularly if I want to review the music I've recently added to my phone.

As far as automatically adding them, it bugs me when playlists are intermingled with my albums and tracks so I'd suggest lumping them all together in one place. Maybe a new "album" or another UI element or even have an option to display playlists as opposed to albums?

[OJsakila]

for the life of me i just cannot figure out how to make it play the next song...I don't use playlists..I listen to the whole album. It will only play the first song and it wont continue through the album unless i manually touch that particular song wtf? The default player works seemlessly but without the extras of course. Please someone help me resolve this please

[fabrantes]

for the life of me i just cannot figure out how to make it play the next song...I don't use playlists..I listen to the whole album. It will only play the first song and it wont continue through the album unless i manually touch that particular song wtf? The default player works seemlessly but without the extras of course. Please someone help me resolve this please

it should play the next song if you tap the song name. Also when it finishes a song it should continue on to the next song. [also if you use the headphones, you can choose the next song by double pressing the button]. [if you tap and hold the song name also the song list of the album will pop up from which you can choose a song to play - or hold to ear a preview].

[fabrantes]

I too would like to be able to add songs to the list of curently playing songs -- I like to browse my music library and select songs to be played based on what I feel like hearing at the time. It'd also be really handy to be able to save the playlist of songs that are currently playing. As far as format, I use playlists a LOT, m3u and pls almost exclusively. Your idea for dynamic playlists is a really good one -- my Windows and Linux players all support that and it's very handy, particularly if I want to review the music I've recently added to my phone.

As far as automatically adding them, it bugs me when playlists are intermingled with my albums and tracks so I'd suggest lumping them all together in one place. Maybe a new "album" or another UI element or even have an option to display playlists as opposed to albums?

hmmm... as i am implementing this now you will choose a playlist, and will get the exact same interface, but filtered --- that is only the albums (and songs) present in the playlist will appear... is this too weird? I really dont know as I dont use playlists much.

I will not add the possibility to add songs to the current playlist right now... will look into it in the future...

After this more basic playlist thing I will start to work on consolidating the player (that means solving all the current bugs, making rotations and startup faster, and improving the looks a little bit. And in parallel I will be adding last.fm scrobbling.

cheers,
Filipe

[montalbert]

what about making a rockon widget?

[fabrantes]

what about making a rockon widget?

now that the 'official' cupcake SDK is out (and supports widgets) I will definitely be looking at it. I expect to have some news within 4 or 6 weeks regarding this.

[hitemup054]

why does the new update need the following permission?

-Your personal information
write owner data

I'm nervous about what that is. If it was already there previously, I obviously missed it on the last update.

[fabrantes]

It needs to write preferences (which can be shared among apps) like if you want shuffle by default, the last timestamp of the update of concert info/album art, and things like this. I think the permission name is a bit unfortunate as I really dont access the owner info (although I could access 'outside info' if other apps decided to share their configuration - for instance I could read your configuration of the default music player)

[fabrantes]

also... maybe I could implement preferences without this permission... I will explore it a little more!

[hitemup054]

I updated anyways, but I recommend keeping that out. I'm sure some people won't download just for that. I have another suggestion.....how about being able to remove any incorrect album art? It does not happen often, but I added some album art and a couple are wrong. It would be nice to select those albums and correct them or at least remove the incorrect art. Thanks again!

[fabrantes]

Hi guys,

New version available (v1.0.18):

http://abrantix.org/rockon.php

This one includes (experimental) support for playlists, and also numerous bug fixes (and probably also new bugs were introduced) ...

To use the playlists go to menu->playlists and just choose one (it might take a little while when you choose it - still need to give some feedback to the user on the UI over what is going on there).

It loads every playlist that the android OS recognizes + a dynamic playlist of the recently added songs (in the last 15 days by default - but its configurable in the preferences [menu->more->preferences]).

Also, if you choose a playlist and then use search things might not work - consider yourself warned :P.


This playlist thing was quite a lot of work as it required a lot of internal redesign and it is not finished yet, however, I will be putting this on hold for a while now and will dedicate the time to polish the numerous rough edges, mainly on the UI side, but in the end theyll be all-around. Also will kick off last.fm scrobbling integration in parallel.

Try it and have your say!

[hitemup054]

is it possible to have imeem scrobbiling? Imeem is MUCH better on the G1, so it may be a better choice

[mattdonders]

this is still force closing on my phone.

is there a trick to get it working?

[facelessuser]

The headphone button no longer pauses and plays songs. All it does now is open the rockon, and if it is already open, it does nothing. Not sure what happened, but this makes using this player more work than the original. Hopefully this will be fixed soon, especially since it hijacks the button so it can't be used in the default player.

[fabrantes]

yep, Im aware of the button issue I'll get it working in the next couple of days. Not sure what I changed in the meantime...

[fabrantes]

The headphone button no longer pauses and plays songs. All it does now is open the rockon, and if it is already open, it does nothing. Not sure what happened, but this makes using this player more work than the original. Hopefully this will be fixed soon, especially since it hijacks the button so it can't be used in the default player.


did a quick fix to the headphone problem (it was a silly thing...). It is up on the website or on the Market.

cheers

[facelessuser]

did a quick fix to the headphone problem (it was a silly thing...). It is up on the website or on the Market.

cheers

Thanks for the quick fix. I'll check it out a little later.

[short/y]

Quite a few of my albums have no artwork. As such, there's just a stylized picture of a disc on the right side of the display. Would it be possible to fill it with the text description of the album instead? While I really like being able to see the album art, if there is none it's pretty difficult to determine the album and artist :)

[fabrantes]

Quite a few of my albums have no artwork. As such, there's just a stylized picture of a disc on the right side of the display. Would it be possible to fill it with the text description of the album instead? While I really like being able to see the album art, if there is none it's pretty difficult to determine the album and artist :)

have you tried sliding your finger left on the main screen? this will bring up a text list of your albums :P

[JRocket]

I just downloaded this last night, great work, I'm really enjoying it! Thanks for your hard work and responses to feedback in this forum.

[emptyDUB]

Doesn't work on my phone (Firmware 1.1, RC33). Every time I click an album, it force closes. I uninstalled it, rebooted the phone, and reinstalled. Still force closes. I am disappointed because I thought it looked really cool, but I don't know what else I can try.

[fabrantes]

Doesn't work on my phone (Firmware 1.1, RC33). Every time I click an album, it force closes. I uninstalled it, rebooted the phone, and reinstalled. Still force closes. I am disappointed because I thought it looked really cool, but I don't know what else I can try.

if you can send me a log of the error Ill try to fix it. There are instruction on how to do so in the first pages of this thread (maybe on page 6...)

[short/y]

have you tried sliding your finger left on the main screen? this will bring up a text list of your albums :PYes,. I have but on some screens I have more missing artwork than displayed covers so it would be really nice if there were *some* indication what album is in that position. Not to mention that there's an empty rectangle displayed on the left when I'm playing an album with missing artwork so it'd be extra nice if you could display something in that area, too :)

[fabrantes]

Yes,. I have but on some screens I have more missing artwork than displayed covers so it would be really nice if there were *some* indication what album is in that position. Not to mention that there's an empty rectangle displayed on the left when I'm playing an album with missing artwork so it'd be extra nice if you could display something in that area, too :)

hmmm I think those are bugs (If there is no artwork, a black [empty] disc should appear inside the white border).

regarding the album text Ill be adding something too within the next week. The idea is to show the first letter (sort of index) of the albums you are brwosing in the middle of the screen (sort of like is used when scrolling contacts). what do you think?

[emptyDUB]

Doesn't work on my phone (Firmware 1.1, RC33). Every time I click an album, it force closes. I uninstalled it, rebooted the phone, and reinstalled. Still force closes. I am disappointed because I thought it looked really cool, but I don't know what else I can try.

I just reinstalled it with the intention of getting a log of the error, but the error seems to have resolved itself somehow. I'm cured!

Thanks anyway. :)

[short/y]

hmmm I think those are bugs (If there is no artwork, a black [empty] disc should appear inside the white border).Sorry, my mistake. It displays as you've said.


regarding the album text Ill be adding something too within the next week. The idea is to show the first letter (sort of index) of the albums you are brwosing in the middle of the screen (sort of like is used when scrolling contacts). what do you think?I think that's a great idea and something that I was going to suggest! I've got about 6GB of music on my 8GB card and that's a LOT of albums. I'll have even more once I can get a reasonably priced 16G/32G card so having a way to calibrate my location would be a big help. It would also be a help if I didn't have to actually scroll through all the albums to go from Buena Vista Social Club to You Had It Coming but I'm not sure what interaction model would be appropriate.

[mattdonders]

I am on RC33 and mine only force closes.

I have installed from the market and from the website twice each with a battery pull in between.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[facelessuser]

The app seems to restart itself fairly frequently. When you are listening to an album, in the middle of a song, the music will stop. You wake up the phone and see that RockOn is refreshing albums. It brings up the album you weren't listening to and you have to manually select what you were listening to, and start playing it again. Very, very annoying.

Also, please add the option to reassign the headphone button back to the stock music app, because when the app isn't working, I want to have the option to use the stock music app.

[fabrantes]

The app seems to restart itself fairly frequently. When you are listening to an album, in the middle of a song, the music will stop. You wake up the phone and see that RockOn is refreshing albums. It brings up the album you weren't listening to and you have to manually select what you were listening to, and start playing it again. Very, very annoying.

Also, please add the option to reassign the headphone button back to the stock music app, because when the app isn't working, I want to have the option to use the stock music app.

Those are good points... I have a couple of questions:

Does rockon restart when you are actually using it or just when you are running it on the backround and doing other stuff (like browsing the web)? ...Android kills background apps whenever it needs more memory for the frontend apps...

Remembering the last song being played (and its position) will be added in the next week or so (I ve planning to do it for a while now).

[facelessuser]

Those are good points... I have a couple of questions:

Does rockon restart when you are actually using it or just when you are running it on the backround and doing other stuff (like browsing the web)? ...Android kills background apps whenever it needs more memory for the frontend apps...

Remembering the last song being played (and its position) will be added in the next week or so (I ve planning to do it for a while now).

It does exit sometimes when I am using another app, but it also exits when I am just using it and nothing else (It may not be active, not sure, I will experiment with RockOn physically open while playing).

I know android kills some background apps sometimes when memory gets full, but not usually while you are directly using it. I believe there is a way to make apps persistent though (I know Dxtop tries to utilize persistence when running in background). The stock music app never exits like that, so there must be a way to remedy this, or at least greatly reduce this. Maybe when running in background the app can shed some of its uneeded resources and be set as persistent. I just can't get through an album without it restarting; this is kind of a big deal.

Good to hear about the last song memory; that will be great.

[trumani]

This is an amazing App, and I think a very intuitive interface. Some comments that I hope @facelessuser finds welcoming:

- when you reopen rockon after it has been dormant unused for a while, it will go to a random album, it would be nice to stick on the existing album until you are inside the app

- shake to shuffle! :)

- perhaps make the side albums bigger? This is just a preference..

- would be nice to have typing automatically start searching for the album/song

-is an editable background doable without performance loss? or perhaps make the background just the background of android, I think that would be slick, just thoughts

I think this app is great, well worth its price, and other than a few performance lags which I think will improve, think this is so much better than the stock music app!

[trumani]

Oh one more thing, the rockon will randomly change to "shuffle" mode. I notice this when I'm playing an "album" for which I only have one song for, it switches to shuffle mode and will not go back to playing just an album until I toggle on-off the shuffle again.

[fabrantes]

Hi Trumani,

welcome aboard! Regarding the background, I have already a version that uses the Android wallpaper as the background (a little blurred and dimmed). Will probably release this version during the weekend so you guys can let me know how you like it.

Knowing the last song played after restart and such definitely needs a bit of work...

Cheers

[hitemup054]

i love it when apps do that blurred android wallpaper effect...that would look awesome on this player!

[fabrantes]

just to give you an idea of how the next version might be looking like here is a screen...

http://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-transulcent.png

what would you change?

http://androidcommunity.com/forums/just%20to%20give%20you%20an%20idea%20of%20how%20th e%20next%20version%20might%20be%20looking%20like%2 0here%20is%20a%20screen...%20%20http://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-transulcent.png%20%20what%20would%20you%20change?

[fabrantes]

http://abrantix.org/images/rockon-screenshots/device-transulcent.png

[fabrantes]

Hi all,

there is a new version on the website:

http://abrantix.org/files/rockon/RockOn.apk

- lots of bugs related with the headset buttons were fixed
- a bug that would sometimes drain the battery also fixed
- new translucent background
- now it remembers the last song you were playing (and also the position within the song)
- new controls
- tap songname - play/pause
- double tap songname - next
- tap album - songlist
... that i can remember

unfortunately I could not start last-fm scrobbling yet :(...

check the screens and have your say!

http://abrantix.org/rockon-screenshots.php

[ChicagoPete]

Hi Filipe,

Nice update! I was just struggling in the car on Friday trying to skip to the next song, this will make that much, much easier!

Couple of things I noticed...The long press on the song title/progress bar continues to bring up the song list - that seems a little redundant. Plus if I don't do the double-press fast enough then I get the song list.

When I navigate away from the player and then use the notification icon to go back, when the player comes back to the foreground, the notification icon disappears for good.

One thing I'd like to see is the current song highlighted in the song list, just to give me some bearing when I'm in the list as to where I'm at in the album.

Minor things aside, the app is looking and working fantastic! Great job!

Pete

[ChicagoPete]

Oh, one other little thing, when the app starts up, it plays just a fraction of a second of the beginning of the current song.

[facelessuser]

Okay after some testing, as long as Rock on is the current open app, it doesn't restart, but if you get a notification sms from someone and answer it, RockOn can close on you. And then it restarts, but even with the new remember last song, it doesn't remember last song on this type of restart.

I still firmly believe though that RockOn should not close while as a background app. This is becoming extremely frustrating to me becuase when I get an email, sms, or whatever, it restarts loosing its place and ruining your groove. There has to be a way to circumvent random restarts as a background app.

[fabrantes]

Okay after some testing, as long as Rock on is the current open app, it doesn't restart, but if you get a notification sms from someone and answer it, RockOn can close on you. And then it restarts, but even with the new remember last song, it doesn't remember last song on this type of restart.

I still firmly believe though that RockOn should not close while as a background app. This is becoming extremely frustrating to me becuase when I get an email, sms, or whatever, it restarts loosing its place and ruining your groove. There has to be a way to circumvent random restarts as a background app.

indeed, it should work... let me see what I can do...

[ChicagoPete]

I wonder if it's closing because it takes a lot of the runtime memory? I know that after I'm done with RockOn, I have to restart other apps that normally stay resident but consistently get shut down by running RockOn. It would seem logical that if you bring up another app on top of RockOn, the system is going to have to terminate RockOn to give the other app some room.

[fabrantes]

I wonder if it's closing because it takes a lot of the runtime memory? I know that after I'm done with RockOn, I have to restart other apps that normally stay resident but consistently get shut down by running RockOn. It would seem logical that if you bring up another app on top of RockOn, the system is going to have to terminate RockOn to give the other app some room.

yes that is a probable cause (currently it maintains the album art in memory to speed up rotations, but that might be changeable), Ill see what I can do ...

[Afront]

RockOn is the first app I have bought from the store. I have a 16 GB microSD card which I use almost exclusively for music, as my Android phone has now replaced my Creative Zen MP3 player. So, I have a lot of music to manage on my phone.

I was getting frustrated with the default music app: half my albums were missing album art, even though they looked fine on WMP on my PC. RockOn installed and started flawlessly, then it went and got album art for my music. I was delighted to see that now all my albums had artwork - amazing! OK, so a few didn't have the actual album covers (just a photo of the band), but I expect that's due to what's been uploaded to Last.fm.

The interface is really slick and easy to navigate, I love the side swiping feauture and the intuitive way it uses the touch interface instead of trying to copy old-style "buttons"

So for the most part I'm very pleased with my purchase - congratulations fabrantes on developing such a rocking Android app!

Here are a few suggestings and requests:

"what prevents me from having RockOn as my default music app"

Lack of scrobbling to Last.fm. Otherwise, I'd use it all the time!

Feature Requests

Last.fm scrobbling!

Option to sort albums by artist or album name (not just artist)

Some kind of A-Z accelerator (like in the default Contacts list)

When viewing tracks on an album, highlight the currently playing song (e.g. make it bold)

Don't jump to the next album when the album I'm listening to finishes (or make that a "continuous play" option)

Start typing to automatically start searching for the album/song

Comments on Roadmap

Last.FM scrobbling: This is critical for me! Very surprised this is not in there already, given you say "powered by Last.fm" You could perhaps work with the developer of Scrobble Droid to enable this?

Core concert information: No thanks, this is a music player app. The concert location feature is nice, but this might be better as a standalone app: perhaps hooked into my top arists on Last.fm?

Edit ID3 tags: No thanks, this is a music player app. I edit my tags on my PC.

Faster startup: Seems OK to me.

Performance optimization: Yes please!

Comments on Website:

Optimize the site for viewing on Android

Add a link to the forum

[fabrantes]

glad you like it and thanks for all the suggestions...

Yesterday I was trying the A-Z accelerator and could not do it the easy way (the album list scrolling would experience a lot of hiccups) so Ill need to do it differently (will take more time).

Last.fm scrobbling is in the top of my todo list, Ill try to get it done as soon as possible (the only thing getting in the way is cupcake coming and developing a widget for rockon).

song highlighting in the song list will probably add soon (its easy), the rest will have to wait a few weeks :P.

[JRocket]

Kudos again fabrantes, I downloaded your most recent update and really love the blurred background! Keep up the hard work, we're all extremely thankful for it!

[fabrantes]

hi all,

version 1.1.5 is now online

it supports:

bug report through email when rockon crashes (thanks to Mariano Kamp)
less memory utilization for large album collections
slightly faster screen rotations

so... it is an update mostly for those which had been having trouble running rockon... check it out

[fabrantes]

hello guys,

im pre-releasing RockOn 1.2 on the website

http://abrantix.org/files/rockon/RockOn.apk

there are a couple of significant changes on the UI (namely the album list navigator). Please try it and tell me what you think.

new stuff:

integration with scrobbledroid (so you can scrobble your songs to last.fm now)
option to switch to landscape mode (in the preferences menu)
... and check the album list :P

Im planning also to put a 'lite' version on the market during next week (mostly to increase visibility). It will not have concert, playlist, nor preferences support, other than that its the same app. The version on the website will always be the full version.

Have fun

[JohnnyLicious]

thanks great job fabrantes :]]

[hyperdroid]

Fabrantes thanks for the update. Its coming along nice.
I have a question with album art. How can I manually put in album art? Because it pulled an image but its the wrong art. Also I have another problem. With one of the albums it has the art on the right side but when I select it, the bigger cover is blank? How can I fix this. Thanks!

[fabrantes]

to put album art manually just replace the file under /sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn and /sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn/small with the name: artist - album_name (as shown there already). _Dont_ add .jpg extension.

cheers,
filipe

[Afront]

new stuff:

integration with scrobbledroid (so you can scrobble your songs to last.fm now)


Fantastic, just what I've been waiting for!

Noob question though: I don't have developer's version of Android so do I need to wait for it to appear on the regular Market to install? Thanks.

[fabrantes]

you can just install it from the website

[fabrantes]

did someone tried rockon on cupcake (official preferably)?

can you notice stuff not working correctly?

[TheOneGnat]

One thing that I noticed, every time that I open the app it starts up on the help page and doesn't remember previous settings.

[fabrantes]

hi all,

just released version 1.2.1, which has some bug fixes on top of 1.2 + better preference handling and auto-rotate option (through the preferences), yay!

[fabrantes]

One thing that I noticed, every time that I open the app it starts up on the help page and doesn't remember previous settings.

yep I know, try 1.2.1 it fixes that

[TheOneGnat]

yep I know, try 1.2.1 it fixes that

Great job on this app! Thanks for the hard work!

[DrVeronica]

damn I just dled this and it's force closing :( dammit!

[ickyfehmleh]

did someone tried rockon on cupcake (official preferably)?

can you notice stuff not working correctly?

It seems to work fine on my ADP1 running the stock Google/HTC-supplied 1.5 image. Should I be testing anything specific?

[fabrantes]

damn I just dled this and it's force closing :( dammit!


Does it allow you to send an email with the error log? (the stock email app should pop up)

Just for making sure that it is not something else you could try and reboot your phone (also deleting the /sdcard/RockOn may help... just in case)

[SilleeString]

Just downloaded this program, and I love it, the UI is great (if not a little slow at the moment).

I was wondering if you can leave out certain folders or something from your library. When I play "all songs" on shuffle, I heard one of my created ring tones play. Thanks ahead for the answers.

[azanutta]

i couldn't say how much i love this app...
i've just buyed an htc magic, and i'll soon download this app.. i can test everything you want...

for the features request:
it'd be great if there's a tag editing method... and .. in the album art can be stored and retrived from the id3 tag instead of the folder on android sd card... so when i transfer back my songs to the pc, all the info and the albumart comes along.....
i don't know if it is possible or that is the only method for android to display arts....anyway.....
really really really good job man!!!

[fabrantes]

i couldn't say how much i love this app...
i've just buyed an htc magic, and i'll soon download this app.. i can test everything you want...

for the features request:
it'd be great if there's a tag editing method... and .. in the album art can be stored and retrived from the id3 tag instead of the folder on android sd card... so when i transfer back my songs to the pc, all the info and the albumart comes along.....
i don't know if it is possible or that is the only method for android to display arts....anyway.....
really really really good job man!!!

thanks! Ill see about embedding the album art on the mp3, but Im not sure that it is possible within android...

[fabrantes]

I can only think that rockon was getting killed by the system to free up memory for other apps... but as you were not really using the phone i find it strange. Ill be working during the next week to reduce the memory footprint of the appto see if it helps...

In the meantime Im releasing version 1.2.2 today (already on the website), major changes are:

- supports full screen mode - swipe right in the current playing album (still experimental)
- downloads higher quality album art (note that downlaoding art will take longer too and use more net traffic, so it is preferable to do it over wifi)
- +some more fixes I can really remember now

let me know what you think of it.

Also, will be releasing a 'Lite' version (includes everything except the menu options) on the Market in the middle of this week.

[fabrantes]

hey again,

in the next version I will taking out the transparent blurred background...

it just makes a noticeable difference in terms of performance!

will probably add the option to set custom backgrounds... what do you think?

[trumani]

I agree, performance is very important. I don't mind no background at all. Any other ways you can improve performance will make this app even more receptive.

I like all the changes so far and it is coming along well!

[facelessuser]

I second performance. Custom background setting would be fine.

[hyperdroid]

Fabrantes, I'm loving the new update. It finally got all my album artwork, and I'm digging the swipe right and left for full screen mode. Quality on some art is eh, but its fine for me. I saw you wrote on xda about having more bluetooth functions for headsets that have more than one button. Well thats me!!!! I have http://www.store.motorola.com/mot/en/US/adirect/motorola;jsessionid=DB2C9BB201E39346811C966FFFF32C E1.mot2?cmd=catProductDetail&entryPoint=adirect&productID=98764-PACK&messageType=catProductDetail&showAddButton=true headset, and it has two giant dials. One of them controls volume and it works good. The other dial is suppose to change the track and there is also a play/pause button, that neither seem to work. I don't know if its because I'm running cupcake or what. Any ideas? Also it doesn't work with the default music app either....

[hyperdroid]

Okay I just tried it again. And I had to turn it twice for it to skip to the next song. As a matter of fact if i hit the play/pause buttons it skips to the next song. I can't select a previous song because thats not available in the app itself. Whats funny is that if I try to use it with the default app, it will bring up rockon. So I guess all is well just my play/pause buttons won't work with it.

[fabrantes]

the intended behaviour right now is: press the play/pause button and it will play/pause. double press it and go to the next song. if you hold it it should bring the app up.

No previous song... yet.

Ill be adding support for other buttons but it will need to wait a little bit as Im focusing on performance and a home widget... also cant say that it will support all headsets especially if they dont work with the default music player either. You should point that to Android team so that they can add support (the android-developers mailing list would be a proper place to do that).

[hyperdroid]

the intended behaviour right now is: press the play/pause button and it will play/pause. double press it and go to the next song. if you hold it it should bring the app up.

No previous song... yet.

Ill be adding support for other buttons but it will need to wait a little bit as Im focusing on performance and a home widget... also cant say that it will support all headsets especially if they dont work with the default music player either. You should point that to Android team so that they can add support (the android-developers mailing list would be a proper place to do that).

Thanks for the quick reply. I got some more headphones so its all good. I prefer performance and the widget. Keep up the good work!

[fabrantes]

hey... ive put version 1.2.4 online that supports custom backgrounds (also removed the blurred bg for performance reasons)

check it out...

if you create your own custom backgrounds Id love to have a look...

[azanutta]

i'm wondering how to update....... =)
just open the apk in browser and it'll overrwrites?!? or must i uninstall the previous version before?

[azanutta]

SADLY the app keep on crashing in my htc magic... i've sended 3 mails too...
=(((

[fabrantes]

SADLY the app keep on crashing in my htc magic... i've sended 3 mails too...
=(((

Some people are having this out of memory force closes... I am going to reduce memory consumption overall and update a fix tomorrow...

btw,how many albums you have?

[trumani]

perhaps a triple tap to go to previous song? That reminds me of Apple's new method with their ipod shuffles...

[hyperdroid]

perhaps a triple tap to go to previous song? That reminds me of Apple's new method with their ipod shuffles...

Hahaha I was about to call you out on it, till i read the rest of your message

[fabrantes]

maybe a shake on the device :o would do for previous?

[hitemup054]

No triple taps! Double taps are annoying enough! What happened to regular bottons with arrows? :)

[azanutta]

Some people are having this out of memory force closes... I am going to reduce memory consumption overall and update a fix tomorrow...

btw,how many albums you have?

i've got 5Gb of music in the sd... circa 700 songs, mean.... 70 albums...
i know it's not a few ... but i like to have a lot of music on my device.... ....
have you posted a fix?!

[fabrantes]

i've got 5Gb of music in the sd... circa 700 songs, mean.... 70 albums...
i know it's not a few ... but i like to have a lot of music on my device.... ....
have you posted a fix?!

70 albums should not be a problem...

Yesterday Ive put a new version that should somehow help with the memory... its v1.2.5... but there is still more improvements that can (and will) be made in the next releases.

[azanutta]

this version works!
but: at every boot it checks the album art... annoying even if you can skip with a button...
it would be nice if for the scrobbling you don't require scrobbledroid..
playlist!!! we need better playlist in order to sync them with the pc =))) we need to reinvent a new format...

well done!

[fabrantes]

this version works!
but: at every boot it checks the album art... annoying even if you can skip with a button...
it would be nice if for the scrobbling you don't require scrobbledroid..
playlist!!! we need better playlist in order to sync them with the pc =))) we need to reinvent a new format...

well done!

about the album art:

I think it might be a problem of having installed different versions of rockon. Try erasing the /sdcard/RockOn folder.

[azanutta]

about the album art:

I think it might be a problem of having installed different versions of rockon. Try erasing the /sdcard/RockOn folder.

i've just deleted the rockon folder but with no improvement...... i've only had in result that i've got to redownload all the covers..
=(

[fabrantes]

i've just deleted the rockon folder but with no improvement...... i've only had in result that i've got to redownload all the covers..
=(

it should only download all covers if you delete /sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn, otherwise it will tell you that it is looking for covers, but will download only the ones that were not downloaded the first time...

but i need to look more closely at this, Ive been observing some failures myself.

[fabrantes]

it should only download all covers if you delete /sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn, otherwise it will tell you that it is looking for covers, but will download only the ones that were not downloaded the first time...

but i need to look more closely at this, Ive been observing some failures myself.


no... sorry you are right! when you erase the /sdcard/RockOn/preferences/Version file it will delete the covers that were downloaded already...

[azanutta]

we really need a speedy version of the music player.. =(
i think it's the drive force to carry your application to the top..
speed is usability 'coz waiting is annoying for almost all the users (including waiting to download too much covers, rallentated scrolling ecc ecc)
if you're able to ... i think this should be your first priority in the features list... ;)
bye, (if you need help i'm here)

[slimsymeat]

In the Market it says ver 1.2.7 which is what I payed for, but on my phone it say ver 1.2.5 ??? Also why does it disable my hands free, the button doesn't allow me to answer an incoming call, and when I have an incoming call I hear it our my phone and not through my headphones so sometimes I miss the call. :(
thx
Kevin

[montalbert]

i am wondering the same thing about the version... i have been downloading from your website as we can't access paid apps in australia yet (i tried to buy it yesterday using market enabler but it gave me invalid CC. strange as this has only happened with 1 other app- some apps i can purchase no worries).

atrackdog tells me 1.2.7 should be avail but only 1.2.5 is on the website...

On another note- since you changed the background it is much faster...

bugs ihave currently got:
1. still get the occasional drop out/stop of the music in my BT headphones. Just a double tap on play button starts it again though.

2. When in landscape mode the tapping of an album does not match up to what is played- eg. if i have eminem album and below it hatebreed, tapping on hatebreed comes up with eminem etc. go back to portrait and it is ok (I am not using the autorotate you have built in now as i have cupcake so maybe if i use your autorotate it wont happen... will try and report back)

Am running dudecake if thats any issue.

[montalbert]

scratch that- not sure what the hell was going on but it's selecting ok now. sometimes not on first tap of an album but a double tap on the album and it works ok.

thx

[slimsymeat]

Can the handsfree button be set so I can answer a call? ;)

[fabrantes]

Can the handsfree button be set so I can answer a call? ;)

This is definitely an issue I will be looking into this in the next times.

About speed:
downloading speed I can only hide :P, not max priority for the moment.
screen rotation speed is something I will be looking in the next times.
list scrolling speed, is currently fast I'd say for people with less than 100 albums. For people with more albums it certainly can be optimized.

filipe

[fabrantes]

1.2.7 has some bug fixes in comparison with 1.2.5. Hadn't realized I forgot to upload it, will do it later on.

[montalbert]

i have installed the new version....

just a quick question, how i force it to update its library? I dumped a new album on my sd card but the player wont recognise it..... i can go to the folder and play the songs by tapping on them... they play in normal music app.... even in normal music app i can't update the library....i have rebooted several times.....

any ideas?

[slimsymeat]

Has 1.2.7 been uploaded yet pls ?

[montalbert]

yes. i downloaded it myself last night.

[fabrantes]

1. library update - it will occur for instance when you re-insert the sd card. it may take a while until your library is fully read depending on the amount of stuff in the card.

2. handsfree button - is this the button from the default headphones of the g1?

[fabrantes]

I have put version 1.2.8 up on the website (only on the website for now-- this is an early, fairly untested version). It includes a widget (very similar to the one from the stock app) but with album art. It also includes some important bug fixes. So if you want to give it a try tell me how you like it.

Note: the buttons on the widget dont do anything for now...

[slimsymeat]

I have the Magic, it's the button on the hands free, when I press it twice it skips tracks which is cool, however when I get an incoming call it will not answer if pressed, :(

[cannontrodder]

Starting and stopping playback is *slow*. The app itself is pretty slow.

Moving to any point in a song is also hard to do because you've got the slider on an angle and wedged into one half of an already small screen.

I'm also rather pissed off that an app I paid for is being made available for free.

Having your paying users find and report bugs to get it to a release state is not on, throwing that same app up on the web for anyone to get for free later on down the line is just a slap in the face, frankly.

[fabrantes]

I understand what you think about paying for the app, and actually Im a bit surprised you were the first to [publicly] complain :P but:

1. The app has been free from day 1
2. Paying for the app should be seen as a voluntary move if you think it is worth it, or would like to see the app further improved.
3. I have no problems in refunding so just email me the name on your credit card and its done...

To fact of it being slow: true, but it will improve :P

[fabrantes]

just one more thing about moving forward or backwards within the song. The current functionality is: swipe left go back 30secs, swipe right go forward 30 secs (its probably not that intuitive but once you know i think you'll like it)

[cannontrodder]

fab, thank you for the feedback.

I'm not going to moan on about it, just that when I found it on the marketplace, is was not obvious from the description that it was optional/donationware. I don't mind donating and in fact I return from time to time to try it out. As I've paid already, I don't mind waiting until it is 100% ready for *all*.

Also, as a developer myself, I understand that improvements take time, just that I was not aware from the description on the marketplace (which a lot of people guide their purchase on) that there was an alternative way to try this out - this site is not in everyone's bookmarks and I wasn't aware of it being available - something which easily gets lost in this rather long thread! :)

Perhaps (in hindsight) it would have been better to give each version an expiry (while offering a donation application as well) and then move the app to pay only once you are at zero-known-bugs/issues?

As for swiping to skip 30 seconds, thanks for the tip, I would have never thought to do that. My main reason for that is to listen to podcasts which tend to be longer than normal tunes - you don't really need to be accurate with songs.

Please accept my apologies for any offence caused, I accept my language was a bit harsh but if it stops the nasty comments on the market place then it's worth it. :)

[fabrantes]

No need to apologize at all... it is my fault as the description on the Market should have been clearer right from the start... but they give us 325 chars there...

also, paid apps (in general) dont make that much sense right now (apart from some noble exceptions), as the amount of selling is pretty low... but that was never my main motivation, however, if it generated some cash maybe I could dedicate more time and get more people to work on RockOn.

[azanutta]

any news in the app?

[fabrantes]

hi everyone,

yes! there are news! this update took me a little more time as the day job has kept me pretty busy.

I have put up a new version online. There is a significant restructuring of the controls:

http://abrantix.org/rockon.php

tap song area: play/pause (which is now faster to respond
swipe right over song area: next song
tap&hold song area: popup song progress for better/faster song seek

no more double taping

also, you can now hold the albums on the list to access its song list (and soon also to change the individual album art).

The song list menus have been redesigned!

Next step is doing manual album art change, and then look into the headset, having previous song, and other stuff that I have been wanting to look into for ages...

Cheers everyone and hope you like it.

[JRocket]

Downloaded and installing, can't wait to see the new song list menu!

[azanutta]

beautiful fabrantes!!!!
this is goin to be the best player ever if you keep on developing like that!

[fabrantes]

hey guys,

just wanted to let you know that I have put version 1.3.1 online. Major difference now is that you can manually select album art.

Let me know how it works for you.

[simplyTravis]

This might get me in trouble at my girlfriends house today lol.

[DaYuMu6ft7]

It took forever to DOWNLOAD!

[fabrantes]

hey there,

1.3.2 is now out on the website. This time is all about fixing force closes and having smaller album art in full screen to avoid stretching low res art.

[azanutta]

any news on this?!?!?!

[fabrantes]

not really...

Im taking a little bit of a break this month (I have my phd defense next week, and am working on another project for a while).

But Ill definitely be coming back to RockOn (maybe in August)

[JRocket]

Good luck with your doctrate!

[fabrantes]

Hi everyone!!

It has been a while since the last update, and I am afraid that I haven't worked on RockOn since then (I am working on a game, eventually for ADC2).

But there are news... after exchanging a couple of mails with Jason Ritzke I was convinced of opening up the code to more developers. At this stage the code is really messy and there are lots of bad architectural decisions in it, so Im first going to open it up for a restricted set of people that are interested in taking up the project. Hopefully we will be able to open it up completely in the future. So, if you are an Android dev and want to join please drop me an email (filipe.abrantes _at; gmail.com).

So... what does this mean to RockOn... first, that the paid version is getting free (I believe I can refund part of the money of purchases if you feel cheated by this, again drop me a line). second, that many of the problems will get solved much faster, and third things will get more fun!

Note: this does not mean that I am abandoning RockOn, quite on the contrary (although I might be taking most of August for the other project).

ok! that's it,tell me what you think of it!

follow me on twitter for updates:
http://twitter.com/fabrantes

[hitemup054]

Felipe,

I recommend adding these instructions to your website or maybe in the "help" section of the app. I was able to find these, but only because i happen to go on these forums and know how to search. :)

I think others may find it useful too.

to put album art manually just replace the file under /sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn and /sdcard/albumthumbs/RockOn/small with the name: artist - album_name (as shown there already). _Dont_ add .jpg extension.