XXHighEnd

Ultimate Audio Playback => Download Area and Release Notes => Topic started by: PeterSt on June 29, 2008, 02:07:21 am



Title: XXHighEnd Model 0.9v-2 (Keeps Played Tracks and digs up more CoverArt)
Post by: PeterSt on June 29, 2008, 02:07:21 am
A new version of the development environment has been used. This implies that you could encounter unexpected problems. If so, please report as detailed as possible. Thanks.

All for all Engines except for the last subject :

  • Played tracks are kept in a special Playlist named !Played.PLXX
    This might come handy when you are looking for that track played "last week". Just load beforementioned Playlist and it should be there somewhere.
    Currently 1,000 tracks will be kept; in a future version this may be a user setting.

  • Before Folder.jpg files were recognized for CoverArt. Today each name with the extension .jpg or .jpeg is recognized, even if the files are being stuffed way down in sub folders connected to the Album Folder.
    Quite some "intelligence" is applied in order to show the one and only cover, and you probably will be able to find examples of that intelligence being off.
    Might you be seeking the algorithms used, currently files larger than 1,200,000 bytes are being skipped at all, unless it's literally named Folder.jpg or Folder.jpeg.
    The challenge here is/was to keep things speedy.

  • Above mentioned coverart and coverart folders are now copied with the Physical Copy functions (this was actually wrong) as well as with the "Add to Galery" functions.
    When a Galery is used as the source for making another Galery, the folders containing coverart are currently still not copied. This will be done in a next version.
    Edit : The latter is not true. This too has been arranged for.

  • The the line of the above, it is now taken into account that coveart needs not to be (near) square. For instance, when an inlay is folded open this will be nearly twice as wide opposed to height, and everywhere this is respected.
    One of the places this occurs is the Wallpaper of the desktop, and it was not tested what happens if an e.g. 1200 x 600 picture is set as Wallpaper on a 800 x 600 display.

  • Everywhere where pictures are shown, they are rendered to the best quality now.

  • The Library Area now is provided with a black background.
  • The Physical Copy functions have been extended with Copy WAV To FLAC and Copy FLAC To WAV (rightclick on selected items in the Library Area and you'll see the options).
    For Copy WAV To FLAC compression level 5 is used by standard, because it's really fast (enough) and a higher level slows down significantly without real gain on compression.
    Note that these are actualy Copy functions with the feaure of when the target not being in the format as implied, the source it will be converted to it. IOW, all files within the selected structure will be "copied".


  • The ever invisible split bar which (if you knew that it was there and you knew where it was) can be dragged left-right to let shrink-grow the CoverArt picture on the player, has been made visible. Don't forget to drag the bottom of the form downwards as well when you want to have the CoverArt picture bigger.

  • Since the combobox for the Engine setting moved to the Settings Area, the checkboxes for Double, Invert etc. actually never were consistent with the real situation anymore (like which Engine allows for what). It was found that a technical error from the development environment caused this, and now this is solved.

  • Minor changes have been made to the ChangeWP program, in order to (hopefully) better show what's going wrong if something goes wrong (a few users report problems in this area).

  • Since the before version, the bitrate of FLAC showed as 1. This has been solved.

  • At a new version of XXHighEnd always the user settings get lost, hence they must be set again;
    From now on, at a new version the question is aksed whether to use the old settings, which can always be answered with Yes. Only when that incurs for (inconsistency) problems, answer No.
    Note : The FormPositions cannot be retained at a new version. The position of the splitbar (see before) goes along with that.

  • The Data Folder Setting (Settings Area) could be entered without a "\". Like with the other places, this is now auto-added when forgotten.

  • Before, when XXHighEnd was (somehow) quit when in the Minimed state, it would re-appear like that at the next startup, and it needed some hussle to get all back to normal. Now this has been solved, although the XXHighEnd form will then start in the original position and size (like right after an upgrade).

  • It appeared that when the Libary Area was used with the Chk checkbox ticked, no differentiation in color was made between WAV, FLAC and MP3 files as usual, as well as that no "(WAV"), "(FLAC)" and "(MP3)" indications where shown underneath the pictures in the case of the items shown being folders (when the items are files this is no problem because of the shown extensions).
    This has been solved now.

  • When XXHighEnd was brought up after or during Unattended Playback, the CoverArt picture shown in the player was always from the last track in the Playlist;
    This has now been changed to the first shown selected track (which is the one currently playing when Playback is going on).

  • Since the last version, moving the split bar (see before) messes up the screen unintendedly and the combobox for Playlists went all over.
    Solved.

  • When a T for Track Search had been entered in the field next to the Search field (Library Area), and the T then was removed (and not filled with an A(lbum), the next press on the Search button kept on searching within Tracks. This now is restored to Albums (and an A is auto-shown).

  • The picture indicating "no CoverArt present" has been changed into a more "XX" one.

  • In the previous version the saved structure of a track added to a Galery from within the Playlist Area was changed under the remark "there should not be any structure at all". This was wrong because now there was no official space for CoverArt. So, things have changed again and now it's OK.

  • An "escape" was found where Engine#3 could stop playing without message. A message has been added for this ("TEMP ERROR C").
    Another message - which had been eliminated before because it seemed to be without reason, has been reactivated ("TEMP ERROR B").


Edit for XP (and Engine#1 and #2) users : In this version CoverArt can't show as Wallpaper. So please leave the checkbox Show CoverArt as Wallpaper (Settings Area) unticked for now.