Alternative layout

[Mrmahdi]

@maxmp Version 815 Version is very good and too much if it is possible to add the ability to outgoing and entering tags from the artist album. Additional option in the user interface can help this. Setting> General >player UI >alternative Display {Default theme alternative-Poweramp Alternative layout-Do not display labels

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[Mr. Make Believe]

+1 for a do not display labels with the option to only show the song title would be very usefull. Artist and album info are displayed on the cover most of the time and folder hierarchy users can display the folder name (most of the time the album title) in the bottom of the screen. Maybe artis - year - album label can be added to the infotag in the bottom of the screen?

[andrewilley]

It would be great if Max could implement a 'custom' format for both the upper (larger) and lower (smaller) lines of text, settable per each List Options view and also separately for the Player UI. The pretty-much standard notation of using % tags would be perfect - such as "%artist% (%year%") %album%" for example. Could even add a basic small/medium/large font-size control at the same time.

Not sure whether that would mess up transition animations, but some users might prefer that kind of control over fancy animations anyway. 

Andre

[MadagascarAdam]

On 12/28/2018 at 12:15 PM, andrewilley said:

It would be great if Max could implement a 'custom' format for both the upper (larger) and lower (smaller) lines of text, settable per each List Options view and also separately for the Player UI. The pretty-much standard notation of using % tags would be perfect - such as "%artist% (%year%") %album%" for example. Could even add a basic small/medium/large font-size control at the same time.

Not sure whether that would mess up transition animations, but some users might prefer that kind of control over fancy animations anyway. 

Andre

@maxmp : I +1 these ideas.  This is an excellent thing and no reason the newer (i.e. should be better) version of Poweramp shouldn't have this built in.  I've been using "MusicBee" as my desktop music player for many years and being able to choose which info is displayed and on which lines is a built-in part of it, and whatever space is leftover is given to album art and stuff like that.  Even the Poweramp widget allows us to choose what info we display and what size the fonts are and that sort of thing... no reason the Poweramp main UI shouldn't allow that (as it's the main UI I spend more time looking at anyway).

My biggest (basically only) complaint with Poweramp V3 is that the album art size shrunk in "alternative" mode (or got covered with tags that obscure the album art in "normal" mode)... and the screen real estate was given to other unnecessary things that weren't in the basic UI from Poweramp V2 (which is when I paid for the app).

So these ideas in this topic are the best of everything: they give each user access to the info they want to display (which can include making the album size bigger in "alternative" layout if the user chooses to give less space to the other tags) but without losing the other new and better features of Poweramp V3.  PLEASE implement this!  Give us (if possible) some way to make a borderless album art without obscuring it with tags on top of it (such as we had in the Poweramp v2 UI layout).

[Luk4s]

It would be nice if in the alternative Layout only show "music name - artist" in one line . Maybe centralized...

[lockdown]

Will something like the %tag custom format ever be implemented? I don't listen to albums, I make compilations and I'd like a simple list form with just %artist - %title.

Or is there a way to set this up? Thanks!

[maxmp]

@lockdown it’s good to have, but Poweramp has same labels in main screen and library lists as main/now playing screen is a part of the library - the list “snapshot”.

The suggested formatting will change labels everywhere.

[superluig164]

Y'know Max, it's okay if you have to fade the labels between the player view and list view.  Nobody's going to be mad, especially if it's an option you can choose to enable or disable.

[andrewilley]

And no-one would be forced to use it anyway, so I don't think it's a major issue if it affects both the list view and the player screen - that would be fine by me anyway. This question has come up a few times before, most recently just last week:

By putting an editable formatting string into each of the List Options menus, users would be able to configure their chosen display text separately for songs in Folders, Albums, Playlists, etc.

Andre

[andrewilley]

16 hours ago, superluig164 said:

Y'know Max, it's okay if you have to fade the labels between the player view and list view.

In fact, that already happens if you have the "Show Titles Only" option enabled in List Options. The animation between screens has to dissolve the lower (Artist/Album) line in and out as you move between the Player screen and the songs list. But as I said above, I really can't see an issue with having the Player screen and the list view use the same modified strings.

Andre

[Absinthequ]

On 4/22/2021 at 6:56 PM, lockdown said:

Will something like the %tag custom format ever be implemented? I don't listen to albums, I make compilations and I'd like a simple list form with just %artist - %title.

Or is there a way to set this up? Thanks!

If there was a "show titles and artist only" instead of "show titles only" i would use it. When I'm in artist,  album artist,  genre,  or albums you really don't need the album title next to every song of the album you're looking at. I mean every song can only be that album. It's also in the header so you don't even have to leave the list to see what album you're on (if you got there though some other menu).

I don't know that i ever need to even see album title on the now playing screen. I think the cover art is enough to tell me what album I'm on. I just need to see the song title and possible multiple artists on the song. 

Album title next to the song is really only useful to me in folder hierarchy with a bunch of random songs in one folder. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Absinthequ

[andrewilley]

@Absinthequ The formatting string concept that I suggested would allow you to do exactly what you suggest - so for Artist, Album Artist, Genre, and Album categories you would set the List Options top line format to "%title%" and the lower line to "%artist%". But for All Songs, Playlists, etc you could set the second line to "%artist% - %album%".

However as Max has said, the text lines on the Player Screen and in the Songs List are both built from the same data, so presumably whatever format you chose they would always be the same layout as each other - but I honestly can't see that's a real problem.

Maybe Max could perhaps give it a try and see how it works in practice? It wouldn't cause any user issues, as nothing would change until someone specifically edits the formatting string.

Andre

[Absinthequ]

On 4/26/2021 at 7:23 PM, andrewilley said:

@Absinthequ...

However as Max has said, the text lines on the Player Screen and in the Songs List are both built from the same data, so presumably whatever format you chose they would always be the same layout as each other - but I honestly can't see that's a real problem.

I would be fine with it across the board. 

[andrewilley]

While answering an unrelated thread about the use of Album Artist tags, I realised that in addition to being able to create individual formatting strings for each different Category via the List Options menus, it would be a good idea to also have a global formatting string so people won't have to tweak lots of different entries if they just want a new default look. The global string would be overridden by any local Category List Options versions should the user decide to create them (the local strings would be mostly empty initially).

So in Settings > Library > Lists, the existing Album Artist Label for Tracks and Album Artist Label for Album Artist Tracks options would be replaced with the following two items - both pre-filled accordingly, so no user intervention at all would be required to just continue exactly as before. The Metadata line in song lists could also be editable on a per-category basis.

      Track Title Formatting:  %title%
      Track Subtitle Formatting:  %artist% - %album%
      List Metadata Formatting:  [%disc% | ] %duration% | %fileformat%

I suggest a square bracket notation be utilised to indicate conditional content. Thus a formatting string of [%artist% - %album%] could used so the literal hyphen " - " would only be inserted should all of the bracketed fields (in this case both Artist and Album) be present. Without the square brackets, an empty field would be shown exactly as at present as "Unknown Artist" or "Unknown Album", etc. And the  [%disc% | ] notation would only show the disc number and its separator bar if a Disc# tag is present.

The exact same features would be available in each Category's songs list, so users can override those default settings on a per-Category basis:

• When this system first gets installed by a new build, if the existing 'Album Artist Label for Tracks' toggle was already enabled, the default 'Subtitle' line would be set to [%albumartist% - %album%]
• If the existing 'Album Artist Label for Album Artist Tracks' toggle was already enabled, the local 'Subtitle' line in Library > Album Artist > List Options would be set to [%albumartist% - %album%]. Same would apply with the similar Albums toggle control.
• Finally, if Settings > Library > Lists > Show Track Number was already configured to show "In the Title - Everywhere", then the default 'Title' line would be set to [%track%. ]%title%
• [Edit added July 2021] The 'Hide Unknown Album' toggle control would also become redundant and could be removed. That functionality would be controlled instead by using %artist% - %album% vs. %artist%[ - %album%] (or even [%artist% - %album%] to allow for missing Artist tags too). The default version would be preset based on the existing 'Hide Unknown Album' setting before that control gets removed.

I think that covers pretty much everything that has popped up in the various feature request threads on this subject in the forums in the past, and this way would be transparent to users if they don't want to touch it. Is this something you think would be useful and do-able Max, or have I created a monster for you?

Andre

[slizzap]

+1 for this request. After using the YAPS skin and being notified that some of my requests would need to be added to Poweramp itself and not the skin, I found this feature request. I'm using Poweramp on an Android head unit in my car with a 7" screen, but I suppose for the sake of this discussion we can just say it's tablet with more real estate than a smartphone. I have the Album/Artist and Track text displaying to the right of the album art and above the player controls. I'd really like to separate out the text information and potentially add more tag information to use up that free space. I saw a mention of adding the %year% tag as well, which I would absolutely love. Would be great to have say 3-5 text fields that all could be enabled or disabled at will and would display tags of your choosing.

Currently the text layout above the player control is formatted like this:

[%albumartist% - %album%]

[%title%]

How I'd *really* like to have my screen formatted would be:

[%albumartist%]

[%album%]

[%title%]

[%year%]

The additional year/date tag is just a nice to have, but it would be greatly beneficial to be able to separate out the album/artist tags to make use of that free space. Below is a screenshot of a Kenwood head unit I have that I'm trying to mimic (this particular head unit took out the year tag that was present on my previous unit).

 

Thanks.

Edited September 9, 2022 by slizzap

[andrewilley]

I know there are plans to make the existing two lines editable, but I don't think there is an intention to add any new lines. This is partly because the text shown on the player screen is directly mapped from the text provided in the category lists, they are not separate entities.

Andre

[Hugo Rosales]

Deseo animarlos a que en próximas actualizaciones se incluya el año al lado de las etiquetas de título de la canción/artista/álbum/año.

Saludos.

[andrewilley]

@Hugo Rosales Yes, that would be something you would be able to do via the formatting string process that I proposed in this thread.

Andre

[FunkyPants]

It's been a while this thread has been created (more than 5 years actually), and the featured suggested by @andrewilley in December of 2018 would be great to have, and would address "wishes" many users have. I to, would like to have only the title and the artist on the main player screen, without the album name following the artist. There's been no new posts since December 2022. Has a feature addressing this been implemented since then? Thank you.

[andrewilley]

It's currently pretty high up in the Feature voting list, so hopefully it might come sooner rather than later. You can add your vote here:

Andre

[FunkyPants]

7 hours ago, andrewilley said:

It's currently pretty high up in the Feature voting list, so hopefully it might come sooner rather than later. You can add your vote here:

Andre

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it. It's nice to see that the feature might come up eventually. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to vote, probably because I'm a new user. When I click the vote button, the page refreshes, but nothing else happens, no vote number increase, no message. Probably because I'm a new user, but am error message would've been nice :). (Using Chrome/Windows 10/Desktop). By the way, I'm also unable to see the link (or content) you included in your last message (see below), again, probably because I'm a new user. I was still able to find the voting page. Thanks again.

[andrewilley]

@FunkyPants  Yes, there's a recent-user restriction on the voting system to stop people just rapidly creating new accounts and creating faked votes. You need two valid forum posts (which you now have) and 2+ days as a member in order to vote.

I'm sure the actual process of implementing simple %title%, %artist%, etc formatting strings, even with conditionally hidden "[ %content% ]", for the Title and Secondary lines would be fairly easy. However the one-shot migration process for transparently bringing over all sorts of diverse user preferences - such as 'Show Filename as Title', 'Album Artist Label for Tracks/Albums/Album Artist Tracks', 'Hide Unknown Album/Artist', etc - into such a system would probably be a lot more work. Max has always preferred to make any changes and new features as gentle as possible for existing users, to avoid an avalanche of "who moved my cheese" messages. 

Max has been discussing creating add-on packages for Poweramp (for a one-off extra purchase price) and I have suggested that theming the contents of any such packages would be the most logical way forward. If he does that, an "Enhanced Player Screen Features" package would be a perfect first step in that direction - which could eventually include this feature, along with customisable control buttons, Hi-Res logo, A-B Repeat, etc.

Andre

[FunkyPants]

@andrewilley Agree, they should implement changes in a way that is as transparent as possible to the users. I think the solution your suggesting, and the way to make it available to the users, would most probably accomplish that. Although that specific feature would be nice to have, it's not something I would pay for. Disabling text scrolling ("Animate long labels") kind of does the trick for now.

Anyways, thanks for your quick responses and insights, it's sincerely appreciated.

[Andrison]

When playing a track, I'd love to be able to see the album's year of release in the main UI that shows the album art and track details. It seems to be the one obvious thing missing when I'm playing something, and would save me having to delve into the track info menu each time.