Info/tag instead of cover

[ron pie]

Is there a way to display info/tag instead of the cover?

 

I have all my music in folder hierarchies and when I want to know what the info is on a song I have to select the three dots and then Info/Tags and there is the info that I want.

I mean, the phone's in my pocket most of the time and all that screen real estate is just sitting there wasted. I pull the phone out and I have to do these extra button hits to see what I want. What I don't care about is the cover. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Did I mention the phone is in my pocket and I've likely seen the cover? Why on Earth would I want to see the cover. Again. If for some bizarre reason someone wanted to view that cover, sure, make it one more option.

Yet, I can't seem to figure out how to put the Info/Tag screen there instead. I suspect I can't. 

 

Yet.

 

Please fix this.

 

And thanks for a truly remarkable app!

[andrewilley]

OK, I know I'm going to regret asking this, but if your phone is in your pocket with the screen off and you never ever want to see the cover.... what use is having anything else shown there instead?

What information do you need to see when you get your phone out, that isn't already displayed? On the player screen you can already see the Title, Album, and Artist, along with Track Number (optional, via Settings > Library > Lists > Show Track Number), duration, rating, and whatever info you have opted to show in the metadata line (such as file format info, current folder details, etc). And if you'd like to see the filename instead of the title, you can already enable that via Settings > Library > Lists > Filename as Title. I suppose there's Genre and Year, but neither of those seem exactly essential viewing for every song, any more than the cover does.

Andre

[Bencherished]

This is how some lawyers lose their case, by over condemning what they also do just because they want to prove their point. 

The way Poweramp displays album art on the main player screen, especially when combined with some effects, is one of those things that makes Poweramp (standout) beautiful. 

Moreover, the info/tags you can't setup to see on the main player screen is, year and composers. If any other one is missing, is probably not setup display or not tagged correctly. 

[ron pie]

You can show "folder details" in the "metadata line"?

First, I'm not sure what the metadata line is referring to or how turn on "folder details".

But what I want is to see the file path on the main screen. I'll tell you why, many of my tags are crappy for my collection. But, moreso, I have a large collection of my band's music. When something pops up randomly I'd like to see the folder details that show my organization pattern: that is, YEAR/GIG/ 

For my ordinary collection, when something pops up on random play, I'd like to know who and what it is, but frequently all I get is "unknown artist."

Really, I'd like to see file path because how else am I going to know when the song was recorded and where, if there are no tags.

As for it being in my pocket, yeah, it will be there until, as I say, I wonder about the origin of the recording, then I have to pull it out and, in this case, there IS no cover. It's my band's recording. So, now I have to go two clicks to get that file path info. With so many options, why not have this very practical option.

Also, I'd prefer to eliminate the scroll, that's a pain in the ass. Just use as many lines as required. There's plenty of screen real estate. And, as I said, I don't give about a silly cover, I want usability.

[andrewilley]

Tap the metadata line at the bottom of the player screen a few times and it will show folder path. And the main Title line will show filename anyway if there is no Title tag. But I do see what you mean.

Andre

[ron pie]

It's extremely tiny and it doesn't show the whole path, it's cut off.

Yeah, I use this as a folder player. I really need to see the path and there is so much unused screen real estate, how hard would it be to make this an option? I mean this is the most option and feature packed player that there probably is, yet this usability is what I really want.

 

While we're here, unless I'm not understanding this properly, whenever I select Folder Hierarchy, and say select an artist; when I long press the Shuffle button and select Shuffle Songs, it works as expected. The double arrow button plays songs randomly inside this master folder (that is Artist as parent folder and Album as subfolder); the triple arrow seems to do the same. However, whenever I pause to attend to a phone call or other smart phone distraction and come back to Poweramp, the double arrow seems to retain the Shuffle Songs setting (that is, it plays songs randomly from within the selected folder) however, the triple arrow now jumps around to other folders outside of my selection. Or, if left to play by itself it now goes outside of my original selection. E.G. I select Beatles, and then Shuffle Songs. The phone rings and Poweramp is paused. Then when I go back to playing, it's now randomly playing from my entire collection. Is this a bug?

[maxmp]

@ron pie for the later shuffle in hierarchy folder will go through all your folders. If you want it to shuffle just given folder and strictly its subfolders, press shuffle button within that folder header.

[andrewilley]

5 hours ago, ron pie said:

whenever I select Folder Hierarchy, and say select an artist; when I long press the Shuffle button and select Shuffle Songs, it works as expected. The phone rings and Poweramp is paused. Then when I go back to playing, it's now randomly playing from my entire collection. Is this a bug?

Folder Hierarchy shuffling can work in two ways, controlled by Settings > Library > Lists > Shuffle All Songs in Folder Hierarchy. Both modes are specially modified cases of the overall 'Shuffle Songs and Categories' mode, which normally does not recognise folder hierarchy at all and treats any folders (or subfolders) in your library as a valid choice for shuffling. These two specially modified subfolder-based modes are not indicated on the Player Screen though; the Shuffle icon still only shows the basic 'Shuffle Song and Categories' description.

For example, let's say you have FolderA which contains subfolders SubFolder1, SubFolder2 and SubFolder3. Remember these are not actually 'Artists' and 'Albums', even if you happen to name them that way. They are merely storage folder names which have no individual significance to PA beyond the fact that they might be nested.

Normally, if you are viewing FolderA and you press the Shuffle icon at the top of the screen, PA will initially choose either SubFolder1, SubFolder2 or SubFolder3 and then play all of its songs in shuffled order, before moving on to another of the remaining subfolders and playing all of its contents, etc. Any files that may be stored at the root level of FolderA will be treated like a separate subfolder in terms of selection.

However if you have the 'Shuffle All Songs in Folder Hierarchy' mode enabled, each successive song can be picked at random from anywhere in FolderA, SubFolder1, SubFolder2 or SubFolder3. PA makes a completely shuffled running order from everything the main folder and/or any of its subfolders.

This special-case shuffle mode is somewhat transient though. It is only created when you tap the top Shuffle icon while viewing a folder, and if anything else triggers a playback change in the meantime then PA will forget the folder-specific logic and revert back to simple Categories/Songs shuffling (where the next folder could be from anywhere in your Library). Simply pausing playback should not cause this sort of reshuffle though, so I'm not sure why receiving a phone call is losing the special folder status when your playback resumes.

Andre

[ron pie]

Okay, if I understand this correctly Settings > Library > Lists > Shuffle All Songs in Folder Hierarchy will allow random selection among subfolders, including parent folder. Unselecting this setting will more or less do the same thing except that it will work one folder at a time, randomly selecting songs from that folder. 

 

What's the deal with the double arrow and triple arrow? The double arrow will keep within folder selection, and its subfolders, but the triple arrow will after a few clicks revert to the whole library.

 

Whenever I leave PA to do other things with the phone, I'm not sure if all things cause this, but when I come back after a song or three, or if I hit the double arrow a few times, it leaves my folder selection and starts picking from the entire library. It happens constantly, I'm alway resetting back to the folder I want after pausing to do something else with the phone.

[andrewilley]

1 hour ago, ron pie said:

Okay, if I understand this correctly Settings > Library > Lists > Shuffle All Songs in Folder Hierarchy will allow random selection among subfolders, including parent folder. Unselecting this setting will more or less do the same thing except that it will work one folder at a time, randomly selecting songs from that folder.

Absolutely correct. With that mode off PA will pick a randomly selected subfolder, and then its track are shuffled. Then another random subfolder is chosen, etc.

1 hour ago, ron pie said:

What's the deal with the double arrow and triple arrow? The double arrow will keep within folder selection, and its subfolders, but the triple arrow will after a few clicks revert to the whole library.

>> and << move to the next track or previous Track within the sequence. If you get to the end of the last track of a subfolder without the 'Shuffle All Songs in Folder Hierarchy' mode enabled, it will go on to the next subfolder.

>>> and <<< move to the next or previous Category (i.e. folder in your case). If you use these buttons during the 'Shuffle All Songs in Folder Hierarchy' mode, it won't have any new Category available to start, so it will exit from that shuffle session and go to normal folders-based mode instead.

Andre

[ron pie]

Okay, got it, however, I'm still not sure about why pausing PA and using the smartphone results in a reversion to whole-library shuffle. I always have to do the whole hierarchical move-through-the-folders routine and start over.

But, what about the odds of getting the file path out on the main playing screen without the extra two key clicks; and, an option to opt out of title/artist scrolling to accommodate however many lines are needed to display long titles?

[andrewilley]

I'm not sure why the special hierarchy shuffle is being lost either, it should remain in place during a pause of any length.

I can't see any reason why some metadata couldn't be used whenever there is no cover artwork available (and none can be downloaded) instead of the default Poweramp Logo. It might mess up transition animations of course, and it would be up to Max to decide whether it's worth adding for a fairly specific usage case.

Andre

[ron pie]

Well, this is the most option-filled app imaginable, so this shouldn't be hard to add two more.

I can't be sure what phone operations cause the hierarchy shuffle set being lost but I believe phone calls or even checking visual voicemail seems to do it.

By the way, an option to NEVER show cover art would be my preference with the screen reserved for useful stuff. There's no need for logos, pictures, animations, etc., it's just a phone screen, it's not that big. I want the screen just populated with useful stuff.

Also, I don't think it's that special of a case. Anyone who has a large collection doesn't know everything in it, particularly jazz, it's hard to always be able to pick out where it's coming from, but they store everything in folders logically (artist/album, etc) and so the flip out the phone and see the file path instantly is desirable. Also, the scroll thing, I prefer to see the whole thing on multiple lines rather than wait for a scroll.

[andrewilley]

28 minutes ago, ron pie said:

Also, I don't think it's that special of a case.

I think this is probably about the first time I've heard anyone ask for no artwork and more text in 10+ years of using/moderating this site. On the other hand there have been literally hundreds of varying requests for improvements to cover art displays, better downloading, supporting multiple images, increased resolution, full-screen images with less clutter obscuring them, etc.

But I do absolutely see your case though - I too mostly organise my music by folder (although I do make sure everything is also tidily tagged too, so Title/Artist/Album info is generally sufficient for me). You can currently completely disable cover artwork on the player screen via some skins by the way, but that won't provide any of the extra information that you want, that would need to come from a change to the core app.

Andre

[maxmp]

@ron pie I guess we can fill whole album art area with Info/Tags-type of text. I will experiment with this, seems doable now, thanks for the request!

[ron pie]

That would be great! Mostly interested in file path and losing scroll for long titles. Maybe a settings button, just like there is a Chromecast button (really like having Chromecast BTW!)

 

[ron pie]

Did you ever get this to work?

[andrewilley]

On 8/23/2022 at 4:56 AM, ron pie said:

Did you ever get this to work?

This is not a feature that has been implemented as yet.

Andre