Media scan, Unlock screen, Menu options

[mizius]

I’ve been playing with the Poweramp a lot lately and I love what I see. I do have some comments and observations that perhaps may make this great product even better, thanks for listening!

- Media scan (a biiiiig deal)

I have a 32G external SD with more than 8,000 tunes. This is a problem because Android automatically invokes Media Scan on every change on SD and on every Reset which forces long delay even if nothing was changed in the music folders. Poweramp has an option to skip its music folders from the external SD during Media Scan (great!) but it does not have an option to force that scan from within Poweramp. This is another problem because if I want that scan them to update the Library list then I need to change the Poweramp option and then reboot the phone – kind of a clunky process (unless I'm missing something). If I'm not missing anything then what about an ability to force Media scan from within Poweramp (from the main System Library panel?) for the folders that are explicitly disabled with the existing option? That would be huge! There is a general discussion on the XDA forum of that type of approach, here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthr ... ?t=732462#

- Swipe to Unlock Screen (very minor)

I wonder why the unlock screen option for the locked screen widget does not work the way standard android unlock does: swipe to the right. I would prefer that default swipe with the widget instead of the two options that currently exists (tap to unlock or tap to get to the swipe). A minor detail really.

- Menu (very minor)

I wonder why Menu does not display items the way other apps do (like Menu on the Home screen) and instead uses these tiny buttons as part of the actual panel. I would prefer the “standard” way because it is easier to see and more of what I would expect. A minor detail really.

- Previous suggestions

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=664

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=656

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=653

[admin]

Thanks for the detailed requests.

When developing PowerAMP folders subsystem, I was specifically oriented towards huge lists of the music (unfortunately, some parts of Android OS itself doesn't handle large number of anything well, but at least I tried to minimize any limitations in PowerAMP). The current Library used in PowerAMP is the system library and it has a lot of issues, not just with scanning, but also with various tags, the database structure is not so optimal, etc.

The solution for all that is the custom Library - custom media scanner (which already exists in PowerAMP, but it works for Folders only), custom optimized library database - PowerAMP v2.0 won't use system media scanner and system media library at all.

Of course, the best results will be when user disables media scanner for music in PowerAMP 2.0 (to avoid extra system scan for music folders).

Re: swipe in lock screen - this is planned - it probably will be swipe from center to right to unlock and from center to left to activate some other option (not sure for now which, may be "goto library" or like that).

Re: Menu. The buttons are not so small, as padding and text are sensitive to presses - generally it's comparable to other standard Android OS buttons/control sizes.

The planned skin system for PowerAMP v2.0 will allow external skins to be installed, and I think I will release some "Android OS" skin, though it's a bit boring, I think

[mizius]

maxmpz - thanks so much for responding, much appreciated. See some comments below.

When developing Poweramp folders subsystem, I was specifically oriented towards huge lists of the music (unfortunately, some parts of Android OS itself doesn't handle large number of anything well, but at least I tried to minimize any limitations in Poweramp). The current Library used in Poweramp is the system library and it has a lot of issues, not just with scanning, but also with various tags, the database structure is not so optimal, etc.

The solution for all that is the custom Library - custom media scanner (which already exists in Poweramp, but it works for Folders only), custom optimized library database - Poweramp v2.0 won't use system media scanner and system media library at all.

Of course, the best results will be when user disables media scanner for music in Poweramp 2.0 (to avoid extra system scan for music folders).

Your improvements of the folder scanning into custom library over the Media scanner are impressive indeed and one of the key benefits of the app as far as I’m concerned – thank you for that! Regardless, I would like to see the above implemented at some point. For now I use Rescan Media Root app as an alternative to the above request as follows:

To make sure that Media scan is never invoked automatically:

- In Poweramp the following option must be turned OFF: Menu> SETTINGS> Advanced Folders Options> No System Scan For Folders

- In Android the following option must be turned ON: Home> Menu> Settings> Applications> Development> USB debugging

- In Rescan Media Root the following option must be turned ON: Menu> Select options> Disable scanner on quit

To perform Media scan so that it builds system library that will be visible by Poweramp or any other android app:

- Run Rescan Media Root and wait until Media scan is done (watch the status bar)

- Exit with the back button and wait until Done message is displayed

App discussion: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=753294

Re: swipe in lock screen - this is planned - it probably will be swipe from center to right to unlock and from center to left to activate some other option (not sure for now which, may be "goto library" or like that).

Great, thanks! But why not just use the same scheme as is the android default for the sake of consistency?

Re: Menu. The buttons are not so small, as padding and text are sensitive to presses - generally it's comparable to other standard Android OS buttons/control sizes.

The planned skin system for Poweramp v2.0 will allow external skins to be installed, and I think I will release some "Android OS" skin, though it's a bit boring, I think

I see that I was not clear. My issue is not the size of the button itself but the size of the label font – I just have difficulty reading such small fonts (especially while driving as I pointed out in other posts :geek:). Agree with the boring but being a software person myself I came to appreciate UI navigational consistency from the user perspective .