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Right, be warned this is gonna be a long one so you might wanna grab yourself a cuppa! I’m very interested in people’s feedback!
First the preamble: I love dbpoweramp and have been using it for over a year and a half (almost all the time I’ve owned my own pc) and have found it to be exactly what it claims to be namely a Swiss army knife for digital audio. Although I get the impression that perhaps dmc is the most popular product from illustrate (probably cus it rocks and there’s not as much good competition as there is for say dap) I have a particular affection for dap and feel that as good as it is it could be a whole lot better. Now given how good it is (IMHO) to start with I think that says a lot about its potential. Now that’s out the way below is my fairly long wish list as well as a note to Spoon.
I recently went back and read a fair few pages worth of past wish lists and thought that before I post my personal wish list I’d ask the following questions of Spoon that I’m sure other users of dap would like to know the answers to as much as me.
1) What do you have in mind for or are possibly working on for a future release of dap? It’s been a while since the last update so it’d be interesting to know what your plans are for the future of dap.
2) What’s your process for considering the implementations of wish list items in future product versions? Is it what seems most requested, what’s easiest to implement or perhaps something else?
Without further ado my wish list (told you it’d be a long post but stick with me.
For me personally the “main amp”, “on screen mini control” and the “mini tray control” are just about spot on so my requests largely deal with mmc which I use extensively. I’ll split the requests across the sections of mmc as much as possible.
“Random play button”
Have it become a play mode button that toggles between “random play” as it does currently (repeats by default), “sequential play” (repeats by default) and “repeat one”. This IMHO represents one of dap’s biggest flaws and would be massively popular.
“Improved queue control”
Allow rearranging the queue via drag and drop as well as dragging from library to queue. Plus add “move up/down to existing right click context menu.
“Column headers”
I’d like to see some of the functionality available in windows explorer implemented in mmc. For example
1) Have some sort of visual cue for knowing which column the library (part of mmc that lists your files) is currently being sorted by (arrow in explorer, blue highlight in itunes)
2) Have the ability to drag and drop the headers rather than having to go into preferences
3) Have a context menu when right clicking a header which has options to auto size column/ all columns (like itunes)
4) Implement the ctrl+ keyboard shortcut which in explorer auto sizes all the columns (incidentally tried this out and found that all the columns squished together and resulted bizarrely in part of the icon column now being at the start of the adjacent column)
“On screen mini control”
Currently when pressing the mmc button (circle) it opens and/or maximises mmc but won’t bring it to the foreground when it is already maximised but behind other windows. I would like it to bring mmc to the foreground regardless of its current state.
“Toolbar that contains the playback controls in mmc”
In addition to showing the number of tracks loaded, display the total size of the library.
Have a digital timer either side of the time slider bar (time elapsed on left of it and time remaining on right). This one is particularly irritating as I have to use the mini tray control or the main amp just to get time info.
“Multiple music collections”
It would be cool if you could integrate a way to have your various different saved libraries (one of the standout features of dap by the way) show up as tabs in the top right hand corner where there’s plenty of empty real estate. You could still have all the same open, save, new etc manual controls but also have a designated folder whose mmc libraries show up as selectable tabs.
“Add music button”
I would like an interface here that’s similar to file selector so that I can select more than one folder at a time as well as have the directories automatically expand like it does in explorer and file selector (you currently have to double click them). Also would be cool if it remembered the last folder/s you accessed.
“Search Box”
The problem currently is that searching will find one result at a time which means you have to keep hitting enter till you get the result you want which can take a while. A solution could be to have something like itunes where you have the library actually reduce to only those files matching the search query. You could then return to the full library by deleting the search query or by pressing a “return to full” button (X in itunes)
“Collection button”
Add an option to “remove all missing files”
When the library is active have pressing enter make dap play the currently highlighted track like in wmp and itunes. A problem which needs to be dealt with in order for this to work well is that currently a track in the library is always highlighted even when library is not active which can cause confusion.
Well there you have it. Well done if you’ve read this far!
It would be great to hear what people think of the above ideas. Are they good? Would you like to see similar things? Could they be improved?
I’d love to see more discussion about mmc and what it should be like in the future.
First the preamble: I love dbpoweramp and have been using it for over a year and a half (almost all the time I’ve owned my own pc) and have found it to be exactly what it claims to be namely a Swiss army knife for digital audio. Although I get the impression that perhaps dmc is the most popular product from illustrate (probably cus it rocks and there’s not as much good competition as there is for say dap) I have a particular affection for dap and feel that as good as it is it could be a whole lot better. Now given how good it is (IMHO) to start with I think that says a lot about its potential. Now that’s out the way below is my fairly long wish list as well as a note to Spoon.
I recently went back and read a fair few pages worth of past wish lists and thought that before I post my personal wish list I’d ask the following questions of Spoon that I’m sure other users of dap would like to know the answers to as much as me.
1) What do you have in mind for or are possibly working on for a future release of dap? It’s been a while since the last update so it’d be interesting to know what your plans are for the future of dap.
2) What’s your process for considering the implementations of wish list items in future product versions? Is it what seems most requested, what’s easiest to implement or perhaps something else?
Without further ado my wish list (told you it’d be a long post but stick with me.
For me personally the “main amp”, “on screen mini control” and the “mini tray control” are just about spot on so my requests largely deal with mmc which I use extensively. I’ll split the requests across the sections of mmc as much as possible.
“Random play button”
Have it become a play mode button that toggles between “random play” as it does currently (repeats by default), “sequential play” (repeats by default) and “repeat one”. This IMHO represents one of dap’s biggest flaws and would be massively popular.
“Improved queue control”
Allow rearranging the queue via drag and drop as well as dragging from library to queue. Plus add “move up/down to existing right click context menu.
“Column headers”
I’d like to see some of the functionality available in windows explorer implemented in mmc. For example
1) Have some sort of visual cue for knowing which column the library (part of mmc that lists your files) is currently being sorted by (arrow in explorer, blue highlight in itunes)
2) Have the ability to drag and drop the headers rather than having to go into preferences
3) Have a context menu when right clicking a header which has options to auto size column/ all columns (like itunes)
4) Implement the ctrl+ keyboard shortcut which in explorer auto sizes all the columns (incidentally tried this out and found that all the columns squished together and resulted bizarrely in part of the icon column now being at the start of the adjacent column)
“On screen mini control”
Currently when pressing the mmc button (circle) it opens and/or maximises mmc but won’t bring it to the foreground when it is already maximised but behind other windows. I would like it to bring mmc to the foreground regardless of its current state.
“Toolbar that contains the playback controls in mmc”
In addition to showing the number of tracks loaded, display the total size of the library.
Have a digital timer either side of the time slider bar (time elapsed on left of it and time remaining on right). This one is particularly irritating as I have to use the mini tray control or the main amp just to get time info.
“Multiple music collections”
It would be cool if you could integrate a way to have your various different saved libraries (one of the standout features of dap by the way) show up as tabs in the top right hand corner where there’s plenty of empty real estate. You could still have all the same open, save, new etc manual controls but also have a designated folder whose mmc libraries show up as selectable tabs.
“Add music button”
I would like an interface here that’s similar to file selector so that I can select more than one folder at a time as well as have the directories automatically expand like it does in explorer and file selector (you currently have to double click them). Also would be cool if it remembered the last folder/s you accessed.
“Search Box”
The problem currently is that searching will find one result at a time which means you have to keep hitting enter till you get the result you want which can take a while. A solution could be to have something like itunes where you have the library actually reduce to only those files matching the search query. You could then return to the full library by deleting the search query or by pressing a “return to full” button (X in itunes)
“Collection button”
Add an option to “remove all missing files”
When the library is active have pressing enter make dap play the currently highlighted track like in wmp and itunes. A problem which needs to be dealt with in order for this to work well is that currently a track in the library is always highlighted even when library is not active which can cause confusion.
Well there you have it. Well done if you’ve read this far!
It would be great to hear what people think of the above ideas. Are they good? Would you like to see similar things? Could they be improved?
I’d love to see more discussion about mmc and what it should be like in the future.
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