[tkgafs]

Hello

currently running kodi 15.1 on windows 7 64 bit

I mainly use kodi for playing music randomly using party mode which works really well, but for a specific situation I have created a playlist

but have noticed that when a playlist is playing, the currently playing screen does not get updated, in the way that it does when party mode is running

As the playlist plays the currently playing track gets highlighted in yellow, but the info on screen refers to whatever track the cursor is currently on

In other words it does not show the artwork etc for the track currently playing but in fact shows the artwork for the track that the cursor is currently sitting on

I am using the confluence skin and have no addons loaded it is just a out of the box kodi install

Can anyone help

[WelshPaul]

I can confirm what you describe and I've raised it loads of times. I'm afraid I can't answer why it happens, I think it must have something to do with playlists being written to call the properties of the focussed list item, and as you say in playlist mode it is always the song you start playing that stays in focus. I don't know enough about Kodi to find out why party mode does it differently, but it does.
So, if it's any help - it's not just you, it's not a particular skin, it's not even just windows. It's inherent in Kodi and has been there since I started using it (Camelot/Dharma).

[tkgafs]

Thanks for reply, saving me from testing other skins in a hope of fixing it. I actually retire next week and although its probably ten years since I coded I'd be happy to have a look at the code if somebody could point how to get started.

[scott967]

I'm not sure that it is broken. When you play a playlist in "party mode" the now playing playlist shows 10 tracks and when a track is finished it pops the top one off and adds a new one at the end. The focus remains at the top item, which is currently playing. When you play a playlist in playlist mode, the now playing playlist shows every track in the playlist and again focus remains to the top item. So it seems like a "feature" to me. Otherwise why have a "party mode" at all, just load playlists?

scott s.
.

[tkgafs]

But surely as the playlist plays it should show the artwork of the item playing not the top item.

I cant think of any usage case where I would not want the artwork of the currently playing item to be displayed.

If you are playing a single album you'll never notice the difference as presumably they would all have the same artwork, but if you have selected a specific batch of songs to play, you notice the issue straight away.

None of my tracks have embedded artwork they all have folder.jpg images stored in their respective folders, I wonder what it does if the playing track does contain the artwork

[WelshPaul]

So I'll try to give you an example of what I'm talking about (hopefully the same as tkgafs).

If I run a randomly ordered playlist the first item shows correctly. This is in the transparency skin, with fanart, onscreen info, etc, all linked to the playing track (highlighted in blue in the playlist).



However, when it moves onto the second track in the playlist the associated info, fanart, album cover, etc, does not update to pictures of Mozart, etc.



By the way my album covers are embedded, so the behaviour is the same whether you work that way or using folder files.

[tkgafs]

WelshPaul describes the exactly the same issue I am seeing, I can't understand how other people have never mentioned it before now.

I have had a quick look at the code but don't really have any idea on how everything is structured at the moment.

I certainly at this point can't find out exactly where the tracks are actually played, so it'll be quite a while before I can suggest a patch I think, let alone work out how you apply it !!

[WelshPaul]

<sulk>Welcome to my world ! As I say I've raised this loads of times, but in the end just wrote my own musicviz.xml to overcome it.</sulk>
<realism>Actually, it's probably more that I've never explained the problem very well. But I am surprised too that no-one else notices or is bothered by it.</realism>

[tkgafs]

I would be interested in seeing what your musicviz.xml does and how it overcomes the problem

[WelshPaul]

It's horribly over the top to be honest - the worst combination of over-enthusiasm and lack of ability. The code is here. It's not a list as such, though probably could be if I used the next playing offset controls. Essentially I think the standard now playling view is based on list items in the playlist, though I don't know where that's coded. What I did was use the musicplayer $Info tags, i.e. pulling info directly from tags in the now playing mp3 file rather than from the music database.

This is the code in Transparency. http://pastebin.com/zKve1H1X It probably won't work or will look rubbish because I also adapt the lyrics script a bit too. The end result is below, so not a list view but it does change with the track.Unfortunately I have to adapt my views to each new skin I use, but to be honest that's a bit of my geeky fun and trainee skinning. To get the artist information and album review in I have to store them in mp3 tags. So it's not something I could easily suggest to someone else - but here's my rant ......

The key difference between music and video in Kodi is not the folder structure or scraping, it's that when you've found what you want to watch the screen is taken over by video, when you listen to music once you've found what you want - nothing happens. We used to have a slideshow screensaver - that went, music visualisations in Kodi are to be honest a little blurggghh, so the only way to satisfy my ocd nature is either to spend time writing overly complicated posts on the forum, or design screens to watch during playback. For some I put in guitar chords and things so the kids can play along, in classical I might have the libretto of each act of an opera, etc. So it's very personalised, and why I'm a little nervous of the music library redesign discussions going on over in the Kodi Application forum. Rant over.

[tkgafs]

The pastebin link is coming up Page has been removed

[WelshPaul]

Sorry, can you try it now.

Note to self - don't put full stop after pastebin url.
Other note to self - cancel those English grammar lessons.

[DaveBlake]

Paul, I notice you have classical music in your collection

I will have a look at this playlist issue for you - I'm not in the Dev Team but I have my sleeves rolled up looking at the code.

However, could you do something for me? Could have a look at my test build for processing composer tag etc. It needs some real world testing before it can be considered for release. Discussed here http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2108091. I can give you clearer instructions for use if you are interested in testing, let me know.

There is much more to do of course. And if you need it for a different OS, one of the dev team might be able to do a build if we ask.

[WelshPaul]

Hi Dave, I've been quietly watching your discussions (well fairly quietly). The reason I've not contributed is I'm not really educated enough yet to appreciate different orchestras, soloist, etc. I'm still at the stage of "what shall I listen to tonight - Beethoven or the Ramones". I started off buying those '100 best of' type albums, so I tend to just have the composer as the album artist and artist (so, I'll shortly post on one of the other music dev threads about compilations), then I just bought the ones with the nicest cd covers. I think what your doing is great though and will become really useful as I develop my tastes.

Anyway, if you understood that, then I'm very happy to help test for you and re-scan some of my cds if you let me know what you need to check. It'll give me the opportunity to download some Nicola Benedetti fanart and justify it as being in the name of science.

[DaveBlake]

Actually my classical collection isn't vast either, but I soon got to the point of not wanting Beethoven next to Bon Jovi, and wanting to see the Conductor/Orchestra too. I'm really looking for someone with a big classcal collection already tagged. I'm sure they are out there amongst the thousands of users, just not looking at the forum, after all why should they.

Happy to take any contribution I can get, and of course provide an excuse for Nicola

Better classical music browsing is comming eventually, so do tag tracks with composer, orchestra and ensemble when you get them. One day it will be useful, I promise.