[Alsaplayer-devel] 0.99.80-rc2 and future for AlsaPlayer

[Dominique Michel]

First, I will thank Madej and those that contributed with patches, bug
reports and feature requests that made rc2 possible.

I make a huge difference with the gtk1 interface and gettext support just
rocks.

I want to discuss the future.I am reviewing my emails and it is very nice to
see so many peoples sharing their experiences with AlsaPlayer. If we listen to
them, it is still some work to do. Here is the most important points, and the
less important too (I will add them in the TODO list:

* Check the new GPL-v3 license and the SGI exception to be 100% sure at the
statement is legal and authorise to link and distribute the SGI output plugin
under the GPL-v3 condition.

* option to scale some of the scopes (at least Synaescope) at full screen or
double size. double size will be easier to implement and faster.

* The .desktop file validate, but an icon
in /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/ is still needed.

* Open or play stream button.

* Fix the cddb multiple DTITLE lines so at both line are displayed. Maybe adapt
cddb xine support or use  http://libcddb.sourceforge.net/ Switching from
C-style strings to C++-style strings as much as possible should help eliminate
buffer overflows.

* More languages (translations) for GTK2.

* Check for possible buffer overflows in CorePlayer.cpp and elsewhere.

* From Fons Adriaensen on the LAA:
While it's a nice player, it has some serious audio quality
issues.

- Resampling 44.1 -> 48 kHz (for jack) sounds horrible...

- The sndfile input plugin reduces everything to 16 bits.
  This is really absurd, even if your files and your
  sound card are 24 bit you only get 16. 
  Floating point wav files apparently aren't read at all
  (they load but produce silence when played).

All of this could be solved by using a good resampler
lib, and making the internal format floating point 
rather than short.

* Improve playlist sorting with the mouse. I get reports like what users just
don't get it. It would be better if, when we drag a file, if it will be just
moved. And maybe use another mouse button to copy the entry.

* AP seam to depend on file suffix.  "alsaplayer music.flac" plays ok. cp
music.flac music -> "alsaplayer music" -> does not play. Fix it.

* Improve the input plugins in trunk/experimental in order to merge them in the
main trunk (At least the ones that don't break some license).

* GTK2 playlist now prints "Unknown" (alongside the filename) for untagged
files which I have a lot of. I liked the old way better: gracefully ignore the
absence of tags and print the filename only. Or maybe use the last folder of
the file path instead of unknown.

* Is it some kind of joke: It might feel more natural if playback with negative
speed (backwards) jumped backwards on file boundaries, not forward. (After
playing no.2 backwards (with negative speed) alsaplayer jumps to (the end of)
no.3. I'd rather have it jump to (the end of) no.1

-----------

All for today, a little bit more will follow tomorrow. 

Dominique