Feature Request for Hijack: Left/Right next letter

I would like to suggest that while in the playlist menu, the left and right buttons could be available to go to the next or previous letters in the alphabet. The remote lets you do a similar process, but I do not use the remote much.

The biggest reason for this is that I have my playlists done by artists, and I've got a lot of CDs Thanks!

Do you have a proposed scheme whereby Hijack could actually accomplish this? Remember that Hijack is not the player software. It can do some tricks by screen-scraping, but for the most part, it has no idea what the player software is doing. For example, I don't see how it can easily know what the next letter of the alphabet would be.

Have you ever tried spinning the wheel when you're in the playlists menu? It lets you go a lot faster.

Yes, and I find spinning the wheel somewhat unreliable, as sometimes it goes backwards if I spin it too fast or other erratic behavoir.

I was just tossing out an idea, I do not know the inner workings of the code.

I too agree that it would be a nice feature, no matter how it has to get done (hijack, player code update). And as to the spinning wheel, I find it has gotten more and more eratic. This weekend when I was testing out the new 8's I put in my car, a slight bump of the knob would turn the volume to full blast nearly blowing my speakers, and turning it back down was a much slower process. and I too have had the problem of it going backwards, seems to be a bit of a timing issue with the knob itself.

and in very large playlists, even spinning the wheel can take a long while, and in traffic, not a good idea as you must constantly look down to see where you are at, since if you click the wheel 5 times to the right, you could have skipped 5 entries, or 100, or -15, you never know, it'd be fun for a game, but not when you're trying to find a song . Whereas skipping the letter you could easily count out where you are at in the playlist.

so if not hijack, the player code could definitely use this feature.

I don't see how it can easily know what the next letter of the alphabet would be.

True, but it might be possible for a user application to let the user scroll through the letters themselves, I dunno, using the knob maybe... And said application could inject the corresponding IR code for that letter when it's selected. It wouldn't be strictly "next letter / previous letter" but might be even more useful, as you could go from the A's to the Q's faster, without having to go through the B's, C's, etc.

liquidiq & TheTwin314, would this be an acceptable alternative for you guys?

It would be better I think, but I still think my original idea is more useful for driving situations where you can think in your head what letter you are on

For example, you could do a button press for 2 seconds could mean next letter, and then a quick click just means next playlist entry. That would be the best situation I think.

That would be the best situation I think.

And if my grandmother had wheels she's be a wagon. Our point is that there's no easy way for Hijack to be able to do what you describe. Ynot's suggestion was the only work around he could think of.

Now, asking for the feature you describe in the player software instead of in Hijack is a much more realistic thing. However, the player software isn't in active development any more and the odds of a feature like that getting into 3.0 are slim.

You've been such a great help, I appreciate it! My grandma has wheels, but it's a sedan, not a wagon.

Instead of bashing me for choosing the wrong software to put it in, where should I post for this to be added to the player software? I think other people would like to see it in there as well, it seems like a good feature to me.

ha ha ha,.

you posted it in the right section, just shouldn't have mentioned hijack feature request in the title.

If they aren't going to actively develop the player software anymore........ they should open source it I know I know, they can't because they use a lot of it for newer products, but jeez...... we're a hungry bunch.

Apparently, Jerry Van Dyke had a son.

For example, you could do a button press for 2 seconds could mean next letter, and then a quick click just means next playlist entry. That would be the best situation I think.

So if you want to skip to the letter 'K' you'd need to do ten separate long presses? 20 seconds to select a letter? Even if the long press delay is 1 second or 1/2 a second, that doesn't seem very useful. Even if it was done so that you could hold down the long press and it "repeated" the "next letter" command each time, it'd still take a long time, and you'd have to look down to see which letter you're picking (or count beeps or whatever.) *Maybe* if a knob press was used to switch from playlist to letter select mode it'd be usable, but that's about the only way I can think of it working in such a way that the left/right buttons do most of the work.

IMHO, the only reasonable way to do something like this (and one that leaves Mark I users out in the cold, unfortunately) would be to use the left/right for one function (individual playlist selection) and the knob for the other (changing letters). Those could be reversed, possibly.... But if you try to overload the left/right buttons for both letter and individual playlist selection, I think it becomes more of a hassle than it's worth.

I'm not trying to poo-poo your idea, but as the most likely person to try to implement something like this, I really have to question what the best way of doing it is.

Sorry, didn't mean to bash, was just trying to be funny. I wanted to clarify that the behavior you were requesting couldn't happen in Hijack.

Sometimes I forget to smiley-caption the tongue-in-cheek posts. Sorry about that.

Yea, I see what you are saying now. I think using the knob for switching the letters would work out better, that way you can use the buttons for more precise playlist selection. Yea, now that I think about it, that would work a lot better

tfabris, it's cool, hehe.

*Anything* can happen in Hijack. But some things are easier and more likely to happen than other things..

*Anything* can happen in Hijack

*ponders KDE running on his empeg*

*Anything* can happen in Hijack.

Can I have time travel included then please Mark

ponders KDE running on his empeg

Assuming that KDE is in ARM Debian, it should work out of the box on the Empeg, although there's no X (or fb) driver for the screen, so you could only use it on remote X displays (or Xvnc).

Peter

Or Xvfb.

First off...

In reply to:

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The remote lets you do a similar process, but I do not use the remote much.

---

Do you mean that pressing a number (i.e. 2 = ABC) will jump to that letter in the playlist? I didn't realize that is how it worked... I must try...

You could always set up your Playlists/Artists/Whatever into groups using jEmplode's Soup view. You can have it automatically put all the artists starting with A in the A folder, etc... Or you could group the letters to give you a better drill down speed. This is how I do it now.

\Playlists

    \By Artist

         \A-E

             \Astral Projection

         \F-J

         ....

    \By Genre

          \Ambient

          ...

    \Playlist1

    \Playlist2

P.S. Nice car ;-)

...and turning [the wheel] back down was a much slower process. and I too have had the problem of it going backwards, seems to be a bit of a timing issue with the knob itself.

Maybe
My Mk2's volume knob is being jumpy! would be helpful...

I've thought about doing a grouping of letters, but at the same time, I like to scroll through all the artists just to see what pops out at me instead of looking for something in particular.

I'm picky I know.

I'm am in no way that good at electronics to attempt the knob fix hahahaa

but at the same time

You could set it up so that you can do either:

Playlists/All Artists
Playlists/Artists by Letter/A
Playlists/Artists by Letter/B

...etc...

I remember someone once requesting that we be able to rename hijack fake buttons.
For example: if you could rename button 2 on the remote to "ABC" button 3 "DEF" etc. then you could set up a popup menu that navigates the alphabet without the remote.

You don't have to do the knob fix yourself. Click the Eutronix link at the top of the forums. They will do you right.