MM Play Date Manager

Christoph · Post by **Christoph** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:07 pm

Hey,
I have developed a small tool for managing play dates in MediaMonkey, the "MM Play Date Manager".
You can:
- add, change and delete play dates
- add continuous plays (adds plays for multiple songs and takes care of song length)
- recreate play count and last play date (based on the entries of the played table)
- add multiple fake plays in a given time range

The program is available in English and German. The region settings of your system define the chosen language.

You can get more information and download it on my website:
In English:
http://www.troelfdesign.com/en/download ... e-manager/

In German:
http://www.troelfdesign.com/de/download ... e-manager/

Attention:
Please backup your database. I tested it with German and English region settings and had no problems but maybe there are some.

I hope you like it.

Christoph

nynaevelan · Post by **nynaevelan** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:18 pm

I can't really see the pics, can you post some bigger shots??

Nyn

Christoph · Post by **Christoph** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:29 pm

Hey,
have you already clicked them? They should open in a new window.
If yes, I will upload some bigger ones.

Christoph

nynaevelan · Post by **nynaevelan** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:32 pm

They did open a separate window but the size didn't get any bigger.

Nyn

Christoph · Post by **Christoph** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:37 pm

Ok, here are the 100% shots. But I took them from the German version. I hope that isn't a problem.

http://www.troelfdesign.com/temp/mmplay ... ager-1.jpg
http://www.troelfdesign.com/temp/mmplay ... ager-2.jpg

Christoph

nynaevelan · Post by **nynaevelan** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:57 pm

Besides the external panel, what are the differences between this one and the fake plays script? From the description it appears the user has more control over the fake dates, am I misinterpreting this? Is this dockable in MM? If the play date is deleted, I assume it is also deleting the corresponding play count?

Nyn

Christoph · Post by **Christoph** » Mon May 19, 2008 6:04 pm

Hey,
the fake play script only creates fake plays when the play count is higher than the plays in the played table.
In my tool you can control every play date and create and delete multiple plays. You would set the new play count (e.g. "5" or "+3") and the tool creates these plays.
Or you can tell "I started listening to this album in my car 2008/05/03 04:20:00 PM". And then the tool creates all play dates for the album and also takes care of the song lengths.

When you add, change or delete plays the tool refreshs the "play count" and "last play date" fields of the database.

No, it isn't dockable. It's running as an ordinary program. Because you don't need it everytime this solution could be better. You could also switch between MM views and the tool.

Christoph

nynaevelan · Post by **nynaevelan** » Mon May 19, 2008 6:16 pm

I'll give it a run through for you as a beta tester, but I dislike using external tools/panels with MM, so that is a big turnoff for me. And believe it or not, I use the fake plays script at least three times a week, both to update the playcounts of my "new" tracks which I listen to on my player and to increase the playcounts of tracks which I want added to my favorites but do not want to listen to continuously to meet the 25 play minimum requirement. Also, call this silly or anal but I like for my color scheme to remain in sync and the colors would clash if it does not match my MM skin.

Nyn

Christoph · Post by **Christoph** » Mon May 19, 2008 6:25 pm

Thanks, I'll look forward for your experiences.

Because I'm not that good in VB I decieded to do this in C#. It's a powerfull programming language and my tool is working quiet fast.

According to the color scheme: It should have the same scheme like your system. It doesn't look like on these shots because this is the skin I work with.

These would be the steps for you to sync your songs:
1. Select the songs in MM.
2. Start my prog (or hit refresh when you've already done so)
3. Change the play counts by selecting some songs and entering the play count in the appropriate field. For example you can increase it by entering +1.
4. Hit synchronize to create the missing plays.

All buttons show a little note on the bottom status bar. They also show you the fields that are necessary. E.g. "Add continuous plays" would disable some boxes because they aren't needed for that.

Good night,
Christoph

Bex · Post by **Bex** » Mon May 19, 2008 7:10 pm

Seems like a nice tool/plugin and it certainly is needed since almost nothing like this exists. I have actually already started to develop something similar in VBScript but much more simple than yours. It's far from finished but I'm planning to build it in my PlayHistory script.

nynaevelan · Post by **nynaevelan** » Wed May 21, 2008 12:18 pm

Hi Christoph:

I've had some time to play with the script and I have a question and a suggestion:

-- Would it be possible to add the DateAdded as a option for the start time?
-- When processing multiple files, why does the script not process them all? Why do you have to reenter the New Play Count for each file?

Also, although the script calculates the time based on the length of the one song, if I process a song right after that one, the time which it uses to start is not after the end date of the other song, so it actually looks like there are two songs playing at the same time. I thought this would be the benefit of processing multiple songs at once. In other words, if I have 5 songs which I want to increase the playcount for, it should process the first song, and then start the second song with a time after the first song has completed playing. Now I know this would also conflict with other songs in the library, but I am only concerned with the songs which I have selected to have changed. Is this possible or am I complicating things too much?

Nyn

Christoph · Post by **Christoph** » Wed May 21, 2008 12:25 pm

Hey nyn,
I can add the DateAdded to the start time options.
When you first sync a song and no sync date is available the prog starts with the lastplaydate or the dateadded.

Processing of multiple files:
Maybe I did not mention this: You can select multiple files by pressing CTRL or SHIFT. Then you can also edit the new play count for these songs.
Only in this mode the length of the selected songs will be added.

Did you tried this already?

Christoph

nynaevelan · Post by **nynaevelan** » Wed May 21, 2008 12:37 pm

Christoph wrote: Processing of multiple files:
Maybe I did not mention this: You can select multiple files by pressing CTRL or SHIFT. Then you can also edit the new play count for these songs.
Only in this mode the length of the selected songs will be added.

Did you tried this already?

Christoph

No I didn't, I assumed that all the files in the queue would be processed. Last thing, can you add the length of the song as a field for viewing?

Other than that, it is very impressive. Too bad it's an external program, otherwise it is a nice replacement for the set playcount and fake play scripts.

Nyn

Christoph · Post by **Christoph** » Wed May 21, 2008 2:09 pm

Hey nyn,
it was the first behaviour to process all files. But I changed it to have more flexibility. If it's asked to be changed I could do so.

The track length: Yes, I can add a column for it in the song list. I also wanted to add the track number.
And I will change the following: If you add some plays with the "Add continuous" button the next following play date (last play date + song length) will be written into the start time field. So you can add a play to song 1-3 then to 6-9 and then to 4-5.

Would it be ok to include a button for starting my app into MediaMonkey?
I don't see other ways to embed it.

Christoph

nynaevelan · Post by **nynaevelan** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:39 pm

Christoph wrote:
Would it be ok to include a button for starting my app into MediaMonkey?
I don't see other ways to embed it.

Christoph

Explain more...

Nyn