Should I upgrade to MMW5?

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Lowlander
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by Lowlander »

Please ask for help with MediaMonkey 4 in the MediaMonkey 4 forums. The answer is in this KB article: https://www.mediamonkey.com/support/kno ... s-to-play/
crawdad63
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by crawdad63 »

Bullit420 wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:38 am Not sure if this is an issue for you, but I rely on a third-party Discogs Tagger Addon to obtain accurate info for my CDs. I found out the developer is not planning on coding the addon for MediaMonkey 5. For me, not having the Discogs addon for tagging music is a major disappointment. I'm not sure what I am going to do.
MP3 Tag has Discogs capability.
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thepipe
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Lack Of MM5 Themes

Post by thepipe »

There seem to be only a handful of themes for MM5. The few themes that are available aren't very appealing - to me anyway. Why can't MM4 themes be used/converted? Also, why does MM5 need to restart when changing themes? A restart seems to be required when changing other settings too. This is very annoying!
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by thepipe »

I'd recommend sticking with MM4 for now. There are lots of UI changes in MM5 you probably won't like and your theme won't work. No MM4 themes work in MM5 and there are currently very few themes for MM5.

Luckily you can have both installed at the same time. Download/install MM5 and play around with it. If you don't like it, MM4 will still be there. That's how I did it, anyway. I can get used to MM5 and use MM4 almost exclusively.
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by Lowlander »

A different skinning engine is used to prepare MediaMonkey 5 for the often requested cross-platform compatibility, thus Skins aren't compatible between MediaMonkey 4 and 5.
rrfpacker
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by rrfpacker »

sallenmd87 wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:52 am For me, it's all about add-ons. No RegExp Find and Replace = No upgrade, ever. Once it and probably Simple Append are available for MM5, I will upgrade.
I think I read somewhere in the forum, correct me if I'm wrong, that a lot of the add-ons won't work. I have a major investment of hours in Magic Nodes Album Ratings and without that I might as well use another music manager. I also don't like that many of the skins I've grown accustomed to won't be there.

Right now I can't imagine upgrading. I'm a dork when it comes to this kind of stuff, even a normal upgrade in MM4 would put me into cold sweats wondering if it would work. MM4 works just fine, other than a lyrics finder.
Lowlander
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by Lowlander »

Correct, MediaMonkey 5 no longer uses the old Microsoft oriented VB Script and instead uses modern cross-platform compatible JS/HTML/CSS, it also no longer relies on Internet Explorer which Microsoft replaced with Edge. Unfortunately this means that pre-MediaMonkey 5 Addons have to be rewritten/updated for MediaMonkey 5, but this change should provide a long future for MediaMonkey 5 Addons while also allowing for the often requested cross-platform versions of MediaMonkey.

This means it will take time till MediaMonkey 5 will have a more robust Addon community, but it no longer relies on depreciated Microsoft only technologies.
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by pokeefe0001 »

I could be way off base, but I suspect the the typical MM user is not fluent in either VBScript or JS/HTML/CSS and couldn't care less what's under the covers as long as the product continues to provide the features, functions, and capabilities they depend on. MM 5 does not provide those needed features, functions, and capabilities that depend on old scripts, skins, and WinAmp plugins. Those of us in that boat can obviously stay on MM 4 using depreciated Microsoft only technologies. Perhaps depending on extensions developed by other users was not a wise move, but there had been indication of problems for over 15 years. Many of the MM 2.5 extensions still work in MM 4.1.

There may be lots of reasons that MM 5 has a bright future and I'm sure that many of us would be perfectly happy to use it, but Ventis Media has provided us with no migration path.

There is the VBS to JS conversion addon for MM 5 that requires some follow-on tweaking. Maybe using this tool and performing that tweaking is within the typical user's skill set; maybe not. The description of the addon states it's for programmers, not the typical user. In any case, it's not something that should be expected of the typical user. And neither is waiting for some other user to do the work for us.

As nears as I can tell there is nothing to assist in migrating skins.
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Lowlander
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by Lowlander »

Migration tool is for developers who wish to migrate their Addon to MediaMonkey 5.

Skins can't be migrated, a completely different engine is used in MediaMonkey 5 so that it can be used on other platforms.
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by Peke »

pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:38 pm I could be way off base, but I suspect the the typical MM user is not fluent in either VBScript or JS/HTML/CSS and couldn't care less what's under the covers as long as the product continues to provide the features, functions, and capabilities they depend on. MM 5 does not provide those needed features, functions, and capabilities that depend on old scripts, skins, and WinAmp plugins. Those of us in that boat can obviously stay on MM 4 using depreciated Microsoft only technologies. Perhaps depending on extensions developed by other users was not a wise move, but there had been indication of problems for over 15 years. Many of the MM 2.5 extensions still work in MM 4.1.
I would agree with you 100%, but one of main issues is that all these can stop working at one point of time. IE11 will vanish in Windows 11 (you can still force install but that will not be the same) and then it is very possible that MM4 will not be able to render any WEB pages eg. Lyrics viewer, MonkeyRok. discogs search will simply stop working and we can do anything. MS decided to remove feature after 20+ years. What then? Imagine that if/once that happen we start to migrate to other solution? Public MM5 developing started 6 years ago, which means that next 6 years MM users will be out of MM completely. I am guessing that while you are using MM5, that is functional, but without third party plugins and waiting that only those plugins gets ported is way better than waiting to MM function normally. I would not wait for sure.
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:38 pm There may be lots of reasons that MM 5 has a bright future and I'm sure that many of us would be perfectly happy to use it, but Ventis Media has provided us with no migration path.
That is not true, MM5 was free for any GOLD user 5+ years, could be run as separate independent app where you could test all that you need to migrate. Requests and wishes were granted and ported (except those that were strictly said no plans for MM5). You can imagine how hard is to make something same from scratch while you have working stable product.
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:38 pm There is the VBS to JS conversion addon for MM 5 that requires some follow-on tweaking. Maybe using this tool and performing that tweaking is within the typical user's skill set; maybe not. The description of the addon states it's for programmers, not the typical user. In any case, it's not something that should be expected of the typical user. And neither is waiting for some other user to do the work for us.
It is same for MM4 API, but we were younger, no family/kids and could spend weeks to make plugin that will play exact right track in the middle of foreplay to heighten the mood. Now while balancing parenthood and work I can only wish to have time for foreplay with/without music in 15 minute break, while kids sleep. I am in contact with many devs of old plugins that are in same boat. Also example Discogs was made 8-10 years after First MM API released. MM5 from start have much more open code that can be cannibalized/salvaged and used, than MM4 ever had, you have real time dev console (Right click on any part of MM5 debug version and you will get easy access to changes), easier to edit and results can be seen immediately.
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:38 pm As nears as I can tell there is nothing to assist in migrating skins.
There is no migrating skins. They needs to be made again. Latest example can be found here viewtopic.php?f=27&t=99979 and it is not as hard as it looks.
Best regards,
Peke
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Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by pokeefe0001 »

Peke wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:28 pm
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:38 pm There may be lots of reasons that MM 5 has a bright future and I'm sure that many of us would be perfectly happy to use it, but Ventis Media has provided us with no migration path.
That is not true, MM5 was free for any GOLD user 5+ years, could be run as separate independent app where you could test all that you need to migrate. Requests and wishes were granted and ported (except those that were strictly said no plans for MM5). You can imagine how hard is to make something same from scratch while you have working stable product.
I think what you've described is a migration path for addon developers, not end users.

I have no idea what the "typical" MM user is like. Our group may be very non-typical, but let me describe it. We are a group of 50-60 Balkan folkdancers. Of that group maybe 6 of us know how to use MediaMonkey. 3 of us are somewhat technically competent (I, less so than the other 2). Only 2 of us know MediaMonkey forums exist. One had done very minor customization of MediaMonkey - picking a skin and installing a couple scripts (1 with minor modifications) - about 10 years ago. I suspect that is not an unusual description of MM users.

About 4 months ago I decided to upgrade our copies of MediaMonkey from MM 2.5 to MM 4.1. When looking on the forum for assistance I discovered that MM 5 exists and that all customization for previous versions is now obsolete. I'm one of the lucky ones - I've found out before previous versions stop running.

You have provided excellent customer service - answering completely bone-head questions I've asked over the past few months. I have absolutely no complaints about that. But I still say your organization has provided no migration path for the non-technical user. I'm thinking of the trivial tasks of upgrading from MM 2 to MM 3 and from MM 3 to MM 4 - migrations that the typical user could easily handle because there was essentially nothing the user had to do. Without something like that you are going to loose users.

Perhaps the script convertor is almost that simple but the description I suspect that is not the case. Until 4 months ago I had never written a line of VBS and still have never written a line of JavaScript. (At age 75 I have enough calcified synapses that using the using the tool will probably not be an easy task.)

But the real problem is the skins. I understand that the rendering engines are completely different but browsers built on those engines render the same HTML strings as the same display. I also understand there may be a great difference between rendering an HTML string coming across the web and rendering some set of static definitions in a program, but I would expect some isomorphic mapping between the MM4 definition of a screen image and the MM5 definition of that same image. If so, a program should be able to do that mapping. (I probably am taking a very simplistic view of the world here.)
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dypsis
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by dypsis »

Peke wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:28 pm It is same for MM4 API, but we were younger, no family/kids and could spend weeks to make plugin that will play exact right track in the middle of foreplay to heighten the mood. Now while balancing parenthood and work I can only wish to have time for foreplay with/without music in 15 minute break, while kids sleep.
Peke, you're gonna have to cut back on the foreplay if you wanna get any work done. 🙄
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by Barry4679 »

dypsis wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:07 pm Peke, you're gonna have to cut back on the foreplay if you wanna get any work done. 🙄
:lol: :D
So funny, thanks for the laufgh.
Want a dark skin for MM5? This is the one that works best for me .. elegant, compact & clear.
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by Peke »

dypsis wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:07 pm Peke, you're gonna have to cut back on the foreplay if you wanna get any work done. 🙄
That is long gone, there is none, I already get up each morning 2 hours earlier in order to have 26h day, but maybe i'll get extended time every leap year or maybe during daylight time change ;)
Barry4679 wrote: Tue Sep 07, 2021 1:05 am :lol: :D
So funny, thanks for the laufgh.
For you maybe, not for me :lol: :roll: 8)
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Peke
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Re: Should I upgrade to MMW5?

Post by Peke »

pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:42 pm I think what you've described is a migration path for addon developers, not end users.
Reason why there is no Migration path for users. MM5 is rewrite, it simply asks you to load MM4 Library and settings that can be used in MM5 and other things are essentially new product with same (or almost same) features as Vanilla MM4.
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:42 pmI have no idea what the "typical" MM user is like.
Based on our feedback typical user is one that wants all his media files listed in single place, easy to search and play, along with freedom to create playlists that will enhance experience.
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:42 pmOur group may be very non-typical, but let me describe it. We are a group of 50-60 Balkan folkdancers.
You never told us where are you from?
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:42 pmOf that group maybe 6 of us know how to use MediaMonkey. 3 of us are somewhat technically competent (I, less so than the other 2). Only 2 of us know MediaMonkey forums exist. One had done very minor customization of MediaMonkey - picking a skin and installing a couple scripts (1 with minor modifications) - about 10 years ago. I suspect that is not an unusual description of MM users.
Exactly the point only thing you see as difference is UI organization, while features should be the same. What exact features you need as if you were satisfied with MM 2.x you really need most basic ones and that should not posses the problem in MM5.
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:42 pmAbout 4 months ago I decided to upgrade our copies of MediaMonkey from MM 2.5 to MM 4.1. When looking on the forum for assistance I discovered that MM 5 exists and that all customization for previous versions is now obsolete. I'm one of the lucky ones - I've found out before previous versions stop running.
Exactly my point, with past 5 years users like you seeking only minimal features, can get overwhelming with new look, that is not as minimalist as MM2, but deep down it is the same thing. Except skins and familiar look is there anything missing in MM5 that MM4 without its addons is missing?
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:42 pmYou have provided excellent customer service - answering completely bone-head questions I've asked over the past few months. I have absolutely no complaints about that. But I still say your organization has provided no migration path for the non-technical user. I'm thinking of the trivial tasks of upgrading from MM 2 to MM 3 and from MM 3 to MM 4 - migrations that the typical user could easily handle because there was essentially nothing the user had to do. Without something like that you are going to loose users.
Again, When you install MM5 unlike MM4 over MM3 or MM2 We separated the app completely and automated settings migration so existing and new users do not need to think what happened and all is working out of the box, while keeping your existing MM4 installation intact and ready for recall and comparison of features you are used too.
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:42 pm Perhaps the script convertor is almost that simple but the description I suspect that is not the case. Until 4 months ago I had never written a line of VBS and still have never written a line of JavaScript. (At age 75 I have enough calcified synapses that using the using the tool will probably not be an easy task.)
No all things are possible with converter, especially as each devs have own syntax for variables, own functions, ....
pokeefe0001 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:42 pmBut the real problem is the skins. I understand that the rendering engines are completely different but browsers built on those engines render the same HTML strings as the same display. I also understand there may be a great difference between rendering an HTML string coming across the web and rendering some set of static definitions in a program, but I would expect some isomorphic mapping between the MM4 definition of a screen image and the MM5 definition of that same image. If so, a program should be able to do that mapping. (I probably am taking a very simplistic view of the world here.)
Only if things are that simple. MM4 used hardcoded UI objects within core application and MM5 uses Chromium to use standard HTML/CSS/JS to dynamically generate UI and use/query Core data.

I agree with you, but you have not provided any example what you actually want to archive. Screenshots, comparisons, pointers and unlike upgrading MM2 -> MM4 Upgrade MM4 -> MM5 was simpler.
Best regards,
Peke
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Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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