Open Media Player

Open Media Player (referred to as OMP from now on) is an effort to recreate (closed source) stock Media Player (referred to as MP, from now on) for Maemo platform, as Open Software. The main goal of the project is to include all features of MP without it's bugs, at the same time having the ability to extend functionality, when desired and appropriate.

OMP is currently in beta stage, so it may not be ready for end-users. However, brave souls (power-users, testers, developers) are encouraged to test it and participate in the development, by either submitting patches, or pointing out bugs/proposed features. OMP is on it's way to be included in the testing branch of CSSU.

OMP can be installed from repositories: extras-devel.

OMP got its thread on http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=72156 (discussion, reporting bugs, proposing features, etc.).

Changelog for the latest version of OMP is available from http://maemo.org/packages/view/openmediaplayer/.

OMP extra features (not found in MP)
Portrait mode

The name speaks for itself: turn the device to rotate the interface.

Entertainment View

An alternate view where elements from the regular "Now Playing" view are animated.

Car View

A finger-friendly view for use when driving. Tap the center of the screen to show the clock and swipe from right to left to show the playlist.

Lyrics display

When enabled (in the general settings), OMP will download lyrics for the current song and cache them for offline use. Tap the cover art to toggle between the usual progress bar/playlist and the lyrics display. It's possible to edit lyrics with the built-in editor, which can be invoked from display's context menu. Lyrics are downloaded from http://lyrics.mirkforce.net and stored in "/home/user/.lyrics/".

Easy way to share files

Simply invoke the context menu of a song and select "Share" to send it via either Bluetooth or email. Works for videos, too.

Configurable size of automatic playlists

The number of songs can be changed in the general settings. If set to a large number, it works like sorting the whole library by popularity, last time played or from recently added to old.

Playlist editing

It appears in two places: "Now playing" and the playlist browser. To move an item, double-tap it, but, hold after the second touch (so it's more like one and a half tap) and drag it to the desired position. The difference between "Now playing" and the playlist browser is that in the first case, changes are saved immediately, while in the latter they are preserved only after choosing "Save playlist" from the menu.

Improved album art

The first thing you will notice is probably the reflected cover, but what is more important, OMP will detect files named "front.jpg" and "folder.jpg" (in addition to standard "cover.jpg"). Moreover, it is possible to choose any other file, using "Select album art" from cover's context menu.

Creating playlists from a folder

To use this feature, check "Open whole folders" in the general settings. When enabled, opening a song with a file browser (like the stock one or FileBox) will not only play that song, but also enqueue other songs from the same directory.

Reverse time

This is hard to notice, because the only way to turn it on is to click a label which shows playback progress (on the left of a progress bar). When enabled, time is counted from the end of a track, instead of from the beginning. Works both for movies and songs.

MP features, currently lacking in OMP

 * Bookmarking video streams.
 * Support for libplayback (incoming message mutes the player).
 * Differentiation between audio and video URLs (audio opens in the video window).
 * Counting duration of playlists in the playlist browser.

General settings
The settings window is accessible from the titlebar menu of the main view. Some of the options might look mysterious and this is why their meanings are explained here.

Open whole folders

Controls the behavior when another program (like a file browser) tells OMP to open a song. When this option is disabled, only the selected song is opened. When enabled, also other songs from the same directory are added to the playlist. In other words, a playlist for the whole folder is created. This works non-recursively, i.e. subdirectories are not included.

Append opened songs

Another option related to cooperation with other applications. By default, when the player is ordered to open a song, current tracks are cleared and the song is added to a fresh playlist. Enabling this options skips the clearing procedure, so the selected song is added to the end of the playlist, leaving other tracks intact. Works together with Open whole folders.

Lazy sliders

With eager sliders, song/movie progress is adjusted immediately to the slider position. With the lazy option, playback position is changed after releasing the slider. The latter is smoother, but does not provide immediate preview.

Override FMTX checks in UI

Standard FM transmitter daemon does not allow transmitting with headphones or a USB cable plugged in, but this is not the case with jacekowski's modified FMTXD. If you have it installed, enabling this options skips the checking procedure, so nothing stands in the way to turn the transmitter on.

Making OMP the default media player
As root, edit file:
 * /usr/share/dbus-1/services/com.nokia.mediaplayer.service

so the line: Exec=/usr/bin/mediaplayer

...becomes: Exec=/usr/bin/openmediaplayer

This will replace execution of MP binary with OMP one - without physically replacing files, so You can revert back to MP by reverting changes.

Translations
OMP package comes with the following translations:
 * Czech,
 * German,
 * Spanish,
 * Finnish,
 * French,
 * Hungarian,
 * Italian,
 * Dutch,
 * Polish,
 * Romanian,
 * Russian,
 * Swedish,
 * Turkish,
 * Chinese.

If you want to check the current progress or join the efforts to translate OMP to more languages and improve existing translations, visit Transifex (http://www.transifex.net/projects/p/gidzzz-qt-mediaplayer/resource/openmediaplayer/). When a translation becomes complete enough (something about 90%), it will be included in the official package. -