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/.
Contents |
Features
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.
Headset button
Open Media Player has support for "phone" button on wired jack headset. In configuration dialog it is possible to select an action to be performed when the button is pressed. This feature does not even require any additional applications/packages (like headset-button-enabler or headset-control).
Searching without sliding out the keyboard
You can open the search box by sliding your finger up from the very bottom of the screen. When it pops out, do what you would do with any other text field (click on it to show the on-screen keyboard). Very useful for portrait mode or if you're too lazy to use the physical keyboard.
MP features, currently lacking in OMP
- Bookmarking video streams.
- Playback uninterruptable by incoming messages.
- Differentiation between audio and video when streaming (audio opens in the video window).
- Counting duration of playlists in the playlist browser.
- ...
Known bugs:
- Playlist in Now playing sometimes fails to update properly and as a result it is tainted with empty items and/or incorrectly labeled songs. To reinitialize the list without closing the player, open Settings from the main window and click Save.
Planned extra features (not present in MP)
- Sleep timer
Configuration
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.
"Delete" for playlist items
Turning this option on extends context menus of song lists in the playlist browser and Now playing by adding an action called Delete. It provides a way to permanently delete a song (so the file is removed from the device), next to the soft Delete from playlist/now playing.
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.