So, I've spent the last 2-3 days looking for a media player that has a good today plugin.. HTC home spoiled me in that regard, but I don't use it anymore, and it seems as though nobody has been able to extract just the media tab from it (correct me if I'm wrong and I'll save some money!!)
The fruits of my search? I stumbled on to this little gem today.
http://www.conduits.com/products/player/default.asp
So far, I really dig it. It's got a nice feel to it, very userfriendly, skinnable, etc... Best of all, it's got an awesome today plugin, and it's not super memory hungry (According to the HTC memory manager, it takes about 3-5% of your available memory)...
Here are some screen shots:
From what I've found so far, here are some pros and cons:
Pros:
Today plugin. This trumps any today plugin I've found for WMP or HTC Audio (feel free to correct me if there's a good one)
I love the directory structure.. very simple navigation of your music.
Bluetooth hasn't skipped or paused once... WMP skips incessantly for me.
Fairly easy on the memory.
Cons:
It's not free!
For some reason, can't minimize by using End key or Ok key, like most programs (this was working. I might have messed it up with the WMP plugin)
Task manager doesn't fully close program because of "alert" screen. (I'm sure this can be disabled)
Small buttons make one handed operation hard (only really should be a major issue on first setup.. IE shuffle/repeat buttons)
To set up Bluetooth AVRCP functionality you need an easy mod... Copy the attached plugin (just the DLL, unzip it first!!!) into the root folder of PP3, and then do the following:
1. Click menu/more/options, then navigate to the plugins directory.
2. Click "conduits WM plugin adapter" and then click configure on the pop-up menu
3. under load WMP plugins, make sure there's a check in the box labeled "Play/pause workaround" under each of the headings.
4. Click ok, exit PP3 and restart, and your bluetooth controls should work flawlessly.
(thanks to the XDA-wiki for this solution)