Let's Get GSPlayer off the Ground!

[blueandwhiteg3]

I found a most excellent media player, free and open source, called GSPlayer:
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA032810/

GSPlayer is unique because it has incredibly robust support for many audio formats, including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WAVE, AAC, WMA, MP2, RealMedia, etc. Some formats like AAC require a very simple free, open source plugin. Unlike virtually every other player, it properly reads AAC metadata.

The problem is that GSPlayer's interface feels like WinAmp circa 1998. Not very useful for most real-world use, even if the backend is powerful!

I'd like to propose we put together a small project that aims to adapt GSPlayer so it can be much more finger friendly. Literally, it's a matter of developing a skin and a few changes to the base application. All the hard work is already done - audio playback, metadata*parsing, equalizer/effects, etc. Perhaps we'll call it notPod

Here's what I'd propose:

1) Have application set a "Music" directory, where music files and possibly playlists are located. Upon launch and/or music refresh, the application would scan all music files and load them into a simple library for browsing purposes. This eliminates complex playlist management on the tiny mobile device's screen.

2) Playlists would be created by simply organizing the music files into folder groupings within the aforementioned music directory. If you choose not to do this, that's fine, but it leaves the options open and allows virtually any player software to easily sync its playlists with the mobile's memory card.

3) A simple interface would exist to control playback, and this interface would occupy the entire screen when the application is launched. One portion of the screen would present the current song status and buttons to pause/play, skip a song, etc. The buttons would be sized to be "finger friendly" in terms of sizing.

4) The rest of the screen would have a touch-friendly, rather iPod-like navigation system, allowing the music to be browsed by artist, album, genre, and playlist if available. All categories would be based on metadata except playlist, which would be a simple exploration of the filesystem with the song names being pulled from metadata rather than the filesystem. Maybe have a "More Options" section that allows for easily refreshing the music list, exiting the app, adjusting equalizer, etc.

5) Package in the already available AAC and WMP plugins with the application, so that the software is extremely robust right out the box. A few extra KB of file size doesn't really matter these days, and users will appreciate the simplicity. One app that truly plays it ALL!

The result is a simple application that brings up a rich, easy-to-use, highly touchable interface. I truly believe that this would be best-in-class; nothing quite like this exists. We could put this together with a rather minimal amount of work. The only thing that even comes close is HTC Audio Manager, but that is copyright, closed source, very limited in file format support and has a somewhat crude-looking interface.

With software like I've laid out, syncing is easy and compatible with virtually any software - just save your music or playlists right into the music directory on your memory card. The software handles everything else. Virtually every audio format is fully supported. You could even potentially make use of m3u files (supported by GSPlayer) to add online radio stations to your mobile music library! With 3G and wifi everywhere these days, that's a pretty alluring idea.

Now... as for getting this done, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I don't have experience developing or even compiling for Windows Mobile. I would love to help in designing the UI and will gladly provide web hosting and whatever other support I can, but to get this off the ground, we need some help from a few who have experience with Windows Mobile development.

The hard work is done here... let's just polish up the UI and functionality and we'll have the best, most broadly compatible touch-friendly software out there!

[sandworm]

Check out mortplayer here:
http://www.sto-helit.de/index.php?mo...am&action=list

It's skinnable, supports gsplayer plugins like aac, and can scan multiple favorites folders for mp3s and playlists

[Firon]

Aye, Mortplayer works pretty well as it is, though the playlist functionality could be a little better.

[TonyDiv]

All the changes proposed are exactly why I stopped using GSP.