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Feature Request: A song list "peek" scanner

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beatunes

08 Dec, 2014 08:45 PM

You have the useful peek function. How difficult would it be to have a menu choice which would:
1) Take the currently selected song, probably of the "Matching Songs" window pane, peek for X seconds,
2) then skip to the next segment and play Y seconds of that segment,
3) then go to the next song on the list and repeat this through the list?

This would allow scanning thru playlists, or "Matching Songs" to find songs that were desired.

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by hendrik on 09 Dec, 2014 04:10 PM

   

   This could also be realized by:

   • clicking on Peek
   • when heard enough, clicking on Peek Next (which does not exist right now)

   Right?
   That way, you would stay in control, but still have the desired functionality.

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2. 2 Posted by beatunes on 09 Dec, 2014 04:35 PM

   

   Well, I can manually make lists, skip around, skip to the next, etc. with iTunes.

   Beatunes of course can automate some of this. I think it would be good to have some list, then start playing something like a minute of a song, then skip to the next song. One could listen to these songs in the background without having to stay right in front of the computer clicking things. Peek is good because many song's have a long introduction before they get to the main part; so it is good to skip thru a list and see how the songs work in the list.

   I don't think Beatunes is scriptable. Peek next is not too different that just sitting at the keyboard and clicking--one less down arrow click.

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by hendrik on 10 Dec, 2014 10:51 AM

   

   OK - I think I now understood what you want.

   Please turn off the cover panel as described in this article, then install the attached beaTlet plugin. This article describes how that is done: You pretty much simply place the file in the plugin directory and restart beaTunes.

   There will be a new menu item in the Controls menu called Scan that more or less does what you want.

   Please note, that this is a hack.

   It's not localized to any language and it might behave in unexpected ways. In particular: Once scanning has started, you must stop it by using the same menu item (Stop Scan). Just pausing or using any other controls for controlling playback won't stop the scanning.
   Scan can also be invoked with the shortcut ⌘-Y (or CTRL-Y on Windows).

   The script is written in Groovy and fairly simple. If you want to change the playback period (currently set to 10s), simply open the file in TextEdit.app, look for the value 10000 (specified in ms) and change it to something else. Then save the file, make sure it keeps the same extension (.groovy) and restart beaTunes for the change to take effect.

   I hope you enjoy this,

   -hendrik

   • ScanAction.groovy 2.86 KB
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4. 4 Posted by beatunes on 10 Dec, 2014 07:22 PM

   

   it works!

   This is a great way to quickly scan through a list of songs. I did change it to play 20 seconds instead of 10. I thought it would be difficult to hack into the UI, but apparently not.

   What are you selling? Convenience ! Most of the things that beatunes does can be done manually; however, it's just too time-consuming. This feature, peak and scan through a list, seems to my mind the quickest, easiest way to preview a bunch of songs for a playlist.

   Thanks, and who knew that groovy was so groovy? Maybe something like this would make a into the official features of beaTunes.

   I also found out that it is best to turn the "synchronize on window activation" preference off, as the match list seems to disappear on window activation if that preferences checked.

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5. Support Staff 5 Posted by hendrik on 11 Dec, 2014 10:38 AM

   

   Well, I'm glad this works for you! :-)
   If you'd like to learn more about scripting beaTunes, check out https://www.beatunes.com/en/beatlet-getting-started.html

   I also found out that it is best to turn the "synchronize on window activation" preference off, as the match list seems to disappear on window activation if that preferences checked.

   Switching automatic sync off definitely takes some load off of beaTunes. However, remember to manually sync every now and then using File -> Synchronize. Otherwise you won't see changes that happened to your collection from outside of beaTunes (like new songs added to iTunes).

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6. Support Staff 6 Posted by hendrik on 30 Jan, 2015 04:53 PM

   

   Hey there...

   Just wanted to let you know, that the scan script has become a half-official plugin...

   http://blog.beatunes.com/2015/01/the-quickest-way-to-scan-through-n...

   -hendrik

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