MediaVault 1.3.0 released

[walkero]

MediaVault is an open source desktop application, for AmigaOS 4, which can be used to discover online radio stations. The selected radio station can be streamed using a player, i.e. AmigaAmp 3.

I would like explicitly to thank IconDesigner for the awesome icons he designed for MediaVault, and for giving me his permission to include them in the package. These are also included at the aos-iconsupdate7 package (http://os4depot.net/?function=showfi...onsupdate7.lha)

Of' course, the development does not stop here. I am already working for the next release, and with the new self update feature, this will be even easier for you to download and install it. So I am planning to start doing more frequent and smaller releases.

You can support MediaVault development by donating at https://ko-fi.com/walkero, where I will set every time a goal for a new feature or improvements, described the best way I can, which you can help to achieve. As soon as this goal is fulifilled I will start working on it, and create the next one and let you know about it.

With your donations, not only you support MediaVault development, but 50% of the monthly/goal money will be donated to an other project, and 5% are donated to the ko-fi platform.

MediaVault will remain free for everyone to use and open source.



This version brings the following changes:
- Added right sidebar with station info and avatar image, wherever
the image is available
- Added a new menu item to check for newer versions and start a
selfupdate, if the user approves it. There is a way to see the
latest changes before update.
- Added a play button at the right sidebar which is enabled as soon
as the user selects a radio station. By clicking it the radio will
be loaded at the default player. The double click on the radio
list was disabled.
- Now the radio list is cleared if the search criteria change and
no radio stations are found
- Now the list is not cleared if the "Discover More" button is
clicked and no more stations were found
- Fixed a possible crash on window closing
- Added a new message in case the "Discover More" button is clicked
and no more stations were found
- Dropped oo.library network support for libcurl. That's why the
executable size is increased so much
- Now oo.library and AmiSSL are not required
- Fixed the version string to include the application name
- On every request of radio stations, a list of 100 stations are
returned and listed

You can download it at OS4Depot (http://os4depot.net/?function=showfi...mediavault.lha) and from my Github at
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediav...ses/tag/v1.3.0

The project is open source and you can find the code at:
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediavault

If you have any requests or you would like to report any problems you found, you can do it at:
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediavault/issues

Hope you will enjoy the new release.

[vulture]

That's awesome man!

[walkero]

Thank you vulture. Did you try the new version? Isn't it a lot faster than the previous?
I am really proud of the work I did in this version. And more are coming.

[vulture]

Just tried it yesterday. Yes, it feels much snappier! Well done m8!

[walkero]

MediaVault podcast support is one step closer.

I just managed to fill the list up with matching podcasts, based on the search term at the top. This means that I already managed to get the necessary data from PodcastIndex.org, parse them and show them in the list.

Next steps? A lot of work still to be done, like create a list of the podcast episodes, show podcast avatar at the right sidebar and make the selected episode to play with the audio player.

Interesting stuff ahead.

If you like what you see, and you want to help me succeed on my goal, you can support me at https://ko-fi.com/walkero

[DJBase]

Hm, an OS3 backport would be a nice thing to have...

[walkero]

@DJBase
This something I am thinking to do, depending if a mandatory library is possible to be ported to OS3 as well. MediaVault is based on ReAction and libcurl, and I expect that I won't have problems with these parts, but the JSON parser library is not yet available. We will see.

[walkero]

The development of the next version of MediaVault is going well and I hope it will be released by the time AmiWest will happen. Today I finished a big part of the required work on Podcasts support.

You can have a look of that new feature in a preview video at https://ko-fi.com/post/MediaVault-1-...view-I3I66EAUZ

I would like once more to thank all these people who support me and help me get that goal done.

[walkero]

I just released MediaVault v1.4.0.

This version brings the following:
* You can now search for podcasts based on their title, see info and their avatar and a list of the latest 100 episodes
* By selecting an episode and clicking the play button the audio is loaded to the player and starts playing
* Changed the way the avatar images are downloaded, which is now faster and solves a lot of errors with network access, which resulted connection error messages to appear.

Find more info at https://ko-fi.com/post/MediaVault-1-...ased-F1F76GYRS

I would like to thank my supporters at https://ko-fi.com/walkero, who help me a lot on the further MediaVault development.

Of' course, the development does not stop here. I am already working for the next release, which I plan to be a smaller one, with some fixes and changes here and there, and maybe add more filter selections on podcasts section.



You can download it at OS4Depot and from my Github at
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediav...ses/tag/v1.4.0

The project is open source and you can find the code at:
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediavault

If you have any requests or you would like to report any problems you found, you can do it at:
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediavault/issues

Hope you will enjoy this new release.

[coldacid]

I hope that JSON library can get ported to OS3. I'd love to see this in my 3.2 setup. Also, as a podcaster, I'm really glad to hear you're using Podcast Index as a source for finding shows!

[vulture]

@walkero

Congrats for the new release m8!

[AMIGASYSTEM]

@walkero
Will there be OS3 and AROS versions of MediaVault?

[Minuous]

Since AROS is missing ReAction last time I checked, I suspect the answer will be no for AROS.

[walkero]

@coldacid
Which podcast do you create? Let us know about it.

@vulture
Thank you my friend. When you try it, please tell me what you think.

@all
I'd love to make an OS3 port, but I would prefer first to see if the jansson.library developer will prepare an OS3 version. Otherwise, there is one similar library I could use for OS3, which is not that mature, but I believe it could do the work. This means that some parts of the code should be rewritten for this library, although that wouldn't be too much. At least there is an alternative plan on the table.

Such a port makes sense for me, since it will bring MediaVault to a lot of people, who use either AmigaOS 3.x, Amithlon, MorphOS, ApolloOS etc.. When the time comes, I will create a goal at my support page https://ko-fi.com/walkero, and depending how it will go, this might happen.

About an AROS port, I had a thought on that. For the 68k Aros, I guess that ReAction implementation will work just fine, without issues. For the x86 AROS it won't work, unfortunately. But, since someone is running AROS on a PC, why not use the PC side (windows/linux) applications that do the same thing and even better?

I understand that some of the AROS users use it as the only OS on their computer, but I am not sure there are a lot of them. I believe that most use it either embedded or as a VM machine. I might be completely wrong, and my understanding is far away from the reality. Please, feel free to correct me.

For me it would make sense to port to AROS only if I used a language like FPC or Hollywood, which would need zero changes and just export for this system. But for MediaVault to be ported to AROS it will need a lot of code changes, dedicated development environment and usage of different libraries.

Don't get me wrong. My main target's for MediaVault is:
- to bring to AmigaOS 4 users a tool that doesn't exist and I would like to use
- to learn better to code on C using ReAction GUI
- to create code that is readable and has good practices applied for others to learn or get inspired

Hope you guys understand my point here.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Excuse me if I write inaccuracies unfortunately I am not a developer, on AROS however there are many Hollywood applications that work very well.
Regarding AROS users, as you say, there are few who use it as their main OS, but there are many who try it, at least this I have seen from the many messages that arrive on my cell phone for the request of downloading my Distro.

[walkero]

@amigasystem
Yeah, that's why I mentioned Hollywood on my post, because I know that it works very well on AROS. But unfortunately I don't use Hollywood and MediaVault is built on C.

I do not doubt that there are a lot who try applications, but I wonder about the size of this user base. It would be great if we could have some numbers, if there is any.

[coldacid]

@walkero: I co-host an anime and general geekery podcast called Rare Encounter.

Regarding jansson.library, fortunately the source code is available to it, at the very least. However the comment "There are *no* inline function defines as they would have a nameclash with the actual jansson function names." in the readme file on Aminet makes me suspect that the system Simon Tyrrell used to port the original Jansson library to OS4 would not be of much use for getting the library to run on OS3. I've not done any porting of anything to Amiga, though, so take my comment here with about a pound and a half of salt rather than just a grain.

[walkero]

A rather small update of MediaVault is coming.

Today I finished a new way to discover interesting podcasts in MediaVault, using the trending endpoint from PodcastindexOrg API. Now, you can search for the best podcasts of the world and filter them out based on category and language.

Also implemented an idea I had on how to give to all of you a way to set your preferred media player, instead of relying on AmigaAmp3. A new script I created is now used to launch the player. This script can be edited by anyone and you can set which player to be used. There are a couple of examples in there to make it easier for all of you. This way, the problem we had with some podcasts not working on AmigaAmp3 can be solved.

I would recommend using Emotion, but since this is a commercial, a very good free solution is ffplay.

A beta version already reached my monthly supporters at https://ko-fi.com/walkero with these extra cool new features. If you want to get early beta versions, please consider to support my work at the link above. And remember, 50% of the donations will go to other projects.

[walkero]

I just released MediaVault v1.4.1.

This version brings the following:
- Added an error message when podcast response is not a successful one
- Added scripts/start_player.sample script. This can be used to set the preferred player. This needs to be renamed as start_player to be used. The reason the file is named like that is to avoid replacements in future updates. The file includes configuration for different supported players, but more can be added.
- Added Trending Podcasts search based on category and/or language
- Added radio station bitrate and codec information in results list and at the right sidebar.
- Changed the about window to add more information.
- Fixed the error of not finding the texteditor.gadget on start

Find more info at https://ko-fi.com/post/MediaVault-1-...ased-W7W56J8CK

I would like to thank my supporters at https://ko-fi.com/walkero, who help me a lot on the further development of MediaVault.



You can download it at OS4Depot and from my Github at
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediav...ses/tag/v1.4.1

The project is open source and you can find the code at:
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediavault

If you have any requests or you would like to report any problems you found, you can do it at:
https://github.com/walkero-gr/mediavault/issues

[vulture]

For a minor update, that's quite a substantial changelog!