Now, that I got my first Android-phone I thought I'd give your Android-version a try.
I have been using Rocketplayer for a few days and even if it has a lot more features, it lacks design-wise and on the contrary I really like the Mediamonkey-design.
And since the "play next"-Button got introduced, I now have all the features I really want and switched for good
(and also I am still hoping on getting a native Mediamonkey on linux :p )Since I find that views of newcomers a very hard to get for a developer I thought of sharing my first impressions and problems I had.
Maybe its helpful. Maybe not. Please dont feel obligated to change anything because of what I am writing. Its very possible that I am the only one with this problems
I am using mma-beta on a xperia z3 compact and mmw via wine on Linux Debian (wheezy). I am not a regular mmw-user (anymore) since the playback in mmw via wine is a little bit too laggy. So I "started out my Mediamonkey-experience" from the mma-side (but I had knowledge from prior mmw-versions from the past)
The first thing I tried, was the syncing-option, since that was what I was curious about the most.
Because I am only using mmw via wine, I expected troubles with syncing. But as it turns out, it works (almost) flawlessly - it just took me a very long time to figure out.
Since I knew about the permission-problem on the sd-card, I unchecked all the folders except the mma-app-folder on the sd-card for the library-folders.
I always started my syncing-process from the device and never over usb - maybe thats the reason why it took me so long to understand all the settings right.
My first problem was the fact that every time I did a sync, it said it wanted to delete almost my whole library but after it finished syncing, most of my songs where doubled and it didnt seem to delete anything.
After some time I encountered that even I had unchecked all my sd-library-folders, after a sync they were all set again. And because of that, it added the "/Music/"-folder on the sd-card to the library which contained a copy of my Tracks but wasnt meant for Mediamonkey. So it seemed, it tried to delete everything in the "/Music"-folder and redownload it into its app-folder. But the deletion obviosly failed because of its missing permissions (Suggestion 1: Maybe it should handle that a little bit different? But on the other side this whole permission-thing is changed again in android 5 so it would be a waste of manpower I guess^^). For the same reason my library was doubled in the end.
So I had to uncheck this folder but couldnt because it stated that "it was used for sync".
It took me a while to figure out, that there are also settings on mmw itself. And even if I never used them, there were already set.
(Suggestion 2: For me its more intuitive if everything concerning the device is manageable on the device itself. Maybe include a warning that tells you that most of the settings are on the desktop-side? Because especially of dealing with the sd-card the settings in mmw a very important)
My second problem was the fact that even if I changed all the folders in "File locations" I still couldnt uncheck my folders on my sd-card.
As it turned out, in "Auto-Sync (-->Library)" there are set some folders too. And even if this option is disabled on mmw and on the device, it still blocks the folders which are set here.
(Suggestion 3: Maybe also include a warning about that or - if that is possible - disable the blocking if this option is completely disabled. Or dont set standard-folders in this deactivated option in generall
)Since I had to sync a couple times and often in short timespans, I encountered another problem which I thought happened because I am using mmw over wine: When I told it to sync, it wouldnt start. The window would just stay blank. And sometimes, it would start out of the blue even if I returned to the main-screen.
But as it turns out, this happens for a good reason:
On the main-screen there is this little loading-circle which sometimes popped up and at first, I didnt understand what this loading was about. It seems that it tells you, that the library is rechecked at the moment. (Suggestion 4: Explain what this is when the app starts for the first time. Its not important but it would be good to know).
So the reason sync wouldnt start was easy: It waits until the library-check is done. So makes perfectly sense and is no bug at all! (Suggestion 5: I find, its important to explain this delay to the user. Because it seems like there is a problem with the connection or a bug in the app itself even if everything is working as its supposed to)
I also encountered a little bug concerning lyrics.
It always states "Lyrics not availabe" - even if they are already saved in the tags. If I tell it to download them manually, they will be gone again when I swipe left (to the album-pic) and swipe right again or just reopen the track.
But if I open the options (while the "Lyrics not availabe"-screen is shown) and close them again, the lyrics are shown (this also works, when I just lock the screen - so it seems to be a screen-update that solves the issue temporarily by reloading). That works even if network is disabled and it doesnt seem to matter if the lyrics were downloaded on the phone or were already in the tags (but it seems downloaded lyrics are not synced back to mmw)
And also another little suggestion (6) I thought of: For me personally it would be great if the ratings were shown in track-lists (especially in the "Now Playing"-list or also in the widget). Because on the desktop, I sometimes skip songs based on my rating when I am in a mood for "a good song". With the rating I dont even have to read the song-titles and can just skip to a good-rated-one.
I just wrote a huge article and I am sorry for it^^. I really hope that it will be helpful in some ways. I really like to say that I both very like mmw and mma and hope you guys are able to keep up the good work!
Thank you very much!