Monkey Rok 4.1 - Updated 17/08/2009

[Cyarron]

I notice that the concerts posted in the Events portion of MonkeyRok do not show Canadian events, which is sad because I live in Vancouver sometimes. Is there a way to get it to show ALL events, regardless of location?

[trixmoto]

I don't think any events are filtered out. Do they appear in the webservice results but not the panel?

[Cyarron]

I'm sorry, but which webservice does it use? I'm going to take a stab in the dark to potentially save time and guess it is Last.fm. The Canadian concerts DO show up on the Last.fm website but not on the panel. Weird.

[RobertSmith]

Really nice script!! especially the Album view there you can click on Album to expand the song list and of course similarity artist from lastFm!!!

I have search the forum but haven't find answer to all my question so here are some questions (not all are new)

New version (4.0) is now available to download from my website.

Things already on my list for the next release...

- Handle multiple artists when querying Last.Fm (need some way to merge or concatenate the results)
Hope it's been worth the wait!

This would be great, one simple solution could be to have an option to select first artist, useful when having multiple artist1; artist2; artist3 etc.

1. I really like your MonkeyRoc basic_brushed skin. Is there any corresponding MM skin with same typo, scroll bars, menu etc? Brushed Monkey seems to be close (but I don't like the dark background in "Show details", I prefer white -> makes it easy to see selection) The iTunes v7 skin is OK, but a skin with same Finnish as MonkeyRok would be great. F.Y.I the link to Brushed Monkey Blue on your site doesn't work.
2. Is it possible to hide Titlebar (compare i.e. Show Tree Titlebar)?
3. I guess the language option is only for translating words in GUI. Is it possible to get information e.g. Biography in Swedish (if available at lastFM), option for web-service?
4. I have increase character limit to 10 000 (default 1 000) to get the complete biography for say Moby, but the text box is still showing More information. Is it possible to remove (more information) if the complete text is in the text box? If there are more information add a LastFM link to More information.
5. Is it possible to have the same behaviour of panel Similar artist as for panel Album by. When clicking on artist Songs/albums are shown in MonkeyRok (not detail view).
6. How is Album features panel supposed to work, mine is empty?
7. Is it possible to let panels by based on MM filter instead of complete library? (There are a lot of junk in panel In Albums by since I have one folder with "unsorted dance/pop/techo junk") It's a little bit confusing with complete library in MonkeyRok showing e.g 4 songs by artist XXX but only 2 songs in detail view due to MM filter.
8. In Albums by, is it possible to show all albums incl. "playing" album -> complete discography sorted by year
9. How does ignore unknown rating when calculating average works. What is minimum tracks for calc. average (I'm getting ?, bombs or a average depending on this option is on/off)

Edit. change list from bullets to number to correspond to trixmotos answer

[Nebbin]

MonkeyRok really does need better multi-artist handling at the moment.

I'm really impressed with this script, but due to this one thing I find I can no longer leave it turned on. Many of the results have become fairly useless, and there's up to a 10 second lag (after starting a song playing) during which the song may play fine, but MM 3.1 otherwise freezes and becomes unusable (no volume control etc).

EDIT: also, the "exclude artists" section of MM doesn't currently remove artists from a multi-artist string, so the idea of only using the first artist of a multi artist title would be a very helpful start even if it's only a band-aid solution.

[trixmoto]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like the script so far. There are currently 37 fixes, enhancements and additions planned for the next version, so when I get round to it hopefully it will be a good one.

1) Unfortunately I'm so lagged with scripts that I've stopped all work on skinning, in fact I've not even learnt how to in MM3. I've fixed the BMB link on my site, thanks for alerting me to that. The "basic_brushed" was designed to go with my BM skin, but I'm sure someone could modify the skin for you if it's not something you want to take on yourself. Rovingcowboy converted the skins to MM3 for me, so maybe send him a PM and see what he says.
2) Hiding title bars wasn't possible when I last released this script, but it is now and it is on my list for the next version.
3) This is correctly, but it is already on my list to use the localised webservice options where available.
4) It should only show the "more information" link if the text has been truncated, I'll fix this in the next version.
5) Nice idea, I'll add this as an option (as it will take extra processing time which some people might not want).
6) This should show albums which have tracks by the artist but where the artist is not the album artist. So mostly compilations and soundtracks.
7) Filtering is already on my list for the next version.
8.) I can add an option to include the current album in this list, yes.
9) The option is supposed to work by ignoring any unrated tracks, so if you have an album with 3 tracks unrated and 6 tracks with 3 stars, with the option off you'd get 2 stars [(3*-1)+(6*60) / 9 = 40] whereas with the option on you'd get 3 stars [(40*9)+3 / 9-3 = 60]. I can't remember how I came up with that equation, but it certainly came out with the results I'd have expected with this example!

As I said when I released 4.0, multiple artist handling is something which is going to be very difficult to get right, but it's definitely something I want to improve in the next version.

[RobertSmith]

Thy for all answers!!

6) This should show albums which have tracks by the artist but where the artist is not the album artist. So mostly compilations and soundtracks.

It was there the hole time... it was just me that was unaware of that I had hide it (looks like empty) by clicking on title and since this is the last section I didn't think about it...

9) The option is supposed to work by ignoring any unrated tracks, so if you have an album with 3 tracks unrated and 6 tracks with 3 stars, with the option off you'd get 2 stars [(3*-1)+(6*60) / 9 = 40] whereas with the option on you'd get 3 stars [(40*9)+3 / 9-3 = 60]. I can't remember how I came up with that equation, but it certainly came out with the results I'd have expected with this example!

? So:
0 star = 0
0,5star = 10
1 star = 20
1.5 star = 30
.
.
5 star = 100

if off -> 3 unkown + 6 tracks with 3star => 40/20 = 2 (average/20 or average * 0,05 (factor) average = sum/9)
if on -> 3 unkown + 6 tracks with 3star => 60/20 = 3 (unknown not incl when calc. average, average = sum/6)

Equation: Sum of rating * 0,05 / No of tracks with rating or Sum of rating * 0,05 / No of tracks
or skip the factor ->
Sum of rating / No of tracks with rating option on
Sum of rating / No of tracks option off

[rovingcowboy]

I don't make monkey roc skins i don't know how?

i think nohitter151 makes them?

as for changing any skin of a still present and accounted for mediamonkey skin author, i only do them if the skin author does not do skinning any more like trixmoto. i will and have adjusted / fixed some other authors skins for people because the author is not able to be contacted, but thats all.

changing headers in skins is easy its just adding a bitmap object to the object or item you want to change the look to, if you want to see how to add images to headers you can read how on the wiki i'm sure rusty or morten has said how there, if you can't understand the words then just download my jade monkey skin it has images on all the text area's and i believe headers too.? then just open it up in the theme engine and see what i did to get them in that location.
good luck and enjoy skinning.

[RobertSmith]

Hi again,

About average rating. With the Ignore unknown... option off it looks OK, but when I turn this On I getting a ? mark instead of a average (of rated tracks) is there some more criteria like tracks most have been played or?

[vacilar]

Got a Problem with Monkey rok 4.0, my Stats for "Played Tracks" didn`t change since 4 Weeks.

Any Suggestions to solve this problem

[MagickRhythm]

I am having problems with MonkeyRok.

The first day I installed it, I liked that it would show all the albums I have for each artist. Now All I see is the current song playing and the track on that album only. All the rest of the info is gone. How can I get it back. I really liked that. I have gone through every option (except the one that works apparently) and can't get it back.

Thanks.

[trixmoto]

I can only imagine that you've ticked all the "hide panels" options in "MonkeyRok Settings > More".

[dypsis]

MonkeyRok doesn't display album art in Windows 7.
I used Backup to restore everything.

Any ideas?

[dypsis]

OK.
All I had to do was manually create the C:\Temp folder.

[MagickRhythm]

I can only imagine that you've ticked all the "hide panels" options in "MonkeyRok Settings > More".

I do not have any check boxes marked for "hide panels"

Anything else?