3D Flow Album View for MM5 - Support & Beta Testing

[drakinite]

3D Flow adds a slick new 3D interface to MediaMonkey 5, allowing you to browse your music by album. A successor to MonkeyFlow, it is fully integrated into MediaMonkey, offering a fast and smooth experience.

This addon requires WebGL, which is supported by all modern processors. If you don't know if your computer supports the 3D Album View, open the following site: https://get.webgl.org If it says "Your browser supports WebGL", your computer will likely work with the addon.

Please send any bug reports, issues, questions, and feature requests regarding the addon onto this thread.

How to use
After installing the addon, you will be able to select 3D Album View on the following node types:
- Albums
- Now Playing
- All Tracks
- Playlist

To change views, click on the dropdown on the top-right of the main screen, then click 3D Album View.

To enable or disable the tracklist, click on the dropdown on the top-right of the main screen, then click on Tracklist. It will display the contents of the currently focused album.
On Playlist nodes, the tracklist will be filtered only to tracks that are in the playlist.

You can navigate the view by scrolling the mouse wheel, pressing arrow keys, using the scroll bar, or by clicking an album cover to bring it in focus.
Right-click on a cover to bring up a context menu, and double-click on a cover to play the album. (This is disabled in Now Playing, to avoid accidentally overwriting the currently playing list.)

To change settings, you can click the Options shortcut on the top-right corner of the view.
Background color affects the background. When set to Let the skin decide, it will change depending on the skin's background color.
Text fields affects what attributes of the currently focused album are shown. Hotlink affects where you navigate when you click a line.

Current Pre-Release (beta):
1.1.1 (OUTDATED): https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprrt5GNMpVlov07bYGag
Notes for 1.1.1:

• Fixed sorting sometimes not persisting after restart
• Reduced idle CPU/GPU usage*
• Made album art re-appear faster when switching nodes / changing sort order
• Fixed double clicks changing the playing list in the Playing node
• Removed the scroll bar in the Playing node

*There will be an upcoming change in v5.0.3 which will further improve idle CPU/GPU usage while the 3D view is hidden.

Current Release:
1.1.3 (release): https://www.mediamonkey.com/addons/brow ... lbum-view/

Old (beta) Versions:
1.1.0: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprrt0-6Q9 ... A?e=GO1krw
1.0.4: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprrsh3_BT5n_HrXAUjjA
0.2.7: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprrpZBAtEjfRAYNKlwOQ
0.2.6: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprrpYWifYlqfuXjJcPow
0.2.5: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprro9Ft0fShPv8MTf-NQ
0.2.4: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprroEkYXzKVf6Q2z99Qw
0.2.3: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprroEIMf_WjkG3ofN2TA
0.2.2: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqtU0X_IBc1On-tY3sA
0.2.1: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqtRdX4zEjj5MH3QKRQ
0.2.0: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqtJrfnur3qzbDEQOJA
0.1.2: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqNshXHq1V7kuzZU8tg
0.1.1: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqNseU364N7VuAvpFsA
0.1.0: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqNQ9H3pNzAHwigegjw
Pre-alpha versions (Unstable, not recommended)
0.0.6: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqNQ3y77r7dDSvpIoIA
0.0.4: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqLB7prxP0HBUww0ZTQ
0.0.1: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqLB1F10yXAzpDdrj1g

[drakinite]

Changes from 0.0.6 to 0.1.0:

1. Fixed a bug involving context menus where right-clicking in the background (i.e. not clicking on an album) will cause the tracklist menu to appear anyways, with the most recently clicked album
2. Added a proper "thumbnail not found" image to replace the silly poop emoji. Please leave your feedback on what you think of the image; it's the first version and I can tweak it if need be.

[dypsis]

Thanks for the update, Drakinite.

So, when I right click, can I only play an entire album?
Is there a way to select specific tracks?

[drakinite]

Thanks for the update, Drakinite.

So, when I right click, can I only play an entire album?
Is there a way to select specific tracks?

No problem. At the moment that's correct, but I had an idea (which I mentioned in this reply) which would allow you to select individual tracks after double clicking, because double clicking would open the dedicated album view (which includes its tracklist, like in here: https://1drv.ms/v/s!AqHzUrf30uprqNRB_vnfMmCCq2uTDA). Do you think that's a reasonable idea?

[dypsis]

No problem. At the moment that's correct, but I had an idea (which I mentioned in this reply) which would allow you to select individual tracks after double clicking, because double clicking would open the dedicated album view (which includes its tracklist, like in here: https://1drv.ms/v/s!AqHzUrf30uprqNRB_vnfMmCCq2uTDA). Do you think that's a reasonable idea?

That looks OK.
How do you close that dedicated album view?
I couldn't quite see.

[drakinite]

The back button on the top-left.

[dypsis]

The back button on the top-left.

OK.
I can't see it in the video, but that should be good.

[Striker99]

Doesn't work for me. All I get is a black screen with the song title an increasing number of errors on the top left corner.

[MBane]

This only works when you select albums and only for the specific album you pick. You can't have your entire playlist play random songs and it changes to the cover of the album currently playing like the old Monkey Flow. I know this is just Beta but the way it's currently implemented defeats the whole purpose.

I'm assuming I'm doing this right. I find MM5 very difficult to navigate.

[Lowlander]

You can use the Playing node set to the Album Art View if you want a a large Artwork of the currently playing file: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHel ... ging_Views

[IanRTaylorUK]

Thanks for the update to 0.1.0 Drakinite.

As requested I did some testing.

PREPARATION: I am a good way through setting "minimal artwork" for my Playlists, Albums, files - just one front cover in a file and a tag. I am also removing artwork that is "Not Specified" by using Tagging Inconsistencies (MMW4) and Magic Nodes (MMW4). Also found a few very large artwork files that I replaced with more reasonable sized ones! I therefore updated my MMW5 copy of ALL my files to reflect these updates. I think this has helped with speed of scrolling etc. in 3d Album view

I installed the Debug version of MMW5 and ran DbgView whilst starting MMW5 and using 3D Album View. The DbgView logs did show a few errors but I do not think these are anything to do with this Add-On e.g.

• TCoolTrayIcon.NotifySystem: Mode = 1 / TCoolTrayIcon.NotifySystem: Finished / LastError: Unspecified error
  x64MMHelper: iPhone: iTunesMobileDevice.dll couldn't be loaded, error = 87

None of previous seem to be "show-stoppers". MMW5 Debug kept running for well over an hour.

Tried a few things whilst the Add-On was in view / playing e.g. Backup Database, Optimise Database, Add & ReScan, Create Statistics Report, About, Check for Updates, Find Add-On Updates.

I then opened a few extra Windows (New Tab) - Music / My Collection called 21st Century Music / Classical ... - and set all to the 3D Album View. A flicked between them scrolling / playing / warping.

Everything behaved as expected. The "delay" when "warping" from one letter to another typical around 3s, with worse case of say 10s (when MMW5 doing other things) or several Windows in use. Even continued to work after Debug / Send Logs.

I note that the volume bar slider (lower right hand side and outside of 3D Album view) has "stereo" tool tips as it can show an "old-style" label and the equivalent theme / skin. Both say "Volume Bar".

I kept and eye on Resource Monitor and during this test 20-30% CPU, ~20% memory and normal "peaks" for disk and network.

I hope you can see that I have tried hard to "break" it and not been successful. Well-done Drakinite.

This is a really nice way to view the music collection by artwork / album. A great addition to MMW5.

[drakinite]

Doesn't work for me. All I get is a black screen with the song title an increasing number of errors on the top left corner.

Hi, could you please click the text on the top-left to copy the errors to your clipboard, and paste them either here or in a PM to me? Thanks!

This only works when you select albums and only for the specific album you pick. You can't have your entire playlist play random songs and it changes to the cover of the album currently playing like the old Monkey Flow. I know this is just Beta but the way it's currently implemented defeats the whole purpose.

I'm assuming I'm doing this right. I find MM5 very difficult to navigate.

I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble understanding the issue you're having. Could you reword/clarify, and perhaps illustrate with screenshots or a recording? At the moment, the view only works in the "Albums" node, so it should be showing all albums in the collection.

[drakinite]

PREPARATION: I am a good way through setting "minimal artwork" for my Playlists, Albums, files - just one front cover in a file and a tag. I am also removing artwork that is "Not Specified" by using Tagging Inconsistencies (MMW4) and Magic Nodes (MMW4). Also found a few very large artwork files that I replaced with more reasonable sized ones! I therefore updated my MMW5 copy of ALL my files to reflect these updates. I think this has helped with speed of scrolling etc. in 3d Album view

Thanks for continuing to give feedback, Ian.
Yes, at the moment MM5.0 - 5.0.1 generates thumbnails with the following resolutions:
- 80px
- 200px
- 500px
- Largest possible
But when Three.JS loads textures, it downscales them to the nearest power of two. So if the view requests thumbnails that are 500px wide, it'll downscale them to 256px, significantly reducing the quality. So the view is set to request thumbnails that are 512px wide. As of MM5.0 - 5.0.1, since 512px is larger than the largest hard-set dimension, it'll instead generate thumbnails at the largest possible. So as you've noticed, very large thumbnails will cause a slowdown because it has to load very large textures. (For example, if you have a 2500px thumbnail, Three.JS will resize it to 2048px). However, with 5.0.2, that will change as we'll be able to change the 500px setting to 512px. That is to say, with 5.0.2, thumbnails greater than 512px will be downscaled to a maximum of 512px. So the slowdowns you're experiencing from large textures will be resolved soon.

Everything behaved as expected. The "delay" when "warping" from one letter to another typical around 3s, with worse case of say 10s (when MMW5 doing other things) or several Windows in use. Even continued to work after Debug / Send Logs.

I'm still unable to reproduce that delay. Maybe it's because of a CPU bottleneck? (I recently upgraded my own CPU to a Ryzen 5800X, so I no longer experience many performance bottlenecks. Both a blessing and a curse.) What CPU do you have? Could you perhaps make a video recording of what you see when you get a "warp" delay?

I hope you can see that I have tried hard to "break" it and not been successful. Well-done Drakinite.

This is a really nice way to view the music collection by artwork / album. A great addition to MMW5.

[IanRTaylorUK]

Hi Drakinite,

Due to my "caution" of running MMW5 on a separate / slower hard disk, I think the speeds / times are perhaps worse case situation. Old and slow hard disk.

I had / have a little issue as somehow I generated a lot of "Not Specified" artwork, a lot of replicate artwork. I noticed this when reviewing some of the Debug logs. A lot of "steps" handling artwork I do not need. About 80% thru addressing the issue.

I am a bit of a cheap-skate where mobile phones are concerned and my Sony Xperia XZ is not "representative" of the speed of most people's phones! Minimal artwork helps keep my Android devices performing acceptably.

My Windows PC is also a decade or so old and sports a Ivy Bridge Intel Core i7 3770 3.40 Ghz on a Pegatron 2AD5 motherboard with 32 Gb of 800 mHz Dual Channel DDR3 RAM. Graphics is a humble GeForce GT640. So my "benchmark" is say 1,000 to 2,000 and your is probably over 10,000

I can't remember the details but I think some of the SATA ports on the motherboard are slower and I am fairly certain MMW5 runs with the library on a disk connected to one of the slower ports. So as I say, there are several reasons it is slow!

Hoping to get another SSD soon to help with speed / errors etc.

Hope this helps.

[drakinite]

Now uploaded version 0.1.1: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqHzUrf30uprqNseU364N7VuAvpFsA
Changes since 0.1.0:

1. Added scrolling via the mouse wheel
2. Fixed issue where jumping a large number of albums causes the thumbnails to disappear for a fraction of a second
3. Made the text size dynamic, so that it appears smaller when the window is smaller vertically