Shortcut for previewing music/mp3s

[sokk]

What would've been a useful feature to me is the ability to "stream" an mp3, to listen to music before I download it.

It shouldn't be too difficult, just open the unfinished file using winamp or the default mp3-player.

Maybe have an option in other users' filelists:
Right Click -> Preview audio. Wait until 150 kb is downloaded and start playing it (by shell executing the unfinished file), or maybe implement some "smart" system that calculates when it should start playing by the download rate. (Eg. if it's at > 12 kb/s it could start playing the file right away if the file is 128 kbps).

How about that?

[Todi]

It shouldn't be too difficult, just open the unfinished file using winamp or the default mp3-player.

What's stopping you from doing that manually right now?

[GargoyleMT]

I've looked into this a bit. I wouldn't ever offer it from search, because it would encourage users to waste the bandwidth of others when deciding which copy to use, but for currently downloading files, I've thought of it.

It'd be "nicer" to work on a temporary copy of the audio file (though only .mp3 might be supported - investigating which formats can be streamed/previewed is a lot more trouble than I think it's worth), unless you wanted to test a bunch of players to see how they behaved previewing a file that DC had a write lock on.

As a sidenote, do you know there are at least two AVIPreview programs? 'tis true.

[sokk]

What's stopping you from doing that manually right now?

Nothing is stopping me from doing it manually. - I do this all the time.

Why do DC++ have a "View As Text"-option? To simplify the process. This is what I'm proposing here, only for music.

I have downloaded the source code from the CVS repository, and I'm currently looking through it. Learning how it's put together.

I have traced the "View As Text" stuff, and how the functions uses flags to tag it to be viewed as text. So it shouldn't be too hard adding a Preview feature. The only thing I haven't found yet is where the menu is created (so that I can add the "Preview" menu item). (I've been doing this using a standard text editor)

Anyways, I have programmed mainly in Delphi (my programming experience) - so it'll take some time getting the tools (Microsoft Platform SDK). That's why I posted it here: Because there are probably people here more proficient with the DC++ source code than me. This feature seems very easy to implement. I'll probably do it myself, if no other is willing.

[sokk]

I've looked into this a bit. I wouldn't ever offer it from search, because it would encourage users to waste the bandwidth of others when deciding which copy to use, but for currently downloading files, I've thought of it.

I would've placed it in the file list browser. I often use DC++ to find new music. Usually by searching up artists I like, and browse the users that have the music - To see if we share some taste in music. This is where such a feature would excel for me: To check out some of the other music, without having to wait too long for the files to download.

Having it in the currently downloading files would've been nice too. Maybe have the option to manually associate (locally in DC++, not in Windows) avi-files and such with avipreview-software? (as you mentioned)

On a sidenote: I usually buy the music I like.

[Todi]

Aha. I believe StrongDC (and probably other dc++ mods as well) has this feature, you might want to have a look in that source and see if it helps any =)

[GargoyleMT]

Aha. I believe StrongDC (and probably other dc++ mods as well) has this feature, you might want to have a look in that source and see if it helps any =)

Me? I prefer not to look at other mods, if possible, it prevents me from coding things the right way.

[Todi]

Lol, no actually it was meant for sokk