Zenses (old thread, for historical purpose)

[darylsrowland]

Hi all,
I'm making some good progress with Zenses now and thought I'd post a few teaser screenshots just to show that progress is being made .

Main Screen
From here you select your device (currently only Zen Vision:Ms are supported, but it should be easy enough to customise for other MTP compatible devices)




Loading the tracks/artists
After clicking next (above) all of the tracks are loaded into Zenses so that play counts can be worked out, recently added files can be found, etc.



Viewing Recently added files
Once all of the tracks have been processed by Zenses, you'll be taken to the main screen where you can use the main Zenses functionality. Shown below is a list of recently added tracks, but you'll also be able to view charts, last.fm details, etc.



Let me know what you think. Interface is obviously subject to changes, but this should give you a good idea of where I'm headed with Zenses.

[CrowdAds]

[Veg_United]

This is the most positive thing or development in this forum in 3 months, thanks a lot for the work and the updates, we do appreciate them. I can't wait to finally test a program from this forum. I've lost all hope of Absolutely ever being released again

[Hwoarang]

Thanks a lot indeed. Can't wait for a relase. I wonder though, Is last.fm working now? How did you solve it in that case?

[andresu84]

Nice job. I can't wait for it.

[darylsrowland]

All of the functionality is there for last.fm... I can get play counts, have realised that I can just make up a time/date between now and the previous sync (for last.fm's date requirement)... just need to work out the protocol today and figure out how to upload the stats.

Hopefully I'll make enough progress to be able to release a preview download by the weekend.

Thanks for all your nice comments... you'll all be able to test it soon and give me your feedback then as well.

[P30]

good work... the last.fm feature is really what we needed for zvm

[Hao]

Looking real good! Can't wait for it being released.

[Lawrence]

what is last fm?

[bronzemedal97]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last.fm
http://www.last.fm

[eddie74]

well, if you lost hope of absolutely zen ever being released then perhaps you should spend about the last 3 months of your life for free and see if it makes progress any faster. Sorry people, but it is the holidays after all and I DO have a business to run also. I am working as fast as I can but as you know, there are very few people working on my software for free what else do you want?

[eddie74]

by the way daryl congratulations and great work.

[darylsrowland]

Eddie, once I've got the code all sorted I'll send you it... not sure if it'll be useful for what you're doing but there may be bits and bobs you can use. Keep up the good work mate! Hope you've had a good break

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by bronzemedal97

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last.fm
http://www.last.fm

oh so last.fm is like pandora. nice. and eddie i haven't lost hope.

[mr_infinity]

eddie74 - please ignore the nattering nabobs, most of us understand and appreciate your efforts

to both you and darylsrowland - thank you very much for your efforts - I look forward to seeing the fruits of your hard work - I must admit that I'm a bit puzzled on what differentiates what you are working on - any hints appreciated

[ZenChick]

Originally Posted by eddie74

well, if you lost hope of absolutely zen ever being released then perhaps you should spend about the last 3 months of your life for free and see if it makes progress any faster. Sorry people, but it is the holidays after all and I DO have a business to run also. I am working as fast as I can but as you know, there are very few people working on my software for free what else do you want?

Eddie, your work here IS greatly appreciated! There's no need to get defensive; I don't think people realize that these are two completely different projects going on, and don't mean to imply that anyone is slacking.

*hugs*

[darylsrowland]

OK... slight problem!

Well, kind of a good news/bad news situation...

The good:

- Zenses can now work out which tracks have been played since your last sync with it
- I've written a plugin for last.fm which works (have tested by submitting various tracks and it does work)

The bad:

- Last.fm seems to have some sort of spam detection to prevent you submitting tracks dated earlier than your last submission. So for example, if you were using a WMP lastfm plugin your tracks are submitted more or less as you listen to them.
With Zenses, however, we'll need to submit the tracks after your last submission - not sure how we'll be able to get this though :s

I guess there must be a way round this as there is an ipod plugin for last.fm. Anyone know how that works? Got any ideas?

Cheers,
-Daryl.

[djmspringcreek]

Couldn't you have it submit the dates as the exact time and date that you sync the Zen? If not, could you have the program wait an hour and then send the tracks?

[darylsrowland]

Yeah that is a possibility actually. Looking into it, you can post up to 24 hours in advance of the current time, and each track seems to need to be separated by at least 15 seconds.

So I could implement it so that it submits from now, adding 15 seconds to each submission. That might work!

I've just set up a forum at http://www.zenses.org/forum where I'll be posting more info of Zenses going forward.

I also need a few people to volunteer to test Zenses. I had initially planned to release test versions to everyone but don't think this is a good idea as if it isn't working it could mess up last.fm.

So, if you want to become a Zenses tester please register your interest on http://zenses.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4.

Cheers,
-Daryl.

[Machiventa]

Originally Posted by darylsrowland

OK... slight problem!

Well, kind of a good news/bad news situation...

The good:

- Zenses can now work out which tracks have been played since your last sync with it
- I've written a plugin for last.fm which works (have tested by submitting various tracks and it does work)

The bad:

- Last.fm seems to have some sort of spam detection to prevent you submitting tracks dated earlier than your last submission. So for example, if you were using a WMP lastfm plugin your tracks are submitted more or less as you listen to them.
With Zenses, however, we'll need to submit the tracks after your last submission - not sure how we'll be able to get this though :s

I guess there must be a way round this as there is an ipod plugin for last.fm. Anyone know how that works? Got any ideas?

Cheers,
-Daryl.

sweet! good to hear the last.fm thing is coming along and i'm sure alot of people will really appreciate your hard work once it's released. i'll let people know over at last.fm (both admins and the zen groups) that there's an option to scrobble the zvm when you release it.

as far as the ipod scrobbler there's a few of them: audiopod+, yamipod, isproggler and maybe a couple more (for windows at least). i'm familiar with the ones i mentioned and with audiopod+ which IMO is the easiest program to use, you just plug in your ipod, and you have to be sure that you didn't play any songs on your pc player as the same time as you listened to your ipod tracks and also you have to make sure you don't listen to anything on your pc player right before you sync your ipod to the scrobbling program or it'll trigger that damn spam protection thing. then once you sync the ipod, the program lists all the tracks you've listened to and their time and date in a window. then you just click submit. pretty sweet and if you can make it happen for the zvm i know tons of people will love you! lol.

hope that helps.

good luck man!!!!

[darylsrowland]

OK, I've got a test version of Zenses working now, and the Zenses testers have been given access to it.

You can view updated screenshots here:

http://www.zenses.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10

And we also think we've found a Creative bug. So have a look at the link below, try it out on your Zen, and report it to Creative if you have the same problem:

http://www.zenses.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7