Makes No Sense At All

MPaD restyling in progress

Berrie — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:40:02 +0000

I’m currently working on a re-styling of MPaD. Here’s a first preview:

MPoD & MPaD version 1.6.3 available

Berrie — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:07:31 +0000

v1.6.3 for both MPoD and MPaD is available from the AppStore now. The most important change that many people have asked for is better handling of compilations. The apps now use the album-artist tag to group songs, and will also properly display compilations under the artist ‘Various Artists’ or whatever you have named it. Complete release notes:

Feature: Added proper handling of compilations by using the album-artist tag to group songs and display ‘Various Artists’ albums.
Feature: Made artist capitalization optional.
Feature: Show track details in browse mode.
Feature: Add ‘back to top’ button in browse mode.
Feature: Show art and number of albums in artist view (MPoD only).
Feature: Popup to quickly change between connections (MPaD only).
UI Change: Improved voice-over labels in playlist screen (MPoD only).
Bugfix: Fixed bug where data was not refreshed or inconsistent after the local cache was updated.
Bugfix: Move to discogs v2.0 api for cover art retrieval.

MPaD version 1.6.2

Berrie — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:54:22 +0000

MPaD v1.6.2 is available from the AppStore. This is a bugfix release:

Bugfix: solve cover art retrieval from Amazon.
Bugfix: solve filename handling for liner notes.
Bugfix: solve slow search performance.

Katoemba uses Twitter

Berrie — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:38:59 +0000

Short relevant updates about the Katoemba Software will be posted on Twitter from now on: http://twitter.com/#!/katoemba.

MPoD & MPaD version 1.6.1 available

Berrie — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:22:38 +0000

MPoD & MPaD v1.6.1 are available from the AppStore. These new versions contain numerous new features, enhancements and bugfixes:

iPhone & iPad

Feature: add long press gestures for iOS 3.
Feature: capitalize all artist names to prevent duplicates.
Feature: use hostname for bonjour based servers instead of ip-address.
Feature: Added the possibility to start from another app or website via mpod://mpod.
Feature: Added possibility to play complete library from ‘Edit playlist’ action sheet.
Feature: Added actions for long press on genre lists.
UI Change: Added progress indicator back into playlist view.
UI Change: Immediate search while typing.
Bugfix: Improved stability of local cache reload.
Bugfix: Fix problem where connection to mpd server was frequently lost.
Bugfix: correctly pick up local cover art for albums with 2 artists.
Generic: tested with iOS 5.

iPad

Feature: add track time labels.
Feature: add possibility to show liner notes for an album (if available on the server).
UI Change: Don’t automatically load current artist when switching to info view.
Bugfix: only show ‘playlist’ popup once, even if edit button is hit multiple times.

MPoD & MPaD version 1.6 available

Berrie — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 08:10:25 +0000

Since a few days MPoD & MPaD v1.6 are available from the AppStore. These new versions contain numerous new features, enhancements and bugfixes:

Feature: Cover art in album (MPoD) and song lists.
Feature: Added actions for long press on song, album, artist and directory lists.
Feature: Added actions for long press on playlist for ‘add to favorites’, ‘remove from playlist’, ‘move after current track’.
Feature: Playlist editing (MPoD).
Feature: Save playlist directly from playlist window.
Feature: Show album details in album view.
Feature: Added settings to enable/disable individual sources from which to fetch cover art.
Feature: Added function to clear out all cached cover art.
Feature: Added setting to toggle the mpd consume on/off.
UI Change: Sort entries in playlist table alphabetically.
UI Change: Multiline display in playlist.
UI Change: Add/replace button replaced by setting for default click action with 4 modes.
UI Change: Separate function to clear playlist now (from edit button) in addition to clearing the playlist through hitting stop twice.
Bugfix: Improved handling of low memory situations.
Bugfix: Fix two-finger swipe under iOS 4.3.
Bugfix: Better display of stream information.
Bugfix: Fix crash on iOS 3.x when going into settings.
Bugfix: Restore correct album popup size if iPad is rotated during popup animation (MPaD).

RitMeester / MasterDrive 1.2.5 available for download

Berrie — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:36:39 +0000

Version 1.2.5 of RitMeester / MasterDrive has been released. This is a bugfix release that solves a problem that a file couldn’t be saved after a fuel refill was deleted.

MPoD & MPaD version 1.5.3 available

Berrie — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:29:41 +0000

Since a few days MPoD & MPaD v1.5.3 are available from the AppStore. Release notes for MPoD:

Feature: Extensibility via http-commands for play/stop/speakers.
Feature: Cover art retrieval via Discogs.
Feature: Song search now also looks at composer, performer and comment tags.
Feature: Improved help screen explaining all MPoD features.
UI Change: Play/pause buttons combined into one.
UI Change: Hide/show control buttons on playlist view through two-finger swipe down/up.
Bugfix: Properly present ‘play all’ in search results (related to iPad bugfix).
Bugfix: Fix lastfm support for mpd 0.16.

And for MPaD:

Feature: Extensibility via http-commands for play/stop/speakers.
Feature: Cover art retrieval via Discogs.
Feature: Support on-the-go mode (play stream directly on the iPad).
Feature: Choose artist info from last.fm or allmusic.
Feature: Song search now also looks at composer, performer and comment tags.
Feature: Improved help screen explaining all MPaD features.
UI Change: Play/pause buttons combined into one.
UI Change: Improved display of cover art.
UI Change: Hide/show cover art on playlist view through two-finger swipe down/up.
UI Change: Show bitrate after tap on cover art.
Bugfix: Fix crash that occurs when searching in the Artist view.
Bugfix: Cancel button for search now always active.
Bugfix: Fix lastfm support for mpd 0.16.

Note: there is a problem with the two-finger swipe down/up on iOS 4.3 that was not detected during testing. This will be resolved in the next release.

Cover art in MPoD and MPaD

Berrie — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 18:22:08 +0000

I often get questions regarding (missing) cover art in MPoD and MPaD. In this post I will explain what you can expect.

The apps have 2 methods of retrieving cover art. First they attempt to load the cover art from a web server, that is, if you have specified on in the settings for that specific connection. In order to use this method, a web server like apache needs to be running on the server that is hosting mpd, and it needs to share your entire music folder. As an example, here’s an extract from my apache configuration file:

Alias /music/ "/home/music/"

Options FollowSymLinks Indexes MultiViews

AllowOverride None

Order deny,allow

Deny from all

Allow from 192.168.1

This shares the music folder at http://machine-ip/music, so that address must be added in the MPoD or MPaD connection settings. Then, if you place a file named ‘Folder.jpg’ in a directory, MPoD and MPaD will use that image for all tracks in that directory. So this works well if you have organized your music per album.
If the apps can’t find a cover through this first method, they revert back to retrieving cover art from Amazon through a lookup based on artist and album name. This works often, but when there are strange characters in a title, or extra text like ‘[live disc1]‘ at the end of an album title the lookup can fail. And off course it will also fail when the music is unknown at Amazon. This may happen especially for less well known or regional music (like from the Netherlands).
Cover art that is embedded in mp3 or flac files is not accessible by the apps, because the mpd protocol currently doesn’t provide a function that pushes embedded cover art to clients.
To my knowledge, the Bryston BDP-1 doesn’t have a built-in webserver, so when using MPoD or MPaD with that player, only the 2nd, amazon based method will be used to retrieve cover art.

When? Now!

Berrie — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 18:06:25 +0000

The wait is over: MPaD is now available from the AppStore. It offers everything that MPoD does (with the exception of on-the-go mode), and then a lot more:

MPaD makes full use of the larger iPad screen.
Main functions are always available.
Full cover art display for album, artist and genre view.
Album details via popup window.
Editable playlists (remove and re-order tracks).
Large artist info view based on last.fm.