• Registered: 2008-10-29
  • Posts: 4

Topic: Cog Library and Development Help

Hello,
I recently migrated to OS X as my full-time platform for office and home.  I was on Windows for years and then had a brief two year stint with Ubuntu.  Anyway, I love my music collection and I take it very seriously.  I absolutely detest what iTunes does to my pristine directory structure.  Not to mention how much of a pig it is with memory and cpu resources.  I played a key role in the development of a Java-based music organizer/player called Jukes(http://melloware.com).  This project is now pretty much defunct and I am trying to find a home for my music collection.  Cog is the best player I have found out there on OS X.  It's simple and lightweight.  Very lightweight.  Maybe too lightweight?  I mean I love the small memory/cpu footprint but I just think that Cog needs some kind of ability to manage a collection.  Is this in your plans at all?  The killer app for me is Media Monkey.  I think it has everything you could possibly want in a media player but its for Windows only. 

Also, what's the status on contributing developers?  I would help develop this if necessary.  I have a grasp on C++ but have never programmed Cocoa specific stuff.  I just have the sense that with the recent influx of power users moving to Mac that many of them will be looking for a music player that puts the music collection first and not the store. 
Larry

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  • Registered: 2007-07-08
  • Posts: 573

Re: Cog Library and Development Help

  • Zitz
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  • Registered: 2007-07-31
  • Posts: 218

Re: Cog Library and Development Help

And I am sure any help with the coding would be appreciated.

on trac.cogx.org there is a list of bugs and features waiting to be implemented.

It would be great if you could pitch in. Most of us on this forum can only throw in suggestions.

  • Registered: 2008-10-29
  • Posts: 4

Re: Cog Library and Development Help

  • Registered: 2007-07-08
  • Posts: 790

Re: Cog Library and Development Help

There is a new spotlight window in the nightly builds which kinda gives you some library-like filtering abilities. I don't like libraries and it's unlikely Cog will have one.

If you'd like to contribute, just send me an email with the patch and your sourceforge username. If it passes muster, I'll add you to the commit list and you can commit directly to the subversion repository.

  • Registered: 2008-10-29
  • Posts: 4

Re: Cog Library and Development Help

Thanks for the reply.  I'll check it out.  Let me ask you this.  Is your vision for more of a song-centric player or an album-centric player?  I love the album and I really dislike how iTunes has kind of destroyed the concept of an album. 

I like Cog a lot.  It's just that when I am looking for something in my 500GB collection, a directory tree just doesn't cut it.  I need to be able to filter on genre/year or better yet browse by album cover.  All my music is in Artist/Album directory format.  Each album directory has a cover.jpg in it.  Couldn't we do a cover art browser without adding a library? 

I want to help on this project but I just want to see what your plans are for the future and if my skills/ideas will be useful. 
Larry

  • From: Melbourne, Australia
  • Registered: 2008-08-13
  • Posts: 8

Re: Cog Library and Development Help

  • Registered: 2007-07-08
  • Posts: 790

Re: Cog Library and Development Help

Interesting idea. It would be nice to have multiple views for the file tree, but I'm not a fan of putting the album art there. What would happen if you closed the file tree? I think it's spot in the inspector is a better fit.

  • From: Melbourne, Australia
  • Registered: 2008-08-13
  • Posts: 8

Re: Cog Library and Development Help

vspader: if you close it, it goes away.... which is fine - people who don't want the file tree can see the art using the inspector.

I dislike inspectors - they are really meant as temporary views but in cog's case, I want the art view always there.

Do you leave inspectors always open in all your apps?

Last edited by atariboy (2009-04-10 10:35:49)