Re: [emms-help] some notes on EMMS

[Jorgen Schaefer]

Tom Tromey <address@hidden> writes:

> * It seems weird that the default playlist buffer name starts with a
>   space.  This means it doesn't show up in the buffer menu, etc.
>   How about removing that space?

The default minimal behavior of EMMS is not to have a visible
playlist at all - the playlist buffer is just a data structure
with no real interaction capability. This changes only when
`emms-playlist-mode' is used.

I guess `emms-setup' should set `emms-playlist-buffer-name' if it
sets up `emms-playlist-mode' for use?

> * Maybe just `emms' could be an alias for
> `emms-playlist-mode-go'?

Sounds good.

> * emms-playlist-mode should have a 'mode-class setting:
>
>     (put 'emms-playlist-mode 'mode-class 'special)
>
>   See `Major Mode Conventions' in the elisp ref.

Yes.

> * I found the former while looking for a toolbar.  It would be cool if
>   emms-playlist-mode set a toolbar with buttons for pause/play/etc.
>   Perhaps in conjunction with this there could be a new command to
>   show the playlist in a new frame... I disable the toolbar by default
>   but if this were in a dedicated frame I would enable it there.  One
>   issue is the icons, but Gnome and KDE both seem to have nice ones.

If anyone writes the code, and the emms-playlist-mode.el people
apply it, why not? (Or maybe have a separate file? I have no idea
about toolbars, and I don't use the playlist-mode)

> * Initially EMMS was using xine, since apparently that is all I have
>   installed.  (I have "aplay" from ALSA, but I don't know if that is
>   different from "alsaplay" or if alsaplay is a Debian name, or
>   what...?).  Anyway xine insisted on showing a graphical display and
>   after digging through the source I found that this is a xine
>   limitation, so I installed mplayer.  I don't know what to suggest
>   here; maybe this could be mentioned in the manual?

Could you write up something for this? Using mpg321 here myself, I
never had this problem, and I haven't heard about it from anyone
else. :-)

> * Should the "UI" functions from emms-volume.el have ";;;###autoload"
>   comments?  What about emms-playlist-mode-go?  (This kind of thing is
>   nicer for ELPA users, FWIW.  At least IMO.)

Sounds good.

> * Finally, I wrote some EMMS support code to go with my `status'
>   module.  status.el provides an Emacs interface to the Gnome/KDE
>   notification area, via a hacked up zenity (the zenity is in Gnome
>   bugzilla -- this is all far from ideal; I'd like to get this support
>   directly into Emacs instead).
>
>   Anyway, on the off chance that someone wants to go through the
>   effort of setting this up, I've attached emms-status.el.  This puts
>   a button in the status tray; left-click pauses or plays; the tooltip
>   shows the current song; and there is a menu (well, something is
>   broken but the code is there :-) letting you access a few other EMMS
>   functions.

Sounds nifty. Not using Gnome nor KDE, I won't have use for it,
but if anyone else wants to add this to emms, go ahead.


Some clarification on the "yes" and "sounds good" stuff above:

EMMS is very modular. I use maybe three of the over 40 elisp files
in the distribution. All files have respective "maintainers",
people that use the file and know how it works. It's their job to
change them, because they know much better than anyone else
whether that gives the correct behavior, and where they want the
respective statements in their files.

So, this is just a "yeah, sounds like you're right", the
respective maintainers need to step up and apply it to their stuff
:-)

Regards,
        -- Jorgen

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