CraigD

Sorry - for the late reply, I really don't use this site much (apart from to announce new releases).

There are 2 ways which Cantata controls MPD:

"Basic" - where Cantata starts its own (per-user) instance of MPD. With this setting, Cantata configures the MPD folders, etc, for you.

"Standard" - This is the normal case where MPD is run system wide, or on another machine. Here Cantata cannot configure MPD - so it is up to you to alter MPD's config file, etc. to suit your settings.

Seeing as you are seeing the "Host:" option, then this would imply your are using a "Standard" collection. If so, then configuring MPD is a manual step, and Cantata cannot help with this. - May 18 2018

Sorry - for the late reply, I really don't use this site much (apart from to announce new releases).

There are 2 ways which Cantata controls MPD:

"Basic" - where Cantata starts its own (per-user) instance of MPD. With this setting, Cantata configures the MPD folders, etc, for you.

"Standard" - This is the normal case where MPD is run system wide, or on another machine. Here Cantata cannot configure MPD - so it is up to you to alter MPD's config file, etc. to suit your settings.

Seeing as you are seeing the "Host:" option, then this would imply your are using a "Standard" collection. If so, then configuring MPD is a manual step, and Cantata cannot help with this. - May 18 2018

Sorry - for the late reply, I really don't use this site much (apart from to announce new releases). Cantata is now a Qt only app, therefore cannot support KDE's global shortcuts. That said, most of Cantata's actions are available via dbus. "qdbus mpd.cantata /cantata listActions" will list all available actions. There is also a "cantata-remote" shell script to help invoking the commands. e.g. "/usr/share/cantata/scripts/cantata-remote cantata playpausetrack" will cause the play/pause action to be triggered. Using this, you should be able to use KDE's global keyboard settings to connect shortcuts to an invocation of this script. - May 18 2018

Use the menu button in the lower left of the library view, and select 'Sort Albums' > 'Name' - Aug 11 2016

Would have thought this issue would also be present in 1.5.2 Anyway, will be fixed for 2.0.1 (already is in 2.0 branch and master)

Also, please use the github issue tracker for bug reports. - Jan 29 2016

I guess a connection attempt could be made, etc. to make things simpler. I'll accept patches to do this...

Does not affect my use case - where MPD is running on a Pi2

I agree, that MPD is not really meant for local file playback (or at least, that's not its strength). But, it is useful to be able to playback some local files. Again, seeing as my MPD is on another machine, I do use the in-built http server for this use-case (and for playing AudioCDs)

Yes, the HTTP server is in-process, and Cantata should remove any localy served files from the playqueue when it closes. I guess a separate cantata-http helper could be written (like cantata-dynamic) to serve the files... - Aug 05 2015

Cantata gets its metadata from MPD - so the issue will probably be there. - Aug 05 2015

Well Cantata *can* playback local non-MPD files - it has a minimal embedded HTTP server which it uses to serve files to MPD. (I use this to play AudioCDs from my laptop out of MPD running on my Pi 2)

And as for 0 config - as long as MPD is using its defaults, then this too can work. Or at the least, provide a system-wide default Cantata config. - Aug 02 2015

Cantata itself does not play any files - files are played by MPD. Any playback issues are issues with MPD, not Cantata.

MPD supplies Cantata with a list of files, and Cantata asks MPD to play certain files - that's basically it. It's MPD that is playing the files.

I've never used DSF, etc. - but do these have 1 file per track? How does one song have multiple sample rates?

I guess, if there is more than 1 file per track (e.g. two files, with different samples rates in each) then Cantata could be adding the wrong file to the playqueue. - Mar 25 2015

Yeah, I agree this is not optimal. Will be fixed for 1.4.2.

Also, please use the googlecode page to report bugs. - Sep 16 2014

You have used another tool to create ReplayGain tags, and MPD itself is in charge of reading these and playing back the file. So, how is this a Cantata issue? All Cantata does is control which ReplayGain mode (none, auto, track, album) that MPD shoud use. I'd check your version of MPD, and your MPD settings.

As for Cantata, it can read and update the ReplayGain tags. The code used to calculate this is preformed by libebur128. If you start the Cantata ReplayGain dialog with your pre-tagged files, does it show the existing ReplayGain settings? - Aug 25 2014

What tag format do they use? ID3? Is it supported by TagLib? - Aug 14 2014

...for 1.5.0, the preferences dialog in Qt-only builds can now be shrunk less than 600px high. This is for Qt only though, not KDE - I /think/ the KDE widget is causing the dialog to be larger... - Aug 12 2014

I guess you are referring to the preferences dialog. Yeah, this is a bit bigger than that - sorry. Had a quick play to allow resizing to a smaller size, and it didn't work out (it allowed the pages to shrink too small). I don't have a netbook with Linux, so the size is not an issue for me.

Still, Cantata is open source - so if it bothers you that much, I'll gladly accept a patch. - Aug 10 2014

Windows? Use the windows uninstall.

Linux? Use your pacakge manager - assuming this is how you installed.

If not, do it by hand. - Aug 10 2014

Add stream to favouries does work - I have just tried. Both from the playqueue, and from the streams tab.

However, favourite streams are now saved in an MPD playlist - so if you have playlists disabled, or not configured correctly, then you will have issues.

Minimise to system tray is already there - and has been for some time.

kde-apps is not the place for reporting bugs, etc - please use the googlecode page. - Jul 23 2014

1. It is "title - artist" because in some tracks artist=albumArtist, in which case you have (e.g.) "01 SongName". For others the artist might be "album artist featuring X" in which case you would have "01 Song Name - artist ft X" In both cases the *title* comes first. This is consistent.

2. Cantata itself can already edit most tags (those supplied by MPD). If there was an XDG compliant way of calling (e.g.) xdg-open -edit filename.mp3 then I would do this. However, I dont feel like adding yet an other config item to pick an external tag editor. (The context-view is now read-only - even lyrics will be edited in an external editor from 1.4.0 onwards)

3. It shows information about the song. But, this probably will not work for classical music. It attempts to get info from wikipedia or last.fm

4a. Really? The text is elided - so if there is too much info the "song by artist" would still get displayed (unless there is still too little space). So, you might have "Song Name by Track Artist on The Album" which /might/ get truncated to "Song Name by Track Artist on ..." and you are complaining that its no "Song Name -Track Artist". Splitting hairs...

4b. Not sure why the partial translation - as the same piece of code is used. However, trunk has *not* been sent out to tranlsators just yet - and will not until I have decided to make no more string changes. - Jun 15 2014

If you can, please checkout the trunk version - this should be fixed now.

(Instructions are on the googlecode page) - Jun 12 2014

Ah, you are correct! The replaygain calculation is performed by a separate helper app - the issue must be somehere here. I'll look into this, and fix for 1.4.0

For future issues, please cratea bug report on Cantata's googlecode page. - Jun 12 2014

If possible, please checkout the trunk version of cantata. The instructions are on the googlecode page. - Jun 11 2014

So, IMHO, what would be better would be to somehow display all tags (artist, album artist, composer, performer, comments, etc) in the right-most pane.

Currenty I have added (for 1.4.0) song information to the right pane. You can toggle between showing lyrics, or information. Perhaps a 3rd 'toggle' to show tags? e.g. show either lyrics, information, or tags?
- Jun 11 2014

No, in 1.4.0 it is "title - artist" Pre 1.4.0 it as "artist - title" but this has been changed. - Jun 10 2014

No, that would maken no sense. The flow is Artist -> Album -> Track. i.e. getting more specific from left -> right.

The comment field, is (probably) per-track specific (at least it would be read per-track). Therefore, it belongs on the right.

Sorry, but I really dont see theft artist-column as the best place to put it. What is in the comment field that would need to be displayed in the context view? - Jun 10 2014

Well, currently song information is not shown - only lyrics. I'm not 100% convinced that the comment field is used for song information - but then I never use this field! I know that one user is using it to store ratings, as it is a field indexed by MPD.

I could fetch song info from wikipedia, and display under the lyrics. But then things start getting messy. I need to give this more thought... - Jun 09 2014

Good point. For 1.4.0 If artist!=albumArtist, then tracks will be shown as "title - artist". This is how these are shown for various artists albums. - Jun 09 2014

Actually, as of 1.4.0 (the next version), the "Group multiple-artist albums under 'Various Artists'" has been removed.

If you have no album-artist set for an album with multiple-artists, then I suggest you set one. - Jun 06 2014

Can you send me an email? I have a pre-release version I'd like you to try. (I have no touch devices myself, so cant test)

My email address is in the AUTHORS file. - Apr 17 2014

In touch mode, how do you add songs to the playqueue? Do you press and hold to get the context menu?

There is som e Qt code that I can use to make the views 'flickable' but it interferes with the selection... - Apr 17 2014

I don't actually use the windows version - I created it so my wife could use it on her latop if she wanted, but never did!

Cantata is currently being ported to Ubuntu Touch. But this version wont have dynamic playlists, tag editing, etc. I suppose that this /might/ make it easier to port to other touch environments. - Apr 17 2014

You need to install the cantata-dynamic perl script as a service on your raspberry pi.

There are some example init scripts in the dynamic/init folder of the source tarball. the main Cantata README also has a section about this - "Dynamic Helper Script - Server Mode"

When setup, you need to configure Cantata with the port number that you have configured your cantata-dynamic to use. - Apr 16 2014

Yes. KDE builds uses KDE's global keyboard shortcut support. Qt (Linux) build use GNOME settings. - Apr 13 2014

Why don't you just compile Cantata for 12.04? You can build Cantata as a Qt-only app - i.e. there is no need for KDE libs. - Mar 23 2014

Ummm... how does it not support this? Cantata uses QFile to write files - it does not care about the filesystem.

Cantata will save covers in either the music folder (if Cantata is configured with the correct 'Music folder' and the option to save here is enabled), or it will save into your XDG cache folder (~/.cache/cantata/covers) - Mar 12 2014

First of all, please use the bug-tracker at cantata.googlecode.com to report bugs.

As to the issue, never seen this. Which build? KDE4? Qt4? Qt5?

Please re-build cantata with debug symbols enabled, pass "-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug" to cmake. Then run cantata from within gdb (e.g. from a commandline "gdb ./cantata"). When the crash happens, type "where" (without quotes), and post the result. - Mar 11 2014

Cantata *DOES* read from USLT in id3 tags - but only if it can access the file.

Also, it reads lyrics from LYRICS tag for FLAC, Opus, Vorbis, and Speex files. - Mar 02 2014

Please try 1.3.1 - I've modifed the build to explicitly link against pthread. - Mar 01 2014

Thank you for your kind words, glad you like the program :-) - Jan 27 2014

...instead of tiling, the image is now draw in the centre. Better? - Dec 24 2013

1. Weird, I have never seen this. All I can suggest is that you run Cantata from a command line using:

CANTATA_DEBUG=4160 cantata

...this will cause the context widget, and network accecss, to gbe logged to ~/.cache/cantata/cantata.log The details of this should help fixing. Also, please report bugs via Cantata's bug tracker.

See the README file for details of how cantata saves/loads backdrops, covers, etc. (Section 5)

2. Stretch the image? You mean distort the aspect ratio? No way, that'd look terrible! - Dec 24 2013

...and in trunk, context view backdrop now resizes. - Dec 23 2013

Bottom and top bars with small icons now implemented in trunk. - Dec 23 2013

1. Agreed - and I had thought about this for a future relelease.

2. Not 100% convinced. Looks awful to me. However, as always, patches are welcome :-)

3. Your screenshot does not show the bottom bar. Anyway, this 'bottom bar' was only ever added when I attempted an android port (which I aborted, as it just didnt work very well)

4. Backdrops are saved in artist folder. e.g. if you have

mpd_dir = /var/lib/mpd/music
file: /var/lib/mpd/music/Artist/Album/File.mp3

...then backdrop.jpg will be saved into /var/lib/mpd/music/Artist. The exception to this is for Various Artists albums, these backdrops are saved in user's cache folder. - Dec 23 2013

1. Option to have context always collapsed into a single pane is now in trunk. However, even in 1.2.x each pane is resizable via a splitter, so you can just hide the ones you dont want.

2. Thanks, but I'm not sure where I'd use the monochrome icons.

3. Cantata can already read lyrics from ID3 tags - but you cannot update them.

4. I have heard of beets, but have never used it. - Dec 23 2013

Actually, please use the following to start Cantata instead:

CANTATA_DEBUG=4608 cantata


...this will log more info. - Dec 20 2013

Most radio station URLs point to .pls or .m3u files - and MPD will not play these. So, Cantata will download the first 1k of data of a stream - and check if it is a playlist (pls, m3u, etc). If so it dsecodes this, and looks for an actual stream URL. If it finds one, it send this to MPD, otherwise it falls back to the original URL.

For some reason the above is not working for you in 1.2, but is in 1.1.

Please do the following:

1. Remove any items from MPDs play queue.
2. Stop Cantata
3. Restart Cantata as follows:

CANTATA_DEBUG=512 cantata

4. Load your stream as before.
5. When the error occurs stop Cantata

Cantata should now have logged some debug info into ~/.cache/cantata/cantata.log Please email this file to me. My email address is in the AUTHORS file.

Also, in future please open a bug report for issues. Thanks. - Dec 20 2013

...also, how are you adding the stream? From a saved favourite, or just adding the URL to the playqueue?

If its from a favourite, what name have you given the station? - Dec 19 2013

Just tried, and my streams play ok.

Which stream is failing? Is this a KDE, Qt4, Qt5, or Windows build? Are you behind a proxy? - Dec 19 2013

Yes, but what is the real point? I know which albums I've recently added, getting Cantata to display this is pretty pointless. Plus, it'd mean more data to store in Cantata's cache - slowing the read down, etc.

If you cannot query MPD using these - as in 'find artist abc added_gt 01/01/2013' then I dont see much use. If you could, then the feature would be usefull for a dynamic playlist - so that you could play new tracks, etc. - Nov 10 2013

1 is now implemented in trunk - which will be 1.2.0. - Nov 10 2013

I no longe actively use, nor maintain, QtCurve. However, there is a project (on GitHub, or projects.kde.org) that is continuing QtCurve development. I suggest you send this patch there. - Feb 25 2014