Default system player, cyrillic, ipod and logitech mouse

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Default system player, cyrillic, ipod and logitech mouse

Submitted by anamatv on Tue, 11/14/2006 - 9:10pm.

Hello there.
I really like Songbird since
- supports my multi-channel sound card, contrary to winamp
- stylish and not fat, contrary to wmp
- plays ogg and everything else, contrary to many corporate players.
However, there are certain things that I would love to see get developed. By the way, if I am mentioning something that is already in place and only needs manipulation, please let me know, I am new to songbird.
- Most of my wishes go with the support for multi-media keyboards and mice. I have logitech keyboard and a MediaPlay mouse. The keyboard integrates with songbird just fine, however the multimedia functions (back and forward for the browser and play/pause, next/previous track, open media application for the player) of the mouse do not function for songbird. I am not sure why, I'm quite confused with this. I think this has to do with the software provided by logitech. For one reason or another it does not recognize Songbird as a media player. My operating system as a whole doesn't recognize Songbird as the default music player (Win XP). May be if Songbird would "let the os know about itself" then this issue would be solved. If it is something that can be tweaked from inside songbird - that would be lovely (since the functions of the mouse work in wmp, itunes, winamp and even media player classic). If not, then nevermind.
- For some reason the cyrillic artists appear on the top of the list, above latin-character artists in the library. WMP and iTunes have the order is such: Latin character on top, Cyrillic on the bottom. WinAmp and SongBird are the other way around. Is it possible to have an option to pick the order of character sets displayed in the library? I personally prefer Latin characters on top.
- I'd love for Songbird to be able to handle video files as well, that would just force me to delete WMP all together from my machine.
- Finally, full iTunes-like iPod integration would allow me to get rid of iTunes forever and god, do I hate iTunes.

I guess for now I am mostly concerned with mouse compatibility - it's incredibly convenient and one of the last things keeping me attached to corporate media players.
Cheers, anamatv

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MonkeyFit Says: Wed, 11/15/2006 - 3:02am

1. Uninstall Logitech software. It's horrible and screws up the computer. Multimedia keyboards will be handled just fine by the drivers provided with XP. However, make sure your media keys on your mouse still work in other media players. If they do, your keyboard and mouse problem should be solved. You can set hotkeys for media functions in File>Preferences>Hotkeys.

Step 2. Use File>Open and browse to a Video file. Songbird should play videos just fine. They use VLC for their playback core on Windows right now. So anything that VLC plays, Songbird should also play...in theory.

3. Download the iPod Device extension from Windjay and install it in Songbird. This will give you the ability to put music on Your iPod. But people have met with limited success. It is still being developed and experimented with. But hopefully it shouldn't be long before it's able to sync with Songbird. Read the list of known issues and the release notes.

4. Before you go deleting your other media players, keep in mind that by the creators' own admission, Songbird is nowhere near ready to replace any other media player. They can't even rip/burn/play CDs right now. So you may want to keep a program around in case you find Songbird is currently incapable of it.

anamatv Says: Sun, 11/19/2006 - 4:37pm

Thank you so much for the answers. I will try it all right now, since I finally have a little bit of free time.
I've tried Windjay and, as you've said, I've met it with limited success. But it's getting there. I love things like firefox and anything that's created by people for people (not, by jerks for money). Thanks again. anamatv

ErikStaats Says: Sun, 11/19/2006 - 4:27pm

Hopefully, my latest work will produce better results with the iPod. I'm porting it from Javascript to C++, so I can use the libgpod library, so it may be a bit buggy at first. However, it will provide a much better set of features and user experience.

anamatv Says: Sun, 11/19/2006 - 9:36pm

Hey Erik,
To be specific, the bug i had was this: all the songs up to coldplay (123 thru B) did not have their id3 tags. i may be able to fix this by re-mounting the ipod, but i haven't tried that yet.

anamatv Says: Sun, 11/19/2006 - 9:47pm

Well, i've tried uninstalling all the logitech software (which is total crap, by the way). However, it did not produce the result. XP can handle the primitive media KEYBOARD commands and Songbird then uses the Global Hotkeys - which explains why the keyboard can control the volume, pause, etc in the Songbird. On the other hand my pet peeve (and issue at hand here) is that WITH or WITHOUT the SetPoint software provided my Logitech none of the media commands coming from the mouse get recognized by songbird. Without the driver software, pressing media buttons on the mouse does nothing. And I can't assign a songbird-specific hotkey, because those hotkeys are only good for keyboard buttons. Now, I've even tried to make an application-specific command thru setpoint by using uberOptions extension... That did nothing as well.
I now understand that this is unlikely to be songbird's fault, since it is setpoint that doesn't support songbird, not the other way around. However, would you know of a possible work-around? Maybe an extension? Or, and this is a random guess, a potential third-party software non-spefic to mouse-brand that can handle mouse-button assignments?

MonkeyFit Says: Mon, 11/20/2006 - 2:39am

hmmmmmm. I was afraid this would happen. I didn't know for sure because I only have a Logitech keyboard, and have only seen the media mouse online. Is there anyway you can completely uninstall the mouse, including the drivers? If so, I want you to try installing JUST the drivers for the mouse. To do this, when XP detects your mouse, and goes into the hardware setup, tell it to search for drivers in a specific folder. The folder you want is within the .exe that starts the SetPoint setup. You can use a program like 7-zip to extract the files out of there. I believe the specific folder you want to point the hardware setup to is %folder-you-extracted-the-files-to%\setpoint310\1-SetPoint\Win2K_XP. If it doesn't come up with any drivers, try telling it to search %folder-you-extracted-the-files-to%\setpoint310\. After it installs just the drivers for it, see if the media keys work for any other programs in Windows, like WMP/iTunes/Winamp. If that still doesn't work, I would try doing a Google search for the 3rd party software that can handle mouse button assignments.

I never realized how long-winded I can be. Sorry :/

mig Says: Tue, 11/21/2006 - 10:40pm

You should email logitech and tell them to support us.

They have to hardcode support for every media player to make it compatible with their software -- they don't fall back to using the windows default key values.

Yes, logitech frustrates us too. Sorry.

singsaenger Says: Sun, 03/02/2008 - 9:33pm

I use Logitech SetPoint with my wireless Logitech keyboard and it works just fine with Songbird, perhaps it was not working with older editions because I just recently installed both programs.

singsaenger Says: Sun, 03/02/2008 - 9:38pm

About your comment on the video support, I believe that video support would be great for Songbird. I know that it is only supposed to be an audio player, but it would be nice for it to be a universal media player that will knock out Windows Media Player. It would be really neat to have it do all those things. Perhaps we could even get it to play DVD video using codecs from Windows Essentials Codec Pack which is also released under the Gnu GPL. These might not have to be included in the Songbird software, but perhaps as add ons.

mig Says: Mon, 03/03/2008 - 12:54pm

Why do people always say this?

We play video just fine, thank you.