Miscellaneous items

[scloughley]

I have just stumped up the $9.99, very willingly, for this great little program. It's the first time in a long time I've actually bought software. Like you Marcus, I have been wondering for over a year why all of this couldn't be done on a portable device, especially since the only product other than iTunes that seems to work well is JUICE, which has some significant shortcomings ALL OF WHICH are addressed in Podtrapper. And catching podcasts over the air on a time schedule is exactly what I wanted. So again, marvellous work and thank you.
Here is some feedback and suggestions:
1. The Blackberry is the domain of the more nerdy technical types, like me, compared to iPhone and iPod. Because it's generally less sexy as a user experience, we "power users" rely on keyboard shortcuts. I would suggest you pepper the product with single key shortcuts for all functions required to play back. Ideally, user-definable keys but not necessary. That way, when we are cycling or driving and we want, for example, to delete the current (crap) podcast and automatically go to the next we know to just hit key "n" or "d" or something like that.
2. The playlist is my primary interface, yet it's clunky and the "main" screen where all the podcasts with the nice graphics and summaries are always seems to be "home base". Any way to re-engineer things such the the user can operate primarily via the playlist?
3. Volume. Does PodGrabber use the default BB player to play back? When I'm cycling and listening, and on a windy day you do need to crank the volume to the maximum for spoken podcasts such as interviews. But if I play the same MP3 file just as a music clip through the regular Curve8900 the volume seems to go much higher. So...you have your own player or else there's something about the way you access the BB player than somehow affects the volume output? It would be great for it to be able to play much louder, basically.
4. Wake up calls. Here's a cool one....how about linking the Alarm of the BB clock to the playlist, such that we can waken to our podcast queue? That would be a "nice to have", but fairly cool I think. Not sure if the clock has a suitable API though.

Again, great work and glad to be a contributor. I also read your entire document describing the development project and found it fascinating.

[marwatk]

Hi there,

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm always open to new keyboard shortcuts, just let me know what you're after and I'll get them in there.

I'm definitely willing to alter how the playlist screen works, but since it's a list of episodes as opposed to a list of podcasts I'm not sure how to best approach it. Any ideas?

PodTrapper does use the internal player for playback, what I think you're seeing in the built in player is the 'volume boost' feature, which as far as I've been able to tell you can't access in a third party player I'll post on the RIM forums just to make sure.

I can definitely implement an 'Alarm clock' like interface in PodTrapper, it's actually on my todo list. I'm just working out the details so it's reliable, don't want anyone missing their marathon because of PodTrapper

Let me know if you think of anything else!

-Marcus

[scloughley]

Great, let me have a think about the playlist design item and get back to you. I look forward to more on the volume issue. Regarding shortcut keys I would start with the 3 Play Next items. Especially Play Next (Delete). Thanks Marcus.

Will
I look forward

[scloughley]

Hello Marcus
Some more input for you.
1. On the main menu Settings/Keyboard Settings you allow the user to define how far he/she wants to go with the 4 keys mapped to Rewind a little, Rewind a lot, Forward a little, Forward a lot (keys Q,W,O,P).
But then there's a rogue one (it seems to me) called "Fast Forward to End". What key does this map to? Also, why would you have this, if it does map somewhere, and not its sister function "Fast Forward to Start"? It seems odd to me that you map only 5 of the 6 back/forward functions (back to start, back a lot, back a bit, forward a bit, forward a lot, forward to end).
I would think that a logical map would be to map all 6 back/forward functions to the 6 keys on the top row...Q,W,E and I,O,P.
2. My BB handset logs out while I listen to Podtrapper for more than 5 or 10 mins, exactly as if the phone is not being used. This of course is a security feature, and my phone is a corporate one like many others out there. So I understand why this has to happen and why I have no control over it.
But if I'm exercising and listening happily, but then want to fast forward or do something else with my queue, I have to log back into the BB each and every time. Is there some way you can signal to the BB to say that it's still be used to avoid this? Again, sounds like maybe a small thing but having to re-log back in is fairly awkward if your cycling or on a running machine. I use streaming radio sometimes, and of course the problem doesn't happen with this since the phone is "busy" for as long as the stream is flowing to the phone. Downside, of course, is significant battery drain!! But maybe the development kit has a utility for you that allows an application to send a message to the server every XX minutes (user configurable, ideally) that the phone is still in use???

regards

[marwatk]

1. On the main menu Settings/Keyboard Settings you allow the user to define how far he/she wants to go with the 4 keys mapped to Rewind a little, Rewind a lot, Forward a little, Forward a lot (keys Q,W,O,P).
But then there's a rogue one (it seems to me) called "Fast Forward to End". What key does this map to? Also, why would you have this, if it does map somewhere, and not its sister function "Fast Forward to Start"? It seems odd to me that you map only 5 of the 6 back/forward functions (back to start, back a lot, back a bit, forward a bit, forward a lot, forward to end).
I would think that a logical map would be to map all 6 back/forward functions to the 6 keys on the top row...Q,W,E and I,O,P.

One issue here is the portrait devices (the pearl, mostly). They only have 5 keys in their top row. But, even so, only the seek buttons are mapped to keys, the 'skip' buttons (|< and >|) aren't mapped. The goal with the KB shortcuts on the seek was to allow people to rapidly skip topics they weren't interested in (whereas if seek to end was the furthest right key you'd end up losing your place a lot). At some point in the future I'll allow all keys to be mapped, but that's a bit of a process (there are a LOT of different keyboards on BB devices).

2. My BB handset logs out while I listen to Podtrapper for more than 5 or 10 mins, exactly as if the phone is not being used. This of course is a security feature, and my phone is a corporate one like many others out there. So I understand why this has to happen and why I have no control over it.

If your IT policy allows it I can definitely prevent your phone from locking. (I actually do it already when playing videos). I'll add a setting for keeping it unlocked while playing. Would that work?

-Marcus

[scloughley]

1. On the main menu Settings/Keyboard Settings you allow the user to define how far he/she wants to go with the 4 keys mapped to Rewind a little, Rewind a lot, Forward a little, Forward a lot (keys Q,W,O,P).
But then there's a rogue one (it seems to me) called "Fast Forward to End". What key does this map to? Also, why would you have this, if it does map somewhere, and not its sister function "Fast Forward to Start"? It seems odd to me that you map only 5 of the 6 back/forward functions (back to start, back a lot, back a bit, forward a bit, forward a lot, forward to end).
I would think that a logical map would be to map all 6 back/forward functions to the 6 keys on the top row...Q,W,E and I,O,P.

One issue here is the portrait devices (the pearl, mostly). They only have 5 keys in their top row. But, even so, only the seek buttons are mapped to keys, the 'skip' buttons (|< and >|) aren't mapped. The goal with the KB shortcuts on the seek was to allow people to rapidly skip topics they weren't interested in (whereas if seek to end was the furthest right key you'd end up losing your place a lot). At some point in the future I'll allow all keys to be mapped, but that's a bit of a process (there are a LOT of different keyboards on BB devices).

Fair enough, I hadn't considered the Pearl problem. But I'm still baffled about why you describe a fifth function under keyboard mapping, yet there doesn't seem to be an key that actually maps to it ("Fast Forward to End": what key does this map to?).

2. My BB handset logs out while I listen to Podtrapper for more than 5 or 10 mins, exactly as if the phone is not being used. This of course is a security feature, and my phone is a corporate one like many others out there. So I understand why this has to happen and why I have no control over it.

If your IT policy allows it I can definitely prevent your phone from locking. (I actually do it already when playing videos). I'll add a setting for keeping it unlocked while playing. Would that work?

Nope, our policy is firm. I just thought that you might have some devious way to fool the handset into thinking it's being used, such that the re-entry of PW would be obviated after the timeout. The timeout is 20 min which is not too bad, but I'd much prefer to have it longer, which is impossible from the IT-Security perspective. I guess I can just try to remember to randomly press a button on the keyboard every 10 min or so!!

-Marcus

[marwatk]

Fair enough, I hadn't considered the Pearl problem. But I'm still baffled about why you describe a fifth function under keyboard mapping, yet there doesn't seem to be an key that actually maps to it ("Fast Forward to End": what key does this map to?).

That is for configuring what the actual >| icon does on the playback screen. (Mostly for storm users that don't have access to shortcut keys for most things). If you go to a playlist then click an item in there, it's those icons it's configuring (that screen will automatically update to new podcasts as they end, so it's a handy way for touch screen users to have quick access to media controls if they can configure them).

Nope, our policy is firm. I just thought that you might have some devious way to fool the handset into thinking it's being used, such that the re-entry of PW would be obviated after the timeout. The timeout is 20 min which is not too bad, but I'd much prefer to have it longer, which is impossible from the IT-Security perspective. I guess I can just try to remember to randomly press a button on the keyboard every 10 min or so!!

Well, the IT policy has two settings, one to control forcing the lock and such, and other to prevent apps from overriding it. I'll add the feature anyway and you can see if yours enforces it.

-Marcus

[scloughley]

1. Marcus, I've been thinking some more about the mapping of functions to buttons (shortcuts) as we had discussed before.
My simple conclusion is that the 4 speeds (back/forward slow/fast with Q,W,O,P) should not be switchable as shortcuts for the 3 Play Next options
Play Next
Play Next (reQueue)
Play Next (Delete)
The four speed options are too valuable to have to give up functionality for even one of them to the Play Next feature. I think that this is really important - those 4 speed buttons should remain as speed buttons only, and instead map the 3 Play Next options above to other keys that would also make sense for Pearl and other keyboards. Possible? I can't see any downside (other than effort from you!).
2. I've changed Podcast Settings/Playback Priority to numbers both below and above the default of 15, so that I can use that as first sort criterion in the Playlist. Regardless, the position of the podcast in the Playlist doesn't change at all. For example, I have all podcasts with default 15 and I change one to Priority 10. In the playlist I set "Sort by" as "Playback Priority" both ascending and descending, yet the order of the queue remains unchanged.
3. What does "View order" under "Podcast Settings" actually do? Again, I've tried changing that on a podcast and haven't been able to see where it affects either the podcast list or the Playlist order.
4. If I select "Download all episodes" and there are MANY of them so I then want to abort the download of lots of episodes that's in progress, I haven't found a way to do that. I tried terminating by hitting "Exit" from the menu but next time I open it, the downloading continues.
5. OTHER SUGGESTION: I have a lot of podcasts now listed in the "main" screen. I can only navigate through them with the rollerball, or with B for bottom and T for top. The PageUp and PageDown that one normally has on the BB with SPACE and Shift-SPACE do not function. Is there some way to make this happen? Also, it would be useful to be able to just type in a word and the name of podcast(s) having that word is searched dynamically so you go straight to the podcast.

I think my questions are coming to an end (a sigh of relief from you, I'm sure). I remain thrilled with this application and just trying to make sure I have it tuned to exactly the way I want it.

regards

[marwatk]

I'm working on a 'solution' to the button thing, but it may be a while. Basically I want to list out all of the possible things you can do, and allow you to assign them to buttons. This is proving tricky, however, because of all the different behaviors of the different keyboards.

2. I've changed Podcast Settings/Playback Priority to numbers both below and above the default of 15, so that I can use that as first sort criterion in the Playlist. Regardless, the position of the podcast in the Playlist doesn't change at all. For example, I have all podcasts with default 15 and I change one to Priority 10. In the playlist I set "Sort by" as "Playback Priority" both ascending and descending, yet the order of the queue remains unchanged.

This will only take affect the next time an item is added to the playlist, or you go to your playlist and resort with the 'Add/Sort Episodes' menu item. (You don't have to any any more for them to sort, but you do need to hit the 'Add/Sort' menu item in there).

3. What does "View order" under "Podcast Settings" actually do? Again, I've tried changing that on a podcast and haven't been able to see where it affects either the podcast list or the Playlist order.

This is the first sort criteria for displaying podcasts in the main list, with lower numbers coming first. So, if all of them are set to 15, then you set one to 14, that will sort before all the rest in that display.

4. If I select "Download all episodes" and there are MANY of them so I then want to abort the download of lots of episodes that's in progress, I haven't found a way to do that. I tried terminating by hitting "Exit" from the menu but next time I open it, the downloading continues.

For this you can view downloads ('D' key), then you can 'Cancel below'. Let me know if that doesn't work for you.

5. OTHER SUGGESTION: I have a lot of podcasts now listed in the "main" screen. I can only navigate through them with the rollerball, or with B for bottom and T for top. The PageUp and PageDown that one normally has on the BB with SPACE and Shift-SPACE do not function. Is there some way to make this happen? Also, it would be useful to be able to just type in a word and the name of podcast(s) having that word is searched dynamically so you go straight to the podcast.

The trick here is that space is used to play the highlighted item in most cases, so I can't use it to page up/down. I could make scrolling right/left do it, but my concern is it would tend to drift after lots of scrolling. Maybe alt+scroll?

Typing won't work because of all of the shortcut keys.

Let me know if you have any more ideas or if I can answer anything else for you.

-Marcus

[scloughley]

5. OTHER SUGGESTION: I have a lot of podcasts now listed in the "main" screen. I can only navigate through them with the rollerball, or with B for bottom and T for top. The PageUp and PageDown that one normally has on the BB with SPACE and Shift-SPACE do not function. Is there some way to make this happen? Also, it would be useful to be able to just type in a word and the name of podcast(s) having that word is searched dynamically so you go straight to the podcast.



The trick here is that space is used to play the highlighted item in most cases, so I can't use it to page up/down. I could make scrolling right/left do it, but my concern is it would tend to drift after lots of scrolling. Maybe alt+scroll?

It would tend to drift? Not sure what you mean.
Why would scrolling l/r be any better than scrolling up/down (assuming you mean via the Trackball)? I can see the problem with SPACE bar now, of course. Somehow it looks like you'll have to stick with the current way of navigation. No biggie.

[marwatk]

Well, my concern with r/l is that if you're scrolling down, but you're maybe going at it not perfectly up or down but more of a diagonal direction, if it'll end up triggering a page down when you didn't want it to. I'll definitely look into it, though.

-Marcus