Virtual Feed order is backwards so audiobook plays from last to first
Hi,
Great app BTW!
I am playing with virtual feeds as I am audible customer and have ripped my books for use on my Hero.
They are named
1-01 Track 1
1-02 Track 2
etc
2-01 Track 1
2-02 Track 2
etc
When I add them to a virual feed folder they appear with the 1-01 at the top of the list and go down. This would be fine if the player played from top to bottom but it does not. As with podcasts it assumes the top is the newest and the bottom is the oldest.
So based on this when I play "1-01 Track 1" when finished it thinks the feed is over and jumps to the next podcast feed list rather than playing down.
Is there anyway apart from renumbering all my files for this to either play down or to sort z-a rather than a-z?
The sort option doesnt help?
The files are m4a files ripped from CD into iTunes and then moved into the enclosure folder.
I did experiment with the order I copied the files into the folder thinking datestamp on the files might help but nothing?
Any help appriciated as I can not use it to listen to my books.
Thanks
Russ
You're right. They are sorted the wrong way, since the play order goes from bottom up.
I've got a release going to the market probably this week, I should be able to squeeze this into it.
Thanks for letting me know.
This is fixed in the release I published to the market yesterday.
I just created a virtual feed and loaded some audiobook files into it. The files names were created in alphabetical order but are still listed in reverse play order. I have read all the replys in the thread and I am confused about the state of this problem. In eric's reply on 8/18 he indicates that this is fixed on the 8/18. Yet my copy of DoggCatcher lists in the reverse order. Another reply states that you have to change the playlist order. So my question is --
How do I get the files to play in the correct order (first to last) using the current version of DoggCatcher?
Thanks
Have you tried the sort order in the feed options? I don't recall testing that with virtual feeds but you can give it a shot.
If it doesn't work, let me know and I'll create an issue to get that work done.
Thanks for posting.
I tried sorting in reverse order with no luck. The sort is by date and all the files have the same date. I looked at the description of the current version 1.1.1583 and I copied the following:
0000569: [Feeds/Items] Ability to sort a feed's items in reverse order - closed.
I thought that this was the fix for the problem but it does not solve it. BTW, my phone is the Droid X with 2.2.
It looks like a additional sort option would do the job. In addition to the sort by date currently in the function, add a "sort alphabetically" and possibly a "sort reverse alphabetically".
I believe that anyone using audio books have the files named in ascending alpha sequence.
Thanks
I'm seeing the same thing.
I might do what you're suggesting or when you set the sort to date, for virtual feeds it will use the filename (title). I need to think about it a bit. I think I like your idea better though.
I created an issue for this.
http://mantis.snoggdoggler.com/view.php?id=655
Thanks for posting.
Where I'm coming from
I've placed my audiobooks in a root folder "AudioBooks", with each audiobook in a separate subfolder. Each audiobook was rippped and tagged in iTunes into .m4a (AAC) format, and each has artwork stored as AlbumArt.jpg
Music player in my Nexus One (FRG83D) does a nice job of automatically indexing, presenting, and playing these audiobooks in proper order as "albums", except it does not remember playback position after playing a different item. Since I've stored chapters as individual files, and generally listen to entire chapters, this is an annoying but not fatal limitation. I rate Music player as 6 (out of 10) for playing audiobooks.
MortPlayer Audio Book is currently my favorite app for playing audiobooks. When first opened after install it scans for audiobooks, and presents you with a list of likely root folders, allowing you to easily and quickly select your actual root folder. It then picks up AlbumArt and tagging of all the audiobooks, presenting them in an excellent, intuitive, easy-to-use, and powerful UI, and of course remembers all playback positions. And it does all this in a very small footprint. I rate MortPlayer Audio Book as 9.
My initial experience in DC
I wasted a large amount of time trying to figure out how to set up a Virtual feed for an audiobook, finally searched the DC website, and was stunned to learn it was hidden in the "RSS URL" item. ("Virtual" should at least be added to that menu item or, better yet, a separate Virtual menu item should be created.) I was also disappointed to find I couldn't just point DC to my root folder, that I had to use a special DC folder for each audiobook. (This is a pretty big deal to me, not only because it's unintuitive and crude, but also because it greatly limits my flexibility.)
So I created a Virtual feed for an audiobook, was disappointed to find that I had to locate it by an arbitrary (and confusing) number, but moved one of my audiobooks into the folder. When I opened DC it didn't show any contents in the feed, so I did an Update from the menu, and the files appeared. Further disappointments were discovering that DC wasn't picking up the AlbumArt or tags, and that items were listed in reverse order. Worse, DC then deleted all the items, apparently while trying to do an RSS update. All I could say was, "ARRGGGHHHH!"
With further experimentation I found that Virtual feed folder numbers keep incrementing even when Virtual feeds are completely deleted -- numbers are not reused -- but that's just a nit.
Observations and assessments
The current feed paradigm (updating, order, etc) does not work well for audiobooks. I think audiobooks need to be handled differently from feeds, and folders would be better as in MortPlayer, with support for AlbumArt and tags.
I understand where the idea of presenting items in reverse order comes from, but while that may be appropriate for RSS feeds, it's a confusing kludge for audiobooks. If DC is to be taken seriously as an audiobook player, it needs to properly present and play audiobooks in natural top down order.
Support for bookmarks (as in MortPlayer) would be welcome, in feeds as well as in audiobooks.
Files should never ever be deleted or overwritten without explicit confirmation.
Bottom line
I'm pretty happy with DC on real feeds, but I'll be sticking with MortPlayer for audiobooks unless and until DC becomes a lot better in this area. I currently rate DC as only 3 for playing audiobooks.
John
I added a reference in this issue (http://mantis.snoggdoggler.com/view.php?id=717) to this post.
Virtual feeds were quickly added as a way for people to use DC for some other purposes, including audio books. I don't think DC will soon get to the feature set that a dedicated audiobook player will. Just as it isn't the best app for reading news...there a some others that do this extremely well.
Having said that, I do see quite a things that I can do to make it better though for the occasional audio book listener.
Creating virtual feeds - this was covered in your other post, and admittedly a weakness that needs fixing
Sorting - I do have an issue to support sorting (asc or desc) for virtual feeds. I agree that for audio books, the normal listening order is the reverse of podcasts.
Deleting audio - Virtual feeds should not delete media. I don't think I have every tried an auto-delete policy with a virtual feed though. Updating a virtual feeds just creates 'items' for the files in the directory.
Thanks.
I'm not sure what deleted my audio files from the Virtual feed, but it definitely did happen, leaving just the AlbumArt.jpg file. I remember seeing something like "updating RSS" at the time, so I assumed that's what caused it. Fortunately I had the audio files saved elsewhere, but others may not be so fortunate.
John
I see that this post is quite old and a fix was in the pipeline, but I have the newest version of the software and I am experiencing the same behavior. I created a virtual feed for an audiobook I have that is broken up into many files (d1t1, d1t2, d1t3, ... , d3t1, d3t2, etc). When I open the virtual feed, it shows the files in reverse order (d3t2, d3t1, etc). The only way I can play the audio book is if I select each file one at a time. Really quite a pain.
Is there a way to get around this that I'm missing?
Thanks for the great app; I use it every day.
If you mean starting at the top, you have d3t2, and then d3t1, then it's behaving as designed because the play order starts from the bottom and move towards the top. So we want the items that are alphabetically earlier to be lower on the screen.
If you play d3t1, when it's finished, d3t2 should start playing. Is it not doing that?
I'm having the same problem. I have a course of MP3 files which are named 1-01, 1-02, 2-01 etc. Doggcatcher sorts them backwards as stated, but it does not play them from the bottom up. If I play the last file as sorted (first in the series) then it plays the file and then goes on to the next feed. If I play the first file as sorted (last lecture in the series) then it plays right down the list - which is the complete reverse order.
I tried checking the "Always Sort" box but that didn't have any effect at all. I also shut down the app and then restarted it as well as doing the same to my phone, but all to no avail.
Sorting backwards seems counter-intuitive (I guess it's made to play newest to oldest?). For a virtual feed in would be nice to have them sorted by filename (which I have selected in the feed options) and play in order top-to-bottom.
Thanks!
Hmm, I'll check it out. I created an issue for this - http://mantis.snoggdoggler.com/view.php?id=562
Sorry for the delay in testing this but I figured out what was happening. Items for virtual feeds are not included in the normal audio playlist. So when the audio playlist is active, and an item for a virtual feeds finishes, the next items in the audio playlist is started.
If you change the playlist to the virtual feed playlist, it will play all the virtual feed items in the order that we expect, starting alphabetically with the earliest. In other words it will play from the bottom up on the list of items for the virtual feed.
"If you change the playlist to the virtual feed playlist, it will play all the virtual feed items in the order that we expect"
Sorry, can you explain how to do that? I've loaded my audio book and tried sorting by oldest and not sorting (in the virtual feed settings), in both cases it plays the first track and then moves onto a podcast.
Go to the audio screen and press playlist, then select virtual. That will cause the autoplay to work from the virtual feed.
Thanks that would be great.