CEPlaylist editor - a supplement to Windows Media's editor

[Ed Hansberry]

CEPlaylist is a play list editor that will help you organize media for use with Windows Media Player on your Pocket PC. If you keep tons of music on your Pocket PC, you will grow weary quickly of moving things on your play lists around using the Windows Media Player's built in play list editor. CEPlaylist doesn't make up for all of its deficiencies, and still doesn't have the power of a desktop play list editor, but it does come in very handy.<br /><br />This is not a comprehensive review, but just a quick look at CEPlaylist's features. Creative Engineering, the creator of this app, has decided to give away <b><i>5 copies to <u>registered</u> members of Pocket PC Thoughts.</i></b> I will hold the drawing this Thursday, so if you have not registered and would to be in the running for a copy, go to the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/">Forums link</a> and register. I will email you if you have won and post the winner's user id's on the front page Thursday. Select the more link to read the rest of the preview.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist00.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 1: Searching your device for content</i>&lt;!><br />This can take a few seconds, especially if you have hundreds of songs on 512MB or more of space. I also didn't have a microdrive to test against, so I don't know if searching that would be any slower or faster than my Compact Flash and SD cards. This runs at the programs startup, but can be turned off in the preferences. You can then select Tools|Rebuild Library if you add or remove media from your device.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist01.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 2: Device contents </i><br />This shows you the content on your device. This is arranged by artist but you can also display by genre.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist02.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 3: Existing play lists</i><br />This shows you the existing play lists on your device. One thing CEPlaylist is excellent at is combining play lists. By pressing the little musical note with the arrow it will copy the contents of selected play lists to the "Song List" tab. This is perfect for long trips, allowing you to combine multiple play lists for hours of uninterrupted listening.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist03.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 4: The song list</i><br />Here I have copied the <u>Lisa Germano</u> and <u>Dido</u> play lists. Note: this is for example only. I would never recommend you listen to Lisa Germano and Dido in the same sitting. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist04.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 5: Saving your new play list</i><br />Here you tap the disk icon to save your new play list. I simply called this one "Combined."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist05.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 6: Open Windows Media Player</i><br />You can see the new play list in WMP. CEPlaylist makes it easy to get to WMP - just press the blue "play" arrow.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist06.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 7: Media in the current play list</i><br />If you go back to the Song Library tab, you can easily see what on your device is in the current play list - it is highlighted in red. Items in blue are available to add.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist07.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 8: Content by genre</i><br />Same information as Figure 7 above, displayed by genre. Notice those items in red are already a part of the current play list.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist08.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 9: Searching for a specific file</i><br />You can search for a specific song, album or artist here. I simply looked for the word "here" and it found 4 songs.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-ceplaylist/playlist09.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 10: Change track or album information</i><br />CEPlaylist also allows you to change information about a song or an album. Simply select it, press the "pencil" icon and change the info. You can change the name of the song, the name of the album or the genre it belongs to.<br /><br />There are two things I wish the software did that would make it more useful<br />• Bulk song rearrangement - right now, it moves individual songs around like WMP does - one at a time with up/down arrows. I would like to be able to select as many songs as I wanted by dragging, similar to the way you select multiple files in File Explorer, and move them up or down en masse.<br />• Sorting the song list in date order. The song list tab allows you to sort a play list by song, album, artist, genre, file type, sort type (I do not know what this is - it was "1" for all of my content) or path. I would like to be able to sort by file date, right down to the second. The reason for this is the desktop version of Windows Media Player resets the time stamp as you move content over, so sorting a group of songs by date will ensure they are played in the same order as your play list on the desktop. For some of you this may not be a big deal, but for artists like Poe and Enigma, it is almost mandatory that you listen to the songs in the order on the CD since much of their work is really one 50 minute song with a few breaks. I also prefer to listen to 90% of my other CD's in their entirety and in the order the artist recorded them.<br /><br />The author of this app seems to be continuously developing this app, releasing two minor updates and enhancements in the past week, so look for more enhancements in the future. You can download or purchase it at <a href="http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0§ionId=0&productId=30011">this Handango affiliate link</a>. It has a 14 day free trial, fully functional and works on all Pocket PC and Pocket PC 2002 devices.

[pradike]

As a regular user of the WindowsMedia Player...I'd like to register for this!

[Sven Johannsen]

There are a couple of items that I'd like to see, if they are not already in there. Let me know if this is already possible.

I keep my MP3s on distinct CF cards. It would be nice if I could store a catalog/playlist on the card with the music. I think I would be OK with having to import the list off of the CF card, but I suppose that would require being able to purge the list on the device before doing so. Preferably, using the autorun feature on the CF card to load the cards playlist would be great.


Second item, and much less of a need. Any chance of adding wmv to the files supported? Media player does do video and can make playlists that contain them.

[marlof]

The Jesus and Mary Chain!

[Ed Hansberry]

The Jesus and Mary Chain!

:lol: Yeah, that is actually with Hope Sandoval, formerly of Mazzy Star. Just one song.

[CharlesWilcox]

I'd like to register! :lol:

[Mr. Anonymous]

Very cool, I've been waiting for something like this!

[adamz]

I think I'd rather have a desktop application that could manage CF card based Windows Media Playlists. You know, like have it integrated into Windows Media Player 8 on the desktop or something? It's too much of a hassle to go creating playlists on the Pocket PC. I change my CF music selection on a daily basis, but just adding/deleting songs in the WMP8 for XP on the desktop. It would be much easier to have a playlist organizer on the desktop.

[Ed Hansberry]

I think I'd rather have a desktop application that could manage CF card based Windows Media Playlists. You know, like have it integrated into Windows Media Player 8 on the desktop or something? It's too much of a hassle to go creating playlists on the Pocket PC. I change my CF music selection on a daily basis, but just adding/deleting songs in the WMP8 for XP on the desktop. It would be much easier to have a playlist organizer on the desktop.
IMHO, WMP8 on the desktop should transfer playlists over. FWIW, the .ASX files on your PC and PPC are both text files. I wonder if just copying it over and then doing a Find/Replace in Word (you have to temporarily make it a TXT file) to change the music paths would work?

Still, this program is great for consolidating music playlists and finding particular tracks. And the "Select All" button... checking off everything in WMP is a hassle. Major hassle.

[jpsiris]

I am the developer of CEPlaylist, and I really appreciate the comments and suggestions. I would like to answer some of the questions and address a couple of the comments.

From the review:
Building the Library - During testing, I used a 5 GB PC Hard Disk in a Compaq 38xx (4200 files), and found that it was a little faster than when I used a 128MB CF card. You can also use it with Desktop based music files over a network connection (PC2002 only), and when I tested it with around 8500 files it was as fast as the CF card. As you noted, this only needs to be done the first time, as the library can be saved in a database on the device. With this option set, only the library is read the next time the app is started.

Bulk Song Rearrangement - Great idea - Should be able to get it in the next release. I am a little concerned about how to select multiple files, and keep that selection separate from the songs that are selected to be written to the playlist.

Sorting the song list in date order - another great idea, and I should be able to get it in the next release.

Sort Column - This column allows you to group songs together and sort by that grouping. When a song is copied to the Song List from a playlist or the library, it is initially set to a sort order of 1. This can be changed by tapping on the sort number and entering a number between 1-999. This grouping data will be maintained even if the list is sorted by another column.

From the comments:
Library Location - This is one of the preferences, and can be set to store on any storage device available. Playlists can be stored anywhere on the device or even on any attached network drives.

WMV files - I haven't really looked into this at all yet. I am not sure if the info that I use to build the library is available in the WMV header. I will consider it for a future release.

One final note - For me, the best way to use the application is for quick, ad-hoc music playing. I can select an album or artist, and just hit the play button. CEPlaylist then automatically creates a temporary playlist, switches to Windows Media Player, and plays it. Most of the time, I have my PocketPC connected to my network, and I use it to easily access and play my song file collection without placing any performance or screen restrictions on my desktop while I am working. It can also be used in this manner with a wireless network connection.

Thanks for the comments and ideas!
Jack

[jpsiris]

A new release of CEPlaylist has been posted to Handango and PocketGear. The release notes for version 1.3 are:

- Added preference to sort songs by their file date or alphabetically. This allows songs to play in the order that they were originally ripped, which also is the order on the CD in most cases.
- Added the ability to select multiple songs for movement within the playlist editor.
- Added significant network enhancements for wireless and wired networks, including the ability to map network drives.
- Added ability to stop the initial Library build operation so that preferences can be changed at program startup.
- Added Artist and Album info to the Search results data.
- Rewrote entire section that allowed changing song tags by album. Now possible to stop in the middle of lengthly updates and restart later.
- Made error processing and exception handling much more robust. Allow 'retries' when file access errors occur.
- Cleaned up many user notification dialogs.

You can download or purchase it at this Handango affiliate link (http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0§ionId=0&productId=30011). It has a 14 day free trial, fully functional and works on all Pocket PC and Pocket PC 2002 devices. If you tried it once before, the demo timer has been reset so it can be run again.

Thanks for all the comments and feedback!

Jack

[jpsiris]

A new release of CEPlaylist has been posted to Handango and PocketGear. The release notes for version 1.3 are:

- Added preference to sort songs by their file date or alphabetically. This allows songs to play in the order that they were originally ripped, which also is the order on the CD in most cases.
- Added the ability to select multiple songs for movement within the playlist editor.
- Added significant network enhancements for wireless and wired networks, including the ability to map network drives.
- Added ability to stop the initial Library build operation so that preferences can be changed at program startup.
- Added Artist and Album info to the Search results data.
- Rewrote entire section that allowed changing song tags by album. Now possible to stop in the middle of lengthly updates and restart later.
- Made error processing and exception handling much more robust. Allow 'retries' when file access errors occur.
- Cleaned up many user notification dialogs.

You can download or purchase it at this Handango affiliate link (http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0§ionId=0&productId=30011). It has a 14 day free trial, fully functional and works on all Pocket PC and Pocket PC 2002 devices. If you tried it once before, the demo timer has been reset so it can be run again.

Thanks for all the comments and feedback!

Jack