hldj.org

I've been using LSS Music Player, but since it will soon get blocked i'll come back to HLDJ, since HLSS sucks.
http://www.3rdera.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2341 <- there's the lss player, alto it no longer works on css after the update.

How ever, here are some improvements, I understand that some of these can't be made, or are maybe useless, remember that it's just my opinion.
Note that I will talk alot about lua, since that's what the other music player used, don't whine about it.

1. YouTube player (not sure if it can be done, or if it'll be useless cause of the ping going higher)
- You would just need to search a song from youtube, take it's url, and start playing it without downloading.

2. In-Game settings (should be able to be done, since it can be done with lua too)
- You could edit some settings thru console, fe. columns, hldj_columns 1 would put all the songs into 1 column, hldj_columns 3 would list them into 3 column, etc. Also more commands should be added, not just that single command, fe. loudness and playback rate (check improv. 4)

3. Menu on screen (can be made with lua, should be able to do)
- View menu on screen, use developer fe.

4. In-Game converter (was in lss player too)
- Convert songs with ffmpeg on-the-fly, this would allow music editing and so.

5. Lyric adding (once again can be done with lua)
- You could add lyrics to a song, like when you start a song it would say lyrics, then wait some amount of time (you should declare it yourself in a txt file or so) and play next sentence, etc.

--More coming if i get any ideas, don't take this as trying to flame hldj, just telling what should be done better. I also know that some of these have already been asken, just too lazy to search thru whole forum to see what has been asken and what hasn't. --

I'm pretty sure HLDJ is supposed to go open source at some point. You would be able to put in all these things yourself. But I have some issues with some of them (ok, all of them):


1. "YouTube player" I actually like this idea. But how would it be remotely possible? How could HLDJ find the video you want, rip the audio from said video, convert it to the proper format and start playing it all at once?

2. "You could edit some settings thru console" You mean like, how HLDJ already works now? I'm also not entirely sure what you mean by columns, either. Are you saying you should be able to customize the way HLDJ lists songs by making it use more columns? That sounds pretty useless IMO.

3. "Menu on screen" Renegade has stated recently he's been looking into making an HTML based interface you'd be able to access with the steam overlay. A menu actually built into the game might be cooler/faster, but then again the HTML idea also has merits (such as others being able to see your page, maybe giving them info about the song or a link to download it).

4. "In-Game Converter" I don't really see the point of this. Are you going to be finding songs to convert while you play? Probably not. So why wouldn't you have converted all the songs you wanted to play before launching the game anyway? Being able to adjust the songs mid-game does have some merit though.

5. "Lyric adding" Decent enough idea I suppose. Personally I'd never go through an entire song adding lyrics and tweaking it and everything... Also, chat-spam in addition to mic-spam? Eh, I'll pass...

Well, maybe these things would turn out differently then what I'm seeing... Oh well. We'll see (or maybe not).

HLDJ is more than a music player, it's an IPC (inter process communication) tool between the game and itself. For this reason, it's more resilient and capable than a plugin, script, or other limited add-ons designed to work in a single environment. Practically anything is possible (including all of the items on your list), but it comes down to time and effort. Some are already capable using scripting, and some I just don't feel are worth implementing.

As uggron said, HLDJ is open source and many have already asked for the source code for various reasons such as porting. Although I may not feel some features are worth implementing, it's not to say I won't help others who wish to. I am working on a plugin system for HLDJ that will allow others to implement various features. For example, I chose MAD over ffmpeg because it was easier to implement and produced a smaller binary; however if anyone wants to write an ffmpeg converter or a plugin that pulls videos off youtube and converts them real-time, I will gladly work with them to incorporate it.