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Standalone Music App


fizzyade

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feerlessleadr
Just now, DerrickM said:

On my android, when I download yatse and then choose emby it says click ok to start your trial or learn about pro. Clicking ok just goes back to searching where it shows emby as an option. Cant start a trial though. Its a circle basically.

Sorry, can't help you out with that (although the Yatse dev is very active on the Yatse forums). I can say though that the app is well worth the $5 upgrade or whatever it costs.

If you can't get the trial to work, you always have the return window for Google play to fiddle around and play with it. 

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pwhodges
51 minutes ago, Luke said:

Tap and hold on the home screen icon for the Emby app and it will show you all of the shortcuts that are available. You can then pick one to make as a dedicated shortcut on the home screen.

In my case, the grand total of my first two libraries, the downloads folder (which I've never used) and Server Management.  Doesn't seem worth the effort, that I can see.

Paul

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  • 3 weeks later...
rfporter

I just took the leap and removed Subsonic from my server. Subsonic did exactly what I wanted for my music collection. Great, simple, webUI for the desktop. Fantastic mobile experience with DSub app. Unfortunately these projects are seeing very little love from their maintainers. So I decided to move my music library to Emby. This also frees up 500MB+ RAM on my server.

I feel like the Emby apps could be usable to play music with some minor modification.

Typically when I listen to music, I add to the play queue as I am listening. I build up a play queue over the course of a day or even week. Then, after much listening and re-arranging, I would maybe save it as a playlist. This just feels more natural. I've been doing this since Winamp.

Unfortunately, emby keeps overwriting my play queue. If I click the wrong album image or click on a song in my library by mistake.. BOOM! my play queue is gone! And it takes effort to add songs to the play queue. There's a shortcut button for adding a song to a playlist, but to add to the play queue, you need at least 2 clicks. Then there is a notification that pops up for a few seconds telling me that it was added to the queue. This all makes building up a play queue quite cumbersome and frustrating. 

For now I will be using Yaste as my mobile app. It allows you to set the default click action as "add to play queue".

For desktop, there is a Jellyfin project that looks promising but it is still kind of rough around the edges. It seems to work with Emby as well: https://gitlab.com/tonyfinn/preserve

It would be really nice to have a better music queue experience in the main emby app though.

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  • 1 month later...
smwall
On 7/5/2020 at 10:01 PM, wedgekc said:

There is an app for Jellyfin on Android called Gelli that seems to work with Emby.  I briefly tried it but really doesn't add any functionality and don't know how long it will be compatible with Emby.  If your interested you can download the apk from https://github.com/dkanada/gelli

I like to use Yatse.  It is not a separate music player but it has the shortcuts to music mentioned above and they are configurable (at least on Android).  It also does smart playlists which I like but it is not free.

Appreciate the heads up on Yatse.  Works perfectly for what I need.

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SpencerXZX

+1 for the standalone Emby Music App. I want so badly to drop Plex but they keep introducing killer features that I just can't resist using like Plexamp.

Like others have said, having music separate from TV and Movies is the main goal, the other features can be worked on afterwards. How many video streaming platforms out there have music tied in still? Look at Plex, they have Plexamp. Look at Youtube, they have YT Music. Look at Prime, they have Amazon Music. Separating music from video is just what people have grown to expect and love. Yes of course you can create shortcuts, but that is not solving the issue at hand.

 

As for some UI changes for Emby Music:

  • Drop the side-scrolling category menu (eg. Artists, Songs, Playlists, Genres, etc..). It's nice looking but sucks to use. Replace it with folder-style navigation in its own "bottom-bar" button.
  • Bottom navigation bar can be simplified for music, containing a Home, a Library View, a search, a downloads tab, and a settings tab.
  • All long-press interaction menus should be replaced with the little "three vertical dots" button on the far right of whatever it is, long pressing is slow and ruins workflow. Keep long-press, but also add the other menu to get to the same options.
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fizzyade
11 hours ago, SpencerXZX said:

+1 for the standalone Emby Music App. I want so badly to drop Plex but they keep introducing killer features that I just can't resist using like Plexamp.

Like others have said, having music separate from TV and Movies is the main goal, the other features can be worked on afterwards. How many video streaming platforms out there have music tied in still? Look at Plex, they have Plexamp. Look at Youtube, they have YT Music. Look at Prime, they have Amazon Music. Separating music from video is just what people have grown to expect and love. Yes of course you can create shortcuts, but that is not solving the issue at hand.

 

As for some UI changes for Emby Music:

  • Drop the side-scrolling category menu (eg. Artists, Songs, Playlists, Genres, etc..). It's nice looking but sucks to use. Replace it with folder-style navigation in its own "bottom-bar" button.
  • Bottom navigation bar can be simplified for music, containing a Home, a Library View, a search, a downloads tab, and a settings tab.
  • All long-press interaction menus should be replaced with the little "three vertical dots" button on the far right of whatever it is, long pressing is slow and ruins workflow. Keep long-press, but also add the other menu to get to the same options.

Plexamp is kick-ass, it's one of the few "features" they've added in the past couple of years that is actually useful.  I have a lifetime sub of plex (and emby), when I switched to emby my plex license remained unused until plexamp came out.  It's not a jack-of-all trades, it serves a purpose and anything that isn't relevant isn't in it.  It's easy to use, it looks and behaves exactly how you'd expect a music app to behave, like spotify or <insert streaming service here>.

I don't have to deal with "it's started playing movies", "how do I get back to the music list" type questions, my wife and daughter just use it without any fuss or problems.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Maisy

I have Android 11, but some previous versions worked like this too: Shortcuts to apps, hold in app drawer and 'add to homescreen'

All apps have internal things as options that popup when you press and hold an app.

To get any library you want as a shortcut, change the items on your Emby app HOMESCREEN order of LIBRARY. Once you have what you want for the shortcut in the front position, it'll be a shortcut for the press and hold, and so you go back to app drawer, hold Emby, hold name of library, and 'add to homescreen' of phone. (The first 2 libraries are available as pop up shortcuts holding the Emby app on your phone.)

You can do that for as many libraries as you want. The Library Shortcuts saved on your phone won't change once you have them on your devices homescreen. You can change your Emby app HOMESCREEN library order to anything you want once your shortcuts are made.

To keep the thing you want on the Emby App bottom toolbar it has to be first library.

Order of the Libraries seems to be universal for one's Emby account, which is not what I really want, but it's OK as long as I can move them around to get the shortcuts and then put them back in order for my overall Emby use. I mostly just use my phone for music, but in app keeping it my main library won't cut in on PC and Tablet and Android TV so ... shortcuts rule for now! (The App Dependent Setting for what view each of your libraries are in when you open them is great though!)

Emby stand-alone music app would be nice for all devices. Plexamp was pretty cool when I used it, but it wasn't on mobile platforms.

Screenshot_20210410-065732_One UI Home.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...
Fredericksun
On 3/22/2020 at 5:44 PM, feerlessleadr said:

Luke - I just looked on my Android 10 phone, and I don't see any way to edit the shortcuts that are provided by default (in my case Movies/TV/Downloads/Manage the Server). 

 

I would love to have a music shortcut for emby, but am not sure how to actually get it - any ideas?

There is an app called Shuttle S2 Music player (Android Only), there is plans to push out an iOS version of it in the future. It has a really good UI and a great support team. It supports Emby & Jellyfin. Find it here on the google play store. S2 Music Player - Apps on Google Play. Feel free to give the developer a good rating if you like it.

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DJIemby

I have just downloaded Shuttle S2 Music player on my work Android phone and works really good. My main phone is an Apple iPhone but hopefully in time as me ntioned this app with support both platforms and will fill in the missing gap we fellow Emby users who host our own music are longing for. Just a word of warning that if your artwork is more than 500 x 500 pixels it wont showup as i just found out. Luckily i have an apple script i run with my iTunes library to down convert artwork to this size and then everything is fine. This also applies if you wanted to play your music on most in car entertainment units via sd card / usb etc.

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The layout of that S2 app almost nearly matches ours. Look at the top tab categories, the bottom nav, the now playing screen. It does have a couple things our app doesn't, namely aggregating content from different types of sources as well as an equalizer. Is that why you're using over the Emby app? Because other than that, what does it get you?

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fizzyade

The issue is (at least for me), which I made in the first post, that having a link that goes directly to the music section is not a solution if you can find your way out of the music section.

This is an issue of getting family members who aren't au fait with technology getting frustrated because they've ended up inside "some location" of the app and can't find their way back to music.  Once this happens, they simply stop using it.

This is where Plexamp actually kicks ass, it's a music player, it plays music, it doesn't do anything else.  It's hard to get lost inside the app, and if you do, you know that the user is lost in the music section because there is only a music section.  Emby is a complete no go as a music player app in our household.

I'll admit, when plexamp first came around I was a plex user for video and music and I was a bit peeved that they'd "wasted" time on a standalone music player, but i was wrong, it was one of the few feature "hits" that they got right.  It's very simple to use and it's very pretty.  I was very wrong on my first thoughts about the application.

I'm a software developer, I have been professionally for 30+ years.  What I might think is simple for people to use is not necessarily true, programmers tend to think differently.

how many times have you as a developer discovered first hand that end users use software differently to programmers. 

How many times have you fully tested a feature  to exhaustion and given it to a user only for them to find a bug in a manner of minutes.

 

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  • 2 months later...
Bhakti88

I have to agree with much of the sentiment here, Emby is a "no-go" as a music player for me. I tried many times to make it work, but it is so unwieldy and ineffective I just stopped trying. I have been playing mp3s for over 25 years on various different.

Does anyone have a recommendation besides Plex?

Edited by Bhakti88
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2 hours ago, Bhakti88 said:

I have to agree with much of the sentiment here, Emby is a "no-go" as a music player for me. I tried many times to make it work, but it is so unwieldy and ineffective I just stopped trying. I have been playing mp3s for over 25 years on various different.

Does anyone have a recommendation besides Plex?

Hi there, can you please describe the issue that you had? thanks.

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Bhakti88
3 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi there, can you please describe the issue that you had? thanks.

There is no technical problem, I can get Emby to play my music files. This "no-go" was a general comment based on the fact that Emby is designed to play video content - it's structure, interface, and functionality are not suited to effectively playing music where the library contains more than a couple hundred files. A comparison with Plexamp, iTunes, MusicBee, Winamp, or any other software designed specifically for music clearly shows these deficiencies.

Is there any plan in motion to make changes in how Emby handles music files? If so, I would be glad to join any such discussions.

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Jägs

I realize this would not trivial be a trivial implementation—and understand the desire to have a unified interface—but another option to better support music would be to implement the Subsonic API, which I believe has been suggested by a number of users.  There are many, many mobile apps that support this on a variety of platforms, so users would have a variety of choices to play back their music served by Emby.

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feerlessleadr

For those looking for a music player for emby, I can't recommend the android app YATSE enough. Connects to my emby server, has the ability to utilize smart playlists,backup settings,etc. 

Ik also able to customize what sections YATSE shows so that it only shows music, and opens right up to my playlists when I open the app. 

Well worth the $5

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  • 3 weeks later...
kryptonh

I would love a standalone App for music. One that wouldn't populate all the movies and porn I have when searching for a specific song. One that doesn't have the responsibility of loading everything else that comes with the emby app and just focuses on Music.

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Riggs

I use Plex for Music and Emby for everything else.

I had that situation of looking for something for my music collection, at the end of the day Plex with one music Library is okay, and you can get many lyrics available.

My wife use Plex for music in the phone without problems.

Sorry if I'm honest but Emby needs a lot of work in the music section, is not ready yet, that's why Plex was the way for music for now.

Plex works fine with flac and mp3.

You can choose, if you want, keep ther history of what you play or not, lyrics, you can stop or pause the song everywhere, slide the song where you want advance or back... in short it works very similar to spotify.

Emby do not work at that level yet. For me is a working progress but I have faith :)

For movies and TVseries Emby is the best.

 

 

Edited by Riggs
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On 7/8/2021 at 12:15 AM, feerlessleadr said:

For those looking for a music player for emby, I can't recommend the android app YATSE enough. Connects to my emby server, has the ability to utilize smart playlists,backup settings,etc. 

Ik also able to customize what sections YATSE shows so that it only shows music, and opens right up to my playlists when I open the app. 

Well worth the $5

I have used Yatse for probably 10 years now if not longer as my Kodi remote. I honestly had no idea it can connect to Emby or other stuff. I should really look over everything it does these days, it's always been such a great app.

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cascaranuez

Just found this thread, and I agree, the mobile app can be vastly improved. A few things that would make it usable for me:

* Offline music playlists -> currently the playlists only work when online

* Offline music filtering -> any of the filtering options in the offline music (downloads), just don't work/have no effect, so you can't sort/reorder music

* Shuffle on/off (this online and offline) -> instead of creating a shuffled playlist, allow 'on the fly' shuffling when toggling the shuffle button, so I don't have to clear the current playlist (very annoying when you have an 'ad hoc' playlist you want to shuffle through, as you will have to save it with a name first).

If the code is open I can help with some of those issues, but it seems it's closed source :,(

Edited by cascaranuez
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5 hours ago, cascaranuez said:

Just found this thread, and I agree, the mobile app can be vastly improved. A few things that would make it usable for me:

* Offline music playlists -> currently the playlists only work when online

* Offline music filtering -> any of the filtering options in the offline music (downloads), just don't work/have no effect, so you can't sort/reorder music

* Shuffle on/off (this online and offline) -> instead of creating a shuffled playlist, allow 'on the fly' shuffling when toggling the shuffle button, so I don't have to clear the current playlist (very annoying when you have an 'ad hoc' playlist you want to shuffle through, as you will have to save it with a name first).

If the code is open I can help with some of those issues, but it seems it's closed source :,(

Hi, but these are just general music feature requests and not directly related to a "standalone music app", as these could all be done in the current app. Your requests all already have open topics for them that you could lend your support to.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Jbbrack03

Personally I can see both sides of this discussion. The Emby devs view this as being redundant and unnecessary because the functionality that is needed for music exists. Completely valid perspective. With that said, I think that this is more about removing friction from the onboarding process for family & friends. Many of us have discovered the freedom of self-hosting and the value proposition of owning media and not subscribing to it. We want to share that freedom with other people that are coming from a traditional subscription experience (Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, etc). For these people, the core Emby experience needs to be as close to those things as possible. Once they realize that functionality and utility is virtually the same, then they'll start to understand the value behind the scenes of owning the content and controlling it. And I do think that over time they'll develop the curiosity to see what else Emby has to offer. But Music is the gateway to this sort of thing and it needs to be on par with what is already expected by these kinds of users. So while a dedicated Music App is absolutely redundant, I do view it as being necessary in terms of evangelizing self-hosted media. 

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