Pre-announcing Giocoso Pro

I'm going to be releasing a new version of Giocoso soon(ish): sometime in February 2025, I think. The new version will be yet another 'version number leap' ahead of its predecessor. From Version 3.20 we will be jumping straight to Version 3.30 ...and I don't do version number leaps without a good reason!

The good reason this time is the introduction of Giocoso Pro, which is not a separate product, nor something you have to pay for. It's simply the new ability of Giocoso to use a remote database to work out what to play next and to record details about what it has played. I've called it 'pro' only because doing remote database connections requires the installation, configuration and use of a 'proper' relational database: in this case, MySQL (or MariaDB: the two names essentially describe much the same product), and 'doing' proper relational database work can be ...er, tricky! [...] 

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Giocoso Version 3.11 Released

As promised last time, a new version of Giocoso has just been released, bringing its version number up to 3.11.

It's a relatively significant update, especially as it introduces a new configuration parameter which may not be set to the value you'd prefer. Specifically, a parameter called 'Automatically launch Mgiocoso Control Panel' has been added and it defaults to a 'yes' value. It means that by launching Giocoso, you'll also trigger the automatic launch of the standalone mgiocoso controller window. If you'd prefer that not to happen, you need to use the Administration menu, Option 3 to edit your configuration file. Find the page for 'Parameters requiring yes/no answers' and look to the bottom of the page: [...] 

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Giocoso Tips

I just thought I'd show you how I run Giocoso on my main desktop these days: see the screenshot at the left.

That's just a picture of KDE's default terminal, Konsole, running in 'split view' mode. Open Konsole, click the Split View button at the top of the program area to obtain the drop-down menu and from that select Split View Left/Right[...] 

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Bug-hunt!

I've reached the persnickety bug-hunting phase of Giocoso Version 3 development! This is good, because it means a release of Version 3 is not too far away. It's bad, though, because as you uncover new, obviously stupid bugs, you spend your days thinking, 'How could I be so stupid!'

A case in point was just triggered by what I thought was going to be a trivial little addition to this website: adding a 'play count' column to my music play history listing. Adding the column itself and getting it populated from my Giocoso database was indeed quite simple. What wasn't expected was this: [...] 

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