Oops...

For reasons all to do with my incompetence, I managed to release Giocoso Version 3.30 with an installer that did not download two of the release's key new features (global resume and global notes). If you upgraded using the one-off upgrade script, no problem; but if you did a fresh install, you'd be missing files needed for full functionality.

Noticing this, I fixed the issue ...and introduced a regression that meant the installer tried to pull down files from a completely non-existent folder on this website. Meaning nothing got installed at all 🙁 Some fix. [...] 

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Giocoso Version 3.30 Released - Welcome to Pro!

After a bit of a delay, but slightly ahead of the previously-advised revised schedule, I've today released Giocoso Version 3.30. The changelog, as usual, details all the fixes and enhancements and changes that have gone into the new release.

The short version is, however: Giocoso Pro. This is Giocoso's new-found ability to communicate with a remote database and thereby share its play history with other devices. That also allows one device to make a note about a recording and an entirely different device to read that note later (a feature called 'Global Notes'). There's also 'Global Pause', which allows one device to pause playback and another device to resume it: a feature I find incredibly handy when I listen to music at night on the laptop then want to resume it in the main listening room the next morning. Less obvious, but equally as significant: the default music search algorithm underwent a significant re-write, making it more efficient, but potentially leading to new outcomes that would have been impossible in earlier releases. [...] 

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Progress Report & Merch!

Anyone wanting a Giocoso-themed coffeee/tea cup is now welcome to get one. Every mug purchase made by clicking that link yields me a £1 commission, which helps pay this web server's electricity bills! It's just a bit of fun, really; but if enough people asked, I can get organised to do t-shirts, too. The mug is a typical size, fits in the hand nicely and has the new Giocoso logo all over it! It's been tested in the microwave and dishwasher, so it's pretty robust. Make of it what you will, anyway!

Perhaps more importantly, Giocoso 3.30 itself moves ever-closer to release. In particular: [...] 

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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 3.20 Released

Today, a few days earlier than planned, I'm releasing Version 3.20 of Giocoso. It's a very significant release and the version number has therefore jumped from 3.1x to 3.2x (specifically, from 3.12 to 3.20), as previously explained.

The two (relatively!) huge changes that have occurred are: 1) Ability to control a play (pause, resume, terminate, repeat etc) from within the playing Giocoso session's main play screen; and 2) Accurate timing information is now displayed (i.e., 'played X minutes of a piece that lasts Y minutes, therefore ending at Z clock time'). These were canvassed in some detail in an earlier blog piece[...] 

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Giocoso Changes Afoot...

Note: I've updated this post since originally written. The next release of Giocoso was due to be 3.13. I've subsequently decided to make it 3.20. I've therefore mentioned that version number in the update.

Giocoso Version 3.20 promises to be a really big version bump (so big, in fact, that I was thinking of calling it Version 4.0, but ultimately decided against it). It is currently scheduled for release in mid-December (after I've dog-fooded it for another few weeks). For anyone interested, the list of changes that are in the pipeline for the next release of Giocoso is visible in the program's changelog[...] 

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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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A Problem of Dates in Giocoso - Fixed

As I discussed in the last post here, Giocoso can be affected by the problem of 'fake, duplicate play completions' being inserted into its PLAYS table one second later than the real completion of a play is recorded.

I promised a fix: today is therefore the release day for Giocoso Version 3.09. The new version adds a trigger to the PLAYS table that prevents such fake duplicate plays being created in the future. The fix does not go back and eliminate any existing fake duplicates, since that would involve automatically deleting data from PLAYS, and that sort of thing is very tricky to get 100% right and thus not endanger good data. [...] 

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Giocoso Version 3.06 Released

A new release of Giocoso has been made available, fixing a recently-discovered minor, but annoying, bug. This brings the current version of Giocoso up to 3.06.

The bug was that if you used any of the non-default methods of selecting music to play from the Play Music menu (such as Option 2, where you specify filters to control the selection, or Option 5, where a playlist is used to determine what to play and in what order), the number of 'selections' to be played would be remembered if you halted those non-default plays early and then switched to using Option 1's 'play music with defaults' menu option. For example: take Option 2 and say 'play only music that lasts less than 10 minutes': maybe that will generate a list of things to be played that numbers 1345. After playing 4 things from that list, you interrupt the play (by issuing an Autostop request, for example) but do not quit Giocoso. Then you take Play Music option 1: the default, randomised selection of music now takes place... but Giocoso will still declare that there are 1345 items to be played (the top right-hand corner will display something like 'Selection 1 of 1345'). That's because it's a bug of omission: the default play method didn't explicitly set the limit on plays, so if another play option did, the default play method was stuck using that number of selections. [...] 

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Reaching the limits

The graph at the left tells a tale! The context for that tale is that since June 3rd 2021, I've been using Giocoso to play (almost exclusively) only those recordings which have not previously been recorded as having been played, in an attempt to ensure that by the time I come to kick the bucket, I can say, hand-on-heart, that I've listened to every recording I ever bought. On the one hand, the tale is of good news: the graph shows that only 7.1% of my entire collection has not yet been played by Giocoso. So, I've played around 93% of it, which is pretty good going.

It's even better going when you consider that for much of the time since June 2021, I've had time restrictions on my plays: in other words, I've told Giocoso 'play unplayed recordings that last less than 20 minutes' or something similar. As a result, I haven't listened to Wagner's Ring cycle with Giocoso, but I know for certain I've played those recordings multiple, multiple times in the years before 2021. Which is to say: even the 7.1% I haven't 'officially' played contains substantial chunks of recorded music which I know I've played using different tools... so the amount of my collection which is truly unplayed is significantly less than 7%. [...] 

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