Skytopia > Software > MegaDJ for MediaMonkey (First created 16/07/2008)


Download v2.59

(25/01/2012 - Fully functional version with
up to 5 nodes - see below for upgrade)


Important: for existing users, please read v2.55 notes


Click here to see the MediaMonkey thread on the V2 topic.

Click here to see the MediaMonkey thread on the old V1 topic.

  • Installation / updating to latest version
  • Description
  • Upgrading demo to full
  • Background
  • Examples and how to use
  • History

    Installation

    Mediamonkey 3.0.3.1179 or later is required. In each of the below cases, you may need to reboot Mediamonkey after installation (to avoid two instances of the script running).

    Installing for the first time:
    Initial installation is a piece of cake - simply download the link above. If you're using Internet Explorer, it may try to save the file with the ".zip" extension, so make sure you rename it from ".zip" to ".MMIP" after download. Once you have the "megadj2b.MMIP" file, simply double click it to install. Windows may ask you to run Mediamonkey as administrator. If this happens, right click the program's icon, and select "Run as Administrator". Finally, once it's installed, if the red MegaDJ icon fails to show in the tree menu, simply reboot Mediamonkey.

    If you already have MegaDJ 2.40 or higher (demo or full):
    You can update through Mediamonkey's standard "Tools -> Extensions -> Find/Install Updates" feature. Ignore the below.

    If you're upgrading from MegaDJ version 1.xx:
    Please remove or move that first (since the old v1 nodes won't work properly with v2).

    Otherwise (i.e. if you have MegaDJ from v2.00 through to v2.37), to update to latest version:
    If you have the full paid version and you want to update MegaDJ, please use the special URL you received after paying through Paypal. Otherwise the demo version can be updated simply from the download link above.

    Description

    MegaDJ is a script to (practically) replace the standard AutoPlaylist search in MediaMonkey. It is easy to use and can be used for both very simple and complex queries, including specific searches and random DJ-style playlists. Many aspects of MegaDJ work like a search engine, such as the way you would look for phrases (using quotes), or omitting results from the search using minus (e.g.: -myword). If you want to scan your library for multiple keywords, you can use AND (&), OR (|), and brackets etc., along with other operators (more than (>), less than (<), contains (~), equals (=) etc.) to form any possible query. Furthermore, you can bias or sort the resulting playlist to any criteria (such as higher rated, longer or older tracks).

    Main features include:

  • Full and interactive documentation along with loads of presets to show what does what
  • Very fast searching and displaying of tracks (even 100,000+ tracks are okay!)
  • Logic complete query system (brackets, OR, AND, NOT...)
  • Easy selection of fields to be added to query
  • Auto syncing with devices such as the iPod, Zen Stone and other removable disks
  • Random mode for DJ-style playlists
  • Versatile Math Filter to weight picks according to any criteria
  • Expandable tree-like node structure with clonable, movable, and deletable nodes
  • Sort feature to order tracks according to one or more fields
  • Rotating of MegaDJ/Mediamonkey playlists to allow for alternately mixed tracks
  • Query sections are resizable to allow for multi-line entry
  • Better than Winamp's 'Smart View' search ;-)

    Upgrading from the demo

    For personal non-commerical use, MegaDJ is being released under "pay-how-much-you-think-it's-worth-ware", which basically means you get to decide how much it's worth to you. I recommend $5, but it's your call. The version for download above is fully functional except it will only allow 5 nodes maximum. If you are undecided (e.g. maybe you prefer not to use Paypal), contact me, and I'll see what I can do. All donations are gratefully appreciated.

    If you are going to use MegaDJ in a commercial way or setting, please contact me for more info.

    Price you wish to pay:

    Background

    A short while back we reviewed MediaMonkey and three other music players. MM came out tops naturally. However, I was disappointed to see that Winamp's brilliant "custom query" section was not available in MediaMonkey. It allows brackets, and arbitrary criteria to define the search more exactly.

    Thanks to the fantastic addition of scripting to MediaMonkey, we started our quest to not only match, but surpass the version in Winamp. We hope you agree the goal's been met!

    Examples and how to use.

    MegaDJ comes jam-packed with examples on how to use it, including the more complex searches. I recommending downloading it and testing the many in-built presets on your own library to get a feel for what MDJ is capable of. Here however, is a glimpse of what you can expect:


    You can either select "QuickSearch" so a new node isn't created,
    or instead create a new filter to build up your collection.




    The "all" keyword in the Query Filter as shown above will simply show all tracks. We've also added 'SongTitle' and 'Album' in the "Sort Fields" area so that the final list is sorted by those categories.




    The text in the Query Filter translates to "Show all tracks that CONTAIN 'Abba' as the Artist, OR 'Rah Band' as the Artist.". Additionally, we've selected the 'Random mode' (radio button), and entered 50 tunes. Thus 50 randomly picked tracks will be returned from our query.




    More complex queries are easily handled. This one translates to "Select tracks with 'c64' in any field as long as it's rated higher than 3 star......... OR if the word 'pop' appears in any field
    (the | symbol is used here instead of OR, and the & symbol instead of AND).

    The final condition is that it must have been played less than 100 days ago (the decimal place is handled too)."

    Furthermore, from the above subset, pick 500 random tunes and bias towards those with a high rating (the "2^rating" bit), and also bias towards those that have been played fewer times (the "/PlayCounter" bit). Finally, remove all duplicates from the list.




    The Math Filter supports most math functions, and also allows the use of an If/Else statement. Here, the filter is saying, query all tracks, but randomly pick 200 with certain biases...
    The "rating<0" bit means 'unrated' basically, so it receives a weighting of 16. Otherwise (i.e. if rating >=0), calculate 2^rating, and that will be the weighting instead (2,4,8,16,32 depending on whether it's 1,2,3,4 or 5 star).
    This allows a nice selection between highly rated tracks, and also those you haven't rated or heard much.




    For each node, you can delete, edit, clone, move up/down or refresh the list. Refreshing is handy if the database has been updated, or you want a new sample of randomly selected tracks.


    That's practically it. Have fun!



    History

    25/01/2012 v2.59: An update on the same day. I think the very latest versions of MediaMonkey 4 have changed the main scripts path to the standard users path (rather than the "Program Files" path), so this release takes that into account.

    25/01/2012 v2.58: Using MegaDJ fields such as 'lastplayedage' is problematic in MediaMonkey 4 due to its storage of dates/times in universal rather than local time (which MM3 used). This has been fixed for 2.58.

    25/12/2011 v2.57: Ooops, version 2.56 may have produced an error saying "Can't find msvcp100.dll". This has been resolved now (thanks to AnthonyM1229 from the forum). Merry chrimbo all!

    23/12/2011 v2.56: For many searches (especially random playlists), MegaDJ is now up to twice the speed as before (the download is also almost half the size). Both these changes have come about because I've switched from Dev C++/Mingw to Visual Studio for compilation of the C source code. Finally, for people who have more than 32767 tracks in their entire library, random tracks are much more random now (many tracks would have been bypassed before).

    02/12/2011 v2.55: Major bug fixed, so MegaDJ now works properly with Mediamonkey 4 /Win7/Vista. Also fixed control focusing. Finally added entries in help menu to show where the saved data locations are if anyone's curious. The MegaDJ nodes may move around, so for this release I suggest that for existing users, that they only upgrade if they need to (despite a couple of new minor features). If you must go ahead and you are confident with Windows and moving files around, then nodes can usually be found in the "Mediamonkey/Scripts/Auto/MegaDJ" folder. These would then be moved to the "Settings path" location you can see if you select "About MegaDJ" from the dropdown menu. Nodes will look like numbered files such as "1", "2", "3" etc. and don't forget to move the "megadj.ini" file to the new location too.

    03/01/2011 v2.54: Inside phrases (quotes), the symbols % and _ usually act as wildcard features, but now they can be overridden by inserting an @ symbol before. Please see documentated presets 35 and 36 for details. Also fixed remaining symbols (e.g. ~ and =) inside phrases to act as literals. Finally, made sure main MegaDJ node could never be renamed.

    14/12/2010 v2.53: Fixed &, | and ! symbols to remain as pure input text when inside quotes (converted to AND, NOT etc. before). The MegaDJ node starts collapsed when Mediamonkey is booted. Also fixed a potential source of bugs: a query with no results created a pseudo random number in the numbered output file.

    31/03/2010 v2.52: Massive bug fix potentially for many, and sorry to all for the delay with this update (excuse=Mandelbulb stuff). Fixed error message when closing Mediamonkey. Also fixed field mismatch with newer Mediamonkey databases (preventing many functions from working altogether). Also, weird NULL bug with MediaType field prevented anyfield from working.

    30/08/2009 v2.51: Fixed crashing bug on some systems due to 'NULL pointer' bug. Though there may be others, a proper error message should appear now.

    22/07/2009 v2.50: New "Cycle" mode will refresh tracks when the last one has been played (a bit like Mediamonkey's AutoDJ mode). Also, when cycling through a master rotate node, the child nodes will also refresh, as long as they each have Cycle enabled also.

    Bugs & small things fixed: Fixed flushing of ini file for MM v3.1 (causes bug sometimes with recognizing of rotation nodes). Entering a negative amount of tunes caused MDJ to crash. Fixed potential recursive refreshing when autorefresh is enabled and more than around 5000 tracks are picked. Visually disabled advanced mode when rotate is typed, since it is ignored anyway.

    08/07/2009 v2.46: Fixed major crashing bug when using "Advanced" queries in MDJ while using Mediamonkey 3.1

    21/06/2009 v2.45: Potential crash issues fixed. Also MegaDJ now works properly with Mediamonkey 3.1 (fixed repeating help boxes and other GUI features). Finally, removed our old "All Tracks" node, because MM 3.1 allows the main library node to do this now.

    21/06/2009 v2.41: Fixed updating issue with full version. Also fixed capital letters with MM playlists prob.

    20/06/2009 v2.40: When rotating playlists, one can use the ? symbol to choose a random track from that playlist. MegaDJ also supports standard Mediamonkey playlists (but not Autoplaylists). Also, fixed a bug - using the "Rotating Playlist" feature now allows the dash symbol "-" as a character in playlist names.

    12/03/2009 v2.37: A few bug fixes, mainly involving special characters, which are now allowed in the string parts of the math filter. Also fixed removal of spaces around operators in string sections. Finally, apostophes are allowed in a string with the help of the backslash \ character. For example, enter something like: "ghosts\'n goblins" or "rock \'n\' roll". Make sure to surround by quote marks when you do.

    09/01/2009 v2.35: Rotating playlists are better supported with * and = signs. Also potentially fixed possible database opening/closing glitch.
    24/12/2008 v2.3: Christmas release! You can now rotate (interleave/alternate) MegaDJ playlists. The new "autorefresh node" feature allows a node to refresh its tracks without ever needing to press F4. Also, an 'Unlock After' tune setting has been added so that a tune can't be repeated until after x new tunes have played. Also a potential node order bug has been fixed, and the user interface has been tidied up (options disabled/enabled better).

    22/11/2008 v2.23: A few sync bugs fixed since 2.2.

    21/11/2008 v2.2: MegaDJ now allows auto syncing with devices such as the iPod, Zen Stone and other removable disks!

    20/11/2008 v2.1: Fixed potential clash with other scripts and reduced crashing potential in backend search. Also fixed database opening error bug (repress F4 though if need be).

    31/10/2008 v2.01: Fixed routine when uninstalling. If uninstall fails, reboot MM, and try the uninstall again - it should work the second time.

    30/10/2008
    Release of MegaDJ v2b!!

  • Easier to use than version 1.0 in the following ways:
    - Search engine style querying (e.g. "dream song" instead of "dream & song". Also, '-' to remove a keyword easily.
    - Interactive documentation
    - Plenty of interactive presets available at a click of a button
    - Advanced and basic mode to hide complexity unless otherwise needed.
  • Ability to use string fields in Math filter for many undreamt possibilities
  • Query sections are now resizable text boxes to allow for multi-line entry.
  • A new "Sort Fields" section has been added so you can sort string fields now (the math filter can sort only with numeric fields).
  • Nodes can now be cloned and moved up and down the node list
  • Added important keyboard shortcuts
  • Redo of node system, and other bugs fixed

    18/07/2008
    v1.0 beta 3
  • Fixed bug where entering more tracks than in your collection (whilst in random mode) crashed the program
  • Added sort feature

    17/07/2008
    v1.0 beta 2
  • Math functions like ABS, INT, and COS now work in Math Filter.
  • Corrected date format for Year field to YYYYMMDD.

    16/07/2008
    Version 1.0 beta released

    Future

  • Allow Count field to count how many tracks have whatever criteria




    The MegaDJ software is copyright Daniel White 2008+.