Audio Books

[JoshuaPettus]

I'm not sure how many other people use Music app for audio books, but personally I love to, paired with subsonic, as a way to stream audio books to my phone while I'm in the car. It just works great. Although I do spend some time converting the files to mp3 to make it work with the system. One thing I think is a little clunky though is the way audio books are listed in the Album or Folder menus along with Music. It would be nice if there were a way to separate them. Like another side menu dedicated just for audio books in an AUDIOBOOK sub folder. Maybe have the menu not appear if there is no sub folder?

Unless someone else has a better idea?

[ei8fdb]

I'm not sure how many other people use Music app for audio books,

I currently don't use Music app (i.e. in the browser) for audiobooks but I would like to.

There are 3 functions that are missing (unless I'm completely missing it) that would be needed (for me at least) to play audiobooks:

1. Change the speed of audiobook playback
2. Set a stop timer (I listen to books when going to sleep 😴)
3. Set a bookmark to return to if playback gets interrupted.

but personally I love to, paired with subsonic, > as a way to stream audio books to my phone
while I'm in the car. It just works great.

I had not thought about using Subsonic client. I think it allows definitely 1 and 3 above, right?

One thing I think is a little clunky though is
the way audio books are listed in the Album or > Folder menus along with Music. It would be
nice if there were a way to separate them. Like > another side menu dedicated just for audio
books in an AUDIOBOOK sub folder. Maybe
have the menu not appear if there is no sub folder?

I had similar thoughts to yours. I'll do some low-fi sketches and see what i can come up with.

[JoshuaPettus]

Oh yes 1 + 3. 3 especially is vital. The webapp itself doesn't, or know of the subsonic ones (does ampache have bookmarks?) So those would be nice to implement somehow?

I've never thought of 2, but then when I listen to books when I go to sleep I spend quite a bit of time the next day trying to figure out where it was my brain lost full attention anyway. There is no way for the app to know that unless it monitors brainwaves or something XD

[EDIT]

It occurs to me that these would all be great suggestions to augment the podcast ability as well? Just a thought.

Another thought about this: from the subsonic point of view, there isn't to much we can do to improve the organization in Artist View (I don't think). Maybe in Folder view, if there were a way to present the Audiobooks folder outside the "Music" folder, but I have no idea how feasible that would be.

[FadeFx]

i love the new tree view in folder vew, this helps me with my way of music organisation by genre/album artist/album folder sceme. I dont use Audiobooks too much, but i guess having a subfolder only for audiobooks in the tree view would fix your initial organisational problem...

[ColdHotman]

How about a separate category on the main interface, like podcasts, based on tags?

I'd love a field in the settings where I could define tags that are audiobooks, all my files are i.e. marked as "Audiobook - Genre".

[paulijar]

In my thinking, this feature request has some synergy with #760: If the Music app would support defining multiple top-level folders, then there could also be some UI feature to easily switch between showing audio files from only one selected top-level folder or from all of them. Then, the user could have the audio books in one top-level folder and music in another, and this wouldn't cumber the user interface of those users who do not care about audio books. And on the other hand, the same mechanism might serve some other needs of some users to categorize their audio files.

[JoshuaPettus]

That would be excellent!

[ColdHotman]

there could also be some UI feature to easily switch between showing audio files from only one selected top-level folder of from all of them. Then, the user could have the audio books in one top-level folder and music in another

With Webradio and Podcasts having equally prominent placements in the sidebar as the Music collection, this seems to break with the general design. As a heavy podcast user it's really nice to have the podcast section easily available, and can only imagine the same goes for audiobooks. If there's an UI switch between top-level folders it would have to be quite prominent on the front-end, and at that point why not a separate "Audiobook" category?

and this wouldn't cumber the user interface of those users who do not care about audio books.

That's a good point, but can't the same be said for the "Podcast" and "Webradio" sections?

My suggestion is to create a new section in the sidebar and separate the tracks through tags:

[paulijar]

My vision was something like this, although I haven't locked on the details yet:

Here, the folder selection would have an effect on all the first four views. And if more views for the local content (like #903) were ever added, naturally those would obey the folder selection as well. I would hide the drop down menu from the UI in case there was only one top-level folder set up.

The reason I dislike the idea of a dedicated Audio books view, is because the audio books are just one type of local content. Technically, they are in no way different from any other local audio files. I would much rather want to create mechanism which could be used by the users for various purposes. Maybe the user A wants to separate audio books from the music collection while the user B wants to separate "music for children" from "music for adults". And the user C has horded a large offline collection of podcast episodes which he wants separated from the music. And user D wants to have one top folder for neatly organized and tagged music files while another folder contains untagged and unorganized random songs.

Filtering the content by the top-level folder is also a good match to what is possible on the Subsonic API and supported by some Subsonic clients.

but can't the same be said for the "Podcast" and "Webradio" sections?

Fair point. However, podcasts and webradio are totally different kind of entities compared to local audio. These views have their own requirements and there was really no good alternative to having own views for these things. However, it might make sense to have some user setting to hide these from the menu in case the user never intends to use them.

[Plinsboorg]

Hi all,
My problem with audiobooks is that there are always added to the all music collection.
I often play all tracks in shuffle mode. And having audiobooks appear in the middle of it is something I don't like.
I would love to be able to add an audiobooks folder to the music collection but specify that I DON'T WANT TO ADD IT TO ALL TRACKS LIST. It's also ok not to add them to the music collection at all. I want to see this folder in the folders view and be able to drag it to the playlist - that's all.
Maybe there is a separate issue for this feature, please help me find it if it exists.

[JoshuaPettus]

paulijar's proposed solution would probably be a great fit for you then.
In the meantime, you can create a playlist of only the tracks you want and shuffle the playlist. Or move the audio books you aren't actively listening out of your Music folder and re-scan the Music folder.