Octave is the basis for our long awaited Network server. Any server has to have a music management system to work well and it is that music management system, like iTunes, Roon, etc. that make or break a product. Octave is our version and we’ve been working hard getting it right.
We have put a test “sandbox” version of Octave you can access here: http://52.35.59.170/
This is only a test site and much on it does not work. You cannot actually play music. The library installed is a test library of the metadata and does not actually have music. The player’s just there for show.
The recommended artists and other such niceties are mere placeholders so ignore.
Building playlists, editing tracks, etc,. are all fake.
What we’d like is some feedback on the ease of navigation. How easy/pleasant/intuitive is the user interface?
Play with it and see. Hopefully it’s somewhat explanatory - in the non discover mode when you click an album the tracks unfold below the album making selection quick and easy.
How do you like the sort down function we just added?
Is it intuitive? Does it help get to the album you want?
Whatever your feedback click the feedback tab on the left and leave it for us.
Thanks for helping us make Octave better. Our intent is to create the best music management program on the planet. Not a small challenge, but it’s how we tackle just about everything we do.
I am finding it hard to judge how well it works without having a sense of what is in the library; i.e., e.g., what I should see upon searching for Bach.
When searching for Beethoven as composer I get two identical results with his picture showing the same number of tracks (along with Pat Methany and other results which appear irrelevant). When clicking on the picture, I get a list of tracks. While interesting, it is overwhelming and I do not listen to tracks, but to albums. Is there a way to get a list of albums?
Then when I click on either Beethoven picture I get a list of tracks. Interesting and an option I would like, but typically not useful as I want to see albums (is there a way to do this from either screen?)
I haven’t tried it yet and perhaps you have addressed this. I would really like to have a file browser so that I can select manually from my library instead of just relying on search results. Doesn’t have to be fancy.
Update: ok, I just tried it. Going to “artists” and using the text view is close but I would like to see the file trees, just like you would get with clicking down through folders in Wndows. Mininserver’s tree is what I have in mind, when I want to go for something specific, as an alternative search function.
+1 For “regular” file browser/explorer or like finder on mac. I personally really like Moodeaudio/Volumio/Runeaudio UI/UX and a must have is nfs/cifs direct access to NAS share. Another great feature is adjustable (0-15sec) crossfade for background music.
I like the current design (maybe dark theme for late night sessions and better for OLED screens ) and I hope it will be browser only, no stupid laggy apps! Browser is the universal way to control/configure from any device with network access.
We are misunderstanding each other. Try this. Click the Octave logo and go to the homepage or from anywhere in the UI click Collections and then Albums. From there, click on the albums category like Composer and enter Beethoven in there.
Do give it a try. You don’t have to search anything I was just hoping folks would test the specific search area I was interested in to see how functional it was.
You can browse through albums or artists with ease in either list format or album art format. Give it a try and let us know.
The default is to show all albums where Beethoven appears anywhere - such as the cloying Charlie Brown Christmas. Is there a way to limit the search to albums of Beethoven? (This may be asking a bit much of the UI.)
Hey guys, this list view is not file browser! For example, I have hundreds of sorted/carefully selected files in one folder from different artists/genres/albums (best of 70s/80s etc). It would be impossible to play that folder. There are very few albums with all good/listenable songs for me, more like 2 maybe 3 songs. At the moment it’s like itunes for me, unusable, but maybe I’m not the target group either.
What he said. Keeps the grouping together and is my preferred method when going right for something specific. For instance, if I want to pay the last track on Spes, a collection of Norwegian folk tunes arranged for orchestra and chorus with names that I cannot pronounce, let alone remember, I can quickly seek that album and scroll down, in order, to the song I want. Very old school but if you know your collection, very efficient.
It wouldn’t need to spread out all in one window, but would probably look like MConnect’s app, going to a new window each time you went up or down a level within a folder. The main point being that it would follow exactly the way you set the files and folders on your hard drive.
I have some artists with very large numbers of albums/disks, in one case several hundred. I need to be able to drill down from artist to album efficiently and clicking on the artist and then having to scroll through 500 large album icons is not going to work for me. Take a look at JRemote for JRMC. It gives the option once you click on an artist in artist view to see albums in large icon, small icon and list view. That would be ideal. (It also helps to have an alphabet sidebar that you can click on to jump to artists or albums starting with that letter). I tried the list view as well and it frankly seems useless to me. When you click on the Beatles, for example, you get a list of all the tracks in all the albums rather than getting a list of albums first. (I made the same comment when I first saw a beta version of the site months ago.) Rather than displaying albums underneath an artist once you click on an artist, while continuing to show all artists on screen, it would make more sense to me if it only displayed the albums for that artist and gave you a choice of how to display those albums.
) and I hope it will be browser only, no stupid laggy apps! Browser is the universal way to control/configure from any device with network access.
