Automatic for the people!
Nimelia has been busy tinkering with an updated version of the plugin SongbookBB (under stern supervision from her auntie Tibba).
The plugin is a massive help for anyone who plays music in LOTRO, and now it is even better than before!
Before we launch the updated version properly, though, we’d love your help! V0.99 seems quite stable for us, and The Brandy Badgers use it for our music-playing in-game right now. However, it’d be grand to have some assistance in tracking down any remaining pesky bugs. And this is where yer all come in.
Right now, we’re primarily trying to sort out any bugs or remaining strangeness, to make this version as stable as can be. Suggestions for bigger improvements or new functionality are also welcome, but please note that they will likely go on Tibba’s list of possible future features, after this version is done.
Beta-testing version 0.99 A-1
Version 099 A-1 was added October 3.
Yer can download it here.
- Any further updated beta versions will be added here when they are available.
- To install, unzip the file into your “Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/Plugins” folder, keeping all sub-folders in the zip as usual
- Also remember that you need to scan your ABC song files, so the plugin can find your song collection. Use the Songbooker datafiller which yer can get in the Songtools pack here.
For general SongbookBB installation instructions and more on the plugin history, see the plugin home page.
Note that we plan to release SongbookBB on lotrointerface in not too long, to make for easier installation through the LOTRO plugin compendium.
What’s new from v0.98a?
Auto-selection of correct song and track, according to the announcement of the band leader. Very useful for large bands!
- Players must tick "Auto select" at the bottom of the plugin window to activate the feature and be able to receive the correct song/part from the announcement. Note: With auto-select enabled, your currently set filters will be cleared when the plugin switches to a new song
- If you tick "Auto select" after an announcement was already made, the plugin will select the last announcement
- “Auto select” has no effect for the band leader making the announcement
Several extensions to search
- A drop-down button next to the “Search” button allows you to switch between three search modes: Search in all folders/your whole song collection (A), the current folder selected in the directory window (C), or the current+subfolders (S)
- Additional filter option for instrument
- Additional filter option for song duration (e.g., 3:00 finds all songs with length 3 minutes +/- 15 seconds; 3-4 finds all songs between 3-4 minutes)
- Checking a filter only prepares the filter for the next search; use Shift-Click to immediately apply the filter
- Use search strings to filter options to restrict the search result (example search string: concerning hobbits p:7 i:flute)
- Use comma to separate several filter criteria (e.g., flute,clarinet,drum in the instrument filter; i:"flute,clarinet,drum" in the search field)
- See also the section of UI changes below for more information on the search changes
UI changes
- Display the tagged information for the selected song (you can switch between tag display and filter display)
- Increased font sizes
- Moved Search/Clear buttons to the right, to increase search textbox size
- Removed the “Player” button from the player name column, since the updating of players here has been fixed
- Corrected the position of headings of various windows
- Improved display of directory
- The filter/folder window size is now adjustable
- The click area for the instrument dropdown list is now restricted to approximately the area below the search buttons
- New dropdown list next to the “Search” button, to set the search mode
- The search field accepts filters. Use p: for part, i: for instrument, etc. (c, g, m, a for composer, genre, mood, author)
- Added German translations for 0.98a-1 (but not yet for the new features of this version, coming soon!)
- Added French translations for 0.98a-1 - A big thank you to Fleuralis of Laurelin! The additional texts for this version are coming soon.
Bugfixes
- Added "LuteOA" to the abbreviations
- Chat output of announcements can now handle more than 376 characters (the announcement is split accordingly)
- Summer Celebration Fiddle is now correctly treated as a Lonely Mountain Fiddle during equipped instrument checks
- The instrument skills window is fixed, to avoid a bug where instrument skills were not stored if you did not click directly into the checkboxes
- Instruments will now show in their given SongbookBB slots even after putting them into the vault and back Note: This does NOT work for instrument carry-alls. When you remove instruments from a carry-all, you create new copies of the instruments, and Songbook won’t be able to find the old ones and assign them to their slots
- Chatting with an offline player does not result in a nil value anymore
- 099 A-1: Fixes for overlapping headers when player column or tags/filters were turned off
Things to Consider
For the auto-select feature to work, song names have to be unique throughout your whole Music folder. Auto-select will jump to the first song which matches the announced song.
We are working to add a check to Songbooker to indicate duplicate song names to help you find duplicates.
Lastly, we hope the plugin works well for yer!