Announce: Melodeon

[cpd73]

0.2.2 Release, changes:

1. Adjust layout of settings page.
2. Set size policy of push buttons in settings dialog, so that they do not become full with certain styles.
3. Improve appearance under GNOME; default to light Adwaita and don't try to have settings pages colours reflect theme as does not work.
4. Fix MPRIS interface so that correctly works with GNOME shell.

Source code and DEB package can be downloaded from:

• Source code
• DEB package

[papaiannis]

papaiannis You do not need to update the app

Thank you so much.

[cpd73]

papaiannis You do not need to update the app, but you will need to reload the page within Melodeon (as its jsut a basic web browser) for any MaterialSkin changes to be used. You can eithe rust re-start the app or use F5 (KDE) or Ctrl-R (GNOME)

[papaiannis]

cpd73
Since Melodeon is a wrapper for MaterialSkin, I wonder whether updates to MaterialSkin are automatically reflected in Melodeon, or whether the Melodeon application also needs to be updated.

[papaiannis]

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I solved the issue with:
xinit /usr/local/bin/melodeon

The zoom feature of melodeon is really great, especially for the visually impaired.

[papaiannis]

I managed to build Melodeon on my Raspberry Pi 4 running DietPi 64-bit. However, when I launch it, I get the following error messages :

qt.qpa.xcb: could not connect to display
qt.qpa.xcb:could not load the Qt platform "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
This application failed to start because no Qt Plaform plugin could be initialised...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[CJS]

Thanks for your suggestions. I just tested with "Draw background" disabled in Melodeon Interface settings. But Playing and Queue backgrounds stay solid red.

cpd73 , FYI, I had a closer look at the Melodeon / LMS Material Interface settings. This time I noticed that there are actually 4 "Draw background" settings (i.e. for Browse, Now Playing, Queue and Song Information screens). When I disable all 4 of them, then I don't have a solid red background anymore in the Now Playing, Queue and Song Information screens (the first time I only disabled Draw Background for the Browse screen). So the solid red background problem is now partly fixed on the problem PC. Instead of solid red I have now the more neutral dark gray background in all screens, which is quite acceptable for this particular PC. I say partly solved, because apparently the "draw background" feature does not work anymore on this PC, while it has worked before.

My suspicion is that the "Draw background" feature is broken by an update to the video drivers for the Intel Integrated GPU in this PC. The PC has an Intel ATOM D510 dual core processor with integrated graphics, that uses the i915 video driver. As far as I understand, an i915 driver is integrated in the Linux Kernel, and additional video acceleration is provided by mesa3d packages. Don't ask me about the details. I don't know when the i915 driver in the Kernel was last updated, but the mesa packages for Linux Mint were last updated in June this year.

The reason that I think that the problem is caused by video drivers is that the "Draw background" option is working when I access this Linux Mint PC using the Remote Desktop client on my Windows PC. To enable remote access to the Linux Mint PC I installed an xrdp server on Linux Mint, which is an open source implementation of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol server. In an RDP session, after enabling the "Draw background" option for the various screens, the background graphics are displayed correctly, while on the monitor that is connected to the VGA output of the PC I get the solid red background.

NB: To be precise, I think that the "draw background" problem is caused by the Qt5WebEngine in combination with updated video drivers for the Integrated GPU on my Intel ATOM D510 CPU. The draw background feature works fine when opening LMS Material with Firefox.

Do you think that actually building Melodeon, on the "difficult" PC, would prduce a different result ?

FYI, I built the melodeon_0.2.2_amd64.deb from source code on the problem PC using this build instructions. The debian package builds without problems, but installing the built package does not solve the solid red background problem when enabling "Draw background" in the Melodeon Interface settings.

[Man in a van]

This old PC is only occasionally used to test some Linux stuff. As said before, Melodeon background display was OK on this PC, but is now broken. It is no big deal. I am open for suggestions, but there is no need for an extensive investigation.

Do you think that actually building Melodeon, on the "difficult" PC, would prduce a different result ?

Just a suggestion

ronnie

[CJS]

Perhaps disable using cover as a background?

Thanks for your suggestions. I just tested with "Draw background" disabled in Melodeon Interface settings. But Playing and Queue backgrounds stay solid red.

Maybe a driver issue? Tried wayland?

When I have time I will look into this. I have not tried wayland. Background display was OK before, so I wonder why I would now need to change to wayland? Anyway, when time permits I will have a look at this.

[cpd73]

I am open for suggestions

Perhaps disable using cover as a background? Maybe a driver issue? Tried wayland?

[CJS]

I am using Linux Mint 21.2 with XFCE desktop. Later today I will test/install the melodeon deb package on another PC with Linux Mint 21.2 XFCE and check if that gives the same problem. Will report back in this thread.

OK, I tested melodeon_0.2.1 on the Linux Mint partition of my main PC (dual boot Windows / Linux Mint 21.2 XFCE) which has more modern hardware. On this PC there is no problem with Melodeon background display.

So the Melodeon background display problem that I reported is specific for one older PC with Linux Mint 21.2 XFCE.
On this PC I reinstalled following 4 QtWebEngine related packages, but that did not help:

Name                          Version       Architecture Description
=============================-=============-============-==========================================
libqt5webchannel5:amd64       5.15.3-1      amd64        Web communication library for Qt
libqt5webengine-data          5.15.9+dfsg-1 all          Web content engine library for Qt - Data
libqt5webenginecore5:amd64    5.15.9+dfsg-1 amd64        Web content engine library for Qt - Core
libqt5webenginewidgets5:amd64 5.15.9+dfsg-1 amd64        Web content engine library for Qt - Widget​

More information about this old PC that has Melodeon background display problem (output of inxi -b):

System:
  Host: ATOM Kernel: 5.15.0-79-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.18.1
    Distro: Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria
Machine:
  Type: Unknown Mobo: Intel model: D510MO v: AAE76523-403
    serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Intel
    v: MOPNV10N.86A.0542.2011.0729.1300 date: 07/29/2011
CPU:
  Info: dual core Intel Atom D510 [MT MCP] speed (MHz): avg: 1667
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Atom Processor D4xx/D5xx/N4xx/N5xx Integrated Graphics
    driver: i915 v: kernel
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 driver: X: loaded: intel
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: i915 resolution: 1280x1024~60Hz
  OpenGL: renderer: i915 (: Pineview G) v: 2.1 Mesa 23.0.4-0ubuntu1~22.04.1
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    driver: r8169
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 698.65 GiB used: 37.9 GiB (5.4%)
Info:
  Processes: 221 Uptime: 3m Memory: 3.8 GiB used: 920.3 MiB (23.6%)
  Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.13​

This old PC is only occasionally used to test some Linux stuff. As said before, Melodeon background display was OK on this PC, but is now broken. It is no big deal. I am open for suggestions, but there is no need for an extensive investigation.

[CJS]

Perhaps its a QtWebEngine issue? Are you using Wayland?

I am using Linux Mint 21.2 with XFCE desktop. Later today I will test/install the melodeon deb package on another PC with Linux Mint 21.2 XFCE and check if that gives the same problem. Will report back in this thread.

[cpd73]

A little search today and I found this (changes on the top line, I don't know if they have any significance)

https://github.com/CDrummond/melodeon

I assume you are referring to the last commit message? I've recently switched back to GNOME from KDE, and noticed the settings dialog being badly recoloured so disabled this for GNOME. When running under GNOME I'm also going to default to "Adwaita" (the light variant) as (AFAICS) there is no way to change the titlebar colour to match the window.

I also run with "QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb" - which forces Qt to use XWayand when runnnig under Wayland - so the window has GNOME titlebars and a shadow.

[cpd73]

• Uninstalling and reinstalling melodeon_0.2.1_amd64.deb did not help
• Clearing Cache in Melodeon Application settings did not help
• Reverting from kernel 5.15.0-79 to 5.15.0-78 did not help

Perhaps its a QtWebEngine issue? Are you using Wayland? Perhaps try "melodeon --platform xcb" ? (This forces Qt to use the X11/XWayland backend even when running under Wayland - which allows for sahdows and nicer window frames)

Kernel version should have no impact.

[Man in a van]

CJS


I have checked both my Melodeon installations; one on Debian Bookworm and one on Ubuntu Jellyfish.

Both were built a few weeks ago and both still have the same default colour schemes.

Build instructions are here:

https://github.com/CDrummond/melodeon/blob/master/BUILDING.md

A little search today and I found this (changes on the top line, I don't know if they have any significance)

https://github.com/CDrummond/melodeon

ronnie


PS, the Dev may well be on Holiday