Auto play media files

[ravishi]

Hi, first of all, congratulations and thank you for this great piece of software. I don't know how I'd work without it.
Is there an option for automatically previewing media files in the Preview pane?

I use Everything to browse my sound effects and it would be fantastic if the file would start playing when selected. Currently, I need to hit Ctrl+P on each file.

(Great columns for audio in 1.5a! Thanks for the work.)

Have a marvellous day, Everyone!

[void]

Thank you for your feedback ravishi,

Everything uses the system to render previews.

Third party preview handlers can be installed.

Does anyone know of a preview handler that auto-plays?
If so, please post it here.



If you are using Everything 1.5, please check out the winmm (Windows Multimedia) ini setting.

When enabled, Everything will audio play the selected media file.

To enable winmm:

• In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
  /winmm=1
• If successful, winmm=1 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.

To disable winmm:

• In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
  /winmm=0
• If successful, winmm=0 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.

[horst.epp]

That depends on your installed preview handlers.
I have assigned the .wav to "Windows Media Player Rich Preview Handler".
Preview in Everything (Alt-P) shows the player and I can press the play button.
Using the setting /winmm=1 is not very usable as it starts playing just when the cursor is the the results on a media file.
It should only play if the preview pane is shown.

[harryray2]

Is there a way to play video (mp4) files in preview?

[ravishi]

Using the setting /winmm=1 is not very usable as it starts playing just when the cursor is the the results on a media file.
It should only play if the preview pane is shown.

A shortcut key combination for toggling /winmm on/off would be great for this.
Or a button bar?

[horst.epp]

Using the setting /winmm=1 is not very usable as it starts playing just when the cursor is the the results on a media file.
It should only play if the preview pane is shown.

A shortcut key combination for toggling /winmm on/off would be great for this.
Or a button bar?

Why complicated ?
It would be enough if it plays only when preview is on.
So if winmm is set you can use the hotkey (Alt-P) to toggle preview.

[ravishi]

Why complicated ?
It would be enough if it plays only when preview is on.
So if winmm is set you can use the hotkey (Alt-P) to toggle preview.

True. True. Please add this, My Void
Thank you!

[ravishi]

Why complicated ?
It would be enough if it plays only when preview is on.
So if winmm is set you can use the hotkey (Alt-P) to toggle preview.

But the idea would be that it plays in the preview pane, with the progress bar of the player...

[horst.epp]

...
But the idea would be that it plays in the preview pane, with the progress bar of the player...

That is what it does for me with the Windows Media Player Rich Preview Handler.
It just doesn't auto-play so I have to press the play button in the preview.

[ravishi]

...
But the idea would be that it plays in the preview pane, with the progress bar of the player...

That is what it does for me with the Windows Media Player Rich Preview Handler.
It just doesn't auto-play so I have to press the play button in the preview.

Mine is also like this, by default.
How can one install another preview handler?

(My Void was a ...typo, I meant Mr Void)

[horst.epp]

...
Mine is also like this, by default.
How can one install another preview handler?

Preview handlers come normaly as part of other software like Office or as part of Windows.
I use the PreviewHandlerEditor to assign extensions on the fly.
But the problem is to found preview handlers for certain formats and also for free.

I have no such problem in my File manager (Total commander)
as here the preview has auto-play for almost any formats.

[vsub]

Just a quick AutoHotkey script that seems to work

Code: Select all

#IfWinActive,AHK_class EVERYTHING
~LButton::
Keywait,LButton
MousegetPos,,,,Ctr
If Ctr != SysListView321
Return
StatusBarGetText,Text,,A
If (Text2 = Text)
Return
IfInString,Text,objects
Return
Sleep,1000
StatusBarGetText,Text2,,A
ControlGetPos,X,Y,w,h,AtlAxWin1,A
If X =
Return
ControlClick,% "x" X + (W / 2) A_Space "y" (Y + H)-15,A
Return

If the preview handler don't appear in 1 second after you release the mouse button,you will need to adjust the Sleep time(works fine here)

Btw void,I am using wmp activex that to run media files.Here is a tinny part of the code that may give you some ideas

Code: Select all

Gui,P:Add, ActiveX,X0 Y0 w320 h272 vAV , WMPLayer.OCX
AV.stretchToFit := true
AV.settings.volume := 100
AV.Settings.setMode("loop" ,true)
AV.Url := Path

[void]

It should only play if the preview pane is shown.

I will consider an option to do this.
For now, winmm plays the audio only for media files.

For the best experience, I would recommend using the preview handler to play your media files.
Unfortunately, Everything doesn't have control over auto-playing previews.
It is up to the preview handler.

Is there a way to play video (mp4) files in preview?

Windows supports mp4 previews out of the box.
Maybe you have installed a media player that disables this preview handler?

To use Windows media player to preview mp4 files:
In the registry editor, navigate to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mp4\ShellEx
Create a new key:
{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}
In this new key, set the (Default) data to:
{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}

-or-

Install a third party preview handler that supports mp4.

A shortcut key combination for toggling /winmm on/off would be great for this.
Or a button bar?

To create a bookmark to toggle winmm in Everything 1.5:

• In Everything 1.5, from the Bookmarks menu, click Add to bookmarks....
• Change the Name to:
  Toggle winmm
• Change the Search to:
  /winmm=!
• Optionally set a keyboard shortcut.
• Click OK.

This currently does not start playing the selected file.
You will need to change the selection after toggling winmm to auto play.

The next alpha update will auto play the selected file when toggling winmm.

Why complicated ?
It would be enough if it plays only when preview is on.
So if winmm is set you can use the hotkey (Alt-P) to toggle preview.

There is no visual output with winmm.
winmm is designed to be used without the preview pane.

I highly recommend installing a third party preview handler with auto play over using winmm.

That said, I will consider an ini setting to only auto play media files with winmm when the preview pane is shown.

Thank you for the suggestions.

[ravishi]

Just a quick AutoHotkey script that seems to work

Code: Select all

#IfWinActive,AHK_class EVERYTHING
~LButton::
Keywait,LButton
MousegetPos,,,,Ctr
If Ctr != SysListView321
Return
StatusBarGetText,Text,,A
If (Text2 = Text)
Return
IfInString,Text,objects
Return
Sleep,1000
StatusBarGetText,Text2,,A
ControlGetPos,X,Y,w,h,AtlAxWin1,A
If X =
Return
ControlClick,% "x" X + (W / 2) A_Space "y" (Y + H)-15,A
Return

Thank you, vsub, it works great!

To create a bookmark to toggle winmm in Everything 1.5:

In Everything 1.5, from the Bookmarks menu, click Add to bookmarks....
Change the Name to:
Toggle winmm
Change the Search to:
/winmm=!
Optionally set a keyboard shortcut.
Click OK.

This currently does not start playing the selected file.
You will need to change the selection after toggling winmm to auto play.

The next alpha update will auto play the selected file when toggling winmm.

Thank you, void!

[void]

Everything 1.5.0.1315a will now play the selected file when winmm is enabled.

[void]

I have put on my TODO list to add an option to specify the window position for videos played with winmm/mciSendString.

[mczerski]

As this thread is more than 2 years old, let me add my "3 cents" to it
I am a happy user of ET 1.5.0.1275a (x64) on Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. However, I have set media handler to Potplayer because it has options that Windows Media Player does not. That’s why I would not like to change this setting.
As ignorant as I may occur, I understand that ET uses default Windows handler to play media in the preview panel, but all it does with my settings is that it displays a still image in the preview panel without any play, stop, etc. features, whilst the Total Commander and several other applications display fully operable movies in their preview panels. This means that the developers of TC and of these applications somehow managed to make my handler work properly in their applications.
Could that be the case of ET as well? Of course, I will welcome advice on how – on my own – I should make it work as desired (i.e. change settings, etc.)?
Best regards to all ET staff and cheers!

[NotNull]

As this thread is more than 2 years old, let me add my "3 cents" to it

Yeah, inflation is astronomical lately ...

There are people here that can help you much better than I can, but wanted to explain something.
A Preview Handler is a specific type of program that is used to show a preview in File Explorer. Some sort of plug-in for Explorer, if you like.
Everything uses that same plug-in to preview files.

The other programs you mention are players/viewers or maybe even editors.
Some of these programs come with an added preview handler, but most of them don't.
Like Potplayer: "just" a player/viewer, but no Preview Handler.

Other people here can likely recommend you some some decent preview handlers for media files. I can't.

[mczerski]

Thank you for your reply. I’ll look forward to advice (if any) from other forum members. Anyway, if no solution if found, I’ll live with that "curosity" of ET, as I still consider your ET absolutely marvellous in many, much more essential ascpecs. ET is unbeatable by any other software of similar features, to mention the speed of finding files in my several TB resources and many other features!!! Thanks for developing and updating your product.

[user123]

That depends on your installed preview handlers.
I have assigned the .wav to "Windows Media Player Rich Preview Handler".
Preview in Everything (Alt-P) shows the player and I can press the play button.
Using the setting /winmm=1 is not very usable as it starts playing just when the cursor is the the results on a media file.
It should only play if the preview pane is shown.

Doesn't seem to work anymore on Version 1.5.0.1406a (x64)
I have K-lite codec pack installed and it just shows its media player file extension icon in the preview pane.

This would be really useful for previewing for example sound effects instead of double clicking every time and waiting for the player to load the file

scr1.png (313.74 KiB) Viewed 2266 times

[void]

Does the Preview pane work in Windows Explorer?
-You should see the same preview in Everything.

-Please make sure previews are enabled:

• In Everything 1.5, from the Tools menu, click Options.
• Click the Advanced tab on the left.
• To the right of Show settings containing, search for:
  preview
• Select: show_preview_handlers_in_preview_pane
• Set the value to: true
• Click OK.

[user123]

Does the Preview pane work in Windows Explorer?
-You should see the same preview in Everything.

-Please make sure previews are enabled:

• In Everything 1.5, from the Tools menu, click Options.
• Click the Advanced tab on the left.
• To the right of Show settings containing, search for:
  preview
• Select: show_preview_handlers_in_preview_pane
• Set the value to: true
• Click OK.

Preview pane doesn't work in WE, it shows nothing. I'm on W11 btw which is known to block a lot of such third party file explorer previewers/thumbnailers, etc

I changed show_preview_handlers_in_preview_pane and it works only for wav files regardless of this setting (true/false) but not mp3 or flac.

EDIT:
It seems to work with certain mp3 files.

Code: Select all

Format                      : MPEG Audio
File size                   : 3.04 MiB
Duration                    : 1 min 19 s
Overall bit rate mode       : Constant
Overall bit rate            : 320 kb/s
Writing library             : LAME3.98r

Audio
Format                      : MPEG Audio
Format version              : Version 1
Format profile              : Layer 3
Format settings             : Joint stereo
Duration                    : 1 min 19 s
Bit rate mode               : Constant
Bit rate                    : 320 kb/s
Channel(s)                  : 2 channels
Sampling rate               : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                  : 41.667 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression mode            : Lossy
Stream size                 : 3.04 MiB (100%)
Writing library             : LAME3.98r
Encoding settings           : -m j -V 4 -q 3 -lowpass 20.5

Doesn't work with these mp3:

Code: Select all

Format                      : MPEG Audio
File size                   : 1.05 MiB
Duration                    : 1 min 4 s
Overall bit rate mode       : Constant
Overall bit rate            : 128 kb/s
Album replay gain           : -5.04 dB
Album replay gain peak      : 1.050975
Recorded date               : 2010
Writing library             : LAME3.82
BPM                         : 145
Cover                       : Yes
Cover type                  : Picture
Cover MIME                  : image/png
fBPM                        : 145.49106
fBPM2                       : 72.74553
fBPM_Salience               : 0.6481482
BPMAlgorithm                : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
Beats                       : SteadyBeats;417959;412396;64522;1;
BeatsAlgorithm              : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
Meter                       : 4/4
TimeSignatureAlgorithm      : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
beaTunes_tempo_SPECTRUM     : 0.08661416;0.13385826;0.21653542;0.16929135;0.2086614;0.33070868;0.23622048;1.0;0.37401575;0.4566929;
beaTunes_tempo_COLOR        : 644d59

Audio
Format                      : MPEG Audio
Format version              : Version 1
Format profile              : Layer 3
Duration                    : 1 min 4 s
Bit rate mode               : Constant
Bit rate                    : 128 kb/s
Channel(s)                  : 2 channels
Sampling rate               : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate                  : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression mode            : Lossy
Replay gain                 : -5.04 dB
Replay gain peak            : 1.050975
Stream size                 : 1 008 KiB (94%)
Writing library             : LAME3.82

Image
Type                        : Picture
Format                      : PNG
Format/Info                 : Portable Network Graphic
Compression                 : Deflate
Muxing mode                 : ID3v2 APIC
Width                       : 307 pixels
Height                      : 307 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 1.000
Color space                 : RGB
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Compression mode            : Lossless
Stream size                 : 66.8 KiB (6%)
Gamma                       : 0.455

and

Code: Select all

Format                      : MPEG Audio
File size                   : 3.36 MiB
Duration                    : 3 min 39 s
Overall bit rate mode       : Constant
Overall bit rate            : 128 kb/s
Album replay gain           : -0.29 dB
Album replay gain peak      : 1.061110

fBPM                        : 74.83524
fBPM2                       : 149.67049
fBPM_Salience               : 0.5909091
BPMAlgorithm                : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
Beats                       : SteadyBeats;2925714;801761;219920;1;
BeatsAlgorithm              : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
Meter                       : 4/4
TimeSignatureAlgorithm      : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
beaTunes_tempo_SPECTRUM     : 0.42519686;0.32283464;0.70866144;0.32283464;0.6417323;0.96062994;0.7440945;0.78740156;0.78346455;1.0;
beaTunes_tempo_COLOR        : 8b5250
Conformance errors          : 1
 MPEG-Audio                 : Yes
  General compliance        : File size is less than expected size (actual 3523081, expected >=3523021, offset 0x35C02F)

Audio
Format                      : MPEG Audio
Format version              : Version 1
Format profile              : Layer 3
Format settings             : Joint stereo / MS Stereo
Duration                    : 3 min 39 s
Bit rate mode               : Constant
Bit rate                    : 128 kb/s
Channel(s)                  : 2 channels
Sampling rate               : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate                  : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression mode            : Lossy
Replay gain                 : -1.43 dB
Replay gain peak            : 1.061110
Stream size                 : 3.36 MiB (100%)

and

Code: Select all

Format                      : MPEG Audio
File size                   : 70.5 KiB
Duration                    : 1 s 724 ms
Overall bit rate mode       : Constant
Overall bit rate            : 320 kb/s
Album replay gain           : 0.01 dB
Album replay gain peak      : 0.572190
Title                       : Cowbell High 01
Writing library             : LAME3.99r
BPM                         : 40
BPMAlgorithm                : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
Beats                       : SteadyBeats;92879;1503698;1750;1;
BeatsAlgorithm              : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
TimeSignatureAlgorithm      : ForestBasedTempo;v=5.0.2
beaTunes_tempo_SPECTRUM     : 0.39370078;0.4448819;0.503937;0.5669291;0.6417323;0.71653545;0.79527557;0.87401575;0.9448819;1.0;
beaTunes_tempo_COLOR        : 985c56
fBPM                        : 39.901615
fBPM2                       : 79.80323
fBPM_Salience               : 0.57798165

Audio
Format                      : MPEG Audio
Format version              : Version 1
Format profile              : Layer 3
Duration                    : 1 s 750 ms
Bit rate mode               : Constant
Bit rate                    : 320 kb/s
Channel(s)                  : 1 channel
Sampling rate               : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate                  : 38.281 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression mode            : Lossy
Replay gain                 : 0.01 dB
Replay gain peak            : 0.572190
Stream size                 : 67.3 KiB (96%)
Writing library             : LAME3.99r
Encoding settings           : -m m -V 4 -q 3 -lowpass 20.5

[therube]

winmm seems to be limited compared to "Windows Media Player Rich Preview Handler" (at least on my end, Win7).

winmm won't play .m4a, where WMP does.
winmm looks like it won't play .mp3 that include "images", where WMP does. ...


If I remove the "image", then the file plays (using winmm).

ffmpeg.exe -i xxx.mp3 -c copy -q 1 -map a xxx-image.mp3

OK, that's weird. So it has to be more then that.
Some mp3 with images play & some do not? Guess might just chalk it up to be limitations, whatever they may be, in winmm.


Maybe there's a difference between a "Cover" (which does not play) & a "Picture" (which does play)?
.

Everything - winmm, Cover vs Picture.png (37.03 KiB) Viewed 2219 times

[therube]

I'll just note that (at least on my end, Win7) with winmm=1, certain media files can cause Everything to hang.
Now granted, the (.wmv) file is "bad", but it plays (in a normal media player).

.ini, is plain jane except winmm=1 has been set, & volumes are not automatically included, & a specific Folder Index has been enabled
go.bat, is set to -no-auto-include
once Everything opens, I add a Folder Index to the location where xxx.wmv is located
.

E_HANG.7z

(575.02 KiB) Downloaded 25 times

.

Everything - hang with winmm=1.png (36.92 KiB) Viewed 705 times

[void]

I don't have a good solution here.
I could move the mciSendString call to thread, Everything won't hang, but there will be no way to stop the current playback or change to a new one.

Really the mciSendString call needs to be moved to a separate process.
I have put this on my TODO list.

I'm not seeing a hang/crash my end, so maybe some sort of bad codec? (tested on Win7)