Week 2: It's all about Playlists

Hey everyone,
I actually want to use this post to share what is happening so far in ShuffleTone, and hopefully share why I am so excited.

First and foremost, there is no Graphical User Interface, so there won't be any screenshots yet. I have mostly focused on the back end, trying to future proof the code and make it incredibly flexible. Expect some in progress screenshots in the future.

Playlists. This is the magic word here. In the past, a lot of the strength of ShuffleTone has come from it's playlist system, but I never really put it up front. It is probably the one thing that has changed the most from ShuffleTone's inception, and it's always been the strength of the application. Well. I'm going further with it. I feel strongly that every user should be comfortable making and using large numbers of playlists with capabilities that extend past just calls and just texts.

With that in mind, there is a new system that I have added called the "Radio" system. Basically, you create a playlist, this playlist is now available to be set anywhere that you feel you would like random ringtones; Once set, a "binding" is created that links the event to the playlist. When the event is hit, the "binding" loads the playlist, pulls out the next ringtone, and then calls a "Radio" that is specific to the type of event.

Here's 2 examples to give you an idea. Lets say I make a playlist called "My Playlist" and apply this to both my calls, and my Gmail application. 2 bindings are created here, binding "My Playlist" to a phone call event, and also binding "My Playlist" to my Gmail notification event.

Each time I receive a call, the "binding" loads "My Playlist" and picks the next ringtone; It then sends that ringtone to the Phone Call Radio, which sets the ringtone to my default phone call ringtone.

On the other hand, when I receive a Gmail notification, the "binding" loads "My Playlist" and picks the next ringtone, just like phone calls(or any other event), but then that ringtone is sent to the Application Notification Radio, which will launch a notification with the ringtone attached, essentially playing the ringtone received.

If there is a way to know when to launch a ringtone, there should always be a way to establish a Radio to figure out what to do with the ringtone. Truly there is a large subset of possibilities here. This includes the ability for event playlists. Maybe you want your Christmas ringtones during Christmas time, but any other time you want your cool jams; An Event Radio would handle that quite well; Or maybe you want work appropriate tones during work hours, and your jams any other time; Also possible with this new system.

There is still a lot of work and testing that needs to go into this, but so far things are well on their way :D

Until next week,
Tyler--DizWARE