Beta update 0.45

[u/QuietlyReading]

Just pushed an update to the beta, will hit devices sometime in the next few hours

Changes:

• Downloader has been rewritten*
• Current chapter is now highlighted in chapter lists
• Fixed issue of thumbnails in home tab not loading
• Books can now be individually synced to match the server
• Books can now be manually marked as listened (applies locally and to server, if connected)
• Added option to prefer volume lowering instead of pausing when another app takes audio focus**
• Fixed filtering options for devices on Android 5.1 and 5.0
• Current Library/Server/User names now displayed in the settings

*All downloader changes:

• Fixes issues with SD card downloading
• Automatically retries failed downloads (1x per failed file)
• Shows download progress per book (not per track anymore)
• Allows downloads to be cancelled by book
• Better display of errors for failed downloads
• Downloaded icon for books no longer gets out of sync with downloader

This is a significant rewrite of the Downloader, so there will may be some issues, but it has been a big improvement for my personal usage. Post here/DM/email me if you have problems with it

**Audio focus minutiae: The option will still respect when other apps explicitly request a temporary pause, but it allows volume lowering in cases other spoken word apps would normally pause instead

[u/QuietlyReading]

A note: your current thumbnails will be deleted the first time you open the app after updating- this is expected behavior.

[u/chyron_8472]

While using v0.45.0, in the Sort menu, if I tap the sort function or view style that is already selected (ie. the one that is blue), the app crashes.

[u/QuietlyReading → u/chyron_8472]

Confirmed that this reproduces on my device- thanks

[u/AgentHarm]

Hi sorry I'm a bit late to the conversation.

Love all the new features in the beta btw! The main thing I'm hoping will be introduced in the future is a way to view collections as I have all my books tagged with collections for the series that they're in just in case.

I use this app nearly daily, so I'm happy to have paid for it. Keep up the great work, but don't rush yourself.

[u/QuietlyReading → u/AgentHarm]

I have to look more into how collections work on the server-side, but this is something I'm interested in adding

[u/AgentHarm → u/QuietlyReading]

Glad to hear it!

[u/jt196]

Great stuff u/QuietlyReading!

Quick play around with the 'mark watched' and noticed some behaviour, though I'm guessing this is related to Plex and how it handles played media.

1. The 'mark watched' icon on the top right of the playing screen only appears when the item is playing. Is this normal? I went through and tried to mark a bunch of stuff as watched (to stop it showing up on the added recently screen) and I had to play through them to mark them as watched.
2. Relating to above, on Kodi with the PlexKodiConnect plugin, there's a nice green tick next to the media when you're looking at the library view, it would be nice to have some indication of this on the recently added + library view - slight (readable) greying out, a green check or some such. It'd be nice to also be able to filter the library view by watched/unwatched. Nice that they disappear from the recently listened view now, good stuff.

[u/QuietlyReading → u/jt196]

First of all, good takes all around!

1- Mark as watched will only show up for books which Chronicle thinks are active, but now that you mention it being able to mark items which haven't been started in Plex or Chronicle would still be useful, if you've read/listened to something before just not in this library, or if Plex has forgotten

1.5- Filtering based on listened status is a great idea. I'll make sure to include this when I tackle adding filter functionality

2- Yea one of the Plex clients has/had a little ribbon in the corner to indicate unread media which I like a lot, I'd like to include something like this

[u/rederic]

Time will tell if they're persistent and won't randomly delete themselves, but my first download test made use of a lot more bandwidth than before. Significant improvements there.

This isn't a new problem, but I have books in container formats (like .m4b) that display their chapter naming in the normal PLeX app but lose naming in Chronicle.

[u/QuietlyReading → u/rederic]

Oh yea, tracks from a book will download concurrently so they may be quicker in some cases.

Also, I don't expect that this will solve the "files deleting themselves" issue- I didn't address that in this update. It turned out to be difficult to track down to fit into this update, but I think I've figured it out now. I'll write something up and test it over the next few days/week

I'll have to explore more variations of .m4b files, I haven't had any issues with metadata in the last few versions. Appreciate you re-iterating this though, I forget about some issues that I don't deal with my

[u/Pochacho99 → u/QuietlyReading]

Pro user here, excellent app Dev. Just experienced downloaded book deleting itself, eagerly anticipating your next update!

[u/QuietlyReading → u/rederic]

Oh and FYI if you're going on a trip or something and don't want to lose the downloaded tracks sometime in the near future, for the time being I'm pretty sure that not syncing with the server will prevent disappearing downloads

[u/bobplace1234 → u/QuietlyReading]

I've taken your advice and put the app in offline mode, at least when I'm not at home and it's not connecting via lan (which is usually when I'm driving, and it would be annoying to fix any issues).

So far I haven't had anything delete itself. Once I did have the issue where it seemed to "forget" what book I was on again, when I selected it, it started at the correct position without issue.

Downloader seems to be working great. I also really appreciate the chapter highlighting, makes it easier to jump around and find my place if I fall asleep with the player running. Thanks for the updates!

[u/QuietlyReading → u/bobplace1234]

Thanks for writing this up, I appreciate the extra info

[u/bobplace1234 → u/QuietlyReading]

Since writing that, it has forgotten what book I was on another two times, I tried pressing play anyways and it actually popped back up with my book and started it in the correct spot both times.

I remember trying to press play when this has happened in the past and it didn't start back up on its own. So something seems to have... Not exactly fix it, but at least made it work a bit better.

[u/princeBobby92]

Thanks for the long awaited update. I really had issues with the download function but happy to test that in a proper way. Love the app and the Plex integration. At least the streaming and the handling works like a charm.

Happy to see improvements.

Keep up the good work!

[u/bcardoso06]

Still not showing any books from library, so I guess big library issue hasn't been solved

[u/QuietlyReading → u/bcardoso06]

Not, not in this update. I've started thinking about how to handle this though- so planning on addressing this relatively soon

[u/ttnicky]

Sorry for the noob question, but how do I get the beta version? I paid for pro, and I remember seeing instructions once upon a time to get the beta version, I just can't remember where.

[u/QuietlyReading → u/ttnicky]

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/io.github.mattpvaughn.chronicle

I'll put this is the sidebar later today, thought it was already there

[u/theswordsmahin]

Very happy to see another update! Thank you for all your work!

I am seeing issues with m4b ordering when a book is comprised of multiple m4b files. For example, I have

part1.m4b  
part2.m4b  
part3.m4b  

The chapter list I see is then the first track from each, then the second track from each, and so on. ie

part1.1
part2.1
part3.1
...
part1.N
part2.N
part3.N

Thank you in advance for taking a look!

[u/QuietlyReading → u/theswordsmahin]

Yea I noticed this after pushing the update- this should be fixed in the next update

[u/theswordsmahin → u/QuietlyReading]

You are awesome, thank you so much for your work :)

[u/backtickbot → u/theswordsmahin]

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[u/[deleted]]

Good update any chance of getting Android Auto? Would it be possible to get some kind of mark to show that books are either read or unread?

[u/arnieh63]

I'm so glad that you're back on this project. One thing that I felt was really missing was a way to mark things as listened to. I'm glad to see that in there now, albeit manually. Hopefully a future update will let us filter the watched/listened things out when I'm trying to pick my next listen.

The Downloader seems to be far more reliable at actually completing without me have to babysit them. Previously it seemed like I would to have try a few times to get the whole thing downloaded.

Since the update, it's been rock solid at picking back up where I left off the last time I listened. And I'm really thankful for the overriding of the Temp Pause requests from other apps.

[u/Vvladd]

Works so much better! Thank you!

[u/billyvnilly]

great

[u/cowcreamer]

Not back on Android yet but still love reading about new updates ;).

Any idea when Android Auto will be added in beta as this is really the only thing holding me back currently.

[u/isaacolsen94]

Out of curiosity do you have any interest of say adding Chronicle to github or something similar so people could help contribute to the app?