[Media services] Volume up/down long press should skip to next/previous track

[Pierre Equoy]

A handy feature of music players is the ability to quickly skip tracks by long-pressing the volume buttons. This allows users to control their music without having to take the device out of their pocket, turn its screen on, unlock it, go to the music app and press "Next".

As of now, when I long press the volume button, it rapidly increases the volume, which is not very nice to my ears ;-)

Is it possible to control the music app this way on Ubuntu phone?

Music app version tested: 2.2.910 (2015-09-03)
Device: Meizu MX 4
System info: Ubuntu 15.04 (r4)

[Victor Thompson (vthompson)]

Hi Pierre, thanks for taking the time to file this bug and for making Ubuntu better! I think this feature could be considered. First and foremost, however, I really do think that holding the volume up button should not cause the volume to increase that rapidly.

I'm not sure who else to assign to this bug, so I'm going to add the Ubuntu UX team and Media Hub.

[Jim Hodapp (jhodapp)]

We definitely will need the design team's input on this change.

[Pierre Equoy (pieq)]

Hi Victor,

thanks for your quick answer :)

I agree with you about the long press quickly increasing the volume. When you have in-ear earphones, it's really terrible for your ears!

As for the "skip track" feature, it's been a pet peeve for a lot of Android users. On some phones it's implemented by default, on some others it's the same anti-feature of "rapidly increasing volume".

On Android, some developers tackled the issue and created the Xposed framework [1] that allows to control lower layers of Android more easily. Thanks to this, a module called Physical Button Music Control [2] has been created that answers exactly this problem: you can control very precisely your music with shortcuts you define. I think this is a bit overkill, as I just want a ~300ms press on volume up/down key to skip to next/previous track.

Hope this helps :)

[1] http://repo.xposed.info/module/de.robv.android.xposed.installer
[2] http://repo.xposed.info/module/xeed.xposed.cbppmod

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Victor Thompson (vthompson)]

I really think the main issue (IMO) is that holding the volume up button allows the volume to rapidly increase. Could someone determine if a bug exists for this? If not, could someone please file one?

[Pierre Equoy (pieq)]

Well, the situations in which the Volume key is maintained are pretty rare in my experience (and I keep my device in my pocket all day long).

I filed this issue specifically to address the skip to next/previous track without having to turn the device screen on and going in the music app to finally press a button.

If other people think we should have an issue for the "rapid volume increase", I can raise a separate issue for this.

I still hope this current feature request can be address, though :)

[Peter Bittner (peter-bittner)]

I'd rather see shaking the phone should be the gesture to play the next or previous track.

- Shake to the left = previous track (or play track again)
- Shake to the right = next track

Vice-versa maybe for r2l languages/cultures.

[Kyle Fazzari (kyrofa)]

Peter, that would suck while running.

[Pierre Equoy (pieq)]

Hi Peter,

when I raised this issue, the rationale behind it was to be able to control the music from my pocket without having to take the smartphone out of my pocket. This is the method I use in the bus with my current Android phone for instance, and it's incredibly useful.

Shaking the phone is, in my humble opinion, a very bad idea. Plus, my request is for the long press to be globally recognized, i.e. no matter the phone screen is off or not. If we apply a gesture, that means your playlist would randomly go to next/previous track as you walk...

[Siema (ziutek-hejho)]

This would be extremely useful for people who, like me, are jogging and don't want to stop, unlock phone, skip track and start jogging again.

[Jim Hodapp (jhodapp)]

@James: what are your thoughts on this from a design perspective?

[Gregory Opera (gregoryopera)]

Considering Ubuntu (Touch) currently does not work with the "media control buttons" on some (all?) bluetooth headsets/headphones, this should be fast-tracked... It could serve as an interim solution and even if you look beyond that, it's a great suggestion (particularly for those using wired headsets/headphones).

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Ubuntu Touch is no longer supported.