Winamp Charts and Orgler Tutorial

Category: Winamp Updates, Category: Tutorials Posted by Tarik, Jul 2nd 2009 12:30AM

Winamp 5.56 is now available... so you can Orgle to your heart's content!
New in this release is the Winamp Orgler^TM which powers the Charts experience. Check it out...

What's a Winamp Orgler^TM?
The Orgler lets you track, chart and share your Winamp listening history.

What does that really mean?
Each time you listen to a song through Winamp, while the Orgler is enabled, it sends the basic metadata (e.g. song name and artist name) associated with that file to Winamp. Currently the Orgler only supports local media playback, but not streaming playback (internet radio), however we are currently in planning for future enhancements. The Orgler is a community driven feature so the more you & your friends use it... and the more time it has to grow... the more robust it will become. We're pretty excited because with the size of the Winamp community worldwide, it has the potential to cover so many styles of music, in so many places.

Am I automatically Orgling?
Nope, you are not automatically Orgling. To start, you need to do two things. First, you need to download Winamp 5.56 which already includes the Orgler plug-in (technically, you can use 5.5x & download the Orgler plug-in separately but it's recommended that you just use the latest and greatest). Secondly, you need to log-in using your Winamp.com username & password. Don't have a Winamp.com username & password? No problem... you can register here.

Why should I Orgle?
You see, the Orgler is just the beginning. Once you've signed-in and started Orgling, we can feature the eclectic musical tastes of the Winamp community. The Charts, available in both the media player & on Winamp.com, allow you to stay on top of the latest trends by seeing which songs and artists are popular. View worldwide charts or filter down by a specific country or time period. You can even view your own listening history by selecting "My Charts" (media player feature only) to see what you've spent your time listening to today, this week or last month.

How do I add Charts to my Winamp Media Player?
To add Charts to Winamp, go to your media library tab and select "Online Services". Then browse through the "Featured Services" or you can use the online services search box. Once you've found "Winamp Charts" in the gallery, simply click the "+Add to Winamp" button.

Watch the below video for a quick demo & tour:

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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)

41. Yes, I am always logged in and can get World and other charts, except for the occasional Page Not Found. When I try to look at My Charts, it tells me I have not listened to any songs, no matter which day, week or month I select. Yet I saw songs and artists in Canada charts which I have no doubt were there because of my playing them. Yesterday it told me my top songs, but said I had not listened to any when I clicked on artists. I don't think I got that message before yesterday, although I did get some Page Not Found errors which I believe is a different issue since I get them with World or other charts as well as my own.

Posted at 12:51PM on Oct 16th 2009 by aquinn

42. I do not understand why Orgler continues to tell me I have not listened to any songs, yet includes ones that I have played in top songs and artists for Canada and they are obscure enough that I doubt others have played the same songs. Is there any fix for this problem?

Posted at 9:58AM on Oct 23rd 2009 by aquinn

43. @aquinn. Sorry you're still having this issue. I know that you verified that you are logged-in under Pref -> Orgler. I checked with the team and they aren't aware of any issues. I'll verify again. Also take a look at comment #20. This may be the issue you are experiencing... basically, the Orgler watches your listening history and aggregates it at the end of the day into your top artists and top songs. So you aren't getting immediate data.

Posted at 10:49AM on Oct 23rd 2009 by The Winamp Team

44. Comment #20 does not apply. I used to see My Charts, but now it ALWAYS says I have not listened to any songs, no matter what time period I select, today, yesterday, this week, last week, etc and I have listened to songs every day. Maybe it is only in my case, but it does work very well at all. Even in charts other than my own, Page not found errors are very annoying.

Posted at 4:56PM on Oct 26th 2009 by aquinn

45. @aquinn... Sorry you're still not able to get the Orgler to work. I've followed up with the dev team and they aren't seeing any issues with the Orgler or Charts. One final thing you can do is to enable the QA log in the Orgler preferences and take a look at the log to see if it's submitting songs.

Posted at 12:03PM on Oct 28th 2009 by The Winamp Team

46. You don't seem to understand. It IS submitting songs. They appear in Canada charts. What it doesn't do is show any songs in My Charts

Posted at 3:02PM on Oct 28th 2009 by aquinn

47. My Charts says that I haven't listened to any songs today. Well, I have and the orgler.log shows that it has collected the metadata, but it still doesn't show in My Charts. Anyone have any ideas on why this is? Worldwide and United States and all that show just fine.

Posted at 9:39AM on Nov 1st 2009 by Jim

48. Apparently, I'm having the same problem as aquinn!!!
Can all y'all look into this please? There IS something wrong here....

Posted at 9:42AM on Nov 1st 2009 by Jim

49. "As I mentioned before, we actually only aggregate your listening history at the end of the day, so we can only show you your top artists and songs for yesterday, and will change the options to reflect that limitation."

Nope. Doesn't show ANY history. Not for yesterday, this week, this month, whatever. No history at all for My Charts.

SO : "In other words, with My Charts you can see that the Beatles were the top artist you listened to yesterday" is incorrect also.

"Winamp Charts is showing you something different than what you may have expected. "
Well, yeah! I expected it to show me what it said it was going to show me.
NOTE: This USED to work! I could see My Charts in *almost* real time. I don't know what all y'all changed, but this was not originally a bug, but was introduced by something that all y'all changed.

I see no need for the record labels to object to personal charts. In fact, why not just read it from the log? Aside from the fact that the info *might* have to be xreffed with Gracenote? But if users have the tags, why not just display those and use Gracenote under the current license?

So it's a bug. Now that that's confirmed, you do understand that you are asking users to submit data about the songs they are listening to, but not even giving them the opportunity to see the data themselves, in their own charts?

This is like going to the Dr., having your blood pressure taken every day, then the Dr. saying "Sorry, this information is for the insurance company, they won't let me let you see it."

:-o

Posted at 6:38AM on Nov 2nd 2009 by ThatJimGuy

50. I agree completely with ThatJimGuy, but it just keeps on getting worse. Now when I ask for Canada charts, I get *nothing* from Artists, but can still get the list of songs, which, by the way, showed a song that I had played several times in spite of the fact that it told me I had not listened to any songs. Are the same people working on this as the ones who have screwed up ripping from a CD, that used to work fine?

Posted at 11:15PM on Nov 1st 2009 by aquinn

51. @aquinn & @Jim - thanks for bringing this up again! The Dev Team is looking into it... I promise. Once I have a better update... I'll post a comment with more info. -Tarik

Posted at 12:14PM on Nov 2nd 2009 by Tarik

52. @ThatJimGuy - Hey I am from Winamp product team. We are trying to de-bug the issue here. Can you please help us with your username with which you logged into MyCharts. We want to reproduce the issue and see what is causing it. Thanks!

Posted at 8:13AM on Nov 3rd 2009 by Ashok Bania

53. @aquinn & @ThatJimGuy.... Thanks again for the help!

If you don't want to post your user name to the blog... send an e-mail to support@winamp.com. To further Ashok's request.... if you could forward us your username that you used to log into MyCharts/Orgler as well as your QA log (see comment #45). To enable the QA log go to Orgler preferences. Once enabled Orgle several songs/artists & e-mail the log to us. THANKS!

Posted at 10:33AM on Nov 3rd 2009 by Tarik

54. Thank you for getting My Charts and country charts to work again. Now if you could only eliminate HTTP 404 - File Not Found, that I see all too often??

Posted at 8:57PM on Nov 10th 2009 by aquinn

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