Roadmap / TODO

Near-term work after the working MVP (connect + auto-connect, now-playing with transport/volume/options, DataStore-persisted settings). Roughly ordered by priority; not a commitment.

Status legend: [ ] todo · [~] in progress · [x] done

[x] 1. Proper icons

Done. Replaced the placeholder unicode glyphs in NowPlayingScreen.kt with real Material icons (Icons.Filled.SkipPrevious/PlayArrow/Pause/SkipNext/VolumeUp, plus Repeat/Shuffle leading icons on the chips) from androidx.compose.material:material-icons-extended.

That artifact bundles thousands of vectors, so the debug APK grew ~7 MB (expected — debug can't shrink). Enabled R8 + resource shrinking on the release build type, which strips the unused icons: release APK is ~1.2 MB.
Considered material-icons-core (too small — no media icons) and bundling individual vector drawables (leaner but manual); the extended dep + R8 was the best effort/quality trade.

Done. SettingsScreen (reached via a gear icon on the now-playing screen) shows the current server (host/port) with Change server (disconnect → connect form) and Reset settings (confirm dialog → clears DataStore + disconnects).

SettingsRepository.clear() wipes DataStore; MpdConnectionManager.resetSettings() clears + disconnects.
Navigation is lightweight state (showSettings in MusicRemoteApp, only over the player screen; a LaunchedEffect drops it when leaving the player) — no Navigation-Compose dependency yet.
Room to grow: password field, connection timeout, theme, keep-screen-on — and if screens multiply, revisit adopting Navigation-Compose.

[x] 3. Cast-style volume + OS media integration

Done — full MALP-style OS integration, not just in-app. Architecture:

MpdConnectionManager (app-scoped, held by MusicRemoteApplication) now owns the single MpdClient, so the connection survives Activity recreation and runs while the service is up. PlayerViewModel is a thin delegate over it.
PlaybackService — a mediaPlayback foreground service hosting a MediaSessionCompat:
- Cast-style volume: setPlaybackToRemote(VolumeProviderCompat) (absolute, 0–100). The OS routes hardware volume keys to the server volume system-wide, even when the app is backgrounded (verified: 50→40 via injected keys from the launcher), and shows the remote-volume UI. Replaced the earlier in-app onKeyDown hack. Rapid presses accumulate via pendingVolume.
- Now-playing notification / QS / lock-screen via a MediaStyle notification bound to the session, with prev/play-pause/next actions (MediaButtonReceiver) and metadata/position mirrored from the flows.
- Needs POST_NOTIFICATIONS (requested in MainActivity) + FOREGROUND_SERVICE[_MEDIA_PLAYBACK].
In-app CastIndicator ("Controlling ") still shown above the slider.
Foreground key handling (VolumeKeyDispatcher, delegated from MainActivity.dispatchKeyEvent): while focused, volume keys are consumed and drive the server silently — no system volume slider (the app's own slider is the feedback). Backgrounded, the VolumeProvider takes over (system UI is fine there). Gated by MpdConnectionManager.isControllingVolume; passes through to local volume when not connected.

Notes: verified on the FiiO via injected key events (a rotary volume knob may not emit VOLUME_UP/DOWN — hardware-dependent). Album art in the notification/session is pending item #5.

[x] 4. Library browse — albums

Done. AlbumsScreen (library icon on the player) lists every album via list album group albumartist (MpdCommands.listAlbums → MpdAlbum.listFrom), sorted by artist then title. Tapping an album replaces the queue and plays it (MpdClient.playAlbum = clear + findadd album … albumartist … + play), then returns to the now-playing screen.

Verified live: 149 albums listed and played correctly on the FiiO.
Placeholder disc icon per row (real art is item #5).
Interaction choice: tap = replace queue + play (the direct "play this album" gesture). Could later add a long-press / menu for "add to queue" and an album-detail/track view. Artist browse is a future extension.

[ ] 5. Album / artist images

Pull artwork for the now-playing track and for the album browse grid.

MPD serves art over the protocol via albumart <uri> <offset> and readpicture <uri> <offset> (embedded art). MpdConnection already handles binary responses, so the transport groundwork is done — add the commands, loop over offsets to fetch the whole image, and decode.
Needs an image loader + caching. Coil (io.coil-kt) is the standard Compose choice; a custom MpdArtFetcher could feed it. Dependency → deps.json regen.

[x] 6. BUG: idle connection drops after a few minutes → kicked to connect page

After a few minutes idling, the app surfaces "connection closed mid-response" and falls back to the connect screen. MALP does not do this.

Error origin: MpdConnection.readResponse() hits EOF and throws MpdConnectionException("connection closed mid-response"); the idle loop's catch (IOException) calls failAndClose() → MpdConnectionState.Error → UI shows the connect form.
Likely causes to investigate:
- Android Doze / WiFi power-save tearing down sockets when the screen is off or the app is backgrounded (most likely on a portable DAP/phone).
- MPD's connection_timeout (default 60s) closing a connection it considers idle — a parked idle should count as active, but the command connection sits silent; a periodic ping keepalive may be needed.
- NAT/router idle-connection reaping (less likely on LAN).
Fix direction: don't treat an idle-connection drop as a fatal error — instead auto-reconnect transparently (re-open connections, re-issue idle, resync state) and keep showing the player. Consider a keepalive ping and, for backgrounded playback control, a foreground service / partial wakelock.
PARTIALLY ADDRESSED by item #3: the mediaPlayback foreground service keeps the process/connection alive in the background.

FIXED. Root cause was two-fold: (a) the quiet command connection was reaped by MPD's connection_timeout, and (b) the idle loop treated any IOException (including that reap) as fatal → Error → connect page. Plus a Pi-Zero overload angle: volume-key floods + 2-round-trip refreshes. Fixes, all in MpdClient /MpdConnectionManager/MpdConnection:

Keepalive ping every 25s on the command connection — prevents the connection_timeout reap and detects a dead socket early.
Transparent auto-reconnect (triggerReconnect/reconnectLoop): a transport drop reopens both sockets in the background (state → Connecting, "Connecting…" splash, player stays), retrying with backoff; only after MAX_RECONNECT_ATTEMPTS does it surface Error. MpdAckException is explicitly not treated as a connection failure.
Volume throttle: setvol writes are coalesced through a conflated channel (~1 per 120 ms, latest value) — kills the flood from holding volume keys while keeping accurate accumulation via pendingVolume.
Command-list refresh: status+currentsong fetched in one round-trip (MpdConnection.executeList, command_list_ok_begin).

Verified on the FiiO: Wi-Fi drop → "Connecting…" → auto-recovers to the player (no connect-page bounce); 6 rapid volume presses = exactly −30, throttled.

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