Frequently Ask Question (FAQ)

This FAQ section is created to provide a better understanding to hymnchtv users on the application features and observed behaviour. This section will continuously be updated as inputs are feedback from hymnchtv users.
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hymnchtv UI desgin & Implementation

hymnchtv UI design & Implementation
[20241005] Hymnchtv debug version installation { Content }
You may obtain a copy of the latest hymnchtv debug apk for your personal evaluation from the directory:
i.e. https://github.com/cmeng-git/hymnchtv/releases.
The lastest release at the time of this online help update is:
  • https://github.com/cmeng-git/hymnchtv/releases/download/2.5.1/hymnchtv-release.apk
    • Please note that the debug apk contains a different signature from the release apk. Android OS will prompt you to uninstall the existing app if any, before you can install the debug apk with a different signature. Both versions support auto-update function, prompting the user if there is a new release.
    Warning: Please perform the following before you uninstall the existing app if any; otherwise you may loose all the media url and file links information previously saved in the database; although all the media contents in the Download/hymnchtv directly are intact.
    [20230413] hymnchtv UI design & Implementation { Content }
    In hymnchtv UI design, user interaction with the application uses mainly android device touch screen and gestures to navigate or access to other menu. Generally hymnchtv uses the following gestures and click actions to access to other part of the menus.
    [20241129] hymnchtv main user interface { Content }
    This is the main hymnchtv UI that is shown when user launches the hymnchtv application. From the main UI, you have accessed to all the hymnchtv features implementation, pop-up menu and the main pull down options menu.
    Main UI pull down menu
    The main UI pull down menu is accessed via the overflow icon on the top-right corner of the main UI. It contains the following user selectable options:
    [20201220] Hymn Category and Content Search result display { Content }
    Below shows the various windows display results for each of the user selected Hymn Category and Content Search entry. User may click to select any of the listed items in the display to enter into the hymn lyrics/media UI page directly.
    [20240517] Hymn lyrics and media player UI interface { Content }
    The image on the right shows the hymn content display UI after user has selected the desired HymnNo and HymnType. The window displays the actual hymn lyrics score, and the lyrics text just below it. User scrolls up/down to bring the score or text into viewing area. To view the previous or next hymn info, user slides left or right. The hymn info displays in the media player UI will change according to the user selected HymnNo. Long press within the lyrics display area will popup the context menu with options as follows: you may copy text displays in lyrics text content. To do this, double clicks on the desired text location; adust the text cursors and then select copy option. This option is also available during the hymn content search.
    [20240517] Chinese Simplified, Traditional or English lyrics selection { Content }
    The image on the right shows the hymn lyrics display page after user has selected the desired HymnNo and HymnType. On entry, this window displays the lyrics text in Chinese Simplified by default, or the last user selected mode. Using the two available option buttons near the top of the lyrics text window, user may choose to toggle the displayed lyrics to Chinese Simplified, Traditional or English. If the English lyrics fetching failed and cannot be displayed in the current lyrics text window, the context menu has a clickable 在线英文歌词 option for user to launch an external web browser for English lyrics view. Once user has confirmed the selected Chinese Traditional conversion type, it will be used for all subsequent Tradtional Chinese lyrics display until the next conversion type changes by user.
    [20240523] Hymn media player UI interface, control and playback operations { Content }
    Beside displaying the hymn lyrics of the user selected HymnNo, Hymnchtv supports playback the media associated with any of the four option buttons i.e. 媒体, 教唱, 唱诗 and 伴奏 of the current selected HymnNo. The media content for playback may include local stored video & audio files, or media URL for youtube or other internet link added via 搜索 or media configure UI. Pending the media content, Hymnchtv automatically selects the correct player used for playback; it can either be android built-in media player (midi), media3-exoplayer, or youtube player as shown on the right. When a device is placed in landscape mode, the current video playback UI will enlarge and overlap the lyrics UI behind. Click the hide_screen button i.e. to reveal the lyrics behind. Press the BackKey to show the video playback UI again. If you press the BackKey while the player UI is visible, the playback will stop. This hide_screen option is currently available only for youtube player.
    Each hymn media radio button also provides the availability staus/indication of the associated media content for playback. The button text is greyed when there is no associated media content for playback. For hymn media playback: user first selects the required mediaType, the desired repeat/loop count and the playback speed; then followed by:
    a. Click the play button to start;
    b. Click again to pause the playback;
    c. Click again to resume playback;
    d. Long click to stop the playback and return to beginning of the hymn media.
    User may slide left/right to a different hymnNo lyrics while the hymn playback is in progress. The current playing hymn will continue until the end, without any disruption. If user wants to play the newly selected hymnNo, he/she must manually stop the playback, or wait until the current hymn playback ends. The media player UI info will then be updated to the user newly selected when playback ended.
    When the 唱诗 option is selected via user action or auto-filtered fallback mode for playback, if hymnchtv cannot find the required defined media url link, or file in the local directory for the playback; it will attempt to download the required media content from a predefined url link location. This is currently set to "http://mana.stmn1.com/sg/er/mp3/" and "https://www.hymnal.net/Hymns/". The playback will start when the medium content downloading is completed. The downloading process will only perform once for each of the selected hymnNo; the downloaded media files are stored in the local storage for next time use.
    If the user closes the current downloading UI by click the X, the downloading process will continue in background until completion. User may select another media type to playback; only returns to the the downloading hymn when it has completed.
    [20241129] Hymn media storage and selection algorithm for playback { Content }
    The image on the right shows the directory structure for hymnchtv, where all the media files for each of the HymnType and MediaType, either downloaded or added by user are saved to. The main hymnchtv directory are placed below the android Download directory on the intenal storage. Each of the hymnchtv sub-directoy gets created whenever user initiates playback the respective HymnType/MediaType on the very first instance.
    Under each of the HymnType directories, it contains the sub-directories for each of the four hymnchtv MediaTypes as listed below. All the media files in these locations may be downloaded automatically by hymnchtv from the predefined site location e.g. http://mana.stmn1.com/sg/er/mp3/, or added in by the user during user defined media configuration 用户定义的媒体内容 process.
    Media content selection process for playback
    When user clicks the play button to playback the selected HymnType/MediaType media; hymnchtv uses the following process to select the actual media content for playback.
    1. Starting with the current selected HymnType/MediaType e.g. 媒体, it checks the database for a user defined media record, and uses the specified media url link for playback if found; else
    2. It proceeds to check for a local media file in the current selected HymnType/MediaType sub-directory; start the playback if a media file is found.
    3. If neither of the above attempts yield the required media url or file for playback; starting from left to right in the order of [媒体|教唱|唱诗] radio buttons layout, it continues the same search process i.e. steps #1 and #2 are repeated with the next in line MediaType as fallback. If none is found for 唱诗, it will then attempt to download from the pre-defined internet site for a media content to playback.
    Note: The defined media url link in DB has higher priority, and shadow the local stored media file in the selection process for playback. If desire, user may delete the previous defined media url in DB via the User define media configuration method, so the local stored media file is used for playback instead.
    [20241129] User defined media configuration { Content }
    Hymnchtv allows user to define a given media content playback to be associated with a HymnType/MediaType/HymnNo. The shared media content can either be a local saved medium file, an url link of an online audio/video media address, including the youtube shared link. The url link can also be a downloadable link of an audio/video media, which can either be in mp4, mp3 or midi format. Hymnchtv supports both the video and audio media playback using its internal defined player.
    Below explain the various UI parameter field usages for the user desired media file association. Please use the steps described below to associate a user defined media content i.e. url or local media file with a given HymnType/MediaType/HymnNo.
    #1. Local media file association
    It is not necessary to create a media record entry in the DB to associate a local media content file, instead use the steps described below to achieve the required result.
    If you have performed the above process correctly, the local media file path should appear in the media url link in the User defined media configuration, after all the hymn info i.e. HumnType/MediaType/HymnNo are entered. Please check and verfy that you have granted permission to hymnchtv to access the media content files, otherwise the saved media content files are not visible to hymnchtv.
    #2. Youtube url link association (demo video)
    Below gives detailed descriptions on how to associate each type of the content sources i.e. medium from youtube site, or a linked item from website. Please refer to 搜索 for a simpler and better approach to perform the same task.
    • Launch the youtube app; find the desired youtube media link to be associated with.
    • Select and start the youtube media item playback.
    • Click on the youtube Share option. This should be available just below the media player UI.
    • Android launches the Share sheet UI as shown on the right; it presents all the applications that support android Share object.
      Note: Some android browsers may not list all the share applications e.g. Chrome; Just clear the android app default and select another web browser that supports the full file sharing.
    • Click on the hymnchtv app icon in the android share sheet UI.
    • The hymnchtv user media config window will be opened with the required youtube url link pasted in 媒体链接 media url link field.
    • Proceed to select i.e. HymnType/MediaType, and input all the other required hymn info fields in the media configuration window i.e. HymnNo/Fu etc to associate with the newly added youtube url link.
    • Click the 加添 button to add/save the url link into the database for later playback.
    Note: The media url link text will be highlighted in RED if the newly entered url link overwrite a media record url link in DB or overshadow a local media file.
    #3. Normal web media content url link association
    • Using a browser e.g. Google, open the site where your desired media content reside.
    • Click and hold on the desired item object; a pop up window appears showing all the available options for the selected item.
    • If the option Share link is available; just select this option. Then the rest of the operations will be exactly the same as youtube url share operation.
    • If the option Share link is not available, then select Copy link to save a copy in the android clipboard.
    • Lauch hymnchtv app, then goes to User media configuration page.
    • Long click on the 媒体链接 field entry, and select Paste option.
    • If the pasted link is safe url encoded; it may contain unreadable charaters e.g. %xx. Just click the icon; and the url link is decoded to human readable character. You need to toggle back to url encoded link for url path editing if desired.
    • Proceed to select and input all other fields in the media configuration window i.e. HymnType/MediaType/HymnNo etc to associate with the added web url link.
    • Click the 加添 button to add/save the url link into the database.
    #4. Online media downloadable url link association
    • Using a browser open the site where the desired downloadable media contents reside.
    • Right click on the desired item object; a pop up window appears showing all the available options for the selected item.
    • Select Copy link address to save a copy of the audio media link in the android clipboard.
      • e.g. downloadable url address: https://www.hymnal.net/zh/hymn/ns/835/f=mid
    • Lauch hymnchtv app, then goes to User media configuration page.
    • Long click on the 媒体链接 field entry, and select Paste option.
    • Proceed to select and input all other fields in the media configuration window i.e. HymnType/MediaType/HymnNo etc to associate with the added web url link.
    • Click the 加添 button to add/save the url link into the database.
    #5. Hymnchtv shared media record association
    Hymnchtv supports the sharing of the saved media record with others. The shared media record can either contains a local copy of the media file and an url link, or just an url link. Both of these cases are shown in the image of the recipient device on the right.
    • # For url link sharing without an actual media content:
    • If your chat application supports text sharing, just share the text with hymnchtv. All the steps described below are not required.
    • If text sharing is not supported by your chat app, then copy the whole text string of the link. e.g. hymn_bb,336,0,HYMN_MEDIA, https://youtu.be/dNHe_ELI7NU,null.
    • Lauch hymnchtv app, then goes to User media configuration page.
    • Long click on the 媒体链接 field entry, and select Paste option.
    • Click the 加添 button to add/save the url link into the database.

    • # For url link sharing with an actual media content:
    • Downlaod and save a copy of the received media content in the location as given in the shared url link e.g. Download/hymnchtv/hymn_bb/media_media/; change the filename if necessary so it contains the hymnNo. i.e. ChHymns-0134.mp3.
  • This button allows user to share the media contents with other. The share with item can be an exported text file indicated in the 数据库导入文件 entry field; a single media record selected and shown in the entry fields, and the local media file of the shared link if applicable. Due to android share security, user needs to select the recipient twice for sharing of a url link and the actual media content if applicable.
  • when user clicks on this icon, hymnchtv will display this help content.
    • [20240618] User defined media database configuration { Content }
    Note: After a new hymnchtv version is installed, updated, or when there is a new version of asset file i.e. url_import.txt is found and available online, its database media records are updated with the new records from the asset file. However all the user old media records in the databse, if any will be left untouched. A duplicated copy of the asset file is created and saved in the "./import_export/url_import-<timeStamp>.txt". User may refer to this file at a later time, make any neccessary changes if necessary, then import its contents with 覆盖现有记录 option checked if so desire.
    Hymnchtv has implemented methods to ease managing the user defined media records in database. All the user defined media configurations are stored in the hymnchtv internal database as media records. The included functions provided allow the user to update or share his media contents in the database with others using the options described below:
    • NQ⬇: Short click this button to retrieve all the Notion hymn media url links and saved them in the database; the media records are accessed via 教唱 button for playback.
      Note: For Notion url links to retrieve successfully, ensure your device network connection is fast and stable, preferably connected via home WiFi network. Hymnchtv will stop all url access if the process is not completed within 7.5 mins.
      Long press this button to create all the QQ hymn info links in the database; access via 教唱 button for playback. Some of the QQ links are currently being blocked by the service provider for user access.
      Note: Both the Notion and QQ url fetching process is carried out in backgroud, and take some time pending on the network condition. However the user may continue to use the app while the processs is running in the background. You should not exit hymnchtv app while the process is in progress.
      Actually user need not to perform this action as most of the QQ and Notion url links have areadly been included in the asset file for import during app installtion. If there is any undefined Notion url link, user can select the greyed 教唱 option button while in hymn info display page. User can then manually add the new Notion url linke if available.
    • 数库导入: Short click to import all the media record contents as defined in the user selected import txt file into the hymnchtv database. Each media record will be saved in the respective database per the defined HymnType of the media record. See 覆盖现有记录 associates with this process.
      Long press to import the app predefined url links from an internal hymnchtv asset file. User should use this option in preference of the NQ⬇, using the later only for the site new update if any.
      If you have not performed any manual update to the media record previously, you should perform this operation with the 覆盖现有记录 option checked, so your database is updated with the app asset file content.
    • 覆盖现有记录: Check this option if you want hymnchtv to overwrite any existing media record in the database during the database import 数库导入, and NQ⬇ download process.
    • 数库导出: Click this option button to export all the four defined HymnType's media records that contain only the 网页链接 links. This url link-only file is shared with others without the need to transfer the actual media files. The exported file is saved in the hymnchtv pre-defined directory e.g. Download/hymnchtv/import_export/hymn_link-20240606_142504.txt. The format of the filename is hymn_link-<timestamp>.txt, where the timestamp format is "YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS".
    • 数库列项: Select this option to show a list of all the media records saved in the database. The list shows only the media records for the user currently selected HymnType. The UI heading shows the number of records in the database. Scroll up/down to see all the media records. Click on any of the record items, its media record info will be updated to the media record fields. User may proceed to edit/update or delete the media record in the database. Click the 退出 button to close the media record list view window.
    • Use the Folder explorer to select the text file for import the media records into the database. After selected the desired import file, and on returning to media configuration page; the selected text file will be displayed in a RichText Editor for viewing. User may make any necessary changes if desired before import its content into the database.
    • When user clicks on this icon while there is a valid text filename entry in the 数据库导入文件 field, hymnchtv launches the RichText editor with the file content inserted for editing.
      When the user has peformed one of the 数库导出 operations, the generated text filepath is shown in the 数据库导入文件 field, and the RichText Editor is launched with the generated file content inserted for verification.
    • When user clicks on this icon, hymnchtv will playback two demo media for user defined media configuration setup i.e. android share sheet from a youtube link, and auto create import file (no further supported since v2.4.0) from media contents stored in the local hymnchtv media directory.
    Export file media record string format:
    Each media record string is consisted of the following parameters separated by commas:
    • HymnType: This is the hymnType with possible values of [hymn_db|hymn_bb|hymn_xb|hymn_er]. Note the text are in lower case.
    • HymnNo: The associated hymnNo for the given HymnType's media content. For 大本诗歌附歌 (Fu), the actual hymnNo stored in database starts with 781 for 附1 respectively, this is shown in the exported file above. User however may use '1' for 附1 when creating the export file. Hymnchtv can accept either one.
    • Fu: 大本诗歌附歌 flag; Set this to '1' if the hymnNo denotes 附歌 else set it to '0' e.g.:
      hymn_db,781,1,HYMN_MEDIA,null,/storage/emulated /0/Download/hymnchtv/hymn_db/media_media/ChHymns-c001.mp3
    • MediaType: The hymn mediaType with all the possible string text values specified in upper case i.e.:
      [HYMN_MEDIA|HYMN_BANZOU|HYMN_JIAOCHANG |HYMN_CHANGSHI];
    • Media Url: This parameter specifies the actual web/youtube url link. Otherwise it is set to null if the associated media content is a local media file. e.g.:
      hymn_bb,015,0,HYMN_MEDIA, https://youtu.be/432RvdcGaM4,null
    • Media FilePath: This parameter specifies the full path for the local stored medium file. This field should be set to 'null' if the media content is referring to an url link. e.g.:
      hymn_db,616,0,HYMN_MEDIA,null,/storage/emulated /0/Download/hymnchtv/hymn_db/media_media /ChHymns-0616.mp3
    { Content }
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