jenius-apps/ambie

An app that uses white noise, nature sounds, and focus features to boost your productivity.

Ambie

Focus, study, or relax. Sounds for every mood.

Introduction

Ambie is an app that plays white noise and nature sounds to help you focus, sleep, and unwind. For many people, having background noise while working on a task helps with concentration. Ambie has a good starting selection of built-in sounds such as rain and beach waves that help you. These can also be used to help you sleep, relax, and de-stress. For instance, those with tinnitus and anxiety have reached out saying Ambie has helped them. And if you download Ambie from the Microsoft Store, you'll get access to a catalogue of online sounds that you can download to expand your library.

Product pillars

When building features, these product pillars must be used to decide which ones are prioritized higher or lower.

1. Ambie primarily helps people focus or relax using white noise and nature sounds. All other features are secondary and must support the primary mission. Secondary features may be cut if they take away from the primary mission.
2. Ambie focuses on minimalism and UX performance. Features being built must maintain or improve UX performance and must have a minimalist and intuitive UX.
3. Ambie will have all local features free, but downloadable content should be prioritized for Ambie+. Features that remove or reduce incentive for Ambie+ should be deprioritized.

From the Press

One of FastCompany's best new apps for productivity in 2022 (USA):

Great ambient noise apps are in short supply on Windows PCs, which is why Ambie is so refreshing. It includes dozens of high-quality background sounds, plus the ability to save your own custom mixes. A major update this year added focus timers and a simple notepad, making this a one-stop concentration shop.

One of Xataka's best Windows apps in 2022 (Spain):

It is a simple and colorful application, although with several utilities. On the one hand, you have a wide catalog of sounds to play the one you like the most, but it also allows you to mix sounds to create a unique one.

Included in Beebom's list of best apps on Windows 11 (India):

The app works miracles when you are trying to focus on work or studies. It lets you set a timer and choose your favorite natural sound from its curated catalog. I love this well-designed app, and I strongly recommend instaling Ambie White Noise if you have a hard time focusing at work or school.

Contribute

For new features, please make sure there's an issue created for it first and that maintainers have confirmed that the new feature should be on Ambie's roadmap. In some cases, you might have contacted the maintainers directly via other channels such as Twitter or Discord. You might have asked the maintainers if you can submit a PR. In those scenarios, an issue is not required.

For bug fixes and translations, please feel free to open a PR right away.

Translation

To help translate, follow these instructions.

Adding a new language (requires Visual Studio 2022 and Multilingual App Toolkit)

• Ensure you have Visual Studio 2022 and the Multilingual App Toolkit extension.
• Fork and clone this repo.
• Open in VS 2022.
• Right click on the AmbientSounds.Uwp project.
• Select Multilingual App Toolkit > Add translation language.
  • If you get a message saying "Translation Provider Manager Issue," just click Ok and ignore it. It's unrelated to adding a language.
• Select a language.
• Once you select a language, new .xlf files will be created in the MultilingualResources folder.
• Find and install Humanizer.Core nuget package for a new language
• Now follow the Improving an existing language steps below.

Improving an existing language (can be done with any text editor)

• Inside the MultilingualResources folder, open the .xlf of the language you want to translate.
  • You can open using any text editor, or you can use the Multilingual Editor
• If you're using a text editor, translate the strings inside the <target> node. Then change the state property to translated.
• If you're using the Multilingual Editor, translate the strings inside the Translation text field. Make sure to save to preserve your changes.
• Once you're done, commit your changes, push to GitHub, and make a pull request.

Third-Party Software and Other Attributions

• Windows Community Toolkit
• WinUI library
• Sounds. Specific file attributions are in Data.json.
• Images. Specific image attributions are in Data.json.
• Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection
• System.Text.Json
• AppCenter Analytics

Special Thanks

Contributors

Translators

• Czech: Michal Moudrý
• Spanish: Leonardo González Castro, Breece W
• Hungarian: Kristóf Kékesi
• Portuguese [BR]: Vinicius Rodrigues
• Turkish: Serdar Türkoğlu
• Danish: Paw Hauge Byrialsen
• Dutch: Christof Becu
• Russian: Dmitry Gorbushin
• Hebrew: Adam Dernis
• Polish: Maciej Klupp
• Ukrainian: Andrii Yakonyuk
• Persian [FA]: Reza Roointan

ambie's Issues

[A11y] Sleep timer button name is too descriptive

The sleep timer button has the UIA name "Click here to set up a sleep timer, where the sound will pause after the selected time." While this is fine as a tooltip, this should not be the UIA name as it is to much information. Putting this in the help information of the button and naming it "Sleep time" or similar would be a better option in my opinion.

pt-BR not correctly added into the project

Some corners get cut off when they are animated on hover

These are a couple instances where the UI gets cut off in Ambie.
I know animations are a key part of the app, and this messes with that goal a bit.
The Ambie icon is also pretty off-center (more pronounced at high DPI scaling).

Fix slow launch

Slow launch caused by catalogue update check. Find a way to defer it

[Feature] Reorganise sounds

Ability to drag and drop sounds to reorganise them.

[Sound request] football crowd noise

Feature request: playlist

Android support

Tracking this request from some folks

[Translation] es-ES

EXE or MSI

Hi,

Please create a .EXE or .MSI file, I can't use Windows Store (I use Windows 10 Enterprise N).

Thanks a lot in advance.

Blank Screen on startup

After updating to 0.8.7.0, a simple black screen opens up.
I have tried restarting the app several times.

[Bug] Loop transitions are jarring

Particularly white noise.

[Feature request] game bar support

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/game-bar/overview

[Feature request] Screensaver mode, particularly on xbox

https://twitter.com/Smmatte/status/1326616227347755008?s=20

[Sound request] thunderstorm

Feature request: reminders

[A11y] Sound loading progress ring can be reached using narrator, even if all sounds have been loaded

When using the item mode of narrator, users can reach the "loading sound" progressring despite all sounds having been loaded.

[Feature request] sleep timer

Feature request: sound combinations

Translations requested for v1.0.0 release!

Hello everyone! Ambie is near its 1.0.0 release. To ensure a smooth release for all markets, I created a branch specifically for updating translations. If you are able to lend a hand, please feel free to checkout this release branch, update the translation, and submit a pr back into the branch. Much appreciated!

Dark/black splash screen

https://www.reddit.com/r/xbox/comments/jzl5cb/i_built_a_white_noiserelaxing_sounds_app_for_xbox/gdek2rr?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Missing volume control

I hope you guys add volume control for this app. It's will be more easy to use volume control inside app than using Volume Mixer

[Bug] xbox app unoptimized

Adjustments to app icon to match Microsoft’s

Ambie’s icon is rather smaller than other circular icons. Additionally, the shadow is used in the taskbar and the app list, whereas the inbox apps only have shadows on the tiles.

App list:

Taskbar:

Tiles:

Longer timer options

Someone requested 8 hours.

Section 508 502.3.1: (Volume slider '') The Name property of a focusable element must not be null.

The volume slider is missing a UIA name,

Element path: slider ''

Issue Details: The Name property of a focusable element must not be null. Section 508 502.3.1

How To Fix: Provide a UI Automation Name property that concisely identifies the element.

Transition of creek sound isn't smooth

I can definitely understand when the sound finishes and starts playing again

Convert existing resw files to xlf

Use this https://github.com/TheMATDude/ResourceToXliff

[Bug] Volume isn't remembered when app is restarted

[Request] for easier localization

Hello devs!

For Files I put my translation into a .xlf file. It is more useful so I would be glad if you would add this feature.
Hungarian is caotic in its way, so google translate is doing more harm than good. I check Ambie every second day so hungarian is always up to date.

Thanks for your consideration.

[A11y] Opening information popup does not announce information, popup can not be reached through narrator

When opening the information popup, the information is not announced nor can it be reached through narrator.

[Sound request] Vacuum cleaner

[Translation] da-DK

Feature Request: Use Taskbar Progress Indicator

I'd like to see the Taskbar Progress Indicator be used to show how far within a loop the playback is currently.

Weird/messed up czech translation.

I checked the whole app and there was a messed up translation in settings (the radiobutton part).

[Sound request] white noise

Add “random sound” button

Just a simple button at the top of the page, maybe with the shuffle icon or maybe a die, to start playing any random sound in the app. If you clicked it while a sound was already playing, it would pick a different random one.

Localization

Hello!
Can someone generate the files required to translate Ambie to hungarian?

Feature Request: Compact-Overlay Support

I'd love to see Compact Overlay Support as an option for Desktop clients

Minimize to taskbar

Great app but i think there should be an option (simple checkbox will do the job) to minimize app to taskbar, it's annoying to have another app that works in a background as a open window, especially when new windows update add every page in edge to alt+tab menu.

Setup for translation

[Sound request] underwater bubbles

Feature request: Add progress circle beside sounds when downloading from Sound Catalogue

As of now, when downloading sounds, a loading circle appears which does not tell progress. I feel if it is replaced with one that shows progress, it would be great and also gives a sense of satisfaction, and that it is not stuck, since the download size of all sounds is different.

Improve layout for 3000x2000 screen with 250% scaling

https://discord.com/channels/372137812037730304/532702442446520321/772901526619553793

Waterfall transition is very jarring

[Featue] UI tweaks

UI Changes

I like the UI very much, but when I resise the window the buttons should be centered.
If there would be a setting to make the top bar acrylic that would be cool.

By the way it is very useful. 👍

System controls are loaded with the sounds' IDs rather than their translated strings.

Feature : Animation with sound

Is it possible to add animation for the sounds with full screen ?

ie, fireplace with fireplace animation like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_LUpnjgPso

Feature Request: Set Window Title to Track Name

Not sure if UWP allows this (I have to assume it does), but it'd be nice to see ambie prepend the audio track name to the window name.

So, beach - ambie or such.

[Sound request] waterfall