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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: iRiver support in Amarok
From:       Miles Stevenson <miles () mstevenson ! org>
Date:       2005-01-06 16:20:35
Message-ID: 200501061120.38648.miles () mstevenson ! org
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Generating the internal database isn't necessary. You can still browse through 
the filesystem and select which song you want to play by filename. Generating 
the database simply gives you the ability to browse according to tag info: 
Artist, Album, Genre (which is useful). It also extracts some of the tag info 
for display while a song is playing, such as the year, the Artist, and the 
Album. 

But if your mp3/ogg files are named descriptively, and your filesystem 
structure is intuitive (mine is Artist/Album/track_number - track_name.ogg) 
simply browsing the filesystem is pretty effective.

The iRipDB project does do a good job of generating the database though. You 
simply mount the iRiver and point the app to the mount point, and it 
generates the db according from the mp3/ogg files that have already been 
copied to it. It's been working pretty well for me, although I think its 
unicode support could use a little more polish.

At any rate, the kioslave is probably the best way to go about it from a 
design perspective (I haven't tried the one that has been recommended yet). 
However, I still think integrating this into Amarok would be helpful, as 
simply using a kioslave won't keep the device "synced" with the collection db 
on my computer, nor will it generate the iRiver db. Amarok could actually use 
rsync as a back-end to keep the device and the local collection in sync 
(provided there is enough disk space on the device to copy the entire 
collection over). Amarok could also call the iRipDB app (or implement this 
functionality itself) to make sure the database gets built/refreshed during a 
sync operation. A could be wrong, but I don't think a kioslave would be 
appropriate for this.

Which leads to another issue. What happens when the collection on your PC 
won't fit on your iPod/iRiver? This is where I think Amarok is in a good 
position to add some more features, such as keeping track of which tracks you 
want to sync with your device, and which you do not. I could imagine a lot of 
other related features here (futher down the road of course):

-Randomly select Albums to sync with device (up to a user configurable amount 
of space)
-Sync by Artist, Genre, or Album.
-Give preference to your "favorite" tracks when syncing randomly.
-Syncing by playlists to the iRiver. 
-Since the iRiver can display pictures, (optionally) sync album covers as 
well.
-Since the iRiver can record, copy recorded items over to the PC. 
-etc,etc,etc.

On Thursday 06 January 2005 09:51 am, John Tapsell wrote:
> I hate to be the stupid one here, but I was under the impression that for
> the iriver that adding the mp3's to the filesystem wasn't enough - that the
> internal database had to also be updated.
>   Am I incorrect in my thinking?
>
> John
>
> >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to
> >> unsubscribe <<

-- 
Miles Stevenson
miles@mstevenson.org
PGP FP: 035F 7D40 44A9 28FA 7453 BDF4 329F 889D 767D 2F63

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