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Topic: The Future of Foobar2000's Media Types (Read 6087 times) previous topic - next topic
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The Future of Foobar2000's Media Types

One thing I've been missing in foobar is a multi-function media library, rather than a single database.

Currently, alternative players support things like:
- DAAP
- Podcasts
- Removeable Media
- Remote iTunes Library
- Portable Players

Now, with the current foobar2000 way of doing things, this is just not possible. I think it would be a serious improvement to foobar to add these not necessarily as different features, but change the structure of foobar so that media is handled as an extensible tree - of which the current library would be a branch - xml/rss could be another, daap another - it would be like a type of plugin.

I don't think this is really something that can be done simply as a plugin, either - it would require changing the way foobar2000 works internally to a degree but I think this would be a needed and worthwhile positive.

However, it may not necessarily require moving the media library in the program structure - for all I know, the current way of working allows for this, however, the way the interface works, there is nothing to indicate that it goes beyond a database with playlists.

I think media is expanding in such a way that a local collection of several hundred gb of music will not always be the best and most well used thing, and it would be nice if foobar2000 was ready for this.

Obviously I'm not the guy coding this, and I dont want to the dev team to see this as a demand, more of a thought that has been buzzing around for a while but has some grounds to it.

Thanks
hi

The Future of Foobar2000's Media Types

Reply #1 –
Any ideas why this was completely ignored?
hi

The Future of Foobar2000's Media Types

Reply #3 –
Ok, fine.

Quote
- DAAP


Straight from wikipedia:

The DAAP protocol was originally introduced in iTunes version 4.0. Initially, Apple did not officially release a protocol description, but it has been reverse-engineered to a sufficient degree that reimplementations of the protocol for non-iTunes platforms have been possible. Recently, however, Apple has begun to license the protocol specification for commercial implementations.

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Quote
- Podcasts


All a podcast is is a remote playlist.

Quote
- Removeable Media


You mean like external hard drives? I use an external hard drive with Foobar.

Quote
- Remote iTunes Library


How is this different from an Icecast server with a web interface?

Quote
- Portable Players


In my opinion if the manufacturer is arrogant enough to manufacture a device that cannot be handled as an external hard drive (read: the iPod and 80% of other players out there), then the handling of said device should remain the domain of a plugin.

90% of what you have suggested here can easily be described as "creeping featuritis". Foobar2000 is a lean and mean audio player that follows the UNIX paradigm of doing one thing and doing it well, that just happens to be extensible enough to do everything else you want it to do. Let's leave it that way.

The Future of Foobar2000's Media Types

Reply #4 –
The fact that fb2k uses plugins should tell you something about it: it's meant to be customizable and minimalist. It is not supposed to force features that many users would not want down your throat. For example, I will never use remote iTunes libraries through DAAP because I like to own music and because my collection is very extensive already. Many audiophiles use fb2k and they are likely the same way.

The best thing about fb2k is that it doesn't do anything automatically. I don't want my media player bloating and running slowly because it's checking my intranet for DAAP servers, and I don't want to have to turn that feature off. Also, as far as your comments about removable media, drag&drop works just fine for me. It's all about control: I don't want fb2k adding things to my library that I don't want there.

As far as individual features:

DAAP
- see "Remote iTunes Library"

Podcasts
- Try Juice. It would not be much hassle for you to download podcasts with Juice into a folder in your library and then tell fb2k to "Rescan Media Library". That's just three or four clicks a day. On the other hand, it would be a ton of hassle writing podcasting into fb2k.

Removable Media
- If it can be opened in windows (like an iPod in hard disk mode) then you can simply add it to fb2k with File >> Add Folder... Again, that's a couple clicks for you, as opposed to a new feature that not everyone wants or a plugin that would take a long time to write.

Remote iTunes Library
- Post version 7.0, Apple is intentionally trying to keep non-iTunes software from accessing DAAP through certificate exchange. That means that a programmer would have to try to outsmart a large company of computer engineers in order to implement DAAP in fb2k. If it's that important to you, use iTunes, or try to get all your friends to upload their music to MP3Tunes and share your account info with one another.

Portable Players
- See "Removable Media" above and also check out the foo_dop plugin if you have an iPod


The bottle line is that the amount of programming required for the value of the features is very high. Also, it's questionable whether the fb2k community would appreciate them. You also said that plugins could not do these things. Actually, all of these things are possible with plugins.

The Future of Foobar2000's Media Types

Reply #7 –
And what do you guys think about adding new ability as an upnp client so Foobar2000 can stream musics from another computer such as NAS server? I would love to see that..
 

The Future of Foobar2000's Media Types

Reply #8 –
tool++: I agree with you entirely. I'd love to see foobar2000 be able to handle this kind of thing more gracefully.

My idea for a solution for some of these problems was pretty simple: something I call a "database shard". It's just a file that has all the tags for all the files it references, and maybe other kinds of metadata like album art and so on. It could store relative path names instead of absolute ones.

Shards could also allow for some dynamic behaviour, potentially. They could update from podcasts or whatever. They'd allow for removable media, and would also solve the problem of tagging music that you don't want to alter the files of.

Once you've got that abstraction, then it might be possible to encapsulate things like iTunes Remote Libraries, UPnP, devices, etc. into separate shards.

Actually, podcasts could be treated as playlists. They're basically just playlists that change over time.

Anyhow, just a random, flailing idea. Any thoughts?