Rockbox Technical Forums

Support and General Use => Plugins/Viewers => Topic started by: kem on March 16, 2006, 12:22:10 PM

Title: iPlay testers needed
Post by: kem on March 16, 2006, 12:22:10 PM
iPlay is a rockbox plugin that will read the iTunesDB file and let you select one of your playlists to play. This lets you use iTunes to sync your music and gives you access to that music through your iTunes playlists! For example, I use it when I want to play an album or playlist gapless.

I need some testers to try it out on different versions of iPods before I submit a new patch. I will send testers "rockbox.ipod" and "iPlay.rock" files built for their iPod version. You'll need to reboot and <select> the iPlay.rock file. It should come up with a list of your iTunes playlists. You can then select one and it should start playing and return you to rockbox file view. Press <play> to go to the wps view.

If you agree to be a tester, I may need to get a copy of your iTunesDB file if you have any problems.

Please PM me with your iPod version and e-mail address and I'll send you the two files that you'll need to try this out.

Thanks for your help,
kem
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 16, 2006, 12:42:30 PM
Out of curiosity, why haven't you updated the patch on the tracker?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: linuxstb on March 16, 2006, 01:16:18 PM
I'ld be happy to test if you post the source. 

Don't worry if it's still a work in progress - just update your patch on the patch tracker, and then update it again in the future.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: hydrahead on March 16, 2006, 01:43:11 PM
So you can't browse the whole database, just playlists?
Title: source posted patch #4771
Post by: kem on March 16, 2006, 02:25:40 PM
Okay, I updated the patch. You'll find the source in the third comment. Thanks for taking a look at this!
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: kem on March 16, 2006, 02:31:15 PM
So you can't browse the whole database, just playlists?

I wanted to get my feet wet first. I don't think it will be hard to access artists and albums. I chose playlists first, because I'm very playlist-centric.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: crashd on March 16, 2006, 02:44:55 PM
Which version of the iTunes DB is this going to support kem?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: JoshPowell on March 16, 2006, 03:00:44 PM
You've got PM.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: gummbah on March 16, 2006, 04:30:48 PM
I don't think it will be hard to access artists and albums.


That would be excellent!!
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: hydrahead on March 16, 2006, 05:50:11 PM
Aww man that would be great for me if you sucseed!  ;D
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: JoshPowell on March 16, 2006, 07:42:27 PM
For those interested, here is a link to the patch on Flyspray.

http://www.rockbox.org/bugs/task/4771

Josh
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: gummbah on March 18, 2006, 08:43:53 PM
I was wondering if this plugin is part of rockbox, or do I need to install it manually?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: JoshPowell on March 18, 2006, 10:35:38 PM
Its not a part of rockbox yet.

However, it will be if the patch he submitted ( http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/4771 ) is added to CVS.

Josh
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: gummbah on March 19, 2006, 08:19:49 AM
Its not a part of rockbox yet.

However, it will be if the patch he submitted ( http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/4771 ) is added to CVS.

Josh

Cool, thanks for the answer. How do I know if the patch has been added?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 19, 2006, 08:23:19 AM
Look at the changelog. It'll be mentioned in it if it's ever added.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: station on March 23, 2006, 08:10:19 AM
PM sent!
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Cassandra on March 23, 2006, 10:06:20 AM
Now if only I could find a program that correctly generated an iTunesDB for the 5g from my existing music ...
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: crashd on March 23, 2006, 10:18:41 AM
Cassandra: the foo_pod plugin is close to having support for 5G and the new itunes database format. O.o
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: gdap on March 23, 2006, 03:23:32 PM
I'd like to try this too. I've got a 5g ipod video.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: eubanksae on March 23, 2006, 03:29:03 PM
I have 5G 60GB ipod, and I'd like to try this, but need to know if I'll still be able to transfer photos to the ipod without a pc.  One of the main reasons I got the ipod was so that when I travel, I can dump my digital pictures to the ipod without having to lug around a laptop.  I have the little apple attachment that plugs into the dock port on the ipod, and has a usb port on the other side for the camera to plug into.

Thanks,
Andy E.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: gdap on March 24, 2006, 04:19:29 PM
Good stuff, Kem.

Occasionally I select a playlist that gets loaded but then the tracks don't play. Most of the time it works fine, though.

Things I'd like to see:

- Don't pause current music playback when loading the iArt plugin
- Rather than selecting a playlist resulting in it starting to play, I think it would be very useful for the tracks within it being displayed (as though expanding a directory in Rockbox's file view

- Artists, Album, etc browsing as on the iPod

For the moment this is a huge improvement on picking random FXUIF.mp3 filenames!

Thanks.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: joesomebody on March 24, 2006, 05:31:42 PM
I would like to try it...I have nothing to lose...would someone send me the files? I am too much of a n00b to compile on my own quite yet...am working on it.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: blaxbb on March 24, 2006, 08:06:36 PM
or better yet post it on fileshack or somewhere because i cant compile
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Suntiger on March 24, 2006, 09:41:25 PM
joe and blax:

That's exactly what I've been saying, but it turns out it's remarkably easy to use the VMware image to compile custom builds. Took me 30 minutes or so, once I corrected my "patch" syntax. I really suggest you try it yourselves, you'll be happier when it works and you don't have to ask people anymore.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/VMwareDevelopmentPlatform - follow this for the most part
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/HowToCompile - Step 6 is important!
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WorkingWithPatches - For patching, this is really all you need.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: blaxbb on March 25, 2006, 02:51:05 PM
ok i booted up and got to cvs checkout rockbox and it said unknown host www.rockbox.org ??? besides that its a good program
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: jimarib on March 25, 2006, 06:13:19 PM
Ok, i have asked a question like this beforebut since none seems willing to post a patched rockbox.ipod on a file server, though this is understandable. Anyway, i can compile a source using VMware put have no idea about patching, ive asked about the albumart patch, and was told to write 'patch -p0 < *.patch' (subbing 8 with patch name) which worked fine, but when i tried it with the iplay_plugin_c.patch and the iplay_plugin_h.patch it asked for a file name and asked wheter i used the wrong command, which i probably did. My question is, im willing to compile and patch, but i would like some help with what to do.   
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: travishayes89 on March 26, 2006, 12:10:41 AM
im thinking about becoming a tester, what do i need to do?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: gummbah on March 26, 2006, 05:09:43 AM
joe and blax:

That's exactly what I've been saying, but it turns out it's remarkably easy to use the VMware image to compile custom builds. Took me 30 minutes or so, once I corrected my "patch" syntax. I really suggest you try it yourselves, you'll be happier when it works and you don't have to ask people anymore.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/VMwareDevelopmentPlatform - follow this for the most part
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/HowToCompile - Step 6 is important!
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WorkingWithPatches - For patching, this is really all you need.


I whish I could understand a damn thing of those pages, but I don't.
So I guess I will have to wait until some nice person makes a build with the iplay patch and album art patch installed.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: pixeldotz on March 27, 2006, 10:28:16 AM
for those of you that wondered about foo_pod for creating the db. foo_pod has a repair function that i used just 2 days ago on a friends 5g. itunes had corrupted his database to the point where NOTHING was showing up in the main menu or in itunes.

i ran the repair function twice. and it worked fine after that.

here's a usefull hint so you wont have to use the RESTORE function from the ipod updater (this formats the ipod..not good if you want to keep your music)

grab all the files off an ipod (depending on your version) and from a fresh RESTORE, preferably from a friend or if you have no other option than to restore, or if you just bought the ipod and haven't messed with it yet. make sure you can pull the hidden files too. so just copy all files from the root and place them somewhere that you will not mess with them.

so whenever  you have an 'incident' that you end up with a corrupt database, you can just erase the ipod_control folder. copy it back from your backup, then use foo_pod to recreate your database.

this is the technique i used for my friends, he has a 5g, so does my bro, so i pulled the files from my bros and put them on my friends, repaired using foo_pod and all his music was there, fine, unharmed.

i also backedup my nano in case this ever happens to mine.

just a helpful hint i thought i'd share.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: ZAPPAJOE on March 27, 2006, 01:02:06 PM
I'm assuming when you used foo_pod to rebuild the database, you were using the original files as the iPod firmware stored them (F01, F02, F03 directories).  I did a ton of testing trying to build the iPod database with regular filenames (names that made sense, ex. "01 - Dancing In The Show Tonight") and it didn't work.  It doesn't look like there is a newer version of foo_pod around. 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, because if this would work I'd go back to using Rockbox (or even better if the dock/remote would work through Rockbox)
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: linuxstb on March 27, 2006, 01:36:42 PM

It's still in the early stages, but "tagcache" is now in CVS.  Bugs are being fixed constantly, so if you want to try it, make sure you download the latest CVS build, not a daily build.

More details are here:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/TagCache

Basically, tagcache is the new Rockbox tag database and it automatically indexes all the music on your iPod - both the files transferred via itunes, and files you have just copied manually.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: SilleeString on March 27, 2006, 01:54:27 PM
It sounds good, maybe I'll try it tonight when I get home, although I've already pretty much ditched itunes (except for videos).  A quick question though for anybody who may know, referring to the building of the db: Do you have to rebuild it from scratch when you add a new file?  Or will it just be in the db already?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 27, 2006, 02:00:39 PM
When you reboot the DB updates, and will add new files. Doesn't take long at all, and it's in the background.

And, if you've ditched itunes, don't worry. The db itself has *nothing* to do with itunes. It reades the tags, and lets you show your files by Tag instead of by Filename, essentially.

So, this handles all the garbled /XYCF/JLRE filenames that itunes makes, because they still have the tag information in them. That's what linuxstb was really saying, rather than any implied association with the actual iTunes Database.

You force a tagcache update in the playback menu, wait for quite a while on the first one (there's an icon in the upper right corner that represents disk use, near the clock. Wait for that to go away) and then reboot the unit. It will say "Committing Tagcache" for a while, and then when you're back at the file tree you can switch to ID3 view in the General Settings > File View (both of these are covered on the TagCache page, but I'm summarizing for skimmers who don't like links). Then your file browser is replaced with a Database Browser that lets you browse by Artist, Album, Genre, or simply all Songs, and has a search choice.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: pixeldotz on March 27, 2006, 02:01:31 PM
zappajoe

since the database was originally created with itunes; all the filenames where thus named as itunes saw fit. F09 etc..blahblhablhadumb.

foo_pod had no problem 'repairing/rebuilding' the database this way.

i haven't tried it yet with regular a regular naming convention. which is the reason i stick to rockbox (about 1.5 wks old on my nano now). it allows me to name my files the way i want.

artist/album/track# - title

i hate itunes very much, and loathe the fact that my bro uses it on my pc to load stuff onto his 5g.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: SilleeString on March 27, 2006, 03:11:50 PM
Sounds good Llorean, so basically what we're looking at is an alternative to the file tree, that is to say all the features (such as queue next, dynamic playlists, randomize all) work exactly the same, you're just browing your music differently?  Actually, now that I think about it randomizing all would be even easier this way, since you don't have to create a root playlist first, correct?

This sounds great for anybody who wanted to have their cake and eat it too (be able to see your music in apple's firmware AND rockbox), so to speak.

I'll try this out tonight if I have the time and will post any and all noteworthy impressions tomorrow.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 27, 2006, 03:15:26 PM
Silleestring: That's the idea, yes. There's still a bug here or there, but yeah, if you go to view by Song, then you'll see a list of all your songs, and can play your whole collection right there.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: gummbah on March 27, 2006, 03:31:22 PM
This is great news!!
Now if saving the bass and treble settings start to work, I can permenantly switch to using rockbox!
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: SilleeString on March 27, 2006, 09:56:33 PM
Well I don't know if this is much to mention since the album art patch isn't in cvs anyway, but I tried to force the tagcache to update with my build with the patch applied and it froze up, nothing responded for several minutes.  I had to reboot.  Getting a regular ol' CVS build from the site fixed the problem.  So uh...I guess if you have the album art patch and want to use this, you're going to have to go patchless.

Edit:  It doesn't appear to be known, but I found a bug.  I have almost 3000 songs in total on the pod, but when I click on shuffle and go to "songs" and hit play, only 399 "load up" so to speak, that is to say I see 1 in 399 under the song title.  And yeah, the songs aren't in order by track #, but that's a known bug...

ok, done
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: linuxstb on March 28, 2006, 05:37:44 AM
Quote
Edit:  It doesn't appear to be known, but I found a bug.  I have almost 3000 songs in total on the pod, but when I click on shuffle and go to "songs" and hit play, only 399 "load up" so to speak, that is to say I see 1 in 399 under the song title.  And yeah, the songs aren't in order by track #, but that's a known bug...

The ID3 browser depends on the "Max files in dir browser" configuration option - which defaults to 400.  You just need to increase that.  I added the details earlier today to the TagCache wiki page, as I agree that it's not obvious.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: f0x on March 28, 2006, 05:44:58 AM
If I choose for example 'Genre' - rock, it will show couple of albums. It would be great to have an option to play All the Albums from this 'Genre'.

Sorry for my English.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: SilleeString on March 28, 2006, 01:49:27 PM
Quote
Edit:  It doesn't appear to be known, but I found a bug.  I have almost 3000 songs in total on the pod, but when I click on shuffle and go to "songs" and hit play, only 399 "load up" so to speak, that is to say I see 1 in 399 under the song title.  And yeah, the songs aren't in order by track #, but that's a known bug...

The ID3 browser depends on the "Max files in dir browser" configuration option - which defaults to 400.  You just need to increase that.  I added the details earlier today to the TagCache wiki page, as I agree that it's not obvious.


Thanks muchly
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: goemon4 on March 28, 2006, 06:22:56 PM
is sthere anyway to view things in order? because all of my songs are out of order...
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: SilleeString on March 28, 2006, 06:53:15 PM
I set it to show 10000 files in the limits, and the amount of songs I can see/play when I go to "songs" has risen so I know it worked somewhat, but there's still a problem.  I can only see up until the G's of my songs, then there's an arrow "------->" which I guessed would allow me to move onto the next set of songs, but when I click it it does nothing, and only those songs are queued up when I "play all."  This description kind of sucks, sorry, but I don't know how to explain it really.  Hopefully you understand.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: JoshPowell on March 28, 2006, 07:07:10 PM
Sorry to double post.. but since this seems to have turned into a Tagcache thread..

Its acting weird on my iPod with a CVS build.. no AA patch.

After about 1 minute, it froze with "Prefetch abort at 86AD43D8"

Any ideas? I tried resetting all settings and tried it again, same error. Tried it 4 times. :/

Josh
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 28, 2006, 07:32:48 PM
Are you using a CVS build? I know there were data alignment errors at first, that have been cleared up since tagcache was first put in, so are you using the absolute *newest* version and getting these errors?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: SilleeString on March 28, 2006, 09:46:39 PM
Scratch my last post.  I seem to see all the songs now. :)
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: JoshPowell on March 28, 2006, 09:59:20 PM
Are you using a CVS build? I know there were data alignment errors at first, that have been cleared up since tagcache was first put in, so are you using the absolute *newest* version and getting these errors?

Yup. Just downloaded the last CVS build, same problem. "Prefetch abort at 86AD43D8"

I'm stumped :(
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 28, 2006, 10:04:26 PM
Are you using the in-memory or on-disk mode?

Anyway, let's try a few things. First:
Delete all the tagcache files from the .rockbox folder, then, when rebooting your ipod reset the settings by turning on the hold switch during boot.

Then, rebuild the tagcache from absolute scratch, that way you're not using an old tagcache with a new build. I can't imagine it would hurt that you do, but it's possible since the old version was buggy that it was necessary to clear the files. I don't really know.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: JoshPowell on March 28, 2006, 10:13:40 PM
Disk mode.

Deleted tagcache tmp file in .rockbox, will try it now. I tried resetting the settings, but I'll do it again.

Right now I'm going through and deleting a bunch of music I copied over manually (to access from rockbox) to see if for some reason that is interfering with it.

Josh
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 28, 2006, 10:16:34 PM
Manually copied over music shouldn't interfere at all, unless they're duplicates. And even then they *shouldn't*.

My iPod is populated only with manually copied music and it has not problems, but the tagcache does do some funny things with duplicate songs (though as far as I know, what it does is not display one of them. So if you have a .flac and a .mp3 of the same song, one may not show up.)

Let me know if deleting all the tagcache files and rebuilding works for you, if not, we'll see if we can figure out exactly where that memory address references.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: JoshPowell on March 28, 2006, 10:19:35 PM
Removing manually added music, resetting settings, and deleting tagcache tmp files didn't help.. exact same error.


Josh
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 28, 2006, 10:22:53 PM
Okay, one last question: Is that number you typed the exact number it gives with a CVS build, or is it different. I need to know to try to look up where the errors actually happening.
I'm assuming by "CVS" build you mean a clean, patch-free one, so I'm going to build here to get the .maps and look up where that address falls in them.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: JoshPowell on March 28, 2006, 10:25:47 PM
Yes, exact number. Its been the same every time too.

And yes, clean patch-free CVS build. The latest bleeding edge from http://www.rockbox.org/cvs.shtml

Thanks for your help Llorean.

Josh
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Llorean on March 28, 2006, 10:37:00 PM
Hrm. I'm not too good on this "hunting memory addresses" thing. I've done if a few times, with success, but I haven't found a range that's included in, in the .map file. I'd say file a bug report.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: svenbox on April 11, 2006, 07:21:11 AM
Hoy, what's the status on this plugin?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Yorixz on July 24, 2006, 09:54:27 AM
Little bump, will there be any updates/cvs inclusion?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: jswetzen on July 25, 2006, 11:40:39 AM
Could you build it for 5g and post the whole zip (.rockbox folder and rockbox.ipod)?
Then I would test it! :)
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: momo_101 on July 26, 2006, 08:16:10 PM
I'd be willing to test the iPlay! (If your still sending it out) I have a Color iPod. (U2) Also, could you email it to me? I'm new with forumns. My email's momo_101@mac.com Thanks!!
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: whitty on August 04, 2006, 03:54:13 AM
I love you for adding this system. You've made my schoolyear.
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: Jon_ on August 06, 2006, 12:59:36 PM
I would love to try out this new feature.

iPod: 5th Gen iPod Video.

take care,
Jon
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: oldhouse on August 19, 2006, 06:52:37 AM
How can i get this baby?
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: cactusjack901 on August 20, 2006, 04:56:22 PM
i was just about to ask what happened to this, I NEED THE WALL ON ROCKBOX, for some reason the rockbox tag cache won't read all my music
Title: Re: iPlay testers needed
Post by: manu on August 29, 2006, 02:51:08 PM
Can some1 post a tut....with links to any downloads ......thx

ipod photo....windows operating system

Manchester united 2-1 watford.....