On 10/29/06, Niklas Nisbeth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear list.
On the Application Wish List (http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/
mediawiki/index.php?title=Applications) I note that we have a 'Media
Player Application' which some want to be 'similar to iTunes'.
I'd just like to explain why I think iTunes is horrible and doesn't
fit with what I see as the GNUstep way of doing things.
Mainly, it does three (four) things which aren't really connected as
I see things:
1) Organises media files
2) Plays media files
3) Burn media files to CD
(4) Connect to the iTunes Music Store)
Of these, a media player should only do no. 2, play media files.
I'm a BeOS user and one of the things that makes me love BeOS to bits
is its shell, the Tracker. The Tracker/Finder/shell is, IMHO, where
you should organise your files. Playlists are smart searches on
extended attributes, etc.
Anyways. Instead of making some behemoth like iTunes, make the
graphical shell the best place for organising files by making it
aware of attributes like ID3 tags etc., and allow me to add other
attributes to make arbitrary playlists (one song from this artist,
two songs from that one, etc). Of course, this would mean that if
someone wants to make a photo/video/pdf/whathaveyou library type app,
half the work would already be done as it would just be a matter of
setting attributes and storing smart searches.
And on GNUstep, burning CDs should be a service of a CD burner app.
Keep applications as small as possible!
I would say your description is indeed what we intend to do.
So there is the plan I have in mind for the media player.
We have CollectionKit based on Address Book
to handle organization of items with attributes.
All items can be arbitrarily grouped, just as playlist in iTunes.
There is a BookmarKit built on top of it for shared bookmarks.
Since CollectionKit only handle items with attributes,
not any file it may refer to,
I plan to have a OrganizationKit on top of CollectionKit
to handle files associated with items.
For example, in iTunes, music/video files are referred by items,
and in iPhoto, digital images are referred by items.
Changing attributes in item may changing the location of files.
In the end, you can organize files as easy as iTunes or iPhoto.
If such information from CollectionKit or OrganizationKit is shared,
any other application can access it.
I had a prototype of media player in svn, called Babbler.
It is based on gstreamer and is only barely usable.
But the idea is that it can access the collection of music files
organized by CollectionKit or OrganizationKit and play it.
Again, a CD importer application can also put new music into
the same collection. So does the CD burner to pick any music file
to burn.
They all surround a shared collection.
If you have a collection of music and a collection of photos,
because they all organized with OrganizationKit,
a CD burner can access them in the same way,
except the type of files is different.
Then it can decide how to burn them based on file types.
In another word, you can have a single CD burner to burn
both music and pictures.
That's pretty much all I have in mind now.
Yen-Ju
Take care,
Niklas
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