I feel we need to start thinking about how ratings should be handled in
third party plugins and in slimserver.

The main reason I decided to implement the TrackStat plugin is that:
1. Ratings where not supported in slimserver at the time
2. The slimserver database could not be considered a save storage of
ratings since the tracks table will be cleared at rescan and track id's
reused and in some situations/crashes the slimserversql.db file needs to
be deleted.

Actually I think we need to think about more than ratings, all
statistic data is interested such as "last played time", "added time",
"play counts", "ratings" and maybe something else also. But lets start
the discussion with ratings.

Today the situation as far as I know is:

TrackStat plugin
================
- Makes it possible to set/view ratings from SqueezeBox, web ui and
cli
- Ratings can be viewed as titleFormats for tracks in SqueezeBox, web
ui
- Ratings in TrackStat survives a rescan since they are stored in a
separate table which is not cleared during rescan.
- Ratings can be backup/restored to xml file
- TrackStat sets ratings in the standard slimserver tracks table(in
6.5)
- Implements MusicMagic export/import of ratings

iTunesUpdate plugin
===================
- Makes it possible to set/view ratings from SqueezeBox and web ui
- Ratings in iTunesUpdate is sent and stored in iTunes
- iTunesUpdate sets ratings in the standard slimserver tracks table(in
6.5)
- Ratings in iTunesUpdate survives a rescan since they are stored in
iTunes

MusicMagic plugin
=================
- Implements import of ratings from MusicMagic during rescan
- Ratings are stored in the standard slimserver tracks table
- Cannot set ratings (besides setting them in MusicMagic of course)
- Ratings survive a rescan by reimporting the ratings from MusicMagic
during rescan.

Slimserver
==========
- Cannot set rating
- Ratings is shown in SongInfo menu on SqueezeBox and web interface

My opinion is that some important points are:
=============================================
1. Ratings must survive a rescan
2. Ratings must be possible to backup
3. Ratings must be possible set in SqueezeBox, web ui and cli
4. Ratings must be possible to view in SqueezeBox, web ui and cli
5. It must be possible to subscribe on rating changes for plugins/cli
to be able to implement export/import plugin/application to new third
party products

Now, what is your opionion regarding handling of ratings and do you
have any suggestion how it should be handled ?


-- 
erland

Erland Isaksson
'My homepage' (http://erland.homeip.net) 'My download page'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download)
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View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23448

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