Re: [Banshee-devel-list] External track metadata (recommendations, WP, etc)

[Aaron Bockover <abockover novell com>]

I started on a metadata service API a few days ago. Currently there's a
Rhapsody implementation that only fetches cover art. There's a patch in
bugilla to get embedded cover art from files. 

New backends can be written to it that fetch any kind of metadata they
want. The Rhapsody one can be easily extended to parse extra metadata.
I'll port the MusizBrainz support to this new service, and will probably
be deprecating the old MusicBrainz metadata search plugin.

The new API is used to fetch metadata on track change. I've never really
been fond of the "do it all at once" method that the metadata search
plugin uses. The rich metadata is really only useful on active tracks,
so I really like the new approach.

See:

src/Core/Banshee.Base/Banshee.Metadata
src/Core/Banshee.Base/Banshee.Rhapsody

The backends can implement the low level interfaces or the high level
schedule provider, which will automatically use the kernel scheduler
(this is preferred and probably just fine for most providers).

Of course, this is just the brains of rich metadata :) Currently,
whenever you play any type of track or stream in Banshee, if it has
metadata, the cover will be downloaded from Rhapsody within a few
seconds of starting playback and displayed automagically. It's a sweet
new experience!

--Aaron


On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 00:28 -0600, Patrick van Staveren wrote:
> I'm sure you all at least skimmed this on the main list (was: [Fwd:
> [Banshee-List] Fwd: Patch for a warning])
> 
> We've talked in the past about ways to present external metadata for
> tracks; right now it's pretty much just recommendations plugin and
> wikipedia plugin (which has been a train wreck codebase since the start,
> but useful nonetheless).  I'm sure as time goes on, folks will find more
> bits of external data they'd like to see and will get implemented as
> plugins.
> 
> Mickael Renault posted this simple mockup to the list a week or two ago:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/32203431 N00/325029400/
> 
> I know there was talk over the summer (or perhaps at the boston summit?)
> of something of similar functionality.  I think it'd be a good goal
> before we hit the 0.12 series to implement this so that we can set up
> plugins to make use of it.
> 
> Regardless of what we decide on, we need to implement it in the core and
> then engineer plugins so that they take advantage of it.
> 
> I'm hoping to hear back from some of you who have other ideas on how we
> can implement this, and then get it done!  If I don't hear back from
> anyone, I will probably hack at something like the screenshot above.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Patrick
> 
> 
> 
> 
> email message attachment, "Forwarded message - [Banshee-List] Fwd:
> Patch for a warning"
> > -------- Forwarded Message --------
> > From: Mickael Renault <mickael renault gmail com>
> > Reply-To: banshee-list gnome org
> > To: banshee-list gnome org
> > Subject: [Banshee-List] Fwd: Patch for a warning
> > Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:28:33 +0100
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have done a little mockup to show my vision of an unified
> > interface for the context plugins :
> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/32203431 N00/325029400/
> > 
> > Any comment ?
> > 
> > Micka�> > 
> > ps : I can try to implement it.
> > 
> > 
> > 2006/12/14, Trick van Staveren <trick vanstaveren us>: 
> >         Mickael,
> >         
> >         (banshee-list subscribers, read below for context)
> >         
> >         There was discussion some months ago about creating a
> >         unified interface 
> >         for plugins that grab data like this, and making it much
> >         more
> >         presentable.  It'd be some sort of dialog or pane that would
> >         aggregate
> >         extra data from any installed plugins and display it
> >         intelligently.
> >         However, to the best of my knowledge, no one has started
> >         work on it. 
> >         
> >         Do you have any good ideas for interface design?  If you
> >         could elaborate
> >         - or better yet - draw a mockup (gimp or by hand, whatever
> >         works for
> >         you) and send it out and we'll see what folks think!  If we
> >         come up with 
> >         a good interface design that a good handful of people like,
> >         it will be
> >         much easier to implement and someone is more likely to start
> >         working on
> >         it.
> >         
> >         Cacheing of various things can be done pretty easily, but
> >         I'd rather get 
> >         the interface fixed and working first.
> >         
> >         I'm sending this to the banshee list as well, make sure your
> >         replies are
> >         sent there.  If you're not on the list, head to
> >         http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/banshee-list to get
> >         joined up :)
> >         
> >         Cheers,
> >         
> >         Patrick
> >         
> >         
> >         
> >         On Thu, 2006-12-14 at 02:47 +0100, Mickael Renault wrote:
> >         > Thanks for the commit,
> >         >
> >         > i have a 'big' problem with the interface of WP because i
> >         love use the
> >         > recommandation plugin too. And when they are both active,
> >         i can't see
> >         > my playlist because they use the whole space. I think that
> >         it could be 
> >         > cool to merge these plugins because they have more or less
> >         the same
> >         > goal. Or aperhaps  better solution could be to add a
> >         "notebook" for
> >         > the plugins in banshee.
> >         >
> >         > PS : Have you planned to implement a cache for the
> >         lyrics ? 
> >         >
> >         > 2006/12/14, Trick van Staveren <trick vanstaveren us>:
> >         >         Mickael,
> >         > 
> >         >         This is committed.
> >         >
> >         >         Thanks for sending the patch!  I've been meaning
> >         to get around 
> >         >         to fixing
> >         >         up this plugin and integrating with some of our
> >         other info
> >         >         gathering
> >         >         plugins, but it just hasn't happened.
> >         >
> >         >         I appreciate the effort.  If you are working on
> >         any other 
> >         >         modifications
> >         >         to the WP plugin, let me know and we can get you
> >         subversion
> >         >         access set
> >         >         up so that you can make commits yourself :)
> >         >
> >         >         Cheers, 
> >         >
> >         >         Patrick
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >         On Thu, 2006-12-14 at 00:18 +0100, Mickael Renault
> >         wrote:
> >         >         > Hi,
> >         >         >
> >         >         > I've made a little patch to fix the warning a
> >         the 
> >         >         initialisation of
> >         >         > the plugin.
> >         >         >
> >         >         > Commit ?
> >         >         >
> >         >         > Mickael Renault
> >         >         --
> >         >
> >         >         -- 
> >         >         Patrick "Trick" van Staveren
> >         >         http://trick.vanstaveren.us
> >         > 
> >         --
> >         
> >         --
> >         Patrick "Trick" van Staveren
> >         http://trick.vanstaveren.us
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Banshee-list mailing list
> > Banshee-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/banshee-list
> _______________________________________________
> Banshee-devel-list mailing list
> Banshee-devel-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/banshee-devel-list