On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 9:30 PM, Charles Mason <
charlie mas gmail com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Recently I have been experimenting with using Rock Box on my iPod. For
> those that don't know its an open source firmware for many different
> mp3 players including nearly all of the "Classic Style" iPods. Its got
> a number of extra features overs the original software, including Ogg
> and Flac support. As well as less productive things such as a text
> editor and a fully playable version of Doom. Its really worth a try,
> they have an automated GUI installer and you can dual boot and run the
> original software at any time.
>
> Anyway I have started work on an extension to improve syncing support
> for it in Banshee. There are two ways you can play files on it. Ether
> play them directly from the the file system via its file browser or
> using its own database (similar to the original iPod software). The
> database has to scan the entire file system for a couple of minutes to
> update its self when files are added.
>
> I tried using the mass storage extensions, but that takes a long time
> when scanning the devices file system and is generally quite limited.
> If you have an iPod you can use the normal iPod syncing and let the
> Rock Box DB find the hidden mp3 files with the random names the iPod
> DB system uses. The problem is that make playlists impossible and
> still doesn't get round the Rock Box DB scan time.
>
> Since the Rock Box DB format is documented I figured I could write a
> Banshee extension to read and write the Rock Box DB directly, saving
> all the waiting and allowing much closer integration with Banshee.
>
> So far I have used the Mass Storage extension as a template and have
> it reading the DB file off the player and loading its contents so its
> browsable in banshee. However I currently can't work out how banshee
> plays the file directly off the player. When double clicking the file
> to play I just get a null reference exception. I have been trying to
> work out how the iPod extensions achieves this. Can some one briefly
> explain how banshee knows where to access the file?
