On Tue, 2005-04-26 at 21:03 -0400, christey csee wvu edu wrote: > Sorry, I should have been clearer. There are two major types of USB flash > based players: those that are Mass Storage devices and those that aren't. > If it is, then Linux treats it like any other USB disk drive, and > transferring files to it is much simpler. If it isn't, you'll have to > reverse engineer its transfer protocol to get files on and off it. (In > the case of Iriver, you can replace the firmware to turn one type into the > other.) If you have to do this, it would be best to write it as a > gnome-vfs plugin, so we can at least treat it as a filesystem. (see Sri's > post about his gnome-vfs driver for non-Mass Storage Irivers) I am referring to usb mass storage devices, those that are already accessible through gnome-vfs. I agree that any with custom protocols should have a gnome-vfs layer to make the interface consistent. I take for granted that gnome-volume-manager is able to mount the device, and that it is therefore accessible through gnome-vfs. The issue i want to raise is the interface of said devices with rhythmbox. > > Flash based players are used differently. They are used to take some > > selection of a collection of music portably with you. I don't need 8 > > days of music if i'm only listening to it on the train in the morning. > > In that case, i'm probably only going to need a CD or two worth of music > > from my collection, and the selection is probably going to change daily. > > I can see how the library / browser interface would be overkill if it only > holds 20 songs. Perhaps a flat list of filenames would be better when > viewing a source that doesn't have it's own database. It would definitely > be faster too, as you wouldn't have to extract the metadata. Would this > fit your definition of "playlist"? I would still suggest implementing it > as a source to avoid confusion with Rhythmbox's definition of playlists. I am not suggesting altering rb's interface at all, only adding to it. I envisage these kinds of flash players coming up in rb as another playlist (see image) - the interface would need minimal (if any) changes. When a song is dragged from the library to this particular playlist, it is also copied to the device that backs it. -nick
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