[Rhythmbox-devel] Help with file syncing project

[Will S <wsha code gmail com>]

I'm looking for some direction on a method to use Rhythmbox to sync some music files to another location.

In particular, I want to be able to select files to sync to an Android phone wirelessly. Right now, I can mount a directory on the phone on my local file system using sshfs. I can also connect via ssh and thus use rsync. I know Rhythmbox has some file sync support for external devices, but that seems to require the device be plugged in and show up as a mounted volume (maybe even restricted to MTP?). So I haven't found a way for Rhythmbox to connect to recognize my phone as an external device for syncing the way I am connecting to it. Does anyone know a way to do this?

Here are some alternative ideas I had:

1. Create a plugin that can make an arbitrary directory act as an external device and let Rhythmbox handle all of the file syncing the way it does for a wired connection.

2. Create a plugin that adds a source like the Music source but adds an extra column with a checkbox and keeps track of what albums/artists/songs are checked (across restarts). It would also have a button that exports the list of selected files in some format that I could use to for syncing outside of Rhythmbox.

If it seems like either of these two ideas is the best option, could you point me to the relevant API methods to try? I am comfortable with Python but haven't worked with Rhythmbox plugins or GTK before. I have looked at the sample plugin in the source and at the third party plugins list but they mainly add buttons or context menu items, not new sources or anything to do with external devices. I was able to add a new empty source with the sample plugin, but when I tried to use other sources by using the list here: https://developer.gnome.org/rhythmbox/unstable/ I got errors. Also, any tips on debugging the plugin would be appreciated. Usually I use a debugger or work in a REPL when working on Python, but I don't know that I can do either for a plugin that has to be executed by Rhythmbox.

Thank you for any help you can provide!