[Shotwell] About adding support for recorded audio files

[Tobias Rapp]

Hello,

this is some rather long mail that aims to discuss about the idea to add
support for handling audio files in Shotwell. This might sound as an
inappropriate (or better: crazy) feature request for a photo manager
application but I will try to explain why this makes more sense to me
than just stick to using Rhythmbox (or some other music manager).

It's important to point out that audio != music.

I own a digital audio recording device called "Tascam DR-07" [1]. This
is some handheld device which is a bit larger than a mobile phone and
allows you to capture audio data in digital format. The data is stored
on those common flash memory cards. In my case I am using it to capture
e.g. the first spoken words of my children, funny minutes while playing
Taboo with friends, some service or prayer at the church. In the last
two or three years these kind of devices have become more and more
popular (see [2]).

For organizing the recorded audio files I have not yet found an
appropriate application. Common music managers allow you to play the
recorded files, of course, but apply the usual Artist/Album/Track
model. In this case the more relevant information would be:
 - date and time of the recording
 - event name (birthday, Christmas, holidays, ...)
 - location of the event
 - persons audible in the recording

This is similar with the typical metadata when managing photos. Indeed
it would be great to manage both, captured images and captured audio
files of a single event within the same software. I really prefer
Shotwell for managing my photo images and would like to use it for my
recorded audio, too.

The import workflow (transfer files from attached device or memory card
to HDD), the management of files (using date, location and tags) and the
export are very similar. Actually as similar support for video files is
currently in progress I think that extending support towards audio files
in a future version would not be a too far away. It would be some
courageous feature, if that is the right word, something that has not
been tried before.

Finally my main question is not if *you* will add support for audio
recordings in Shotwell but rather if you would accept patches that
implement this feature. Not sure if I will get an initial test version
up and running soon, though. Maybe there are other developers that are
interested in working on this feature, too?

Regards,
Tobias

Links:
[1] http://tascam.com/product/dr-07/

[2] Examples of portable recording devices:
 http://tascam.com/applications/home_recording/handheld_recorder/
 http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h1/
 http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h2/
 http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/
 http://www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/2581_18551.htm
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666016155