Topic: Glissando status update (Read 3895 times)

zigguratt · « **on:** July 15, 2002, 11:42:32 am »

Hello all,

I posted this update (more or less) over on the HTPC forum at AVS:

Sorry for my absence for the past few days but I've been doing a fair bit of research into how best to go forward with Glissando. To now I've been modifying Web Remote to consume and produce the XML that Glissando needs to function. So far it's been working fairly well. But there are a few restrictions and issues that may limit the usefulness of continuing to modify Web Remote. As a result I've been looking into alternate approaches.

One would be for me to write my own MJ plugin in C|PLS||PLS|. Now, C|PLS||PLS| has always been, IMHO, an absolute horror to work with. So far in my career I've been able to avoid having to touch it; instead I've concentrated on Java. So obviously writing a plugin in C|PLS||PLS| would not be my preferred course of action.

Another choice would be for JRiver to enable access to the MJ Automation APIs via an outside application. I'm not up on COM and its advantages/limitations, but apparently this would not be an easy task so it's not likely to happen.

A third choice would be for me to rewrite my Java XML server (Intermezzo) in C# .NET. as a Media Jukebox plugin. C# has full access to Windows' capabilities - including COM support - and it's frighteningly similar to Java. The catch here is that MJ would need to be ".NET aware", and would require the .NET framework on the same machine, apparently a 20 MB download. .NET support is probably a good move on JRiver's part but won't really be necessary for quite a while.

So there you have it. None of the choices outlined above are likely to happen. I've received inklings of another approach JRiver is considering that would render all of the choices above unnecessary. Of course, they are just inklings and as such can't be considered in the short term. So that leaves me in an interesting position...

What I'm thinking of doing is continuing work on Web Remote despite the issues and restrictions, at least until the inklings are reality. These restrictions would be as follows:

1) Only one XML client (e.g. Glissando) at a time could connect to Web Remote. If another client connects - even if it's just a web browser - all XML clients are disabled and need to reconnect, which would involve stopping and starting the client.

2) In order for cover art to be displayed in Glissando you'll need to have the images available via a web server. These images may be copies of what's already in the MJ database (an exact mirror-image, in fact), or, if the web server's running on the same machine as MJ, may be served from the same place as MJ stores them. I'll make Web Remote return a URI instead of a file system path, which is currently what's provided to Web Remote from MJ. Glissando would then construct the appropriate URL and retrieve the cover art via HTTP.

Both of these restrictions are due to socket and threading issues in the current Web Remote. Matt & co. have committed to fixing these problems but I can't ask them to spend much time on this little plugin while Media Jukebox development itself is consuming almost all of their waking hours. They're not a big company, after all.

I'll keep everyone updated on the current state of affairs. In the end we'll still have a pretty good remote interface to our media collections.

Matt · « **Reply #1 on:** July 15, 2002, 01:46:00 pm »

Just a little update from our end:

We've got a solution in the works that will make this problem go away. Basically, an expanded version of what zigguratt has already started will be built into Media Jukebox 9. I won't say anymore now, but any developers that want more details can reach me at matt @ jriver.com

However, until version 9 is unleashed, an Interface plugin is the only way to expose MJ's functionality to the outside world. That's not a bad thing though, because the more we can accomplish with the web remote, the easier the transition to the new engine in version 9 will be.

Thanks zigguratt (and everybody else helping with this)

-Matt
JRiver, Inc.

(p.s. we'll fix the socket code on our end, so don't worry about that)

zigguratt · « **Reply #2 on:** July 17, 2002, 06:27:59 am »

Yet another release of Glissando, version 0.1.1a, is available here. No cover images yet but this release has a couple of things people were asking for and some cleanup was done (behind-the-scenes stuff).

Changes in version 0.1.1:

* The page up/page down keys now work in all lists.
* An option to have unnumbered playlists (e.g. numberedLists=true) has been added to glissando.txt.
* In glissando.txt "xmlurl" and "xmlport" have been changed to "serverDomain" and "serverPort".
* Hitting the "End" key will exit the Media Library dialog with no changes.
* An "image not available" cover image is shown if...

Cover images coming soon!

zigguratt · « **Reply #3 on:** July 17, 2002, 09:50:11 am »

I've set up a mailing list on my server for Glissando announcements and discussion (if such should happen). To join, send email with "subscribe glissando" as the body of the message to majordomo@syrinx.net. Title doesn't matter.

zigguratt · « **Reply #4 on:** July 21, 2002, 04:52:17 pm »

Another release of Glissando is available: 0.2a. This release includes cover art display. See this thread for details.

zigguratt · « **Reply #5 on:** July 23, 2002, 04:41:08 am »

Another release of Glissando is available: 0.2.1a. This release includes changes to make more functions available to people who use a remote with Glissando. See this thread for details.

DaveS · « **Reply #6 on:** July 23, 2002, 04:50:14 pm »

I am now getting the cover art but when I highlite another album from the client and hit enter or play MJ crashes with abnormal program termination. I can see the albums/artist from the client -- I just can't select anything with out crashing MJ. I'm running MJ 8.0.3 and have tried Glissando 0.2.0 and 0.2.1

Dave

zigguratt · « **Reply #7 on:** July 23, 2002, 04:55:31 pm »

How large are the playlists your trying to play? There's a known problem with very large playlists crashing MJ. When Glissando requests a playlist with hundreds of tracks, for some reason MJ sometimes croaks. It's very high on my priority list.

JimH · « **Reply #8 on:** July 23, 2002, 04:56:36 pm »

Dave,
MJ 8.0.334 is the most current release, but the problem is probably simpler. I don't think you can play tracks. I think you must play albums only.

Jim

zigguratt · « **Reply #9 on:** July 23, 2002, 04:59:02 pm »

Ah yes, that might be it too. I should really fix that, shouldn't I?

DaveS · « **Reply #10 on:** July 24, 2002, 03:46:57 am »

Well -- I have been trying to highlite an album to play. all goes well until I hit enter or play. MJ then terminates. There is an ablum in the current playlist, but I thought that after selecting something new it was replaced. Tried it with nothing in the que and stll MJ terminates. Dave

Michael · « **Reply #11 on:** July 24, 2002, 01:54:36 pm »

I have updated to the new version 02.1 When I try to access artist/Album I seem to get A error saying
"A script in this movie is causing Macromedia Flash Player 6 to run slowly.If it continues to run,your computer may become unresponsive,Do you want to abort the script?".When I installed the new version I just replaced the old version I did not delete the old version,I don't know if this matters.
Michael

zigguratt · « **Reply #12 on:** July 25, 2002, 10:53:24 am »

Another Glissando release: 0.3a. Includes proper handling of accented and other special characters. For details see this thread.

DaveS and Michael: I'll address your issues later tonight. Right now, gotta dash!

zigguratt · « **Reply #13 on:** July 25, 2002, 05:10:01 pm »

DaveS:

This is odd behaviour! I haven't heard of anyone else encountering this problem. The album you're trying to play: it wouldn't happen to have hundreds of tracks, would it?

Could you try the latest version of Glissando (0.3a) and the latest version of Media Jukebox (8.0.336, but if not, at least 8.0.320) and see if the problem is still there? And yes, selecting an album or track in the Media Browser and pressing the play button will cause your selection to replace the current playlist. I added a "|PLS|" button that when pressed will append the current selection to your playlist instead of replacing it.

Michael:

It sounds like you're trying to load a very large list of tracks (Artist/Album, which would be your entire collection). It will definitely slow down Glissando if you do this. But it usually takes trying to load several hundred tracks for this to happen. Try navigating further into your collection and selecting an album or two. When you install a new version of Glissando you can simply delete the old directory and unzip the new release.

zigguratt · « **Reply #14 on:** July 26, 2002, 09:03:34 am »

Release 0.3.1a of Glissando is now available. Glissando no longer crashes Media Jukebox when a long playlist is requested. See this thread for details.

zigguratt · « **Reply #15 on:** July 26, 2002, 09:51:23 am »

With this release, unless anything major comes up, I'm going to give it a rest for a few days. I need to think about something other than Glissando!

Please don't hesitate to report bugs or request new features, though.

JimH · « **Reply #16 on:** July 26, 2002, 10:17:32 am »

zigguratt,
Both the right arrow key and the double right arrow icon in the Media Browser window don't work for the last couple of builds.

Jim

zigguratt · « **Reply #17 on:** July 26, 2002, 10:21:35 am »

Did you try the latest version (0.3.1a)? I saw your note concerning this problem over on AVS, looked into it and fixed the problem. Rather than do another release/announcement, etc. I just re-uploaded 0.3.1a with the fix. This happened within minutes of your posting about the problem on AVS. If you downloaded it before your message you'll probably have to re-download 0.3.1a to get the arrow fix.

zigguratt · « **Reply #18 on:** July 29, 2002, 12:12:37 pm »

There's another release of Glissando available: 0.4a. This release includes very basic skinning support. See this thread for details.

JimH · « **Reply #19 on:** July 29, 2002, 12:41:25 pm »

zigguratt,
It works well. Here are things I found (some may just be different).

I had to create the config directory and put the glissando.txt file there. BTW, glissando.ini might make it easier to find.

From full screen mode, I could find no way to exit or reduce to a window. Control F and escape don't work.

Thanks again.

Jim

zigguratt · « **Reply #20 on:** July 29, 2002, 01:32:33 pm »

Hey Jim,

Odd that you would have to create the config folder! What about the skins folder? In WinZIP (I assume) did you check "Use folder names" when extracting? The folders should have been created for you if so.

INI files are usually of a certain format. The glissando.txt file is actually more like URL parameters (it's a Flash thing). For version 1.0 this will be turning into an XML file anyway so I think I'll leave it named as is for now.

In full screen mode you have a couple of ways to exit: you can press "q" or Alt-F4. This has changed for the 0.4a release of Glissando. Previously "Escape" would exit the Flash Player. People requested that "Escape" dismiss the Media Browser - much like it does in most Windows applications. They found themselves quitting Glissando when all they meant to do was "Cancel" the Media Browser. I had to change a Flash setting to allow this which has the side-effect of disallowing "Escape" as an exit and "Ctrl-F" as "Restore". For a windowed version you can set "fullScreen" to false in glisssando.txt.

zigguratt · « **Reply #21 on:** July 29, 2002, 05:19:03 pm »

For those that want it, I've added the option to toggle between full screen and windowed mode by pressing the "f" key. You can get a ZIPped Glissando executable (only!) here. Just replace the 0.4a glissando.exe with this one. This will be documented in the next release.

DaveS · « **Reply #22 on:** July 31, 2002, 04:23:06 am »

Sorry for my unresponsiveness to your help. I have been dealing with a death in the family. I have down loaded ver 0.4.a and will let you know. DAve

zigguratt · « **Reply #23 on:** July 31, 2002, 04:27:10 am »

No problem, Dave; completely understandable. My condolences. I think you'll find your problem with Glissando has magically disappeared in 0.4a.

DaveS · « **Reply #24 on:** July 31, 2002, 06:18:01 am »

Hello! Downloaded 0.4.a and no help. MJ still crashed when trying to select an album. Then downloaded the latest MJ 8.0.336 and all was well. The previous ver. was 8.030. I now have control of playlist/albums through Glissando. I am running XP and with the new version of MJ I now get an Microsoft message box the MJ was misbehaving and wants me to report such to Microsoft. This only happens when I exit the program though and seems to function properly while its running. The following is the system info from my puter:
Thanks for the excellent program -- Dave

Media Jukebox PLUS 8.0.336
Install Path: C:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\

CPU: AMD Athlon 807 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 392 MB, Free - 164 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 (Build 2600)

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
wnaspi32.dll: 4.60 (1017) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-1998 Adaptec, Inc.
Aspi32.sys: N/A

JimH · « **Reply #25 on:** July 31, 2002, 06:20:22 am »

Dave,
Reboot.
Reinstall.

zigguratt · « **Reply #26 on:** August 06, 2002, 02:37:10 am »

There's another release of Glissando available: 0.5a. This release includes full mouse support. See this thread for details.

zigguratt · « **Reply #27 on:** August 22, 2002, 05:06:11 am »

There's a new point release of Glissando available: 0.5.1a. This release fixes a couple of bugs and improves useability slightly. See this thread for details.

zigguratt · « **Reply #28 on:** September 09, 2002, 03:35:26 am »

There's another new point release of Glissando available: 0.5.2a. This release again fixes a couple of bugs and improves useability slightly. See this thread for details.

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Author Topic: Glissando status update (Read 3895 times)

DaveS

DaveS

Michael

DaveS

DaveS