INTERACT FORUM

More => Old Versions => Media Center 12 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: Berg on June 19, 2008, 04:27:33 pm

Title: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: Berg on June 19, 2008, 04:27:33 pm
Hello,

I know this might be alittle off-topic, but I was really hoping someone could help me. I have been using DVD Profiler to catalog my DVDs and "publish" my collection on a web page. I was hoping I could either use MC to generate the same type of page, or another application.

What I am really hoping for is a way for friends or myself when I am not home to look up what is in my library, even possibly seeing what I added in the last week or month.

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions ?

Thanks in advance.
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: JONCAT on June 21, 2008, 08:13:15 pm
If they have MC they could always load a copy of your library and browse/search it.

DC
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: Frobozz on June 22, 2008, 05:17:25 am
Being able to put your music catalog or video catalog online would be a nice feature. 

I've been playing with an MP3Tag export script to put my CD catalog online.  It exports an XML file along with my cover art.  Then I'm working on some sort of web page to display the XML data nicely.  MP3Tag makes it easy to do the export, but making it look good and be function is still up to you and some coding.

I think MC would be able to do the same using the scripting plugin by Mr ChriZ (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38693.0), but I haven't looked into that scripting plugin yet.  It would leave me at the same point I am with MP3Tag.  Getting the data out is easy, making it formatted in a useful manner for a web page is the hard part.

An idea for MC might be an online catalog feature where you could have an online version of your collection with a URL to share with others.  Music likes to be social and it's fun to share what music you have and/or like.  An online catalog of your collection and selected playlists would allow you to share that info.
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: Berg on June 22, 2008, 07:29:45 pm
That would be great. It sounds like there might be interest. Sadly, it also sounds like there is no clean solution either.

Hopefully the conversation will continue. Thanks guys.

Being able to put your music catalog or video catalog online would be a nice feature. 

I've been playing with an MP3Tag export script to put my CD catalog online.  It exports an XML file along with my cover art.  Then I'm working on some sort of web page to display the XML data nicely.  MP3Tag makes it easy to do the export, but making it look good and be function is still up to you and some coding.

I think MC would be able to do the same using the scripting plugin by Mr ChriZ (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38693.0), but I haven't looked into that scripting plugin yet.  It would leave me at the same point I am with MP3Tag.  Getting the data out is easy, making it formatted in a useful manner for a web page is the hard part.

An idea for MC might be an online catalog feature where you could have an online version of your collection with a URL to share with others.  Music likes to be social and it's fun to share what music you have and/or like.  An online catalog of your collection and selected playlists would allow you to share that info.
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: CDvd on June 23, 2008, 01:38:50 am
We can export Mc's lybrary to xml.
It should be possible to write a xlst to transform the xml to html (or even better a small php file that parses the xml and output it in a nice page).

http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/xsl_transformation.asp

It just needs some xml/html knowledge (and patience ;D)
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: hit_ny on June 23, 2008, 06:56:47 am
I have been using DVD Profiler to catalog my DVDs and "publish" my collection on a web page.

A friend keeps asking about this same thing.

Quote
e can export Mc's lybrary to xml.
It should be possible to write a xlst to transform the xml to html (or even better a small php file that parses the xml and output it in a nice page).

http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/xsl_transformation.asp

It just needs some xml/html knowledge (and patience )

To date yes, this is the only way, keep wondering where does all the time go  :D

There used to be a plugin that could do this some time back, wonder if its still around. Problem as i recall was big collections take very long to load up in a web browser. To get the speed you need to make a web app and that's not what MC does :)

We think we can make a better media service experience.  One that doesn't have web pages being built every time you ask for "Cheech and Chong" but one that goes directly to the database and gets the real stuff.  Client, Server, Fast is our aim.  We're aiming at ten seconds, for now.  Ten seconds to display One Million Tracks in panes by artist, album, track, just as you now view your own library.

Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: steveklein on June 23, 2008, 08:18:44 am
i'd love this feature. i know nothing about xml, but it'd be awesome if you could export the library (or any selection) as a html file or something. i know i could do this in winamp.
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: Frobozz on June 24, 2008, 10:32:53 pm
We can export Mc's lybrary to xml.
It should be possible to write a xlst to transform the xml to html (or even better a small php file that parses the xml and output it in a nice page).

http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/xsl_transformation.asp

It just needs some xml/html knowledge (and patience ;D)
Here's what I have so far: http://coffeebreak.isgreat.org/

It's based on XML and XSL transforms.  I need to clean it up some more, then the project after that will be to figure out how to get MC to export the XML and album covers the way I need them.  Currently I'm using MP3Tag to do the export.  I'm sure MC can do a better job once I learn how.  I have Visual Studio 2005 & 2008 if I need to write a plugin.
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: hit_ny on June 25, 2008, 12:00:09 pm
Here's what I have so far: http://coffeebreak.isgreat.org/

Is Rock Albums (http://coffeebreak.isgreat.org/mp3list_rock.html) under MP3 Albums List (client-side XSL tranform) or the one (http://coffeebreak.isgreat.org/mp3list_rock.php) under MP3 Albums List (server-side XSL tranform) supposed to be blank ?

I get results for the other genres :)

But this is the kind of setup that won't scale as your collection gets bigger ie excessive large initial download.
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: Frobozz on June 25, 2008, 09:59:25 pm
Is Rock Albums (http://coffeebreak.isgreat.org/mp3list_rock.html) under MP3 Albums List (client-side XSL tranform) or the one (http://coffeebreak.isgreat.org/mp3list_rock.php) under MP3 Albums List (server-side XSL tranform) supposed to be blank ?

I get results for the other genres :)
Stupid free web host.   ::)
I made an update yesterday and added some more albums.  The size of the XML file crossed over the size limit for the web host.  I split the rock into two files and now it works again.

Quote
But this is the kind of setup that won't scale as your collection gets bigger ie excessive large initial download.
True.  It won't scale well, especially for a really large collection.  To make it scale you'd have to do a true database backend and lots of server-side processing.  That's way beyond what I want to take the time to do.  It will do OK for smaller selected playlists like your favorite 100 albums.

A big part of the large initial page download is that I have not yet made true thumbnails of the album art.  Once I get around to adding true thumbnails the initial page load will be much smaller.

This is just a personal project because I wanted to be able to export my albums to a web page that could be put on the web or on a thumb drive.
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: Berg on June 26, 2008, 06:03:13 am
Stupid free web host.   ::)

This is just a personal project because I wanted to be able to export my albums to a web page that could be put on the web or on a thumb drive.

Nice work. It's better than what we have now :: Thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: Use MC to generate a music catalogue like DVD Profiler
Post by: pmax on July 08, 2008, 07:02:16 pm
I wonder if just an Genre/Artist breakdown would be easy enough but still useful. I'd love to have this feature.

Even better would be a link to the artist page on Last.FM to get related artists.