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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 09:43 PM
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eJukebox v5.00 is now ready for development
Recently I sent out a U2U message to many of the active members on this forum to gauge the enthusiasm towards making an eJ that is Open Source. A few
of you replied and we now have enough of a development community between us to start an eJ5 project. Other non-developers have also responded stating
that they are willing to help in any way to help keep eJ alive.
For this project to work requires a committed community. The Open Source piece of work is to be modular – broken down into small pieces so we can all
work on little bits to bring the whole application together.
I shall be working on the interfaces between the various ‘bits’, the installation packaging MSI and the interface to Winamp.
I suggest the initial beta to be almost an exact copy of eJ before we start influencing our own desires before public viewing.
Development language will be any Microsoft 2003 .NET language (VB, C++, C#, VJ, ASP, etc.) for the one single reason that with .NET you can combine
different modules written in different languages into a single project (eJ5 application). All object methods and properties are to be exposed for us
all to link into. Configuration is to be held in xml files as .NET natively has no registry.
The ‘bits’ that require ownership by people to do are as follows:
Interface to Winamp and object model exposed for all controls, status, etc. (me)
Default skin design (to include also Kiosk mode)
Skin SDK (including 16:9 support?)
ID3 tag management + cover art lookup (bags not me!)
Pocket PC interface
Track ratings management
Search routine
Track database schema design
Tools menu constructor to hook to exposed object models of other ‘bits’
Popularity mode algorithms
Next-up list
Please help me with this list…..
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Fishy
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:13 PM
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Nice initiative. But, are you planning to start this project from scratch? Not to ruin the pleasure, but a lot of functions in ej works incredibly
fine already and a lot of time would be spent on reinventing the wheel (and maybe add a few bugs in the process). The best would be if one could take
the current ej codebase as a point of departure, but then audiosoft would have to release the sourcecode. Don't know if that will happen, since there
are not many lifesigns from audiosoft these days 
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Fishy
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Pirk
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:18 PM
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Are you a programer rlailey?
And do you weigh the extent of the -hard- work need?
I think you can pluck up courage...
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:19 PM
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Yeah I know the uphill battle, but the design of eJ is sound so I just have to copy it (and I hope to have help).
I plan to have a really crap version of eJ5 released this month on May 26th. It's better to pick faults with something you can see than create
perfection from the start.
Please don't have a go at me as the initial version will be functional, but rubbish
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Pirk
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:26 PM
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| Quote: | Message original : rlailey
... eJ5 released this month on May 26th ... |
lol, with that if Audiosoft doesn't revive!! 
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:34 PM
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I'm really hoping for help with this - especially graphically. I'm a programmer of distinction but when it comes down to the user interface and
what people want, I'm natually unbranded.
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Pirk
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:41 PM
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well, I wish you succeed rlailey!
NB: Junk and Fishy are very good for graphics...
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:48 PM
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Thanks for the tip on graphics. My initial release will not contain much graphics - I'll do my best but I'd rather spend my time on defining the
object model to the skin interface to which someone else can do.
I've gone through the whole architecture of the project and I have one lacking skill - cover art. I really really really need help with this in
understanding how to extract the image from an ID3 tag.
Everything else is routine
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Pirk
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:55 PM
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It's not imposed to extract covers from tags, you can use a cover.jpg file for each album instead...
You seem to be very confident! 
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Fishy
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 10:58 PM
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http://gjukebox.sourceforge.net/
Don't know if there still is any acitivity on those forums. But, since that seems to be an open source project, you might meet some skillful guys
over there that have an idea or two?
Good luck with this project. If the software turns out to function well, I am sure the skins will start rolling in
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Fishy
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:02 PM
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It's just my perfectionism. I like the idea of the cover art stored with the MP3 file, that's why I'd rather extract the art from the MP3 than
cover.jpg.
I understand that to get a community on board a tangible product is required to be visible (developed) before it can be imporved in an Open Source way
(hence May 26th release date).
My choice for Open Source is because an Open Souce product can never die.
Hope you're on-board
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:05 PM
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...and by the way, this is an improvement to eJ v3.97, not a new venture
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Pirk
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:09 PM
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But you don't have the sources files, it's not a problem??
I love your precision concerning the release date: "May 26th"!
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:17 PM
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I can tell you're not a develper Pirk! If you've ever tried to take on anybody elses code you'll realise it's easier to start from the beginning
as it won't be documented in an Open Source way!!!
It's far easier (and quicker) to replicate the functionality or at least I've found so. I use eJ a lot so I'm comfident I won't mess up there.
My parents are both artists, but my ability in this area may urge you to throw-up with the initial eJ5 design.
Don't have a go at me with the initial release, I only eat constructive critisism.
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rlailey
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 posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:32 PM
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Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 is launched on my PC. eJ v5.00 development has now started...
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Pirk
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:32 PM
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Ok rlailey, you are right I'm not a programer! It's just I think about the way we will have to cover again... But as you say, that will be a copy
so certainly you will gain some precious time.
So good work! I'm already impatient to be on the day 26th of May...
Good night...
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:42 PM
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Thanks for the support Pirk. Although I'm committed to create an eJ v3.97 perfectionist clone without bugs myself for my own self-interest, I'd
appreciate some support from otehr peopel and would thrive on suggestions for improvements. This is Open Source, so please help me...
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:50 PM
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Richard Lailey richard@lailey.com
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Pirk
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:50 PM
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Thank you rlailey.
I think your first release will put you on the test... but you will win your fan.
Let's go!
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rlailey
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posted on 5-9-2005 at 11:54 PM
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no, my first release will meet the project date - my second release will put me to the test
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rlailey
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posted on 5-10-2005 at 12:11 AM
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The initial release will be a read-only mode - that is a source directory of MP3's can be specified, but no updates can be made to the MP3 tags.
No CoverArt functionality will be included. >32768 MP3 file limit will be removed.
No Pocket PC support will be provided with the first release, although this is going to be a much develped feature.
eJ3.97 is going to be cloned as closely as possible
16:9 widescreen support will be incorporated.
Many features will be missing from the initial v5.00 release, but please be patient.
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Willum
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posted on 5-10-2005 at 04:08 AM
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Richard... Good luck !
I Hope you can put this together.
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CiXel
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posted on 5-10-2005 at 03:20 PM
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Album cover downloads
I personally use use this for my album cover tagging:
http://louhi.kempele.fi/~skyostil/projects/albumart/dist/
I think I saw the source code up there.
Also
one fo the things it references is:
http://www.josephson.org/projects/pyamazon/
which is an Amazon web api wrapper which could be used to lookups.
and:
http://icepick.info/projects/pyid3/
PyID3 tagging resource
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rlailey
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posted on 5-10-2005 at 06:06 PM
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Thanks for that CiXel, I'll look into that later on today...
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rllercstr7
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posted on 5-10-2005 at 08:52 PM
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Thank you so much for what you are doing! I know everyone really appriciates it. I am not a programmer, but feel free to contact me for any other help
you may need.
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VWBUG
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posted on 5-10-2005 at 08:53 PM
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Cover tagging
Don't know much about programming etc, but I use MP3Tag to tag covers, lyrics and to sort files that I obtain. It might be useful to take a look. to
see if it can give you any ideas how it is done.
http://www.maniactools.com/soft/mp3tag/index.shtml
Cheers
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rlailey
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posted on 5-10-2005 at 10:15 PM
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Just installed MP3Tag - thanks VWBUG
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jhlurie
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posted on 5-11-2005 at 09:23 AM
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| Quote: | Originally posted by rlailey
...and by the way, this is an improvement to eJ v3.97, not a new venture |
You need to be clear that this is NOT based on eJ at all if you continue though. By most law, unless Audiosoft released the rights, that would be
illegal.
You are making an open source eJukebox clone, not an authorized open source successor.
It's not what I originally meant when I suggested open source (I was urging Audiosoft to voluntarily release the product to open source--of course
that would require that they actually still read these boards), but it's still a valid approach. It does mean however, that morally you probably
shouldn't call it eJukebox v5.00, just as it would be immoral to use actual eJ code instead of simply simulating the equivalent. The "look and
feel" of most software is not as strictly protected--which is why clones are a legitimate venture most times.
Call it something like iJukebox and you probably have a project.
Sooner or later Audiosoft will show up and notice the activity on this board (admittedly it looks like it could be months). Either they will support
it, fight it, or ignore it. I think the best chance for everyone is if you make it clear from the beginning that you are trying to fill a void, but
not taking on their product without authorization. Since you aren't asking anyone to pay for this open source clone, you can't even really be
accused of stealing customers.
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cbsoundman
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posted on 5-11-2005 at 04:28 PM
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You certainly have my support, too.
I am not a programmer but I am a systems engineer and a live audio engineer and sometimes I DJ--whatever that may help you with. I would certainly be
more than happy to assist in any way I can. I have virtual PC that I can use to build virutal machines for beta testing if you like.
Has Audiosoft been in contact with you or have you tried to contact them about this (well, we all have been trying to contact them without any
sucess)? I would hate for them to cause any backlash from this project to you but I certainly would love to see someone take up the slack and I like
the features you want to incorporate.
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rlailey
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posted on 5-11-2005 at 07:00 PM
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I'm not that worried about creating an eJ5 (eJukebox v3.97 lookalike) as I'm creating it from scratch in a different programming language using
different methods.
I've tried to contact Audiosoft to no avail. I've called this eJ5 as I realise eJ4 may one day appear in which case it may save me a bit of
work!
The look and feel of eJ5 will be (as much as I can) identical to v3.97, although underneath I'm going to offload much of the work to that already
provided within Winamp.
The playlist within Winamp will replicate what is viewed through eJ's Up Next list (or whatever you want to call it). This will enable the Prev
track to function better.
The random play mode will remotely control this feature of Winamp and the Winamp media library will be shared with eJ's. This is all controlled
through an excellent Object Library interface called ActiveWinamp which is accessible via .NET applications.
The currrent Star rating feature of eJ is a different rating to that of Winamp. I plan to use the Winamp rating feature and so will have to work out
an upgrade path as I have 10,000 tracks rated in eJ and don't want to re-rate them in Winamp!
The greater than 32768 tracks issue of eJ v3.97 will not be an issue with eJ5 as I'll be using the Library of Winamp, so if there still is an issue -
it's with Winamp, not eJ5.
The main eJ Forms application will be browser controls (like eJ) although I may have to make some bits forms-based for GUI speed reasons.
The eJ2Web interface will be a non-framed ASP.NET application for maximum browser support which means users wishing to use this will need XP with IIS
installed (or W2K/2003/Longhorn).
My system I'm currently testing on is a VMWare Windows XP SP2 image, but I'll need volunteers to test on other OS's.
.NET applications naitively do not contain registry - it's all file based much like Java, so to delete the application completely without trace, just
delete the files - cool for beta testers
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