Re: Re[2]: Netjuke 1.0b18-pre3 Released!

Hi all -

I'm freshly back from OSCOM at Harvard and running through all the e-mail 
I've missed over the last few days. I'd never believe it if I wasn't there, 
but Harvard Law School was unable to supply us with ANY Internet activity 
during the conference. My interactive Netjuke tutorial was reduced to a 
philosophical overview of the current system and where we're headed -- it 
was mighty limiting. But even so, I made a lot of nice contacts and drummed 
up some new support for Netjuke. We'll soon be adding MSSQL and Access 
support to our list of databases -- I found a person who is willing to 
spearhead the port. This should bode well for our users that aren't 
sysadmins :)

Anyhow, now on to more substantive matters:

1) AMG.com support will NEVER be integrated into the main codebase. We've 
touched on this before, but for those who weren't around for that 
discussion -- take a look at AMG's Terms of Use: 
http://www.allmusic.com/com/amg/tou.html They explicitly prohibit the 
dismantling and dissemination of their content and place various other 
Byzantine restrictions on what you can do with their service. Personally, I 
find their metadata policies rather offensive and refuse to support their 
efforts. And besides, I'm not interested in getting Netjuke embroiled in a 
licensing struggle with anyone. And there's no way in hell I'm going to 
license access to their databases. We WILL be supporting MusicBrainz 
because it is super cool, Open Source, and has the potential to eventually 
eclipse AMG with proper support. Netjuke will support the submission of new 
metadata to the MusicBrainz effort in addition to being able to query their 
service. This point is not up for discussion :) If you want to take matters 
into your own hands and hack support for AMG into Netjuke, then by all 
means go right ahead, but you will be responsible for maintaining the patch 
as our main development tree moves forward.

At 07:31 PM 5/28/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>On Wednesday 28 May 2003 05:15 am, Florian Maul wrote:
> > I remember having seen something similar here but I can't recreate it at
> > the moment. Does this happen in any genre with any artists and any
> > album?
>
>so far yes. I have a lot of genres and a lot of artists, so I'm not going to
>check them all, but if I find one where this problem does not crop up I'll
>email you.
>
>
> > My thoughts exactly. I just hesitated removing it since I'm don't know
> > if anyone is using the pop up window function right now, for e.g.
> > browsing through alphabet or artists with leaving the pop up window
> > open.
>
>true. since the pop-up feature is already there, why not make this an option?
>Add the ability to not use pop ups and have it so the user can decide.

This should be an option. I find the popups useful at times (editing, etc) 
and I'm sure others do too.

> > The first problem with that will be that netjuke doesn't now if an
> > album is complete. Determining this accurately is not very easy
> > whereas an "if (tracks > 6)" would do the trick in most cases. Not
> > having any single track presented as album would be a step up though,
> > at least with a collection of your size.
>
>I see your point. Let me add another feature I've talked to Blake about that
>would solve this... AllMusicGuide/MusicBrainz interactivity. I have some more
>thoughts on this since I'm forced to use XP at work, I use Windows Media
>Player which integrates AMG.com. I'd still rather see AMG.com integration
>than musicbrainz, it has a lot more useful information... so I'm going to
>assume amg.com usage...
>First, set up the database to store more than just the id3 tag info. Let it
>store the online review, main genre and sub genre's, etc. all the information
>possible(whether or not the user decides to store it...). Also let it store
>information like the total number of tracks in an album and if the whole
>album is in the database. This way the database can determine whether to show
>the album as a link or as independent tracks because it doesn't have all of
>them, and even add a feature so that an album that is say two tracks short of
>the total 14 can be considered "complete" (the admin can say an album is
>complete even if it isn't).
>Anyway, I'm sure you can see the rest of the advantages this type of
>integration brings...

I don't think I like this idea of a complete album. This sort of scheme 
could easily seem 'magical' to end users and alienate or confuse them. 
Consistency is priority number one from an interface perspective.

> > As for selecting multiple albums (of an artists) at once using
> > check boxes: I think it would be nice but we have not much space left
> > in the userinterface. I don't want the userinterface become too crowded
> > with buttons and checkboxes.
>
>I'm just saying when the list is of the albums a certain artist has, in this
>specific case there is plenty of room for the check box.
>

Where specifically are you talking about having these checkboxes?

> > Do you mean column ordering of the explore view?
>
>yes
>
> > Interesting idea, but I don't see that being implemented in the near
> > future since there are so many other things to work on atm.
>
>yea, I just wanna throw the idea out there =)
>

Thanks,
Blake




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