Distributed Collections::GSoC update<br>============================<br>I did some base work first, configuring Amarok as a front end to Ampache to check out the features the current API offers. I also went through the Ampache XML API documentation[1] and looked at the provision for searching local collections in Amarok. Identified the main tasks to initially look at:-<br>
<br>1. Make a detailed set of requirements for the new API. Currently, to do a multi-level search, multiple requests have to be sent to the server. A solution to do the same in one single query is needed.<br><br>2. Make improvements to AmpacheServiceQueryMaker, to satisfy the new API.<br>
<br>1. Regarding the first part i.e making it one request, I had an idea, but i dont know how viable it may be. Like in LaTeX, we have the concept of sections, subsections, subsubsections to maintain hierarchy, we can use a similar concept to distinguish between levels of search in the API.<br>
Eg.<br>Methods :- <br>Level 1: artist, album, title,...<br>Level 2: subartist,subalbum, subtitle, ...<br>Level 3: subsubartist subalbum, .......<br><br>An example request could be : <br>server?genre=hiphop&subartist=eminem&subyear=2000&subsubtitle=8mile<br>
<br>The obvious disadvantage is that only few levels can be used here<br>and number of methods increases n times where n - # of levels.<br><br>2. Also, since Amarok supports more fields than Ampache the methods <br>
for Playcount, Rating, Bitrate, Year and Score have to be added. <br><br>[1] <a href="http://ampache.org/wiki/dev:xmlapi" target="_blank">http://ampache.org/wiki/dev:xmlapi</a><br>