[Amarok-devel] Ideas for Magnatune store/Online service framework

[Nikolaj Hald Nielsen]

I did not think that this really belongs in the same thread as the
main Amarok 2.0 plans discussion as this stuff is somewhat more
peripheral. Not to say that this will not be greatly influenced by the
decisions made there...


As the Magnatune store is currently back in an almost usable state, I
have been doing some thinking about where to go from here. I have come
up with the following Ideas that I would like your feedback on.


Step 1: Refactor the MagnatuneBrowser a bit. While Getting rid of all
the Qt3 Compatability stuff factor out a simple basic service browser
class and base the Magnatune browser on this. At first this service
class will most likely be something very simple, a KVBox with a top
panel, a button panel and a list or something along those lines.

Step 2: (Re)Implement some of the ideas from my exploratory branch
from a while back. Remove the Magntune tab and add instead a tab
called "Services" or some such... This tab will display a list of
accessible services (Such as the Magnatune store) and when selected,
each item will expand to fill the tab (replacing the list of
services). This will allow many services to exist without adding any
more tabs. The services should then add some kind of "Back"
functionality to get back to the service selection list. (This could
be implemented in the basic service class).

Step 3: Make the Magnatune store work 100% within this framework

Step 4: Implement a simple scriptable service. I envision this as
being basically a service that can be instantiated from a script via
D-BUS and where items can also be added to the database from an
external script. This will allow a script to add a service to the
service selection list and add  stuff to the service database.
Additional functionality along the lines of the recently introduced
Shoutcast browser could the then be very easily added using a script.

Step 5: ???

Step 6: Profit?

These are just ideas at the moment, but unless you think that this is
the wrong way to go, I will start prototyping this over the coming
weeks.

- Nikolaj