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Mon Aug 17 01:46:45 CEST 2009


are many device
operations with little or no GUI feedback that the user will need to
be made aware of:

Connection =96 When a device is plugged in, a notification of what
device, and that it is
available for viewing in the collection browser (perhaps give
Collection's TreeView
immediate focus in the browser)
Copying =96 Warn when a device is read-only, out of space, or any other
error preventing
a copy from occurring. If copy fails, display on which track it failed and =
why
Deleting =96 Similar to copying, but also introduce a confirmation
dialog which shows the
tracks to be deleted, and allows the user to confirm or reject

4. Universal Mass Storage (UMS) Device Support

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Almost all of this was accomplished, with the notable exception of
more feedback for connected devices, which I plan to add afterward.
In addition, a big devices refactor which I hope will make it easier
to implement new devices for new people (given a guide written by me)
made it in.

There seems to be generally positive-reactions to UMS support in
Amarok 2, and unexpectedly, many people are claiming that this was the
last thing keeping them from switching away from 1.4, so I feel a bit
proud of that.

Next week I will spend doing bug-squashing in preparation for the next
A2 release.  While things are missing a bit of polish, this summer
really solidified the more-important aspects of devices: errors when
doing stupid things (trying to copy while already copying e.g.),
playlists, warning dialogs before deleting, initializing the iPods all
from within Amarok without manually-creating text files and running
lsusb and such.  The initialization can now benefit from another GSoC
project, the KAuthorizedButton one, so that we can run the
initialization-required sudo-commands better.

Having had a bizarre set of life events getting in the way of GSoC
this year, I'm happy that a lot was able to get done, but let's go
beyond that and see what's still needed/coming up:

- full threading of copying and parsing devices to stop freezing the GUI
- MTP devices with mini-sd cards and such being manageable from within
Amarok (would like such a device to test with, but can code and ask
for testers)
- Artwork!  (fun issues with Artwork and threading made that tough,
seb started some work on it)
- mysql/sqlite database for UMS devices (would be nice not to have to
rescan device each time it's plugged in)
- playlist syncing (bart's work is still ongoing, so a bit pending on that)
- podcasts
- more devices? (a guide to show people how to implement their pet
device, so we can get support for other devices 1.4 supported that
people want)
- ..... and so on..

Work is never done on devices, and new stuff like usage of Amarok Urls
would be nice as well.  As I won't be going back to school until
January, I'll have time to work on some of these features, but I can't
do it alone, so the next thing I really want to work on is hooking in
more device developers (I sound like a broken record, but it's really
needed).

And that's my last report for this summer.


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