[Feedback] single database, multiple computers | making amarok better

[Colin Guthrie]

Rich wrote:
>> As for album covers, I'm not sure if we support album covers that are  
>> embedded into files.  I certainly don't think we support doing this  
>> embedding...but perhaps in the 2.0 series this will be something to  
>> look into.
> 
> would it make any sense from usability and performance reasons to keep 
> covers inside the database ?

I think that Amarok looks at the ".directory" file of the folder that
the album is in.

(old source I just happen to have lying around but illustrates the point!)
[colin at jimmy amarok-1.4.5]$ ccgrep -n "\.directory\"" *
amarok/src/collectiondb.cpp:4045:      if( !QFile::exists(path +
"/.directory") && !cover.endsWith( "nocover.png" ) )
amarok/src/collectiondb.cpp:4051:         KSimpleConfig config(path +
"/.directory");

Inside this file if you put:
[Desktop Entry]
Icon=./.folder.png

This can then be used as your cover art I believe.

This way you can use Amarok on one machine download covers, then use a
copycovers or similar script to copy them all to the relevent folders.
Not sure if any copy covers scripts will create .desktop files for you
but it's pretty trivial to do it yourself with a little bash.

Can't 100% verify this works at the mo', but it's how I've always
assumed it worked and I'm pretty sure the last time I did my "cover
triage" it worked OK!

If you are lucky some file managers will also read .desktop files and
use the cover art as the folder icon :) KDE's Konq does for example but
Gnome's Nautilus does not by default (not sure if there is a way to make
it work).

HTH

Col