GSoC Proposal First Draft: Media Device Feature Completion in Amarok 2

[Mark Kretschmann]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 3:27 AM, Alejandro Wainzinger
<aikawarazuni at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all.  Here is the first draft of my application related to media
> devices support enhancement for Amarok 2.  It should look very similar
> to the one last year in format, since I used that as a template.
> Please offer any suggestions on what I should add/remove/touch up.
> Thanks, and here's a link to a pdf version just in case:
>
> http://people.ucsc.edu/~awainzin/AW_amarok_mediadevices_SoC_app_09.pdf
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Media Device Feature Completion in Amarok 2
>
> Alejandro Wainzinger
>
> Summary:
>
> Basic media device support for iPods and MTP devices is present in
> Amarok 2, but the lack of feature parity with Amarok 1.4.x is stopping
> many people from partly or fully adopting Amarok 2.  Missing
> components for iPods/MTP include: playlist support, maintenance
> support (e.g. initializing iPod, see %free space), and full GUI
> feedback for every operation performed.  Universal Mass Storage (UMS)
> support is missing altogether, and UMS devices are the most commonly
> available media device.  The aim of this project is to reach feature
> parity with Amarok 1.4.x in terms of iPod, MTP, and UMS device
> support.
>
>
>
> Project:
>
> The following have already been implemented for iPods and MTP devices:
> Device Recognition, Connection
> Displaying of Device Tracks
> Copying/Deleting Tracks
> Tag Editing
> Playing Tracks from Device
>
> The following are what will be implemented in this project:
> 1.Playlists:
> Viewing
> Creating
> Editing
> Deleting
>
>
>
>      2.  1.4 Features for iPods:
> Initialize – delete all tracks on the iPod, replace database with a
> new blank one
> Stale and Orphaned – find music files on the iPod that are not in the
> iPod database and add them; remove tracks in the iPod database whose
> associated file is not on the iPod
>
>      3.   GUI Feedback
> From a usability standpoint, media devices need a lot of work.  There
> are many device operations with little or no GUI feedback that the
> user will need to be made aware of:
> Connection – 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 – 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 – Similar to copying, but also introduce a confirmation
> dialog which shows the tracks to be deleted, and allows the user to
> confirm or reject
>
>
> Projected Timeline:
>
> Study Period:
> 5/23 - 6/14: I will overview the playlist code, the 1.4.x features code.
>
> Work Period:
> 6/15 - 6/20: Add Playlist Support to iPod
> 6/22 - 6/26: Add Playlist Support to MTP
> 6/29 - 7/4: Add Amarok 1.4.x features to iPod
> 7/6 - 7/10: Add GUI Feedback
> 7/13 - 8/9: Add UMS support
> 8/10 – 8/17: Clean, document, test code
> Background
>
> I'm a Computer Science undergraduate student at the University of
> California Santa Cruz in the western United States, though I am
> Argentine-born.  I did the Google Summer of Code project which brought
> media device support to Amarok 2.0 the summer of 2008.
>
> I'm an avid user of KDE and Amarok, but have found myself very
> occupied with school throughout the year, and can mainly contribute in
> the summer.  Having had friends and acquaintances tell me about their
> experiences with Amarok, I feel that I really want to make Amarok
> media device support better.
>
> Until June 11, I will be in school and so can dedicate time only to
> planning, but after that I am free to work 20-30 hours per week on
> Amarok.  As for mentoring, I am used to the time difference between
> California and Western Europe so it will be not be a problem.  I'm
> comfortable with e-mail and chat, as they are often more effective at
> helping to stay on task, even if meetings in person allow for rapid
> and accurate exchange of ideas.  That said, if time and money permit,
> I would prefer to meet with my mentor at some point.

While the proposal itself sounds fine to me, I personally find it a
higher priority to make progress with media devices support for the
Windows and OSX versions. They are lagging far behind the Linux
version in this regard.

Alejandro has explained to me on IRC that this would require working
on Solid (a different KDE project), rather than Amarok. For OSX there
is already a Solid backend being created by QtSoftware, but for
Windows this is still missing, as far as I know.

At any rate, I'm concerned about our alternative platforms lagging
behind the Linux version, and I think we should make it a priority to
reach feature parity with them. So I would personally prefer to see
Alejandro working on that, rather than what he is currently proposing.

-- 
Mark Kretschmann
Amarok Developer
www.kde.org - amarok.kde.org