[Kde-announce-apps] ipodslave 0.8-pre1

[Michael Schulze]

Name: ipodslave
Version: 0.8-pre1
Type: Other Utility
Depend: KDE 3.4.x
License: GPL
Homepage: http://kpod.sourceforge.net/ipodslave
More Info:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=11962

Description:
 IPODSLAVE - an iPod IO slave

This is a prerelease version of the upcoming 0.8
version. Be aware that this is work in progress
and may contain bugs, although it works like a
charm for me.
This version is based on the latest libqtpod
release.

This ioslave enables KIO aware apps like konqueror
or amarok to access the
Music stored on an Apple iPod. It further allows
you to organize playlists.

To have access to your iPod mount it (some distros
do this automatically when
the iPod gets plugged in) and open the URL
"ipod:/".
If you have more than one iPod connected to your
system you'll get a list of
directories named after the mountpoints of the
iPods found. If you open one
of the directories you'll get a list of 4
directories:
Artists, Playlists, Utilities and Transfer.

If just one ipod is found the slave will
automatically redirect to it's
directory.

You can copy songs from an Album to a playlist,
move tracks between
playlists or albums or copy songs from one iPod to
another.
You can also add new mp3 files or directories
containing them to your iPod(s)
by copying them to the "Transfer" directory.
Be aware though that the changes you make aren't
saved automatically to your
iPod's database - use the "Synchronize" utility
under ipod:/Utilities to do
this.
Make sure you have a backup copy of your original
iTunesDB file.
This file can be found under
iPod_Control/iTunes/iTunesDB in the directory
struture of your iPod. If you open the Synchronize
utility it'll provide a link
to this file that you just can drag and drop to a
save place.


Features:
* since this version is a prerelease and work in
progress you may encounter
bugs/problems/instabilities
* browsing and opening the mp3s with KIO aware
apps (like konqueror,amarok or
  krusader)
* browsing and copying songs and playlists with
konqueror
* copying tracks and albums off of the iPod
* copying mp3 files and directories to the iPod
* renaming/moving albums
* accessing playlists
* when using konquerors detailed list view it'll
show meta information about
  single tracks (like author, length etc)
* On The Go Playlists and Playcount support
provided by Benedikt Elser
* iPod shuffle support by Guenter Schwann


What next:
* kded plugin to provide access to the core
functions via DCOP (thanks to
  Andrew De Quincey for this and lotsa more good
ideas and code) and to
  provide notifications when something changed
* Podcast support
* photo / artwork support
* upload/download videos to the new iPod Video


Bugs/noticable problems:
* when deleting a Track from a playlist the
numbering of the tracks won't
  get reorganized (e.g. when deleting track 2 the
list will be
    1 - blah.mp3
    3 - moreblah.mp3
    4 - etc ... )
  until synchronized with the iPod's database.
This is because the numbering
  must be consistent between 2 or more deletes
(e.g. when deleting a list of
  songs)
* mp3 files need to have sufficient id3
information (Album, Artist, Title and
  Tracknum).
  Be aware when copying tracks to the ipod that
the sort order heavily depends
  on the id3 tracknumber field. Make sure the id3
information is sufficient.
* Sometimes (almost always) you need to hit the
"reload" button to make changes
  visible
* please report any problem you encounter with the
software to the sourceforge
  project page at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kpod
* Since podcasts and smart playlists are
unsupported at the moment you'll lose
  them when synchronizing the database.


Hints for installation:
 * in order to install it correctly it needs to be
configured with
 configure --prefix [path to your KDE
installation]
 * On a SuSE AMD64 add the --enable-libsuffix=64
configure switch
   (is this true for other AMD64 distros too?)
 * id3lib is needed now


Changelog:
 Changes for version 0.8-pre1
* separated the whole ipod/iTunesDB code to a
separate library - libQtPod
* supports updating smart playlists
  creating new ones or editing smart playlist
rules is not yet possible
* when synchronizing with the database it will
automatically create backup copies of the old
files.

Changes for version 0.7.3
* ignore ItunesDB elements we can't handle yet
* fixed bug where itunesdb didn't get written when
slave was compiled with gcc4 - thanks to Jeff
Weeks for pointing this out and fixing it

Changes for version 0.7.2
* make sure everything gets written to the ipod's
harddrive when
  synchronizing the database and before ejecting
the ipod.
  This should prevent filesystem corruption when
ejecting the
  ipod right after using the synchronize utility.
* sort playlists by title when saving the database
to the iPod
* fixed a bug where playlists didn't get read in
correctly

Changes for version 0.7.1
* implemented creating/renaming artist and album
* artists and playlist titles are case sensitive
now
* moving tracks between ipods fixed
* check for known filetypes (.mp*) when adding
files to the iPod

Changes for version 0.7
* iPod Shuffle support by Guenter Schwann
* support for "On The Go Playlists" and Playcount
support by Benedikt Elser
* show track meta info for konquerors detailed
list view
* support for multiple ipods
* added import directory where tracks and folders
can be copied into
* added eject utility
* show total/used/available disk space at the
statistics page