@jblache wrote:
I honestly don’t know why you would prefer the iTunes XML playlist over a plain M3U playlist if you’re not already using iTunes. Which would mean you’re on OS X or Windows, two platforms I don’t care much about.
@jblache wrote:
And I personally do not care about web interfaces 🙂 Which doesn’t mean there can’t be one, just that it won’t come from me.
Probably case and point why I will never get involved in this project. “That feature doesn’t fit my needs, so I’m not going to work on it”.
If FireFly is ever to be revived, folks would have to realize that it’s almost akin to a commercial product at this point. It has users who range from technical experts to pure neophites. It’s used on a wide range of server platforms and consumed by a wide range of client agents. The age of designing to one target platform and presuming a genius-level-experienced user is long gone. FireFly needs to be fast and reliable, sure, but it also has to be usable by folks who might not happen to be incredibly technically proficient. And it has to run on platforms that it’s already been committed to by previous versions.
Now… let me make it clear… I certainly don’t expect you, jblache, to develop toward this goal within the context of something you picked up “for your own use and amusement”. Heck, you’re doing it for you, I’d fully expect that you tailor it to your needs. If I knew a lick about compiling for the NSLU2 from my Windows development environment, I might do exactly the same thing.
But, if FireFly were to ever be revived as a “project”, that could not be the case. And my inherent fear would be that a revival would bring together a bunch of developers all determined, as you are, to make mt-daapd exactly what they want, and discounting features that others feel might be useful (like, hey, XML playlist support and web interface*).
* As an aside, I think I mentioned that my FireFly server setup is on a NSLU2. And I consume the streams from clients on Windows (yes, iTunes), my Xbox, and a SoundBridge. I just happen to use iTunes to manage the library (remotely). So, yeah, XML playlist support is pretty mandatory for me. And since the server is on a NSLU2, the web interface is incredibly handy for tweaking settings (such as adding/removing library directories, and creating/editing playlists) when I don’t feel like SSH’ing or telneting into the NSLU2. In addition, because an intensive library scan on a NSLU2 will bring FireFly down (or at least bring it to it’s knees), I’ve turned off automatic scanning and still do my scans manually. So, yeah, again… web interface is incredibly helpful in my particular setup.