Crossfire (webbased/iPhone/iPodtouch) streaming client

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

As mentioned in another topic on this forum, I am currently working on a webbased iPhone solution for streaming, browsing and searching content served by Firefly.

On this thread I hope to keep you guys informed and discuss possible ideas.

Current Crossfire(alpha) features
[*] Skinnable UI
[*] AJAX based with crossbrowser support
[*] Basic and extended search functionalities
[*] Browse by artist, album and playlists

Currently I am querying the Firefly XML API from the AJAX/webclient, which works pretty neat on desktops, however parsing XML on an iPhone is realy remarkable slow. In the future release I will probarbly move the UI transformation to server-side.

I’ve you have any great ideas, problems or remarks. you can post them here.

PS: The SourceForge page is hosted on http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmcrossfire/ and anyone with some PHP, Javascript or UI design skills is more than welcome to contribute.

Cheers,
Tony

[mweissboeck]

Let it look and feel like iTunes on iPod Touch, that is what I wold expect.

See http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=3 and http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?page_id=7
for a very nice frontend for SqueezeCenter. There should be something like this for firefly, that realy would rock 🙂

Max

[Anonymous]

Seems to be very nice indeed !! Thanks 🙂
Unfortunately i dont have a SqeezeCenter to see the processed output, and I will have to check the content manually to see if I can find any-usable stuff.

On the other side the skin engine I am working on is almost complete, so it would be nice if i could create a similar iPeng GUI.

Cheers,
Tony

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

After a couple weeks I can finally announce the release of Crossfire 0.4.0.
This version can be installed on any webserver suporting either PHP 5.x and PHP 4.x.

The current version runs fine under FireFox 2.0> and Safari (iPhone/touch), but however doesnt support IE yet (this is due to a some flaws which can be ommited).
Once i’ve implemented the skinning features fully, I will include skins for other browsers and possible devices.

Let me know what you guys think about it!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmcrossfire/

Cheers,
Tony

[Anonymous]

hello, if you need any help developing, let me know. i know PHP javascript, ahah and ajax.

Redser

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

well.. help is definitely needed, since the scope and potential of the project is growing quicker than expected. 😀
You can join the project on http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmcrossfire/.
If you create an account and send me an PM, I will add you to the developers/admin list 😉
Currently I am working on version 0.5 which includes a PHP_DMAP parser and supports output to XML or JSON. Also I want to include iTunes support, but this still seems like a daunting task (even though I am able to parse the content-codes).

Other thing that still needs doing (but i cant find the time for). Is IE support.
Well.. seems simple, but since IE dropped support of inserting Javascript links through .innerHTML i seem having some issues (http://karma.nucleuscms.org/item/101)…
The whole idea, of the templating structure i am implementing is to support multiple phones/browsers… Using some user-agent configuration, the application should choose the right template based on the clients user-agent..

Let me know if you want to join up, or have other ideas we can work on.

Cheers,
Tony

[Anonymous]

Could someone tell me how to access my Music from a Touch? I see the instructions to install in the webroot, (I have a WHS, running server 2003) if that matters.

Many thanks,

Colin

[Anonymous]

On a windows computer, install IIS and the PHP windows binairy (http://www.php.net). You can then either create a virtual directory, or place the crossfire folder in the webroot. Start FireFly on your windows PC, and browse using your iPhone touch to http:///crossfire/ 😉

Cheers,
Tony

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that.
Will try when I get home, (can’t remember the IP!)

Regards,

Colin

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

Today finally got round to release Crossfire 0.4.5 http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmcrossfire/. This version has been a major change since previous versions as a lot of new features have been added.

Crossfire now features a native DMAP parser (which can output both XML and JSON). Next to this the templating and browser recognizion engine’s have been fully implemented. Using the config.xml file, you can add your own templates based on any known user-agent. Code has been completly cleaned-up 🙂 well.. most of it anyway, and Internet Explorer is now officially supported. All configuration stuff is now handled in a contained config.xml file.

Enjoy,
Tony

[Anonymous]

This looks to be just what I’m looking for.

I’m completely lost regarding the installation to the webroot, though. Could someone explain, in simple terms, where (and how, if the terminal needs to be used) to put the crossfire folder?

I’m using OSX 10.4 and already have the Firefly Media Server running, which I use to stream music from a NAS disk to my powerbook.

Thanks.

Edit:

I think I know where the webroot is now: /Users/myusername/Library/PreferencePanes/Firefly.prefPane/Contents/Resources/Firefly Helper.app/Contents/Resources/Server/admin-root – Is that right? Do I just drop the “crossfire-0.4.5” directory into the admin-root folder?

I’ve already tried that, but nothing happens when I try to load the page http:///crossfire/ Do I need to configure write access to the installation directory before it will work?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Edit:

I think I get it now – I don’t have the webserver / php installed and this whole thing isn’t as straight forward as I first thought. 😀

[Anonymous]

Hiya,

Crossfire is an webbased firefly client, and thus requires a webserver to be installed on your machine ;). OSX does come with apache installed, check http://www.oreilly.com/pub/ct/49 for more information..
After you have learned how to host websites on your server, things should be pretty straightforward.. install PHP, and copy the scripts to the right webfolder.. To connect to your NAS by default, just edit the config.xml file and put in the right hostname.

cheers,
Tony

[Anonymous]

Thanks edgecrush3r, I’ll have a crack at this tomorrow. I’ll get there eventually.

[wizzofozParticipant]

I’m using a Windows2003 server with IIS, PHP 5.2.5 installed (CGI).
I’ve created a virtual folder from the root of my webserver (e.g. http://servername/crossfire), gave this rights to write from IIS Manager (not at filesystem level).
When I try to access crossfire now using http://servername/crossfire/index.html I get the following error:

“There was a problem with the request”

Any ideas what I’m doing wrong in my configuration? FireFly is running on the same server by the way and works fine with my ROKU.

regards,
Bart Vels
The Netherlands

[Anonymous]

I’ve got this up and running now, but I’m having problems with the streaming.

I’m not able to play a song all the way through on the ipod. The songs start streaming, but the stream never loads in full – the progress bar reaches about 95% and stops. The songs never get that far anyway, they restart at the beginning of the track, part way through, long before it catches up with the end of the stream.

Has anyone experienced similar problems?

BTW, the firefly server is not hosted on my NAS disk, it’s on my computer. If I connect to crossfire using this computer the streams work ok, the problem only occurs on the ipod.

[Author]

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