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seven
Senior Member

USA
1037 Posts

Posted - 16 October 2003 :  21:13:26  Show Profile  Visit seven's Homepage
I think I found my new favorite software... Go Apple!

dayve
Forum Moderator

USA
5820 Posts

Posted - 16 October 2003 :  21:56:05  Show Profile  Visit dayve's Homepage
Hmmm, I'll have to check this out. I didn't like having to use MusicMatch with my IPOD for PC so I found a great piece of software called XPlay, absolutely fantastic... but I've heard so many good things about ITunes for Mac that I'll definately give it a try for the PC.

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Bookie
Average Member

USA
856 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  10:16:14  Show Profile  Visit Bookie's Homepage  Send Bookie an AOL message  Send Bookie a Yahoo! Message
Dang it! Now I can't figure out which mp3 player to use. I've pretty much always used MusicMatch but I liked Winamp 3 except it was bloatware so I used Winamp 2 from time to time. I played around with iTunes on my Mac but I don't use that machine much so I didn't want to transfer all my music to that machine. Now that iTunes for Windows is available and Winamp 5 beta is available I don't know what to use because they all have their good points. Here are the options:

MusicMatch
iTunes for Windows
Windows Media Player (not really an option for me but I'll list it anyway)
Winamp 5 beta
Winamp 2

I'm sure there are others but these are just the ones I know of. Anyone have any preferences? I think I may shift to either iTunes or Winamp 5 because of the crossfade feature which I really like.

Participate in my nonsense
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dayve
Forum Moderator

USA
5820 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  10:51:26  Show Profile  Visit dayve's Homepage
MusicMatch sucks so much it is unbelievable. (you can tell how much I loathe that product).

ITunes - You should only use it if you have an IPOD for transferring files/synchronizing, otherwise it is just like any other mp3 player.

Windows Media Player? Please...

Winamp 5 (beta.. yuck.)

Winamp 2 - upgrade to version 3. This is my choice for most of the music I play. I recently found a cool plugin and created a script for my forum members to use Winamp to display what they are listening to in their signatures (see below).

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Bookie
Average Member

USA
856 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  11:28:30  Show Profile  Visit Bookie's Homepage  Send Bookie an AOL message  Send Bookie a Yahoo! Message
I bought a Creative Nomad Zen NX 30 GB mp3 player about a month ago. It works great except, like pretty much anything, it requires that I use its proprietary software to manage playlists and the media library on it. So, it doesn't really matter which software I use on my PC for listening to music because I'm pretty much forced to use two pieces of software unless I want to use the Creative software for listen at home and work which I'm not about to do.

The thing I don't like about MusicMatch is that I have about 5 different music libraries for completely different types of music (Christian music, old music I don't listen to anymore but I want on my HD jut in case, Classical, my son's music, and other "secular" music that my wife really doesn't want to listen to). It's a pain to open up a new library just to listen to a song or two but I don't want everything in one library because I like to have it shuffle through all my music. I don't really want to listen to The Little Mermaid theme song after U2, Pearl Jam, or Chevelle. Probably the best solution is to create more playlists in either Winamp or iTunes.

One thing I like about iTunes is that you can share your library (or just portions of it, I think) with other iTunes users across a network.

Dayve, when Winamp 5 gets out of beta are you going to upgrade to that from 3? Thanks for your quick, candid reviews, by the way.

Participate in my nonsense
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MarkJH
Senior Member

United Kingdom
1722 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  11:54:12  Show Profile  Visit MarkJH's Homepage
quote:
I recently found a cool plugin and created a script for my forum members
Looks great! Are you willing to share that script with us, Dayve?

Bandlink.net - http://www.bandlink.net/
Bandlink Music Forums - http://www.bandlink.net/forum/
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Roland
Advanced Member

Netherlands
9335 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  14:18:10  Show Profile
I have both WinAmp 2.91 and WinAmp 3.0, but I won't use 3.0 anymore because it's been using 95% of my processor a few times now. It's a shame though because there are some really cool skins for 3.0

Oh and dayve, you can sign up at www.listen-to.com to get something like that:

That image better work or I'll get pissed. It's been really slow from the moment I started using the bleeping thing
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dayve
Forum Moderator

USA
5820 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  16:59:05  Show Profile  Visit dayve's Homepage
quote:
Originally posted by MarkJH

quote:
I recently found a cool plugin and created a script for my forum members
Looks great! Are you willing to share that script with us, Dayve?



yeah, I think I may have shared it before, but that was for personal use. I now have a way for winamp to post data to my server. The code is far from perfect but it is in testing phase. I will post it this evening.

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MarkJH
Senior Member

United Kingdom
1722 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  18:56:28  Show Profile  Visit MarkJH's Homepage
Cheers, Dayve. That'll be interesting to tinker with.

Bandlink.net - http://www.bandlink.net/
Bandlink Music Forums - http://www.bandlink.net/forum/
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dayve
Forum Moderator

USA
5820 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  22:36:39  Show Profile  Visit dayve's Homepage
Okay, here's what you need to do....

First depending on if you are using Winamp2 or Winamp3 will decide which
component you will need.

Winamp Components:

Winamp 2: http://www.oddsock.org/tools/dosomething/
Winamp 3: http://whatsplaying.sourceforge.net/

Winamp Configuration:

Winamp 2:


In the URL field Enter:
http://www.yourURL.com/winamp.asp?username=Forum Username&artist1=%%URL_CURRENTSONG%%

Winamp 3:




In the URL field Enter:
www.yourURL.com/winamp.asp

In the EXTRA POST DATA field Enter:
username=Forum Username

Make sure the following items are checked:
Artist, Album, Title

Script
Here's the part I am still working on. I took advantage of my members upload
folder and wrote a text file. If you don't have an upload mod then you'll
need to modify this script to create a directory if it doesn't exist.

winamp.asp


<%
dim logFile, logSys, lotTxt, strName, strSong

logFile = "now_playing.txt"

strName = trim(Request("Username"))
strSong = trim(Request("Artist1"))

 if trim(Request("Title1")) <> "" then
  strSong = strSong & " - " & trim(Request("Title1"))
 end if

if strName <> "" and strSong <> "" then
 set logSys = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
  if not logSys.FileExists(Server.MapPath("\upload\" & strName &"\" & logFile)) Then
   logSys.CreateTextFile(Server.MapPath("\upload\" & strName &"\" & logFile)), True
  end If
end if

set logTxt = logSys.OpenTextFile((Server.MapPath("\upload\" & strName &"\" & logFile)), 2, True)
logTxt.WriteLine strSong
logTxt.Close

set logTxt = Nothing
set logSys = nothing
%> 


All of this should complete the writing file portion. You can test it by playing
a music file and seeing if it writes the text file.

Now displaying the file (also still in work, .NET Framework required)

winamp.aspx

<%@ Page aspcompat=true Debug="True" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Drawing" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Drawing.Imaging" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Drawing.Text" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Math" %>
<%

Response.CharSet="utf-8"

'### Declare Variables
Dim objBMP        As System.Drawing.Bitmap
Dim objGraphics   As System.Drawing.Graphics
Dim objFont       As System.Drawing.Font
Dim strOutputText As String
Dim HTMLGet, strText, strName, intWidth, intHeight
Dim drawFormat As New StringFormat()

strName = (Request.QueryString(0))

HTMLGet = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.3.0") 
HTMLGet.Open("GET", "http://www.burningsoulsforum.com/upload/" & strName & "/now_playing.txt", false)
HTMLGet.Send 
strText = HTMLGet.responseText
HTMLGet = Nothing

	strOutputText = strName & " is listening to: " & vbCrLf
	strOutputText =  strOutputText & (strText)
	strOutputText =  strOutputText & "http://www.burningsoulsforum.com"

'### Set up a bunch of formatting variables
Dim intFontSize As Integer = 8			'### Font Size
Dim objFontColour As Object = Brushes.White	'### Font Colour
Dim objBgColour As Object = Color.Black		'### Background Colour
Dim objEdgeColour As Color = Color.White	'### Border Colour
Dim intBold As Integer = 0			'### 1 = Bold, 0 = Regular
drawFormat.Alignment = StringAlignment.Center	'### Center / Near (Left) / Far (Right)

'### Create new dummy image and graphics object
intWidth = 1
intHeight = 1
objBMP = New Bitmap(intWidth, CInt(intHeight))
objGraphics = System.Drawing.Graphics.FromImage(objBMP)

'### Configure font to use for text
If intBold = 1 Then
	objFont = New Font("Tahoma", intFontSize, FontStyle.Bold)
Else
	objFont = New Font("Tahoma", intFontSize, FontStyle.Regular)
End If

'### Size up the text so that we can create the real image big enough
Dim sizTextSize
sizTextSize = objGraphics.MeasureString(strOutputText, objFont)

'### Get rid of the dummy objects
objBMP.Dispose()
objGraphics.Dispose()
objBMP = Nothing
objGraphics = Nothing

'### Create new image - bitmap
intWidth = CInt(sizTextSize.Width + 6)
intHeight = CInt(sizTextSize.Height + 6)
objBMP = New Bitmap(CInt(intWidth), CInt(intHeight))

'### Create a graphics object to work with from the BMP
objGraphics = System.Drawing.Graphics.FromImage(objBMP)

'### Fill the image with background color and draw 1px border
objGraphics.Clear(objBgColour)
Dim edgePen As New Pen(objEdgeColour, 1)
objGraphics.DrawRectangle(edgePen, 0, 0, intWidth - 1, intHeight - 1)

'### Set anti-aliasing for text to make it better looking
'objGraphics.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias

'### Write out the text
Dim intHorizX As Integer
Select Case drawFormat.Alignment
	Case StringAlignment.Center
		intHorizX = CInt(intWidth / 2)
	Case StringAlignment.Far
		intHorizX = intWidth - 3
	Case StringAlignment.Near
		intHorizX = 3
End Select

objGraphics.DrawString(strOutputText, objFont, objFontColour, intHorizX, 3, drawFormat)

'### Set the content type and return the image
Response.ContentType = "image/GIF"
objBMP.Save(Response.OutputStream, ImageFormat.Gif)

'### Kill our objects
objFont.Dispose()
objGraphics.Dispose()
objBMP.Dispose()
%>


You can then reference the file like so:

http://www.yourURL.com/winamp.aspx?Forum UserName


Edited by - dayve on 17 October 2003 22:42:18
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dayve
Forum Moderator

USA
5820 Posts

Posted - 17 October 2003 :  22:40:03  Show Profile  Visit dayve's Homepage
I forgot to mention. I am working on a better security model to ensure that no one can post bogus data to another members file. I have changed a couple of small things here in order to protect me for right now. If someone has a valid forum username and follows these instructions, they will be able to do some malicious things. This is why I really haven't shared my progress to anyone.

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