ipodslave

Edit 20060711: got my hands on a SuSE10 machine: added SuSE10 rpm packages for libqtpod


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 0.3-rc1.

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

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.
* writing MHOD52 for the master playlist implemented
this speeds up operation of the browse menu and also results in smaller gaps between songs

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