[Bram77]

You do have a point. But I think something some drastic changes would have to be implemented to replace the need for an application like this. The biggest advantage for me is that the fanart, folder / season en nfo files are stored in the directory where the video files are. XBMC is built on a different philosophy.
But this would mean all shares would have to have read/write rights to be able to use the functionality which might not always be preferable.

another advantage of a seperate app for media management is that you can work with it a lot quicker. In most cases there are a lot of videos and artists/music files. Managing the supporting media related to the playable media with a remote can be painstaking and a lot slower then using a mouse and keyboard.

[mafis90]

@skunkm0nkee
The only thing i can say is read this post :
http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=330...stcount=28

mafis90

[Montellese]

Whichever road you all choose to walk. I'd be glad to help wherever I can. This is a pretty crucial part of the modern XBMC experience. I'm a professional PHP developer (web applications in general actually, i can do anything but graphics... XHTML, Javascript, Ajax, CSS... etc) and I'm pretty familiar with C#/C++, I've just started to familiarise myself with Java/NetBeans and I have experience with cross platform development in C#. In general, no language should be a real problem to learn quickly

Lol this description almost fits me. I started as a web developer having no skills in design (well actually I can use Photoshop etc to make something up but if it has to look really good I'm not the man for it). That's also a reason why I'm working with Embedded Systems now. A firmware normally doesn't have a GUI and if so it's so small that you don't need design skills

[skunkm0nkee]

Yep, I guess my problem is that I fear that a project like this could eventually morph into a UI for playing the media as well as managing and in that scenario could take users away from XBMC.

So rather than starting a new manger app and moving towards XBMC, why not get XBMC to move more towards a management app?

[Gamester17]

It would IMHO be great if you could use AJAX, JavaScript, and/or PHP instead of ASP.NET for the web interface, ...I didn't suggest it because I didn't think it was as flexible and easy to make/maintain as ASP.NET and still look good(?)



...if AJAX and/or PHP was used for the main interface then you would in theory even be able to run run it on XBMC's built-in WebServer, (once we replace GoAhead with AppWeb, which is planned), that way you in theory could if you wanted to run this media manager locally on your dedicated HTPC that is also running XBMC and directly manage XBMC's database via any web browser, ...hell, you could even bundle it with XBMC if the web interface was just as capable as a standalone desktop interface app.

So rather than starting a new manger app and moving towards XBMC, why not get XBMC to move more towards a management app?

I am pretty sure that everyone on Team-XBMC agree that XBMC Media Center itself should not mess with your files, (no renaming, no moving files/folders, no editing embedded tags inside the files), at least not from the main interface of XBMC Media Cente, ...however a web-interface to handle the XBMC databases (only editing the SQL db files) on the other hand might be very interested to come as a feature with XBMC so that you could connect to XBMC from your desktop computer with any web browser, ...though that would only work good if you have a single instance of XBMC Media Center in your house, if you have more that one XBMC boxes then it might be a pain to maintain if it could not be done from a centralized media manager.

[Bram77]

Yep, I guess my problem is that I fear that a project like this could eventually morph into a UI for playing the media as well as managing and in that scenario could take users away from XBMC.

So rather than starting a new manger app and moving towards XBMC, why not get XBMC to move more towards a management app?

I don't think that will happen. I did consider to integrate supporting media management in XbmControl (right click on share and select "get *" where * = subtitles, fanart, folder_image etc. ) But I thought was deviating from the purpose of the app to much.

Integrating subtitle downloading would fit perfectly in the application we're talking about here though!Using the sublight database .... ? => http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=44385

It would IMHO be great if you could use AJAX, JavaScript, and/or PHP instead of ASP.NET for the web interface, ...I didn't suggest it because I didn't think it was as flexible and easy to make/maintain as ASP.NET and still look good(?)



...if AJAX was used for the main interface then you would in theory even be able to run run it on XBMC's built-in WebServer, (once we replace GoAhead with AppWeb, which is planned), that way you in theory could if you wanted to run this media manager locally on your dedicated HTPC that is also running XBMC and directly manage XBMC's database via any web browser, ...hell, you could even bundle it with XBMC if the web interface was just as capable as a standalone desktop interface app.

PHP support would be fantastic (assuming it will run on the XBOX to )! But I'm not sure how ASP is communicating with the XBMC engine now, so I haven't got a clue how to do this with PHP. Accessing database is not the problem ofcourse. Ajax works fine on the currently integrated webserver, javascript is depending on the browser, not the server
If I know how to communicate with XBMC from PHP I can write a library to integrate with XBMC. Fully featured webinterfaces for XBMC will pop up everywhere I assure you Including one file in your interfaces index.php file would be enough to access the complete library. Including one javascript file would be enough to have complete Ajax capability and including one more javascript file would be enough to have nize animations and stuff. You woulnd't have to have a lot of PHP or Javascript knowledge to build your own interface.

Supporting Media Management and Media DB management could be a integrated part of the webinterface for XBMC! The downside would be, as I mentioned before, that the shares need to have to be writable. For me that's no problem. But maybe for some people...

[royw]

On the architecture, I favour the core as a server with a web API. Then the UI(s) can be in any language that can do HTTP POST/GETs and XML processing. One real nice advantage of defining a web API is it fits the MVC paradigm nicely (controller and model in core, views independent).

Personally I favour merb or rails for the application framework but there are other good ones available. For GUIs either web or java are probably the most portable and feature complete.

I'd also like to suggest hosting on github. git is really nice for distributed development.

I'd like to volunteer to help with this project, in particular the core. Years of experience with cross platform development using ruby, java, C++, C, assembly...

[MDPauley]

I am a PHP programmer (aren't we all ) at my full time job, but like Bram77 I can't do graphics. I've used most major frameworks, mainly Zend for PHP now and Script.aculo.us for Ajax.

I have a few PHP apps that interact with XBMC currently using the http-api and a curl class.

Thanks,

MDP

[Gamester17]

PHP support would be fantastic (assuming it will run on the XBOX to )! But I'm not sure how ASP is communicating with the XBMC engine now, so I haven't got a clue how to do this with PHP

Once we replace GoAhead with AppWeb it should, but not before that, I am sure that GoAhead has been replaced with AppWeb before anything that end-users can use will become available from this project, so just use any other web server as a substitute for AppWeb until then.u

If I know how to communicate with XBMC from PHP I can write a library to integrate with XBMC.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Web_Server_HTTP_API

If some commands/controls is not supported then just request it, as long as you have a good reason for it then I am sure it will be added.

[Bram77]

AppWeb looks really great! Especially the server-side javascript and integrated SQLite DB in Ejscript could come in handy. It also has a theming engine integrated. I'm curious how they fit all that and PHP support in 800KB!

http://www.ejscript.org/products/ejs/features.html

Edit: So the current webserver runs a ASP framework that addresses the HTTP API?
Will there be XML response from the HTTP Api any time soon? That would make life a lot easier
Also, direct access to the database would greatly improve performance! But I think that will be a problem because multiple queries could be executed at the same time rsulting in data corruption. Am I right? PHP can deal with a SQLite db easily though http://nl2.php.net/sqlite

[billyad2000]

Just been guided to this thread, as some will know I have actually decided recently to start a rewrite of Media Companion so the timing is actually right for me to join such a quest as this. I certainly think everyone has a better idea about what is going to be expected from such a program.

There have been many useful ideas tossed into this thread, but here is what I consider to be the crunch. The program must be stupid simple to use.

Maybe it is also time that between us we decided a few standards that people must follow for this program to work. Creating a program that works for absolutely everyone, with any possible configuration is an impossibility, and I know, i've tried.

Anyway, I'm not sure who is in charge of this project (Fekker ), but if you are interested in working with me then gimme a pm

[Bram77]

The program must be stupid simple to use.

If the core is stable and easy to address, the usability is all about the interface. If all goes as planned it will be fairly simple to create an interface (or multiple) that suits everybody's needs. But I completely agree that there are numerous options and the users should not be confronted with all of them.

An example that might simplify things is to add automatic resolution detection. Based on the resolution XBMC is using, the nearest resolution fanart is automatically downloaded. Not everybody will want this, so it would be nice if it could be turned on or off (allowing manual resolution selection). Or maybe even integrated (optionaly automatic) resizing and image quality control could be added. This would savo a lot of work for the XBOX users, no more manual resizing (Optimize downloaded images for XBOX : [PAL | NTSC | 720p]).
Weather this should (mainly) be part of the View or the Controller is a different discussion

[Gamester17]

So the current webserver runs a ASP framework that addresses the HTTP API?

I would just forget how the current web server works today as far as writting a 'web site' to run on it nativly as it is so limited, it does not even support real/full ASP:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=1358
...however the HTTP API will stay and continue to be improved as people wants new specific enhancements for it.

LibWebApp should 'simply' be a drop-in replacement for LibGoAhead and that should then enable full ASP, PHP, and JavaScript support.

Will there be XML response from the HTTP Api any time soon? That would make life a lot easier

Please submit a feature request on trac for that and a separate topic thread in the feature suggestion forum, if you make a good argument why XBMC should have it and tell what what you will use it for then I am sure someone will take interest and find a solution.

Also, direct access to the database would greatly improve performance! But I think that will be a problem because multiple queries could be executed at the same time rsulting in data corruption. Am I right?

ADOdb SQL database abstraction layer API in XBMC for for Web Interface (and Python) would solve that but unfortunately no developer has volunteered to code that for XBMC yet:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=29107

Any volunteers here that could code ADOdb for XBMC in C++ and submit a patch?

[Gamester17]

The program must be stupid simple to use.

If the core is stable and easy to address, the usability is all about the interface. If all goes as planned it will be fairly simple to create an interface (or multiple) that suits everybody's needs. But I completely agree that there are numerous options and the users should not be confronted with all of them.

I like the idea of the "Standard View Mode" being simple, not so cluttered, and not intimidating looking with too many features and buttons jumping out at you, and the user then being able to enable "Advanced View Mode" to get access to more features (and more buttons), and also an "Expert View Mode" with even more features (and even more buttons), ...all from one and the same GUI, without having to install or switch to a other third-party GUI addon.

Just been guided to this thread, as some will know I have actually decided recently to start a rewrite of Media Companion so the timing is actually right for me to join such a quest as this. I certainly think everyone has a better idea about what is going to be expected from such a program.

You should now have access to the private internal forum for project members:
http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=107

Glad that many people are willing to jump aboard this project, even if it just for the initial brainstorming part for the concept

One media manager to rule them all!

[Bram77]

Could you grand me access to, if I may be so frank?