Announce: FindArt plugin beta

[bpa]

FindArt only works on the WebUI.

[Millwood]

Thanks - works from the web ui.

[lowjumpingfrog]

I must be missing something. This plugin installed beautifully. I fixed the perms on my music folder, as suggested above, on the Ubuntu machine that hosts squeezecenter. I ran the plugin as described and the album art was saved successfully, i verified the file using ls, in the directory alongside of the tracks with perms of the squeezecenter user. But, the album art does not show up in the WebUI or the Duet controller. I did a manual rescan of the library. Reset my browser, safari & firefox, cache. And restarted the Squeezecenter Service.
Here is my configuration info:
Version: 7.3.1 - 24372 @ Fri Dec 19 17:38:52 PST 2008
Server HTTP Port Number: 9000
Operating system: Debian - EN - utf8
Platform Architecture: i686-linux
Perl Version: 5.8.8 - i486-linux-gnu-thread-multi
MySQL Version: 5.0.51a-3ubuntu5.4
Total Players Recognized: 1
What am i missing? Is there something else I should check?
Thanks for help.

[bpa]

Between browser caches, SC caches and Controller caches - sometimes it can be difficult to "persuade" the updated art to show.

Getting to the art to show iun the browser is usually quicker than the Controller as it is harder to clear the controller caches.

Things to do

1. Note location of SC cache directory (see WebUI Settings/Information Tab)
2. Stop SC.
3. Clear Browser cache. Stop browser. Restart Browser and clear caches again.
4. Clear SC cache directories FileCache, a directory CoverArt (can't remember the exact name but has Art in it) and templates.
5. Start SC.
6. Browser Music folder down to the tracks. Click on the artwork to get it bigger in its own window - this also forces a re-fetch.

If the above doesn't work - then I'll work out some test to verify cover art file.

[Millwood]

You must do a clear library type rescan, not a new and changed rescan.

[bpa]

I'm not sure how useful people find this plugin but please post if you have any suggestions to improve functionality/ease of use.

I hope in 7.3.2 it will be possible to start FindArt from a Browse to an Album/track so no need to be playing a track.

[lowjumpingfrog]

It seems that a clear/rebuild database is the only thing that connects the Album Art to the WebUI and the Controller UI. I thought I read that deleting the SC cache (/var/lib/squeezecenter/cache) forces a rebuild? A cache purge on the browser doesn't work. I tried a machine that never loaded the SC WebUI and the cover.jpg is missing after successfully adding it with the plugin from another machine. This is the image resource string in the SC WebUI for the large version of the Album Art:
http://hostname:9000/music//cover.jpg
I would imagine the piece that goes between music/ and /cover.jpg comes from the database? I am not familiar with the control loop on feeding the WebUI or the controller UI but would it make sense for the plugin to feed SC with the proper resource info after the Album Art is successfully saved. Perhaps this is being done already? Also, I thought base SC functionality was for a cover.jpg, folder.jpg, etc... to be automatically processed in presenting the UI's?
Overall I think the Album Art plugin as designed is perfectly suitable for the task of gathering Album Art. I like that the process of adding album art is combined with listening. I have almost a 1000 albums. About 50% have the correct artwork. The thought of completing the rest is a daunting task. Doing it in small bits at a time is great. Assigning album art is most certainly a meat computer (human in the loop) activity since there seems to be no conclusive method for an automatic selection of the correct artwork. Of course there is nothing like doing this task correctly when the compressed files are created. My rip/compress process has evolved over time, along with the various tools that I used. Now I just use iTunes to embed the Artwork into the files themselves as I create the files. That seems to work fine.
Back to the plugin ... Me thinks a slightly different search strategy might be useful. Search for Artist first and then a search with in the result for title.
Thanks BPA for your efforts. It has certainly made my use of SC much more enjoyable!
Cheers

[bpa]

Be careful of the wholesale deletion of the cache directory.

Currently there some files which may be kept in cache which when deleted ,ay "upset" the user. The files I know

- AlienBBC, Favorites and other menus if the user has not defined a Playlist directory

- Plugins installed by teh Extension downloader.

[w42]

I'm not sure how useful people find this plugin but please post if you have any suggestions to improve functionality/ease of use.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it 10 points. IOW I love it :-)

Got the same problem as lowjumpingfrog with the cover art showing up only after a immediately full DB rescan. Not a big problem since I do that during nightly maintenance anyway.

I've got at least 1 CD that for some reason won't work, Black & White 050505 by the Simple Minds.
2 popup windows are presented, first saying RenderBadState state=null, second showing xml content, probably needs some & -> & tweaking. But not sure where...

[satmarshall]

BPA, I too use this plugin and find it very useful!

I also experience the coverart problem but clearing the database and rescaning nightly seems to work ok.

I too would like the ability to find cover art while browsing the library, but it's no big deal waiting until I play the track.

A really good addition would be adding support for the plugin from the Controller.

All in all a great plugin though!!