The end of third party development ?

[bluegaspode]

I've probably forgotten a lot, so please post everything I've forgotten and more important post new ideas which haven't been mentioned yet.

Maintain a list of cool stuff that has been asked for but you don't want to implement yourself. 3rd party devs with no ideas thus would get new ones and might even start implementing it.
If some of them get developed you can even prove business value to management.

Current list of stuff rejected:
- improve alarm display: day and time of next alarm should be visible
- a new 'party mode' feature

[babblefish]

I have tried enabling the upnp on the squeezebox boom and enabled upnp on the simplify media option. the shared song list does show up on the squeezecenter controls but never will play the song. selecting an actual song and hitting play results in some timeout issue. (says its playing -no song-and doubles back to 0 seconds) selecting an album or artist results in a message of upnp failure.....

this is highly disappointing.... any other thought
itune setting somewhere?

[andynormancx]

I have tried enabling the upnp on the squeezebox boom and enabled upnp on the simplify media option. the shared song list does show up on the squeezecenter controls but never will play the song. selecting an actual song and hitting play results in some timeout issue. (says its playing -no song-and doubles back to 0 seconds) selecting an album or artist results in a message of upnp failure.....

this is highly disappointing.... any other thought
itune setting somewhere?

Firstly, welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately you haven't got off to a great start, you've added your question to a completely unrelated thread in the developer forum. You'd should have asked it in the Squeezebox Boom or Squeezebox Server forums.

[sxr71]

Your plug-in "Trackstat" is the number one reason I haven't thrown my Duet in the trash and switched to something else.

Trackstat has functionality that iTunes, Sonos, and Olive cannot does not have.


I must also say that if this system did not have iPeng it would be in its grave already. EVERY other major competitor has an iPhone app. If not for iPeng Logitech would have been forced to spread their already thin development team even thinner so that some could make an iPhone app. Judging from the quality of work we've seen so far I could bet anything it would be several rungs below what iPeng is today. So not only did they get a "free" iPhone/iPod app they got one that is better than their own output thus far.


Its funny this platform only has any competitive advantage over the competition thanks to 3rd party support. If it lost 3rd party support it would be pretty much thrown in the trash the same day and I would switch to iTunes remote while I mull my next move.

[huytere]

Wow, as a developer who wants to be involved in developing 3rd party plugins/integration the lack of response from Logitech is appalling! Hey Logitech, please realize that the original company was doing things right, that is why you bought them! The development life cycle was fast because you harnessed the power of volunteer enthusiasts.

At least take an hour and draft a formal response and roadmap to address all the serious concerns. You know how fast consumers are likely to abandon ship for the "next hot thing".

Sometimes a little communication at the right time can go a LONG way with your hardcore enthusiasts that help you sell product.

[bklaas]

Wow, as a developer who wants to be involved in developing 3rd party plugins/integration the lack of response from Logitech is appalling!

Please see post #76 on this thread.
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpo...6&postcount=76

As I stated in that post, expect the dust to settle a bit in 2010. Right now is a period of transition, and it's been a bit bumpy.

Please note that the "Logitech responses" on the developers forum are almost always from software engineers. You will not be receiving any official Logitech communication on this forum, other than us reporting news indirectly. Those still working on squeezebox code internally continue to press management for a renewal of 3rd party development support.

Until then, please consider that no news is not news.

cheers,
#!/ben

[audiomuze]

I'm pretty sure this won't happen. I think most 3rd party developers here don't have enough spare time to take over the server and they are probably also too scattered to unite into a single goal. Let's just face it, Logitech (or SlimDevices) has always been the lead of the SBS development and I personally don't think anything else will work. So, I think our hope is that Logitech management realize that their focus needs to be the interaction with your library when you are sitting in the sofa and that third party development might be useful for improving their products.

Erland, given it's unlikely this thing is ever going to morph into something that makes for a more meaningful listening experience, would it really be that hard to create a different front-end that has its own database and simply passes instructions to SBwhateverthehelltheycallitnext telling it what to play. That way nobody needs to take on the server side and whilst we may not get all the bells and whistles we'd be a hell of a long way ahead of where we are now?

[erland]

Erland, given it's unlikely this thing is ever going to morph into something that makes for a more meaningful listening experience, would it really be that hard to create a different front-end that has its own database and simply passes instructions to SBwhateverthehelltheycallitnext telling it what to play. That way nobody needs to take on the server side and whilst we may not get all the bells and whistles we'd be a hell of a long way ahead of where we are now?

Are you asking as someone who like to help implementing such solution or only as a user who wants it ?

If you are just talking about a Windows frontend, there is already muso and Moose available. If this is what you are looking for and you haven't looked ad muso I really suggest you take a look at it.

If you are talking about something that also controls which menus and information that's shown on the Squeezebox display it gets more complicated. The main problem is that there isn't any documentation exactly how this works and my experience is that it's often pointless to ask questions which requires this deep knowlege because there are no Logitech resources available that has the time to answer them. They are all fully occupied with getting the Touch ready for release at the moment.

My problem is that I have no idea how the music stream is sent to the player and if it's possible to get Squeezeplay to receive/send notifications/commands to one place and read the music stream from another place. Still, even though it would be possible a solution with two full servers like this will get very complex and it will rely on that the Squeezeplay behavior isn't changed by Logitech.

The best solution would really be if some hooks were added to Squeezebox Server that made it possible to implement everything as third party plugins. As I've seen it there are two main problems:
1. We need a way to integrate third party scanners in the Squeezebox scanning process: https://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=6023
2. We need a way to completely replace the menu code, this was somewhat possible in 7.3 but it has been removed in 7.4: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=66466

As long as Logitech doesn't prioritize third party development I think it's pointless to use the existing Squeezebox Server in the third party solution. The reason is that it's going to break as soon as they do some change and ignore that it might affect third party solutions.

I don't think there is any easy solution without involvement of Logitech. The following possibilities exist as I see it:
1.
Write a completely new server, which is a lot of work and pretty hard with the current documentation level
2.
Try to use the existing server in combination with a third party server, which is hard with the current protocol documentation level and it will result in a non stable solution as Logitech might break the API's at any time.
3.
Get Logitech to prioritize third party development and add the necessary hooks to make it possible to make good third party addons. This would be the best solution but I have some doubts if Logitech is going to prioritize it.
4.
Create a customized version of Squeezebox Server that supports an enhanced music listening experience through customizations according alternative 3. The only problems with this is that the Windows build environment isn't easy and free to setup and there is some parts in Squeezebox Server which only can be redistributed by Logitech. I'm not sure these issues are a major problem, a solution might be to only distribute Mac and Linux versions and let the Windows users run them with ActiveState perl, inside a virtual machine or in a pre-installed Linux solution like Vortexbox.

In all solutions, besides possibly alternative 3, we are going to have to rely on that Logitech doesn't make any communication protocol changes between Squeezebox Server and Squeezeplay, something I think they've done in all releases since Squeezeplay was initially released. At the moment we aren't allowed to redistribute a customized version of Squeezeplay due to the licensing restrictions, so there is no easy way out of this besides freezing at the current Squeezeplay version.

My personal problem is that independent which solution that's selected it's going to take time, both to implement it and mostly to maintain and support it. This is my spare time we are talking about and I'm not sure I'm willing to do it for free anymore, at least not with the current interest level from Logitech's side. I'm definitely not willing to do it alone since I know from my plugins how much time the maintenance and support part requires.

I think our only hope is that Logitech decides that supporting third party development is a good idea.

[audiomuze]

Are you asking as someone who like to help implementing such solution or only as a user who wants it ?

Asking as someone who'd happily help implementing such a solution. I want a decent interface to my audio library and it seems that the only way to get it is to get my hands dirty.

One of the key factors that made me opt for a Slimdevices solution is that it was apparent that the development of Slimserver (as it was known at the time) was a joint effort between Slimdevices and the user community. Ideas, suggestions and enhancements proposed and/ or developed by the community were often acted on and/ or implemented by incorporating 3rd party enhancements into the code base. It seemed like there was a very real possibility that SBS would in time provide what I'm looking for in terms of listening experience. However, with Slimdevices a thing of the past and Logitech now at the helm, it is patently obvious that this is no longer the case and that SBS is going nowhere. Personally I'd be happy to stick with a version of 7.3.x modified to work the way I'd like it to. I don't need all the crap currently being thrown at it, but I would definitely like a better means of interacting with my library.

[erland]

Asking as someone who'd happily help implementing such a solution. I want a decent interface to my audio library and it seems that the only way to get it is to get my hands dirty.

Let's wait and see what Logitech decides to do after the Touch release.

If they decide to continue on the current path and we are able to gather a few interesting developers and a graphics/UI designer in the community we can start thinking of doing something.

However, it's really a lot better if Logitech is part of it since that will ensure the long term maintenance and support. A solution only built by third party developers can easily die after a few years if no one is willing to maintain and support it for free. Also, there is a risk a solution built by third party developers won't be able to support the next cool Squeezebox device created by Logitech.

Also, remember that the competing products might be able to catch up and if we are lucky some might be focused on the music listening experience.

Personally I'd be happy to stick with a version of 7.3.x modified to work the way I'd like it to. I don't need all the crap currently being thrown at it, but I would definitely like a better means of interacting with my library.

I think any solution at least need to support the Touch and Radio since that's is the devices with most potential in the future. That means at least SBS 7.4 at the moment, possibly 7.5 might be a requirement for the Touch.