3rd party plugins and 8.0 ?

[erland]

I’m guessing I’m not the only third party developer that have maxTarget set to 7.* in the repository files. I suppose the result with this is that the plugins won’t be available for download in LMS 8.0 beta ?

I won’t have the time to continuously keep the plugins updated with API changes in the 8.0 beta and I’m considering the best option.

Would it be preferred to still change the maxTarget to 8.* or 8.0.* with the result that a lot of users reports problems with plugins if there is some API change ?
Or should I keep it as 7.* until 8.0 is getting closer to a release and I’ve verified the plugins with 8.0 myself ?
Or would it be an option to add functionality in LMS to make it possible for users to override maxTarget in the repository.xml file of the latest version of a plugin ?

I’m guessing there are some third party developers that will never update their repository file since they have stopped maintaining their plugins.

Ideally maxTarget should refer to API version instead of LMS version but that’s probably hard since there isn’t a well defined API so it’s going to be hard to know when to increase the API version.

My install.xml have * in its maxVersion so it’s always possible for users to manually download and install my plugins.

[mherger]

> I’m guessing I’m not the only third party developer that have maxTarget
> set to 7.* in the repository files.

No, you're not.

> I suppose the result with this is
> that the plugins won’t be available for download in LMS 8.0 beta ?

That's true.

> Would it be preferred to still change the maxTarget to 8.* or 8.0.* with
> the result that a lot of users reports problems with plugins if there is
> some API change ?

I bet you'll have less reports than you got now. More people are asking
"what happened to my favorite plugin?" then there are reports about
issues with LMS8.

I can't guarantee this will be true for your plugins or for ever. But as
of today there's imho no really breaking API change (if there ever was
such a thing as a defined API :-)). The one change which _might_ cause
some issues for your particular plugin is the fact that tracks returned
by CLI queries (and low-level SQL, of course) could be remote using http
urls rather than local files only.

> Or should I keep it as 7.* until 8.0 is getting closer to a release and
> I’ve verified the plugins with 8.0 myself ?

Go for 8. If a user hits a problem, you'll at least know about it :-).

> Or would it be an option to add functionality in LMS to make it possible
> for users to override maxTarget in the repository.xml file of the latest
> version of a plugin ?

I'm sorry to say that this IMHO doesn't make sense. You'll have the same
amount of issue reports as if you bumped it yourself, plus potential
bugs in that code. If somebody wanted to come up with a plugin to
override some of this behaviour then that would totally be an option.
But not in core LMS.

> I’m guessing there are some third party developers that will never
> update their repository file since they have stopped maintaining their
> plugins.

That might very well be possible. I already modified some of Triode's
maxTarget values, as he's abandoned those plugins years ago.

> Ideally maxTarget should refer to API version instead of LMS version but
> that’s probably hard since there isn’t a well defined API so it’s going
> to be hard to know when to increase the API version.

In a perfect world this would be true. But please define "API version"
wrt. LMS. There basically is no such thing. There's the CLI, sure. But
please excuse my being blunt: some of your plugins probably are the
worst example, as they not only do not use CLI commands, but implement
their own SQL queries etc. You can't go much lower level outside of any
documentation...

> My install.xml have * in its maxVersion so it’s always possible for
> users to manually download and install my plugins.

Hmm...

<plugin name="TrackStat" creator="Erland Isaksson"
email="erland (AT) isaksson (DOT) info"
link="http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/TrackStat_plugin"
maxTarget="7.*" ...


--

Michael

[erland]

> My install.xml have * in its maxVersion so it’s always possible for
> users to manually download and install my plugins.

Hmm...

<plugin name="TrackStat" creator="Erland Isaksson"
email="erland (AT) isaksson (DOT) info"
link="http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/TrackStat_plugin"
maxTarget="7.*" ...

That’s repository xml, the install.xml looks like this

    
<?xml version='1.0' standalone='yes'?>
<extension>
  <name>PLUGIN_TRACKSTAT</name>
  <creator>Erland Isaksson</creator>
  <defaultState>enabled</defaultState>
  <description>SETUP_PLUGIN_TRACKSTAT_GROUP_DESC</description>
  <email>erland@isaksson.info</email>
  <homepageURL>http://wiki.erland.isaksson.info</homepageURL>
  <icon>plugins/TrackStat/html/images/trackstat.png</icon>
  <playerMenu>BROWSE_MUSIC</playerMenu>
  <id>8BA09E6A-77BB-11DC-91DD-A3F5D22FE61F</id>
  <module>Plugins::TrackStat::Plugin</module>
  <optionsURL>plugins/TrackStat/settings/basic.html</optionsURL>
  <targetApplication>
    <id>Squeezebox Server</id>
    <maxVersion>*</maxVersion>
    <minVersion>7.6.0</minVersion>
  </targetApplication>
  <type>2</type>
  <version>3.3.602</version>
</extension>

[erland]

I can't guarantee this will be true for your plugins or for ever. But as
of today there's imho no really breaking API change (if there ever was
such a thing as a defined API :-)). The one change which _might_ cause
some issues for your particular plugin is the fact that tracks returned
by CLI queries (and low-level SQL, of course) could be remote using http
urls rather than local files only.

Do I remember correctly that there is a flag that indicates if it’s a local (file) or a remote (http) track ?

[mherger]

> That’s repository xml, the install.xml looks like this

Then all you should do is modify the repository file. Thanks!

--

Michael

[mherger]

> Do I remember correctly that there is a flag that indicates if it’s a
> local (file) or a remote (http) track ?

Yes, there's a remote flag in the database.

--

Michael

[peterw]

Feeling dumb this morning -- how would I go about installing 8.0? Just clone https://github.com/Logitech/slimserver.git, switch to the 8.0 branch, and run slimserver.pl?

[mherger]

> Feeling dumb this morning -- how would I go about installing 8.0? Just
> clone https://github.com/Logitech/slimserver.git, switch to the 8.0
> branch, and run slimserver.pl?

That's one way. Or you download a build from
http://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/?ver=8.0

--

Michael

[dolodobendan]

> Or should I keep it as 7.* until 8.0 is getting closer to a release and
> I’ve verified the plugins with 8.0 myself ?

Go for 8. If a user hits a problem, you'll at least know about it :-).

No (new) problems with Multi Library, Custom Browse, and Custom Scan

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but Custom Browse menus with umlauts in it won't open in the home menu (My Music/Menü) in the WebUI (default skin, works with Material. "404 Not Found: player=00:04:20:aa:bb:cc"). They do open in Extras/Custom Browse/Menü. (In case this gets scrambled, in the example it's Menu, and the u has two dots.)

Thank you both.

(I saw the latest commit regarding audiobooks. Nice! Any chance there will be something like series next to authors?)

[mherger]

> (I saw the latest commit regarding audiobooks. Nice! Any chance there
> will be something like series next to authors?)

Can you elaborate? What would a series be? How would it be "next to
authors"?

--

Michael