zicbee 0.9-rc8

A simple & powerful distributed Music database engine

To know more, visit the website.

Install

If you just want to test the program, the simplest way is to get a Zicbee Pack, it’s a compressed archive ready to run.

If you know Python language, you may want to download a fresh copy of the workshop ,or clone it. It’s a collection of scripts to ease sources handling (fetching, building, distributing) plus examples programs. For a better experience, consider installing Mercurial.

Setuptools way is supported too, using something like easy_install, here is an example:

easy_install zicbee

If you want to enable playback, install some player glue (pick one):

easy_install zicbee-mplayer
easy_install zicbee-vlc
easy_install zicbee-gst

Features

• Still fast even on big playlists and libraries (OK with 30k entries on a netbook)

• Nice syntax for queries, accessible to any user, search and play takes the same parameters so you just replace the command name when you are happy with the output

• Daemon/Network oriented (not unlike mpd)

  • Access songs on remote computers

  • Close the client, songs will continue playing

  • Open as many clients as you want at any moment

  • You can mix songs from several computers on the same playlist

• Pure Python (it should run on any computer, mac, etc…)

• HTTP everywhere (you can use the web browser on your phone to control the playback or do a query on your library, try “http://host:9090/basic” HTTP address for minimal embedded devices support)

• Always growing set of features:

  • nice playlist handling

  • real shuffle (not random)

  • last fm support (auto-generation of playlist based on small request)

  • song downloading

  • blind test mode (very minimalistic btw, see guess command)

  • duplicates detection (alpha quality)

  And much more… try help parameter to get an idea ! :)

Including projects

• zicbee (server (zicserve) / admin utilities (zicdb) / lightweight client (wasp))

• zicbee-lib (base library for zicbee)

• zicbee-mplayer (mplayer bindings, allow zicbee to play music)

• zicbee-vlc (vlc bindings, allow zicbee to play music)

• zicbee-gst (GStreamer bindings, allow zicbee to play music)

• zicbee-quodlibet (plugin that turns quodlibet into a zicbee client)

Quickstart

Start the server (you may want to do this uppon your session startup):

zicserve

Scan your songs (you can reproduce this step several times):

zicdb scan <a directory with many songs>

Connect to the www interface:

firefox http://localhost:9090/

Read help:

zicdb help

Fire up the client:

wasp

Example session

search artist containing “black” in their name:

wasp search artist: black

show all configuration variables:

wasp set

changes the host to take songs from:

wasp set db_host 192.168.0.40

tells zicbee to play song on THIS computer:

wasp set player_host localhost

search again (on the new db_host):

wasp search artist: black

play black sabbath’s music

wasp play artist: black sab

skip current song:

wasp next

Shows the next entries in the playlist:

wasp show

Play “IAM” music, case sensitive and exact match:

wasp play artist: =IAM

Play an auto-generated playlist based on some artists:

wasp play auto: artist: =IAM or artist: =Archive

Find some song “grepping” some pattern, then move it just after the currently playing song (only works on interactive shell):

wasp> grep lune
wasp> move grep

I think you must read it at least once:

 wasp help

You can also just run "wasp", and you will get into an interactive shell with completion.

Dependencies

The software and all the dependencies are available in pure python without native code requirement, it should run on any OS. Wherever many packages answers that requirement, then evaluate speed and simplicity.

• Some JSON implementation (python-cjson, simplejson, demjson or builtin if using python >= 2.6)

• mutagen (song metadatas handling)

• buzhug (database)

• web.py (minimalistic www providing library)

Additional dependencies may be required if you want playback (libvlc in case of zicbee-vlc and mplayer executable for zicbee-mplayer). Notice it’s not required to play music easily, since you can generate m3u output that will open in your favorite music player.

Changelog

0.9

• shiny new client (wasp), comes with many new features (grep, append, inject, get…)

  • grep can be used as parameter for move and delete commands. (use after using grep command)

  • move and delete also support slices passing (ex.: move 1:3, delete 2:10)

  • set can now unset a variable :P

• improve shell completion

  • abbreviations everywhere

  • better completion

• Support for live streaming, try “play <your favorite mp3 stream>”

• Change process title if setproctitle is available

• autoshuffle mode (can be disabled of course)

• new “random” command, plays some artist or album randomly

• stfu won’t have unexpected results, it kills the player_host

• visual notification for player (can be disabled, unset “notify” variable)

• satisfying duplicates detection [WIP]

• more flexible commands (handles short commands)

• allow easy player backends integration (packages splitting via entry-points)

  • there is two available backends so far (mplayer and vlc)

  • see Developers section

• minimal www interface (for low power machines, don’t expect too much)

  • use /basic on any server with a player, it’s quite rought now

• Integrate automatic playlists with auto special tag

  • minimalistic last.fm support (no account needed, only works with “artist” keyword)

  • modulable tolerence giving a digit (ex: auto: 15)

  • “artist: wax tailor or artist: birdy nam nam auto:” automatically generates a playlist of similar artists (no value=10)

• Split project for clarity

• stored playlists (including position)

  • related wasp commands: load, save, append, inject

  • inc. playlist resume

  • you can alternatively use “pls:” option in play:

    • use “#” to act on current playlist

    • use “pls: <playlist name>” to WRITE a playlist

    • prefix playlist name with “>” to append results to playlist

    • prefix playlist name with “+” to insert results into playlist just after the current song

• cleaner javascript/cookies/sessions (prepare theme support)

• Tons of bugfixes! (among others, the parser is rewritten, with minor syntax changes)

• known bugs: volume command is not very functional yet

0.8

• add support for FLAC

• interactive shell support with completion and history

  • see “zicdb shell” or “zicbee” commands

• integrate/complete tagging & scoring support

• add support for multiple DBs at once

  • (ie. have separate databases for your mp3 player & your local drive)

  • see “use” command for usage

• complete admin commands (see “set” command)

0.7

• add play, pause, next, prev, list

• add cleaner configuration:: more unified (prepare themes handling)

  • ensure default host is well given

0.7-rc1 (first public release)

• site launch

• fixes egg/root installation (temporary file created)