My Community Server iTunes Library mod is back online. I didn't re-code it using the Community Server Provider model as I was thinking of doing, but I did improve on it to keep all of the code in my CommunityServer.DBVT library and didn't touch the source. So that's something. There's so much yet to do as the CS 2.1 era begins that I wanted to get this mod online as quickly as possible.
I wish it was a cleaner and shareable mod, but it just isn't. I blogged about the details in these posts and the individual components are available, but updating the library and applying the mod is not a simple process, which consists of 3 .ASPXs, 3 Views, 2 templates, 8 skins, and a bunch of Class files. The process of getting iTunes info to my blog in a nutshell is 1) export the iTunes library to Library.xml, 2) run a customized version I made of Alexander Kohevnikov's .NET Windows app to move the XML data into SQL, 3) use a mod of Roy Osherove's Amazoner .NET Windows app to get Amazon album cover URLs of newly added albums, 4) run some SQL scripts to tie iTunes tracks to their respective albums, then 5) update the dbvt.com site database with a query generated from a CodeSmith template. Definitely not a drop-in DLL.
It sounds nastier than what it is for the updates though. Depending on how many new albums I added for the period, the whole process takes around 20 minutes. Still ugly though.
As for interesting iTunes Library changes to report, Michael Hedges and Graham Nash pushed Riverdance out of the top spot for Most Played Albums. "Most plays" are somewhat deceiving, since they are based on the total of all individual album track plays, and soundtracks usually have many more tracks. Still, it's good to see the Das Boot Soundtrack crack the top 5 in Most Played Albums. Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas and Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song are both in the top 25 now, so life is good. That reminds me, I need to get my Bing Crosby and Dean Martin Christmas CDs into my iTunes library.
Not much to report in the 100 Most Listened-to Songs list other than a few tunes from Grand Funk's 1971 Survival album making it into the top 25 for the first time.
New Album Additions is my personal favorite view, since it shows what I'm into at the moment. Bands in the new additions list (some new, some copied from CD) are Lifehouse, Seether, Queensryche, Billy Cobham, Jeremy Camp, Bob Schneider, Ryan Adams, Dixie Chicks, The Shawshank Redemption Soundtrack, and Kansas' first album titled "Kansas" from 1974.
Okay, that's done. Next on my Community Server Shortlist is some sort of multi-image placement mod. I've been putting off writing up a few iPod and Dog posts until I have the multi-image placement mod completed, so the pressure is on. A description of the CS 2.0 version of the mod is here, but I really want to stay in Microsoft Writer as much as possible, so I'll start with the Writer Plug-in approach that Keyvan and others have been laying the groundwork for the rest of us to follow.