Notices

Is there away I could stream my already existing library on my local network to Canola via Bonjour? I haven't really found a good uPnP server for OSX and I thought if its possible, it would be a great feature for Canola.

Hi Phi,

Canola1 had upnp and daap (itunes shares) support. But there's one catch. Until today, I don't think that the open source library was "updated" (actually hacked) to work with itunes7.x therefore it would be useless for itunes sharing (but it is very handy for those with tangerine and others daap linux servers)

So, the protocol is closed (there's a key) that we don't know and we will not do reverse engineering on that because we are a small company with a big company name on the middle and this would be a major problem. But if the community manage to make it work we can add the support on the future (that's why we are releasing the third party plugin support, so people can enable more and more services )

UPNP is also problematic at this stage but it's improving. From the planned features is the only one missing, and there's some good solutions for the mac, like twonky and connect360 if I'm not mistaken. (but they are paid)

Anyhow, if you find something about any linux app working with itunes 7 sharing we would like to have it working in the future also.

Cheers,

Marcelo

Don't forget about Fuppes as a potential UPnP server solution for a number of OS including Macs with further work? http://fuppes.ulrich-voelkel.de/

I believe this UPnP server worked with Canola1, so assume it will work when UPnP support is added to Canola2.
I quickly tested/discarded with Canola1, because I was already more familiar/happy with Twonky/Tversity in my case, YMMV

My favorite UPnP server is TVersity, but it's still currently only available for Windows OS's.

Have there been any non-Apple apps, specifically open source applications, that are able to use the latest iTunes sharing protocol? I remember trying to find something like this, but it seemed that nothing was able to communicate with iTunes 7, because of what Marcelo was talking about. If that's still the case, then getting it to work in Canola would seem to be a pretty small chance. I ended up moving away from iTunes and Apple's Lossless codec for this very reason.

mud : that's the case, we believe not. to be honest we stop looking some 6 months after apple break the 6 version with the 7 update. It was really sad, because canola1 worked nice with that.

Then we decided that the biggest gain for real end users ( mac users ) was to have access to those shares, so we decided not to worry to much with it, and focus more on upnp : /

Marcelo

In my setup I'm using mt-daap/Firefly as the DAAP server, its openly available for Linux requiring Avahi as the mDNS component to work on a network with Apple's Bonjour.

While I like iTunes on OSX/XP as client I wouldn't use it as a DAAP server.

Rokulabs, for one, are supporting Firefly development as their Soundbridge players support DAAP and their forum lists a load of compatible clients.

So there's def opensource support for client & server apps.

Vaiodon : yes, and this we believe is great for the plugin idea, but " itunes" support I doubt we will be able to do anytime soon

MArcelo

I just thiink of iTunes of another client to my Firefly DAAP server now so to have Canola as another client would be cool.

Are you expecting 3rd parties to develop the plugins?

Actually, I would say that "expecting" is a near word to define what I feel about the third party plugins development.

As people said that they had interest on this, we did everything that we could in the middle of development :

1) I will upload soon the desktop build of canola (really our build we don't develop inside scratchbox) so people will be able to test plugins and themes faster than copying to device etc

2) There's already 2 published tutorials (one from gustavo other from Morpheuz and Caio) that shows the very basic model and then a simple " presentantion" application made inside canola

3) We are releasing source code : youtube plugin source code is available, upnp will also be open source etc.

So yes, I do kind of expect, but I also do have a fear because we are not open source, but at least as developers / designers we are doing our best to provide everything for those interested. So I hope that some people get excited to do that, but I will not be surprised if this does not happen at all : /

But for sure this open the opportunity at least to those python lovers with special needs out there to fast prototype a control / client for any protocol using canola as ui.

Let's see...

(I'm also trying to find students to do this, but upnp has shown that maybe is not always a good idea)

I gave up with trying to find a linux based apple/itunes compatible server.

I came at it from the other end - building a small linux box as my media server/network share. It shares over SMB and my main itunes library is on there. I have also installed ushare upnp server to server other upnp clients around the house. Currently using media streamer on the n800 - which works really well. It has very fast indexing of my 7000 odd songs (seperated into itunes organised folder structure).

As there are good upnp server apps to work on osx with your itunes library, i say, concentrate on that.

the sooner you can get a upnp client for canola the better - that would complete the app for me.

I use canola for pretty much all media based stuff now - except the need to use MediaStreamer to access my upnp server.

Love the youtube plugin BTW.