Scrobble album names

[GoogleCodeExporter]

i guess it's not a bug, since audioscrobbler says album name is not
required, but why mobbler doesn't submit the album name anyway ?

now playing notification:

array (
  's' => 'somerandomcraphere',
  'a' => 'KISS',
  't' => 'Murder In High Heels',
  'b' => '',
  'l' => '232',
  'n' => '',
  'm' => '',
)

the submission:
array (
  's' => 'samerandomcrapasabove',
  'a' =>
  array (
    0 => 'KISS',
  ),
  't' =>
  array (
    0 => 'While The City Sleeps',
  ),
  'i' =>
  array (
    0 => '1224624285',
  ),
  'o' =>
  array (
    0 => 'P',
  ),
  'r' =>
  array (
    0 => '',
  ),
  'l' =>
  array (
    0 => '221',
  ),
  'b' =>
  array (
    0 => '',
  ),
  'n' =>
  array (
    0 => '',
  ),
  'm' =>
  array (
    0 => '',
  ),
)

as you see the b field is empty in both submissions.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by spassov on 21 Oct 2008 at 9:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hello,

It is not possible to get the name of the album of the track that is being 
played
through the API that Mobbler is using, so therefore it can't be submitted for 
Music
Player tracks.

In the case of tracks played from the radio we do know the name of the album, 
but we
don't submit it anyway.  Perhaps this should be fixed.

Michael

Original comment by eartle@gmail.com on 22 Oct 2008 at 8:04

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Last.fm says:
==
b=<album>
The album title, or an empty string if not known.
==

So it's not optional if it's known. And in some cases we do know it. So I would 
call 
this is a bug.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 22 Oct 2008 at 9:44

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Well, there is a function to get the album from the music player at the same 
time we 
get the artist and track. I'm just working on it now (for music player and 
Last.fm 
radio).

Is there a way to verify on the Last.fm website whether it is actually 
submitting 
the album?

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 22 Oct 2008 at 12:27

• Changed state: Started

[GoogleCodeExporter]

There is no way to fetch the name of the album through the music player remote
control api.  Mobbler's music app observer interface allows for the album name 
so
that if it observes music players where the album name can be found it can then 
use it.

The album name is known for radio tracks though so the only changed that needs 
to be
made should be in DoSubmitL and DoNowPlayingL of CMobblerLastFMConnection such 
as below

-form->AddFieldL(_L8("b"), KNullDesC8);
+form->AddFieldL(_L8("b"), iCurrentTrack->Album().String8());

Original comment by eartle@gmail.com on 22 Oct 2008 at 1:12

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yep, got the AddFieldL() stuff.

So is there any point adding this to CMobblerMusicAppListener::NowPlayingL()?

    trackTitle.Copy(iMobblerMusicApps[musicAppIndex]->Title());
    trackAlbum.Copy(iMobblerMusicApps[musicAppIndex]->Album());
...
        HBufC8* title = CnvUtfConverter::ConvertFromUnicodeToUtf8L
(trackTitle);
        CleanupStack::PushL(title);
        HBufC8* album = CnvUtfConverter::ConvertFromUnicodeToUtf8L
(trackAlbum);
        CleanupStack::PushL(album);
...             
                iCurrentTrack = CMobblerTrack::NewL(*artist, *title, 
*album, KNullDesC8, KNullDesC8, trackLength, KNullDesC8);
                CleanupStack::PopAndDestroy(3, artist); 

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 22 Oct 2008 at 1:47

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Committed the fix for Last.fm "now playing" and actual scrobble submission in 
r52 in 
the hugovk branch. How can this best be verified?

Should the CMobblerMusicAppListener::NowPlayingL() stuff above also go in?

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 22 Oct 2008 at 4:06

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Just a question from a guy who doesn't understand C++ at all:

would it be possible to fetch the album name with  
"MMPlayerRemoteControl::GetCurrentPlaybackCategoryL"

Get information about the Music Library category that is currently open for 
playback.

Parameters:
        aCategory   Category type. EMPlayerRCtrlBrowseNone if not playing a 
category.
        aPrimaryValue   Category value (e.g. artist name if aCategory is 
EMPlayerRCtrlBrowseArtist). Maximum length for the descriptor is 
KMPlayerRCtrlCategoryLen.
        aSecondaryValue     Secondary category value. Used only for album name 
for EMPlayerRCtrlBrowseArtistAlbum category. Maximum length for the descriptor 
is 
KMPlayerRCtrlCategoryLen.
        aPlaylistId     In case of an user playlist, this is the playlist ID.
        aTrackId    ID of the track which is currently playing. 

If I understand this thing correct, if I play some song from Artist->U2->War, 
this 
function (or whatever is called) will return aCategory = Artist, aPrimaryValue 
= U2, 
aSecondaryValue = War and etc... 

Original comment by spassov on 23 Oct 2008 at 7:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I think the primary and secondary values depend on what the category is.  I 
think the
category depends upon how the user got through the menus to the track they are
currently listening to.  So yes, in some cases the primary or secondary value 
would
be the album name, but not in all.

I think this is the best chance we have at getting the album name so we should
probably call this API, do a switch on the category value, and then either get 
the
album name from the correct primary/secondary value, or get nothing.

Original comment by eartle@gmail.com on 24 Oct 2008 at 9:22

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Is it worth?

Personally, album info is something I hardly use. The charts I find useful are 
the 
ones by artist and track, not album name. And as it doesn't seem easy to do...

What do you think, guys?

Original comment by tonilounavarro on 24 Oct 2008 at 12:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

tonilounavarro, this is about sending the album name from Mobbler->Last.fm, not 
about getting any info from Last.fm->Mobbler. 

I've had a go with GetCurrentPlaybackCategoryL, and unless I've done something 
wrong 
(which is possible), I always get aCategory = EMPlayerRCtrlBrowseNone ("main 
view" 
according to the header file) no matter how I choose navigate to choose the 
track.

I've committed the stuff I mentioned in comment 5 above, but that probably 
won't 
help too much... (In r82 of the hugovk branch)

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 28 Oct 2008 at 3:57

• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I know it is about sending the album name from Mobbler to Last.fm.

And I think that if it is so hard to do as eartle suggets it is not really 
worth for 
me, as I don't use the album statistics from Last.fm

Original comment by tonilounavarro on 28 Oct 2008 at 6:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Where are the album statistics on 
Last.fm?

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 29 Oct 2008 at 5:06

[GoogleCodeExporter]

http://www.last.fm/user/{username}/charts?subtype=albums

Original comment by spassov on 29 Oct 2008 at 5:42

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks spassov. I've verified that albums for the Last.fm radio are being 
scrobbled 
(the fix from comment 4 above).

That leaves the albums for music player still open. Like tonilounavarro, I 
don't use 
the albums statistics (partly because I didn't know they were there!), but it 
would 
still be nice for them to be scrobbled if possible.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 29 Oct 2008 at 6:44

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I've got a prototype fix for finding the Music Player album name, it's in r84 
in the 
hugovk branch.

The CMetaDataUtility API can read mp3 metadata, we just need to know the 
filename. 
Don't know that? Well, we know the artist and track name, so we've got a very 
good 
chance of finding it!

First, search for files matching the track name. Those with the artist in the 
path 
are more likely to be correct so prefer those (because some artists might share 
track names, or for partial matches). Finally, if a match shares the same 
artist and 
track metadata, then grab the album metadata!

This prototype fix only searches for mp3 files under E:\music, and it finds the 
album almost immediately. It's not perfect, but is working quite well for 
properly 
named files. I expect there may be a false match if you have two versions of 
the 
same song by the same artist but in two different albums, but hopefully that'll 
be 
rare and sometimes the title will be slightly different (e.g. for live versions 
or 
remixes). It could be made more robust by confirming some other metadata we 
know, 
like duration.

One of the benefits of submitting the album is the album artwork is shown 
instead of 
the artist on under "Recently Listened Tracks". It's also good to see my artist 
chart finally filling up now, and not just scattergun albums from Last.fm radio 
(e.g. http://www.last.fm/user/{USERNAME}/charts?rangetype=week&subtype=albums ).

We could also grab the track number, which Last.fm would also like submitting. 
And 
even better, now we have a good idea of the path/filename, we could attempt to 
read 
the album art from the ID3, or look for folder.jpg (or maybe even any image) in 
the 
same folder and show that in Mobbler.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 31 Oct 2008 at 1:51

• Changed state: Started

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I really don't like the idea of searching through the file system for this kind 
of data.

I was just looking at the API found in the developer library here;

S60 3rd Edition SDK for Symbian OS, Feature Pack 2 > C++ API Documentation > 
S60 API
Reference Guide > C++ API Reference > S60 Platform Services > Multimedia 
Services >
Content Listing Framework API

With this API (3.1 onwards) you should be able to list all audio files and find 
the
one with that Mobbler knows the track name and artist name for and then get the 
album
name from it.

You seem to be able to modify meta data through this API as well.  Maybe this 
could
be used for the image tagging we were talking about.

Original comment by eartle@gmail.com on 31 Oct 2008 at 2:17

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yeah, that approach was a bit heavy. The Content Listing Framework looks just 
the 
ticket, and I've got a fix that's working well. I'll check it and test it more, 
then 
when I submit it it could do with a good code review.

(Using this API we should also be able grab the track number, something else 
Last.fm 
would like submitting, and also the path and filename if we ever need it.)

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 11 Nov 2008 at 2:41

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Fixed in r101 of the hugovk branch to find the album name for Music Player 
tracks, 
using the Content Listing Framework.

When we start playing a track, and don't have the album, try and find it from 
the 
CLF model. If the model isn't ready, refresh it. This is quick but 
asynchronous. 
When it calls back, check for a matching artist and title, if it has an album, 
update the CMobblerTrack.

There's a limitation to using the CLF: if you modify any artist/title details 
in the 
Music Player, it updates the metadata in the Music Player's database but not 
the ID3 
tags. So when we compare the CLF tags with the Music Player metadata, we won't 
always get a match. Hopefully these cases will be rare, and at least it's no 
worse 
than we were before the fix.

Now, there's a chance that there may be two songs by the same artist but in 
different albums, and we may get a mismatch. But the artist and title 
comparisons 
are case sensitive, and I've found in testing that often the little words 
("the", 
"in", "and", "of" etc) may be capitalised for some albums and not for the 
others, so 
that reduces the chance for a mismatch. And in testing there weren't many 
duplicate 
tracks by the same artist to begin with.

Anyway, even if we do have a mismatch, at least that artist does actually have 
that 
song, and you do have both on your phone, so it's not the end of the world.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 12 Nov 2008 at 11:28

• Changed state: Fixed

[GoogleCodeExporter]

MobblerClfObserver.h: No such file or 
directory[/Symbian/Carbide/workspace/mobbler-
hugovk/src/mobblermusiclistener.cpp:25]

Original comment by spassov on 12 Nov 2008 at 11:04

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oh yes, it'd help if I added the new files! Now added in r102.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 13 Nov 2008 at 7:31

[GoogleCodeExporter]

thanks, now it compiles and album name is submitted correctly.

Original comment by spassov on 13 Nov 2008 at 8:14

[GoogleCodeExporter]

do you have any idea why mobbler send now playing notification twice for every 
track 
?

Original comment by spassov on 13 Nov 2008 at 1:21

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Back to open status, the CLF stuff needs to be put in an Ecom plugin so 3.0 
phones 
that don't have the required libs can still run.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 6 Jan 2009 at 12:37

• Changed title: Scrobble album names
• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

CLF stuff put in an ECom plugin in r356 of hugovk branch. Ready for code review.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 20 Jan 2009 at 4:10

• Changed state: Fixed

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oh, and the new files in r357.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 20 Jan 2009 at 4:48

• Added labels: 0.3.5

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oh, and another new file in r362.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 23 Jan 2009 at 9:18

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Merged to the trunk in r375.

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 1:53

• Added labels: intrunk

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by hugovk@gmail.com on 11 Mar 2009 at 3:12

• Added labels: 0.3.6
• Removed labels: 0.3.5