http://publicsvn.songbirdnest.com/wiki/Nightly_Builds

So, then, what’s been done for 0.5, you ask? Well, you can examine in detail all 300ish fixed items straight from our Bugzilla, or you can just read the following bulletpoint list:

• New MTP Device Support Add-on (for Windows)

• Supports MTP and USB Mass Storage devices
• http://addons.songbirdnest.com/extensions/detail/172
• (Requires XP-SP2 or Vista, as well as WMP v11)

• With full featured status page and sync function
• http://addons.songbirdnest.com/extensions/detail/52

• Built into the app, but activated by add-ons:
• http://addons.songbirdnest.com/extensions/detail/170

Now, you should all know what “Blessings” mean — these are still not done yet, not even “Beta,” and we announce them because we need your help testing out the functionality before we release it fully.

We especially need your help with MTP devices under Windows, since we only have so many available here for testing (lots, actually, but still only a small percentage of all the possible players, phones, memory sticks, et al, out in the world today).

We’ve made a page on our wiki with instructions for people to test their MTP devices and either fill out bugzilla bugs or report that everything is working fine:

http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/index.php/MTP_Device_Compatibility

If you have an MTP device, please check that page and help us out!

ALSO, remember, tomorrow and every morning thereafter will find even newer (and hopefully better) Nightly builds of the application and the default set of add-ons. So if it’s Thursday or later when you’re reading this, do please try to get the latest Nightlies and not the blessed build. We’re at the point where we’re fixing lots of little things (and the occasional big monster) every day, so it’s worth updating to see if the bug you’re about to report has already been fixed, right?

http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com

mig

ps: Oh yes. One last humble request. Please try to set the ‘version’ field in Bugzilla to either 0.4 Final or 0.5 Nightly, depending on the one you’re testing. It’s somewhat confusing to us when the cookie is remembering that the last bug you submitted was for, say, 0.3 RC1 or something. Thanks!

But the non-partisan mascots are happy to roll it out on a handcar, working together but in opposite directions:

http://publicsvn.songbirdnest.com/wiki/Nightly_Builds

And now we also have a place to host our Nightly-built Add-Ons:

http://developer.songbirdnest.com/nightly/addons/

Want to know what’s actually in the blessing? Read on!

So, the biggest thing we have to show off is the beginnings of our APIs to allow developers to create new ways to visualize and render your Library.

For instance, Matt built a slick little Tag Cloud extension:

http://dingo.songbirdnest.com/~matt/mediapage.xpi

After you install it and restart, click on the button on the far right of the browser toolbar, it should list the Pages available:

It’s still being polished, and please don’t submit any bugs about it, but we think it’s pretty slick and we’re hoping you’ll agree wholeheartedly!

mig

ps: There’s also another refresh of the iPod code, you can get the newest from the Nightly Add-Ons folders. And pretty soon one of these blessings’ll have MTP device support under Windows for all you folks who wrote in asking for it…

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/extensions/detail/113

Pino, our most prolific featherer, has come up with yet another fantastic layout for a miniplayer, using some of Koshi’s original artwork and SVG to rotate and skew the text and album art.

Also, a small mea culpa, my original JumpTo Feathers wasn’t working properly on Windows machines. I’ve fixed it, so those of you who had already downloaded it have already been informed that there’s an update, now, right?

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/extensions/detail/107

HAPPY FEATHERING!

mig

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/extensions/detail/107

This quick little Add-On was written as a proof of concept to respond to all the complainers and fun-haters who go on about “why do you have to look just like iTunes?!” and “can’t you get rid of the browser? I don’t want it!!”

So if you see people making such noises, do please point them here and we’ll try to straighten them out, yea?

You see, unlike Firefox, Songbird isn’t tied down to just one layout for the user interface. We leverage and leapfrog the might of Mozilla to allow Feathers to specify new CSS or new XUL or both — and thus be able to mash up the basic UI elements that define a media player in any way you can imagine.

For instance, we’ve created our own playlist element that’s completely accessible from javascript. In this way you can create your own playlisting functionality separate from the functionality we implement in the app, without needing to know much more than how to program javascript for webpages.

The Now Playing Add-On is a great example of an external developer leveraging Songbird’s available XUL elements to create fantastic new functionality outside of Songbird’s basic player scheme.

So whether it’s new XUL panels or buttons to inject into the main player window or brand-new layouts for your playback, Songbird provides far more UI flexibility than that old stinky platinum-cum-brushed-metal curmudgeon from Cupertino.

Don’t forget to spread the word!

mig

http://publicsvn.songbirdnest.com/wiki/Nightly_Builds

B-b-b-b-b-u-u-t-t-t w-w-w-e-e s-s-s-t-t-i-i-l-l-l n-n-n-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-d-d y-y-y-o-o-o-u-u-r-r-r h-h-h-e-e-l-l-p-p t-t-o-o-o t-t-t-e-e-e-s-s-t-t-t!

http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com

The bugs are still in there, and we’ll keep on hammering as you keep on finding!

mig

http://publicsvn.songbirdnest.com/wiki/Nightly_Builds

Boop! and Beep! and Bleep! and all the rest of that minimalist Philip Glass celebratory music.

We’re rolling confidently toward our Final Release!

But now it’s critical for everyone to help test and fill out bugs so our final release can be all happy and stable for everyone. Get a Bugzilla account, get some as gifts for your friends and relatives, too!

http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com

Remember, only YOU can prevent buggy software!

mig

http://publicsvn.songbirdnest.com/wiki/Nightly_Builds

Errr, like, Cowabunga, and uhm, all that other surfer lingo nonsense.

There’s another Blessing! Yay! That should make up for all manner of outrageously bad surfing metaphors to which you may be subjected by this blogpost, right? Of course!

There’s a few bugs with making Subscriptions, right now. And we’re changing their name to “Linked Playlists.” Let us know what you think about all the changes we’ve been making to the Web Playlist, et al.

Now there’s a good clutch of Add-Ons available for 0.3, already:

• iPod Device Support
• iTunes library importer
• Pause/Play/Stop Buttons
• Venkman JS Debugger for Songbird 0.3
• Zombies vs Ninjas Feathers
• Playlist Export Tool

And file bugs! Please please test this poor little 0.3 till it splutters in the surf. And then test it some more!

And post everything you find to Bugzilla!

http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com

mig

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/extensions/detail/57

So we had a bit of an svn “hiccup” (as our VP put it) yesterday, and that’s somewhat delayed us from making another blessing, but I did want to note that we managed to clean up a recent version of the Venkman Javascript Debugger into an .xpi that can be installed into Songbird.

Once installed, you may launch Venkman via a menuitem under the Tools menu.

For any Songbird extensions developers or Songbird-aware website developers out there who are unaware of the value of Venkman, it is similar to a binary debugger in that you can set random breakpoints, view the functions on the call-stack, inspect variables in a scope, step through code line-by-line, etc:

http://www.svendtofte.com/code/learning_venkman/

http://www.hacksrus.com/~ginda/venkman/faq/venkman-faq.html

http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/venkman/

Keep in mind that if you want to debug your application-level extensions, you must disable Venkman’s “Hide Browser Code” menuitem option to see all of our (and your) code for the application. Otherwise, it will only debug what’s loaded in the main browser pane.

Good luck, Have fun!

mig

http://publicsvn.songbirdnest.com/wiki/Nightly_Builds

Come help us peer into the depths of the ‘Bird…

It’s been awhile changing things over before they were stable enough to feel comfortable with sharing with all you wonderful folks.

There’s plenty of new art and functionality, the tabs are more stable, the downloads are more friendly, and there’s even starting to be a decent number of Add-Ons available for this 0.3 Nightly.

Remember, Blessed Nightlies are for you to test something relatively stable and tell us what bugs you can still find in it. With your assistance, we’ve closed over 1000 bugs along the way to 0.3 but we know there still must be more to be found.

Please please please help us out by running a Smoketest and filing bugs in Bugzilla as you find them!

http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com/

Oh and by the way, for those of you who have asked in the past for a Stop button and been told that it will be able to be added as an extension, well, I wrote the extension:

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/extensions/detail/48

Install! Enjoy! File bugs!

mig

http://publicsvn.songbirdnest.com/wiki/Build_Instructions#Win32:MSYS

I’ve updated the Public SVN Build Instructions page to better reflect what we’ve been doing to our 0.3 build system.

Of course, we still don’t work yet with VC8:

http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2052

And there’s a small little bug with finding the wmsdk.h file:

http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4440

But for everyone who has been asking, the documentation is updated and ready for consumption. We’re happy to announce we’re adopting Mozilla’s use of the MSYS build environment (from the friendly folks who brought us MinGW), and that everything is much easier and faster with it.

Then again — why are you asking? Don’t you know you can do almost anything in Songbird using simple crossplatform Javascript? You only really need to build the app if you need to compile your own C++ against our headers… and that’s just never any fun is it?

Hooray for scripting!

mig