Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

cc-metadata - Identifying CC licensed music in iTunes

cc-metadata AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: discussion of the Creative Commons Metadata work

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Nathan R. Yergler" <nathan AT yergler.net>
  • To: "cc-metadata AT lists.ibiblio.org" <cc-metadata AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Identifying CC licensed music in iTunes
  • Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 11:56:14 -0500

Winter break is coming up for me, so naturally I'm looking for something to entertain me (besides fixing mozCC bugs, of course). As some of you might know, I am a Mac user, and really enjoy the bundled applications. Especially iTunes.
I've been toying with ways to display some metadata indication in iTunes when the song I'm listening to has a license URL embedded. I have two ideas, and I'm looking for some feedback. I've done some *very* basic looking online, so I think both of these are possible. I have not found anyway to actually modify the iTunes GUI or display (to display metadata in the "now playing" area, etc); if anyone has an example or can point me in the right direction, I'd definitly be interested in that. As such, here are my two ideas; I'm not in love with either, but absent a "full" GUI integration, they're what I've come up with.

First (and possibly easier): place a (CC) menu on the menubar; when the currently playing song is licensed, attribute icons would (optionally) be displayed, so some other indication made. For example, the menu icon might have a glow or underline added when metadata is available. I like this because I think I can build on some sample code I found, and I think it'd be easier overall to have a separate "helper" app which just looked to iTunes for signals. There's a small mock-up attached, and a larger, full-screen one at http://yergler.net/projects/images/itunes-mockup-1.jpg .

Second: Add licensing attributes to the album artwork for a song when a licensed song is played. The composite artwork could be shown in the "Selected Song" area of iTunes. I like this because it's integrated within iTunes, but it's not perfect because it is only visible in full-window mode (not in the collapsed mode). Again, a small mock-up is attached with a full-screen version at http://yergler.net/projects/images/itunes-mockup-2.jpg .

So I'd like to get some feedback about which approach seems better. I'd especially like feedback from Mac users and iTunes users, but any feedback is welcome. Thanks in advance for all your help.

Nathan

JPEG image

JPEG image




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page