ewx: (geek)
Richard Kettlewell ([personal profile] ewx) wrote2008-03-29 06:16 pm
Entry tags:

DisOrder 3.0

From: Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk>
To: sgo-software-announce@greenend.org.uk
Subject: DisOrder 3.0
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:15:13 +0000

DisOrder 3.0 has been released.  This release adds a number of new
features.



What Is DisOrder?
=================

  DisOrder is a software jukebox designed for multi-user
  environments. It allows users to pick music tracks for play from a
  shared collection. When nobody has picked anything, it can play
  randomly picked tracks instead.

  There are two main user interfaces: a web interface and a GTK+ client
  called Disobedience. The latter is somewhat more sophisticated but
  only runs on UNIX-like systems; however most features are supported by
  both interfaces.

  Tracks can be selected either by navigating through the directory
  hierarchy or by fast word search. It's also possible to apply tags to
  tracks and search by tag. Once a track is playing it's possible to
  cancel it if someone doesn't like it, or to pause it.

  Sound can be played via either the ALSA or OSS (/dev/audio)
  interfaces; via the Mac's native sound API; or broadcast/multicast
  over a LAN.

  Natively, DisOrder supports MP3, OGG, WAV and FLAC files. It's
  possible to add players for other file formats.

New Features In DisOrder 3.0
============================

  * The web interface now uses cookies to remember user identity.  It
    is possible to offer restricted (e.g. read-only) functionality to
    anonymous guest users.  Optionally, new users can automatically
    register themselves online without operator intervention.
  * Browser support is improved.
  * Sound API configuration has been tidied up somewhat.
  * ALSA volume setting now works.
  * The default inter-track gap is now 0s.
  * For non-.deb installs, there is a new scripts/setup which
    automates basic configuration on Linux, OS X and FreeBSD.

  If you are upgrading from an earlier version you should read
  README.upgrades.

Getting DisOrder
================

  For more information, including source and .deb downloads and a
  detailed list of changes, please visit:

  http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/disorder/

ttfn/rjk

[identity profile] otterylexa.livejournal.com 2008-04-03 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)
This sounds cool/useful.

There's a feature I'd like to see in a jukebox: The ability to randomly walk the tags (by which I mean, the next track played must have a tag in common with the current track). The intent of this is to minimise jarring style transitions.

What do you think?
ext_8103: (Default)

[identity profile] ewx.livejournal.com 2008-04-03 10:39 pm (UTC)(link)
That's a good idea, and well-timed since I was planning to revisit some of the details of how tracks are picked randomly for the next version anyway.

[identity profile] otterylexa.livejournal.com 2008-04-06 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Here's some more thoughts (you may have some of these features already, I haven't looked very closely at Disorder yet):
* you might want to be able to ignore tracks with certain tags (e.g. tag=podcast)
* you might want to ignore certain tags, for the purposes of walking the tag cloud (e.g tag=music).
* you might want to require certain tags, to make a link (e.g. tag=music)
* you might want to limit the tracks you play by certain properties (e.g. length)
* you might want to play certain tracks immediately after a track (e.g. if the first track is an intro to the other one)
* you might want to require higher numbers of tags-in-common to make a link (if you have a particularly rich tag-cloud)
* you might want per-user preferences and a simple way of specifying which users are currently in the audience. A per-user tag weighting file may help with some of the above