Monkey Server 0.97 (2011-04-10) [MM3] w/Squeezebox Support

[jednie]

This applications runs as a web server on your PC and allows you to access your MediaMonkey catalog remotely using a web browser. This application differs from Sub Sonic in that it accesses your MediaMonkey database directly so there is no need to keep a separate database and changes to your MediaMonkey database are immediately accessible without the need to rescan your files.



Here is a listing of it's key features:

Remote Access
Access songs cataloged in your MediaMonkey database from any web browser.

Remote Control
Control MediaMonkey remotely using your web browser.

Playlist Management
Add and remove songs from your MediaMonkey playlists.

AutoPlaylist
Access your AutoPlaylists remotely.

Security
Restricted access using passwords and IP address restrictions.

Tag Clouds
View your MediaMonkey library in a new way with the included Genre, Mood and Occasion Tag Clouds.

Fast and Lightweight
Find your music quickly using the fast and lightweight default template.

Squeezebox
You can now easily send songs to your Squeezebox playlist.

I wrote this application to fit my needs but I made it template driven so customizing the interface will be available at some point in the future. If you have ideas on how to improve this please send me an email or reply to this thread.

More screen shots are available here:
http://www.bendablebytes.com/products/m ... shots.aspx

You can download this from my website at this location:
http://www.bendablebytes.com/downloads/index.aspx

You can access forums on my website at this location:
http://bendablebytes.com/forum/index.php

The default login information is:

Username: admin
Password: monkey

----------------------------------------------------------
2011-04-10 Version 0.9.7

New Features:
- Added Max Results search criteria
- Added support for Squeezeboxes

Bug Fixes
- Fixed problem with searching albums with no search criteria
- Removed default accept button on settings form so multiple
lines can be easily be appended to multi-line textbox.
- Fixed problem removing and advancing to song when remote
controlling MediaMonkey player.
- Fixed AllMusic link in Web Menu
- Fixed problem with search albums using playlist criteria
- Fixed date localization problem on Albums and Artist page
- Durations longer than 1 hour now display correctly
- Removed program expiration

----------------------------------------------------------
2010-08-14 0.9.6

New Features:

- Multiple image support
- Context menu changes
- removed small icon that displays menu
- New search
- Modify search
- Context menu now appears on clouds
- Customizable Web Menu
- New Album view
- SSL Support
- Query result caching
- New Client Settings
- optional cloud
- separate settings for listing and thumbnail views
- display cloud counts
- Templates and Themes
- New Remote template
- New themes
- Session viewer
- Request logging
- Modified settings form
- Separate Library and Player configs
- Customizable fields
- Template configuration
- Create/Delete Playlists
- New Library Support
- Internal (File System)
- Winamp
- iTunes
- Setup Wizard
- Added Update Now to Help menu
- Scrollable cloud area
- Collapsible search form

Fixes:

- Incorrect song order when listening to playlists
- Better handling of timed out sessions when making AJAX requests
- Web page subtitle was not displaying correctly

----------------------------------------------------------
2010-05-22 Version 0.9.5

New Features
- Remote control of MediaMonkey player on the server so that audio files play at server instead of client
- PlayCounter and LastTimePlayed are now updated.
- User Permissions were added to restrict who can do funtions such as remote control
- Improved multi-user support
- Context menus provide significant functionality without cluttering the interface.
- Update play counts
- Improved framework
- Playlist maintenance allows adding and removing songs from playlist
- Dynamic (no page reload) clouds

Modifications
- AutoPlaylist will now be saved using the User's name

Bug Fixes
- Search form 'Clear' button wasn't functioning

----------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.9.4 - 2010-02-22

New Features
- AutoPlaylist functionality
- Column sorting

Bug Fixes
- Fixed "Use local file path when playing songs"
- Browser will no longer cache playlist files

----------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.9.3 - 2009-10-29

New Features
- Added "IP Addresses Not Needing Authentication" setting to eliminate the need to login from certain IP addresses.

Bug Fixes
- Fixed playlist song order

----------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.9.2 - 2009-09-15

New Features
- Browser caching of images, css and javascript files to improve performance.
- Search for Artists, Albums and Playlists
- New cloud types: Mood and Occasion

Modifications
- Modified how favorites are named for links in the default template
- Maximum random song results set to 5000.

Bug Fixes
- Modified how drive letter is determined when determining song path
- Fixed URL encoding problem with "Play all" link URL

----------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.9.1 - 2009-08-28

New Features
- Added advanced query syntax (more info here http://www.bendablebytes.com/products/m ... hhelp.aspx)
- Added System Tray Help menu
- Added About form
- Added Release Notes (on Help|About form)

Modifications
- Changed "Random order" to "Shuffle"

Bug Fixes
- Fixed incorrect song count
- Fixed non-standard character display problem

------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks,
jednie

[RifRaf]

impressive, have a large db here and its searching instantly compared to a search in mm. the interface is great and the tag clouds are very useful as have multiple genres set per track and the way it changes with selections is neat. will surely be able to use this application.

the issue i do have though is that the playlists are not playing when i select them. mm will open it but the location appears to be wrong because the songs are just skipped. also if trying to download a file i get errors related to Page not found: ERROR.ASP. Am just testing on local machine, have tried using localhost and ip address. hopefully just something not configured but any ideas?

[nynaevelan]

This looks pretty impressive, but is there a way to show/search for playlists?

Nyn

[jednie]

Rifraf,

Did you install Monkey Server on the same PC that MediaMonkey is installed? This is necessary for Monkey Server to find the files.

When you click on Play Song it will create an M3U file send it to your web browser. Your web browser will then send the M3U to the associated application which in your case sounds like MediaMonkey. Do you successfully receive the M3U files when you click on the Play Song link? Can you click on the Play Song link and select something like "Save link to" and save it to your hard to drive to verify that it is successfully creating this file. If you are able to receive this M3U can you open it up in notepad and view the URL of the song that you are trying to play? If so, can you copy this URL (it should look something like "http://main:2233/play.mp3?songid=68977& ... 755b438354") and paste it into the address bar of your web browser?

If any error message appears please post it here. Thanks for your help testing this.

jednie

[jednie]

This looks pretty impressive, but is there a way to show/search for playlists?

Nyn

Adding support for playlist is something that I figured I would I later if anyone expresses an interest in it. I don't personally use playlists but I'll add them if other people will use them. Adding the static type of playlist will be pretty easy however adding the autoplaylists is going be tricky from what I can tell.

jednie

[nynaevelan]

Static playlists only is good enough for me.

[RifRaf]

jendie hi, yes mmserver and mediamonkey installed on same laptop. running xp sp3. Clicking on Play Song creates an .m3u file and this does open with mediamonkey.

contents of file created;

Code: Select all

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:501,1200 Micrograms - 1001 Arabian Nights
http://ateclaptop:2233/play.mp3?songid=138995&sessionid=55bfa77d-d5a9-4088-8b2e-2cb7ebd8fb00

The artist and title are joined together though when displayed in mediamonkey as in this image, also shows files properties;


though the song does not play. pasting the link into a browser results in this (same error as trying to use the download link)

[jednie]

RifRaf,

This is good information. Thanks. Can you right click the tray icon and select "Check for updates" and allow the program to update itself. Then retry playing the file. This time it will create a file in your data folder (something like 'C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Bendable Bytes\Monkey Server' if your using Vista) called debug.txt. This file will contain the full path of the file that it is trying to play. Check this path to make sure it is valid. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks,
jednie

[RifRaf]

seems as though path not valid:
debug file has path as:
Filename=':\Audio\[-=A=-]\Aimee Mann\The Forgotten Arm [2005]\12 - Beautiful.mp3'

should be:
Filename='F:\Audio\[-=A=-]\Aimee Mann\The Forgotten Arm [2005]\12 - Beautiful.mp3'

my collection is 1/2 on drive E: and 1/2 on drive F:, seems it is not including the drive letter?

[Peke]

Nice APP. Why it tries to access net apron startup Updates Check?

My zonealarm got crazy when I start it can you document things that will help set firewall little bit?

[jednie]

seems as though path not valid:
debug file has path as:
Filename=':\Audio\[-=A=-]\Aimee Mann\The Forgotten Arm [2005]\12 - Beautiful.mp3'

should be:
Filename='F:\Audio\[-=A=-]\Aimee Mann\The Forgotten Arm [2005]\12 - Beautiful.mp3'

my collection is 1/2 on drive E: and 1/2 on drive F:, seems it is not including the drive letter?

I just realized that MediaMonkey doesn't store the drive letter in the SongPath field. I didn't catch this because I am using UNC. Let me see if I can figure out how to determine the drive letter. I will post a response as soon as I have a fix. Thanks again for your help trouble-shooting.

jednie

[jednie]

Rifraf,

I have the drive letter problem fixed. Select "Check for updates" from the tray popup menu and allow Monkey Server to update itself. Let me know if you continue to have problems.

jednie

[jednie]

Nice APP. Why it tries to access net apron startup Updates Check?

My zonealarm got crazy when I start it can you document things that will help set firewall little bit?

When the application starts it will check the BendableBytes web site to see if a new version of Monkey Server is available. If this is causing you problems you can disable this feature in the settings dialog by unchecking "Check for updates on startup".

I am not very familiar with Zone Alarm but you may have to tell it somehow to trust Monkey Server so it doesn't complain about it. You also may have to tell it to allow you to receive connections to your PC on whatever port you have Monkey Server configured to use (port 2233 is default).

I hope this helps,
jednie

[Peke]

Thx, I was suspected something like that already. I added it to ZA trusted but currently I limit it to LAN.

Do you plan to make MediaMonkey Installation File (MMIP) as it would be nice.

[RifRaf]

working properly with last update locally and on lan, this should make a great home music server rather than needing mm on every station and works on linux as well so allows it to access to mm library as well. thanks for something very useful.

some observations and possible suggestions.
mediamonkeys last.fm scrobbler does not scrobble any of the plays from the browser interface. could the .m3u files maybe be created with the full directory string or UNC path rather than a URL if being used on the same machine or same network, as then mm finds all the metadata and can keep track of playcounts, scrobble etc. on remote machines this is not as much of an issue as they will not have the files in the library anyway though scrobbling would still be nice from the remote machines.
the download button link seems to be giving the same errors as the play buttons were earlier, maybe a path issue?
the image links do not appear to work maybe for same reason, getting a spinning icon but no images, i am guess it only sees actual images, not embedded ones? is this changeable as all artwork is embedded here at least.

played with search boxes a bit, seems you can search for songs that contain 2 or more of the same genres however it appears to do with the order they are in. eg : 'Genre: dubstep; experimental' finds 22 songs and 'Genre: experimental; dubstep' finds 12 different songs, all 34 songs have both dubstep and experimental as genre tags, just in different order.

can 2 or more artists be searched for in a similar way?

@peke, it appears to be a pretty separate program and only connects to the mm database, as all the other controls are external and the update process is already nice and streamlined compared to the issues i have with updating mmip files (eg the other day removing 3 plugins removed the options for 3 non related plugins, meaning i had to reinstall them and reenter settings) so maybe its fine the way it is?