WebMonkey R9 - 2006/03/28

Post by **Lowlander** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:36 pm

What is WebMonkey
WebMonkey is a pre-build website that will put your music collection online for others to see. It allows to browse your collection, listen to songs, download songs and view some statistics. You will need a webserver where you can host ASP pages and a MSAccess DB.

It is written in ASP and uses HTML, XHTML, CSS and JavaScript.

WebMonkey website:
WebMonkey support site

A new version has been released

Nautme · Post by **Nautme** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:35 pm

Any intentions of adding any kind of logging? I know the download is impossible to track without the getTrack.asp, but other things could be checked (login/logout, search, play, playlist download, etc.).

Also, I store lots of my album art either in the folder with the song or in a tag in the song. Any ideas on how to support that easier.

Thanks for the new version. I'll try it tonight and get started on my getTrack.asp.

Post by **Lowlander** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:02 pm

Logging/statistics is in the back of my head for a future version. Adding functionality is higher on the list. The gettrack script and a first go at modifying tracks will be up for the next version, but beyond that I can't make promises yet. If you don't have a gettrack.asp handy you don't have to write it as I do already have the code. I was just wondering what implementation you had as I thought that you already had the code.

For album art you need to use the export album art script. I haven't checked on external image art, but I assume it works. The whole idea is that people don't need to have their collection where they host the website. I for example don't allow my server access to my collection in case it gets taken over. But if you host it somewhere you definitely will run into space problems with larger collections. Can you confirm if the exportalbumart script works on both album art in tags as well as as file? You might want to change the directory to export the images to the website albums directory.

When you get a change to check out the code you need to check the tar functionality. I assume that it doesn't work, but I can't test it. I noted the problem in the readme.

Nautme · Post by **Nautme** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:32 pm

The reason I asked about logging is because I've run into some trouble with too many users and I'd like to see who is/was logged in. Glad it's on your list.

As far as gettrack.asp, I had it all worked up in my head and was waiting for this release. I have it done if you want to see it. I just modified your download.asp code to accomplish what I needed (and for one song). I then modified all other references that would have been the "http://whatever/song.mp3" to "http://whatever/gettrack.asp?song=1234". It seems to work pretty well.

In terms of tar functionality, I had to modify the code a bit. Only the Else section of "If blnLocalPath = 1 Then" is valid becuase all files are going to be local (and need to be local) because asptar can't access the "http" links. Also, strPathSplit was undefined, but once I commented out that section, it was fine.

As far as album art goes, I haven't done any testing with album art yet (not really high on my list). I'll try and get to it tomorrow.

I must say the biggest option on the server should be whether you have local access to files or not. If you do, you can enable TAR downloads and tighten security by requiring all song requests go through gettrack.asp.

A couple of other quick things I noticed-

The variable strWebMonkeyDir must not have a slash on it (in contrast to strDrive) or you end up with an extra slash. You may want to update the RSS/XML code to deal with that or make a comment to not put the slash.

Also, the only page I noticed that checks the Session("LoggedIn") variable is default.asp. Shouldn't some other pages check it as well and do a Response.Redirect if you're not logged in?

Post by **Lowlander** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:08 pm

The download.asp will be rewritten to use DB path to add files to TAR. I was afraid that this is the problem, but had no means to test this.

The gettrack functionality would be for non local files. Local files will go thru the user PC, not the server.

I will comment the slash in the settings.

The check for sessions works, but has one security bug. That is if the user turns JavaScript off it won't automatically redirect to default.asp if the user opens a page individually. I will add this to the todo list.

I think that the next release will focus on adding more security to the website.

PS. You might want to check server logs from IIS to see where connections are coming from.

Nautme · Post by **Nautme** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:56 am

No problem on the TAR stuff. Like I said, I'm fine testing stuff.

I've implemented the gettrack stuff at this point (though I didn't implement it for remote use too). I tested generating M3Us with "http://mysite/wmr9/gettrack.asp?song=42" instead of the full path and it works fine (I was wondering about that one).

I'm not sure what you mean about the check for sessions. I was referring to the server-side asp that checks Session("LoggedIn") and does a Response.Redirect to "login.asp". Where were you referring to javascript.

As far as my server logs go, I can't figure out. There's no connects there other than mine. If I go to my page in IE, I get error "403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected" in the explorertree, default, playlist, play, and status frams. Also, the stylesheet doesn't download. I'm wondering if it counts each frame as a connection? I can refresh each frame individually and it works fine. The odd thing is it worked fine up until Monday. I'm thinking Widows Update broke something.

Also, thanks for the props in the readme for release 9.

Post by **Lowlander** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:02 pm

I believe that each page counts as a connection, so each frame is one and I think the stylesheet is also counted. Not sure about images, but the may count too.

In all pages there is a JavaScript that will reload that frame in default.asp if it's requested outside the frames. This means that default.asp would do the login check. This works as long as users have JavaScript enabled. If JavaScript is disabled they could browse pages stand alone and thus access your collection without the check for login status. I already updated the pages that display information about your library to check for login status (for r10).

It's good to here that playlists work with the gettrack script. I expected it to work, but wasn't sure.

Post by **Lowlander** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 1:21 pm

I got my gettrack script running. I added another feature to it that allows for update of playcounter (or custom field) and the played table. So that is the first statistic that will be available. I hope that you'll like it.

Nautme · Post by **Nautme** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 1:33 pm

It appears so. I found a script that increases the connection limit to 40 (C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil set w3svc/MaxConections 40) and that fixed the problem. I'm not sure why the problem didn't appear sooner. Actually, I may have had something running slowing down my connection before, and now that it isn't all the pages fire at the same time. Either that or I got an update on my laptop that allows IE to download more at once. I thought the connections IE made to a single site at any time was two, but maybe that changed.

Have you considered creating a SourceForge project for WebMonkey (or something along those lines)? It would make it easier for you to share programming tasks and what not. Also, you could take donations and host the downloads there. Just curious.

Nautme · Post by **Nautme** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 1:53 pm

Cool. Are you referring to the MediaMonkey database or the WebMonkey database for the played table? There's already statistics in the MediaMonkey, so I'm just assuming that's where it is. Besides, if you share databases between MM & WM, you've got an overall statistics, whether you listen through MM or WM. Cool stuff...

Post by **Lowlander** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:01 pm

Could you please explain the connection increase? I found C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs and I found many lines with w3svc, but none with MaxConrctions. Do I need to add such a line and if so where?

I just played with having WMP play a playlist from webmonkey thru the gettrack script and this caused the website itself to show page not found/unavailable messages. So maybe you were also playing songs. Or you had various tabs/windows with WebMonkey.

Sourceforge had crossed my mind. At this point I'm not planning to do so, but I was considering adding a donate thru paypal button to the website. WebMonkey does take up quite some time.

Teknojnky · Post by **Teknojnky** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:13 pm

open a command prompt in the adminscripts folder and type:

Code: Select all

cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc/MaxConnections 40

Nautme · Post by **Nautme** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:20 pm

This is what I found-

Run "cscript //h:cscript" to make sure your default windows script host is set to the console (cscript.exe) one.

Next, run "C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil set w3svc/MaxConnections 40" to increase the limit from 10 to 40.

I believe this makes a change in the www service installed on your XP box.

Post by **Lowlander** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:30 pm

Thanks, it seems to work.

btw. It seems that realplayer doesn't like playlists with the gettrack.asp method. So far it doesn't work here, it keeps asking to update the player.

Nautme · Post by **Nautme** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:34 pm

I only use Windows Media Player. Not that I like it, but I really don't like Real Player. Just me.

Well if you get going on SourceForge, I'd be happy to help develop. If you get a donate link, I'll donate a couple bucks.