I have iPod support working I have iPod support working (for me anyway) I have…

Just wanted to let everyone know that I spent Friday night and a few hours yesterday adding support for iPod syncing to the iScrobbler client (yes, I have no life!). It uses the last played date to determine the time-stamp to submit, and it does some other things to prevent "spamming". To be honest though, there may be spamming issues that I have missed, and so I am not making a public release until I get some feedback from the lead iScrobbler developer (I have e-mailed him the updated client and my source changes).

I've been using this new version (tentative version 0.7.0) since late Friday, and fixed a few minor problems yesterday. When I came back from my walk this morning, all 26 songs were submitted. To the server it just appears as if the client computer was "offline" and is submitting a backlog.

Currently there is no preference to turn iPod sync off, and there are also other limitations:

- If you start playing iTunes before syncing your iPod, then all songs on the iPod will be discarded.
- If you quit iScrobbler (such as a Shutdown/Restart) then all songs on the iPod with a play date before the next time iScrobbler is launched will be discarded.
- Seeking a song on the iPod could trigger spam protection on the server.

*Special note for users who have iPod Disk Mode enabled: Since iScrobbler delays syncing until the iPod is ejected, you must manually sync using the "Sync iPod" item in the control menu, or eject your iPod before you start playing music in iTunes. Either way, make sure to wait until iTunes says your iPod is "up to date".

Hopefully, a public release won't be too far out.

Thanks. It came down to need. I went for a week without having iPod sync support, and "lost" about a 100 songs because of it. So I decided to fix it.

Since the last post, I've added a preference to turn off iPod sync, and I've removed the shutdown/restart restriction (so you can shutdown your machine if you go on vacation or something, and come back a week later and all the songs you listened to on the iPod during that time will be uploaded).

I'm still waiting to hear back from the developer, I e-mailed his Sourceforge address last Saturday, but have not heard back from him yet. Anyone know how to get in touch with him? Does he hang around in this forum? If I haven't heard from him by next Monday I'll just release what I have to the public to get some feedback.

Well, if you someone is using your account while you are away to play songs, then anything you play on the iPod will be lost.

"- If you start playing iTunes before syncing your iPod, then all songs on the iPod will be discarded."

You need (and have to enforce the use of) separate accounts to get around this.

But, to address your specific scenario (assuming no songs were played after 10:00:00 AM in iTunes), all songs played after 10:00:00 AM on your iPod would be sent to iScrobbler, including the "duplicate" you listened to. It would not trigger spam protection, as 10 minutes passed between listening times, and the song count would be bumped twice.

Port to Windows:

No.

1) iScrobbler uses AppleScript, which uses AppleEvents to communicate with iTunes. The iPod sync functionality is just another AppleScript that asks iTunes for songs played after a certain time. Niether AppleScript nor AppleEvents are available on Windows.

2) I don't have the Windows developer tools.

Mainly because of (1), this will be Mac only.

Quoth giveuptheghost:
I need to get a Mac. And an iPod. :)

-Scott

You'll never look back! You might wonder why it took you so long.

;-)

Tom

This is incredible! Thanks for takin up the challenge and I hope this is released soon. That's one of the things I wish I had was iPod support. My profile would be better suited to my listening habits if it recorded my on-the-computer AND away-from-the-computer listening habits. Awesome.

That's a great feature, now I just need to get an iPod ;)

I think it would be good to submit it as a separate profile. There used to be a user page that you could see profiles, which included one for here and one for last.fm.

It wouldn't be worth it unless you really really wanted it, all the extra coding needed...

GregN,

See the .7.0 thread from last Friday. There is a link to the dmg in there.

Also, .7.1 should be out before the end of the week with persistent caching and lots of other changes.

Well ok, you sync your ipod with iTunes and then sync it with iScrobbler? Then everything works?

But you can´t play songs in iTunes while syncing you iPod right. So if i want to sync my iPod i have to do this in silence, right?

Quoth Damaged:
If you wait about five seconds until after your iPod disappears from the desktop, then it should be safe to start playing iTunes again. You can still have your iPod plugged in after that and be playing songs in iTunes. The "silence" requirement is only while the iPod is mounted on the desktop.

From the CHANGE LOG:


...make sure to wait until iTunes says your iPod is "up to date"

We'll be adding some better feedback for this process in a later release.

Not to be nagging or anything, but I am wondering why this has to happen in "silence"?

How does this prevent spamming if the last "timestamp" on the iPod is, say 10:01 and I start playing on my iTunes at 10:02 wouldn't it be sufficent to deduct that I am not spamming? Or is the information not that detailed coming from the iPod?

If I sync my iPod manually, what happens (i have it in disk mode and copy the songs over to the iPod manually)?

Hey Damaged, thanks for the answer but I still don't get it...

Here's what I did... I was away from my computer and was listening to music on my iPod. When I got back to the office, I plugged in my iPod.

Since I sync it manually (disk-mode enabled) nothing happens except for iTunes that starts up.

According to the note in the change log, what I understand I have to do for the songs I listened on my iPod while away from my computer to be submitted, is to Select "Sync iPod" in the control menu and then eject my ipod.

Nothing happens...

The part I don't get from the changelog is this :
" Either way, make sure to wait until iTunes says your iPod is "up to date"."

How can iTunes say my iPod is "up to date" if it never syncs with my iPod (which is what I want) ?

TIA

If your iPod never syncs with iTunes, then none of your played songs will show up. We query iTunes for played songs, not the iPod (the iPod is not an application). So the songs have to be in iTunes.

Also, there must be a Recently Played playlist that tracks what songs have been recently played. We use that playlist to query for the songs.