Author Topic: Cloud storage  (Read 12040 times)

Steven

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I am tossing up whether to do a cloud storage plugin (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox). I havent looked at whats involved yet so not promising all of these.
So i just wanted to gauge the interest and have a question. I see the plugin providing synching functionality and library searching/ playback - it would either be viewed as a separate library or as a device (yet to be decided).

I guess the helpful thing with that is you can be using musicbee from work or from home on the same files without the hassle of needing to transfer the files to a usb device. However I expect the most common use case would be playback from your mobile device. But MusicBee isnt available on a mobile device and most likely never will be.
So does having such a plugin really add much value to people? ie. why wouldnt you just use google play for example
Perhaps there are already good cloud based library players for Android, Apple and WinPhone devices, in which case there might be some value in this plugin?

phred

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Personally I wouldn't use it for a number of reasons. 
1 - Uploading (albeit one time) 100+ gb of music to the cloud would take quite a while.
2 - The cost for storing 100+ gb on a cloud server would not be inexpensive.
3 - I already have and use SubSonic.  It's available for Mac, Windows, and Linux desktops, along with Android, iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows phones.  I can access the music on my home hard drive from anywhere in the world.
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psychoadept

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The main use I could imagine making of such a feature would be to upload a playlist for sharing, which would probably work best if it was set up as a device. But then I could just configure my box sync folder as a device.

Perhaps the ability to select a folder to sync to would cover this need, and probably some others.
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Zak

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Like some previous suggestions, I think it sounds like:

1. the sort of thing people will +1 because it sounds like a great idea, without really know why they want/need it
2. you'll spend a bit of time creating a working plugin
3. a small percentage of people will install the plugin and then realise they don't really want/need it
4. you'll spend a lot of time solving issues for a small percentage of that small percentage that persevere with it.

I wouldn't use it for the same reasons phred has suggested. My library is currently around 700GB and growing as I swap out older files for new FLAC rips. Storing all of that online isn't an option, nor is streaming FLAC files to anywhere outside my home because bandwidth.
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Steven

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1. the sort of thing people will +1 because it sounds like a great idea, without really know why they want/need it
this is exactly how i feel about it as well but lets see

Bee-liever

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I see the plugin providing synching functionality and library searching/ playback...

...MusicBee isnt available on a mobile device and most likely never will be.

With my library being over 50% (and growing) in FLAC, I'm in the same camp as Zak and phred.  I already use MB to convert (to portable device MP3 profile) and sync to a drive on my NAS that is set up as a virtual device.  That drive is also mirrrored to cloud storage.

As MB is unlikely to ever be my player on a portable device, the only improvement I could think of to what is currently achievable, would be allowing a folder, rather than an entire drive, to be set as a virtual device
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psychoadept

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As MB is unlikely to ever be my player on a portable device, the only improvement I could think of to what is currently achievable, would be allowing a folder, rather than an entire drive, to be set as a virtual device

That's what I was trying to say.
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Steven

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I will enable creation of virtual devices from a sub-folder rather than just a root folder in the 2.6 series.

Steven

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i have added support for virtual devices that can new be mapped to a computer sub-folder.
The addition and removal of a virtual device is now done in the Preferences/ Devices panel

unzip and replace the existing musicbee application files:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_5/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

As to the plugin, there doesnt appear to be any interest and other third party tools can probably do the job anyway so i wont do this plugin

redwing

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i have added support for virtual devices that can new be mapped to a computer sub-folder.
The addition and removal of a virtual device is now done in the Preferences/ Devices panel

This is a great addition and working great.
It would be nice if computer node in left navigator provides context menu command "set as virtual device" without having to navigate into preferences panel.

redwing

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How do I unmount the virtual device from computer node? "Safely Remove" command doesn't work.

Steven

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they can be deleted in the Device Preferences panel
However i will change the wording for "Safely Remove Device" when its a virtual device as it doesnt apply and it will also delete the device

redwing

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So is it not allowed to unmount the device when it's not used? To not show it under devices node, does it have to be deleted from the list?

Steven

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for the next updare i have changed it so Virtual Devices can be activated/ deactivated without deleting them

Steven

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