New Ratings Plugin - based on a ratings database

10/25/07
This plugin has now been changed to a whole RR Media(audio right now, video also possibe!) Database plugin.
It will still support all below features.

Current Done:
*Initial building of Db ( all filetypes read!)
*Automatic importing of old rating playlists in to the Db.
*Current db building scan avg is 4-7 songs per sec. (28 min/~9k files)

Currently working on:
*Communitation between RR and plugin=25%
*Browsing the Db=10%

To-Do List:
*"Watch folder" feature
*TBA...

I have written most of the code already and am looking for some input. It will be 100% replaceable for anyone aready using sonic's older ratings system. There will also be a small util to import your already existing 1-5 star playlists. I started on this because right now, with the current rating system, you can rate whatever songs as 5 star, but I want to only play my 5 star rated bass songs. Can't do that, unless you want to skip through the 5 star playlist but thats not good. I have mentioned it to sonic as an idea and he said that he was already working on this in his unreleased version. I am sure that he will continue to work on his version, but I like the idea of using a db better than having multiple playlist files.

As of current coding these are the available playlist creation options:

General Star Playlist

• non-rated songs in DB

• 1 star rated songs in DB

• 2 star rated songs in DB

• 3 star rated songs in DB

• 4 star rated songs in DB

• 5 star rated songs in DB

• rated songs, by asending rating in DB

• rated songs, by desending rating in DB

Star by Artist Playlist

• like-rated songs by current artist in DB

• rated songs by current artist in DB

• non-rated songs by current artist in DB

Star by Current Album Playlist

• like-rated songs by current album in DB

• rated songs by current album in DB

• non-rated songs by current album in DB

Star by Current Genre Playlist

• like-rated songs in current genre in DB

• rated songs in current genre in DB

• non-rated songs in current genre in DB

Playlists by number times played

• rated songs, order by Number Played descending in db

• non-rated songs, order by Number Played descending in db

• rated songs, order by Number Played ascending in db

• non-rated songs, order by Number Played ascending in db

One difference is that there will be a background app always running that does all the lookup's and creating the playlist. While sonic's system used actuall files to hold the ratings data, mine will only have one playlist, which get created/changed/updated to the option that you would choose above.

There are also the following options avail:

• Adds every new song to the db when song changes

• Delete unfound records that the song path no longer exits (helps to keep db lutter free)

• Clear the database (why? )

It uses the tag( artist,album,genre) labels in RR to be able to give all the added optons listed above.

So with all that in mind, What is your input??

How about being able to categorize by genre

Ya, I have been trying to figure out something with that alread. Its just figuring out how it would work in a skin.

Well, 41 views and one comment, Thats not a whole lota input...

Blue_ZX3,

That's because I'm waiting to see it!!! It's definetly something that is sorely missing in the present setup.

BTW: what database program are you using? Mysql, SQLite, something else?

cant wait to try this new one out.. my "unreleased" one is working as it should.. but if this works just as well then i'll consider my plugin another replaced program I dont have to work on anymore :D

Thats much better....its SQLite based

Sounds like a good plug-in, I'll definitly try it when it comes out.

Just wondering what kind of CPU usage to expect since it will always be searching and refreshing the database. I for one have an "average" system made of a VIA sp13000, 1 GB DDR400, and a slow 4200 RPM hard drive, but have over 8 GB of songs. To be a universal plug-in, I think you need to be careful and keep that in mind since most users in this community probably won't have higher or significantly better hardware than that at least from my understanding.

Well, it will have to run w/o issues on my system too, M10k 512Ram... That is for the most part, the low end scale of what the average user is using. So yes, it will be very resourcefull(meaning effecient as possible).

The only CPU usage is only when looking up or updated when the song changes, and that shouldn't take at the least 1-2secs..