I am very keen on the open source approach of the Slim software. Items like AlienBBC and the VU meter graphics probably wouldn't exist in a closed system.
I also believe that using third party rippers like EAC and iTunes is the way to go. You don't want to recreate all those products again. I think that there could be better documentation on how the whole thing hangs together. Many music lovers are already familiar with ripping mp3 players etc but for the complete novice this could be a bit overwhelming. The wiki is good as a reference guide but sometimes a users guide or howto is more appropriate to describe common tasks. I have to admit that I haven't looked at the docs very much. A configuration tool could be handy too but this also has inherent difficulties. All the common settings are available through the web interface, but it I must say that it feels a bit clumsy and extentions are not included. The other config options have disadvantages too. You could create an app to configure all the common settings. Perhaps a bit like the Civ4 (game) editor that can be used to recreate a totally different game. To make such an app portable between platforms you'd probably have to go Java which then means users need to install java, the right version etc. Also making a config tool extensible to cover all the extentions would probably make it very difficult to use. Perhaps all that is needed is a way to extent the config web pages. I found that adding new radio stations to alienBBC wasn't very intuitive. It wouldn't be very hard to have a "slim way" of structuring datafiles and making the slim web config tool open these files for editing. If we look at other opensource products like the linux distros the most obvious thing that they provide is a form of packaging and organising. ie there are several package managers like rpm and apt and there is a certain structure as to how things are organised. Now I am not saying that all extensions should be packaged in rpm but to keep it managable you would want to impose a certain structure. I also have to admit that I have not contemplated creating an extention and have not looked in the developers forum and feel free to correct me if this is already in place. In summary I think you'd need: 1) a user guide to setting up slimserver with iTunes (for newbies) 2) a users guide/overview that describes how the components of a slim server system work together. ie slimserver, music db, browser, squeezebox, remote, hifi, ripper, etc Neither of these guides have to be huge, I think it can be done in a few pages (less than 10, famous last words...) 3) a structure for the extentions and accessibility to the configurator for extentions. The squeezebox itself is the easiest wifi device I have ever setup so it must be possible to make the rest easy too. -- gusi ------------------------------------------------------------------------ gusi's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3801 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=25168 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
