General useage and auto update database

[Anonymous]

Hi Guys,

I’m trying to understand the useage of this program. I’ve gone through the wiki and Faq and it is a bit outdated and I can’t really find the answer to my question.

I have a WHS machine with 3 other machines in my house. Currently, all music resides on the WHS machine. The three other computers in the house run iTunes. What I have done is map a network drive to each machine ans assign that as the music directory on each machine. This works great but whenever music is added, the other 2 machines need to have the music databases manually updated. For this I use ituneslibrary updater.

1.) What I would like to know is, what is the advantage of using firefly over my method?

2.) Will firefly automatically update the other machines if I add music?

3.) I was interested in this once I read about the java web client, fireflyclient. How well does this work?

Thanks,
Peter

[fizze]

There is fireplay which is a web (flash) client, and then there is fireflyclient, which is a java client for firefly.
There are a few others meanwhile, they all work rather well.

You could consolidate your shares into one music library with firefly, so that all remote clients would access only that one. No more need to sync 😉

[Anonymous]

@fizze wrote:

There is fireplay which is a web (flash) client, and then there is fireflyclient, which is a java client for firefly.
There are a few others meanwhile, they all work rather well.

You could consolidate your shares into one music library with firefly, so that all remote clients would access only that one. No more need to sync 😉

Well I’m looking for a web client that I can install on the server to do remote streaming of the music. I was under the impression that fireflyclient was the only one that could do that.

I’m not following on the second part. All of the music is in a central place now. It is all on the WHS server. Is this what you mean?

I guess the problem I have is Itunes is not smart enough to detect changes. If I add a song through Itunes it will autmatically add the song to that machines database. However, If i add it in the background, It doesn’t always pick it up. This is especially true with larger music collections, I have to rescan.

For example, computer 1 rips a CD via iTunes and it gets stored on the WHS sever (all music is on the server). It is now in computer 1’s library because iTunes for computer 1 did it and will add it. Computer 2 and 3 will not know that this music has been added to their own iTunes until I rescan the library on each machine.

So, what does firefly do differently that would make me avoid syncing or rescanning? Does it make itunes rescan each time the program starts? Realtime?

[EVILRipper]

Firefly acts as a shared iTunes library. Firefly does indeed need a rescan, but the shared library is available to all computers on the network. So that way they all have the same music.
Also, you can set a ‘rescan interval’ to have firefly rescan every x seconds automatically. (up to minutes, hours days, etc)
So in that way, firefly will manage your music, and share it to any PC’s on the network.

Next to emulating a shared iTunes library, it can be approached in several ways.
Thus allowing other clients to access your music.

Fireflyclient is a java application; An alternative to iTunes, but allowing easier access than iTunes from outside of your local network. (Over the internet)
Fireplay is a flash-based web app that is hosted at the same spot as the administration page from firefly. When you open your browser to Fireplay, a webbased flash client is viewed, allowing you to stream music from firefly to the PC with the browser.

Hope this clarifies a few misunderstandings…

[fizze]

In addition to what’s been said: You can set firefly to always scan. It will only index new files or files that have changed, and only if there are no clients connected. (To avoid lag)
There is someone working on implementing inotify. Although I don’t know whether that’s of any use under win32.

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