This is another small release containing URL relationship fixes, so I’ll let the changelog speak for itself. 🙂 Thanks again to yvanz and chirlu for their contributions. The git tag is v-2016-08-29.
Month: August 2016
GSoC ’16 + ListenBrainz = fun :)
Hello,
I am Pinkesh Badjatiya and I have been working on ListenBrainz as part of GSoC ’16. I was largely involved in implementing the most requested features in ListenBrainz.
I began my journey with MetaBrainz not long before the Final Organization list was out. I started with MusicBrainz but moved quickly to ListenBrainz, and have been working on it since then.
About the project
The project consisted of creating a proxy scrobbling API similar to last.fm’s which could be used by existing desktop clients to submit listens to listenbrainz.org. I submitted my initial idea, that involved creating a new API along with few other optional features that were very much required (import, export, etc.).
The project made its way through the approval process, and I worked with ruaok (my mentor) & alastairp to get important things done. Yey!
Here are some of the snapshots of the my journey with ListenBrainz.
API_compat
ListenBrainz already had its own API which can be used to fetch/submit listens but all the existing clients that support scrobbling to last.fm use the ws.audioscrobbler.com’s API. To add support for these clients, I ended up creating a proxy API, api_compat (as in “compatible API”), that translates every request that is sent to “api.listenbrainz.org/2.0/” in the native format. This is an additional API which can be used along with the existing native ListenBrainz’s API.
This was largely the main goal of my project proposal. The instructions for scrobbling using Audacious are attached along with the source code.
Import lastfm-backup
The import page now allows users to import listens from the last.fm scrobbles or from the backup file which was downloaded from the older version of the last.fm website.
On successful import of listens from backup, you’ll get the following notification.
Export listens
This allows users to export the listens from the listenbrainz.org website. This is useful for users who want to keep track of their listen history offline as well.
The export feature can be accessed from the drop-down menu.
Playing Now
With the support for API-Compat, the support for currently playing song was needed. This keeps the currently playing song on the website in sync with your favourite player.
Import scraper uses audioscrobbler API
I also worked on updating the import scraper which now use the ws.audioscrobbler.com‘s API allowing users to import without opening their last.fm profiles. This also provides other useful track information to ListenBrainz.
Migrate to PostgreSQL
Another important change to ListenBrainz was how it stored listens. We moved from using Cassandra to PostgreSQL. Cassandra was fast and effective but getting more information other than the user’s listens (ex. generating statistics) was not possible. So we switched to Postgres + Redis. This opened more possibilities for future.
Experience
After 3.5 months, I ended up with 15 merged and 3 closed PR’s and a bunch of features for ListenBrainz that improved its look and feel.
My pull requests: https://github.com/metabrainz/listenbrainz-server/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr%20author%3Apinkeshbadjatiya%20
I have worked on quite a lot of varied things in the past 4 months. A lot of them were actually not the part of the GSoC proposal but they were done largely in the same timeline or were optional targets, so I suppose they would count significantly towards GSoC.
I worked largely with alastairp, ruaok and Gentlecat. Gentlecat helped improve my coding style by providing feedback on my PR’s. I worked with alastairp and ruaok regarding the ideas/suggestions on how to address a problem and its possible solutions. It was a interesting experience working with the community and getting to know about MetaBrainz. Now that my understanding of the project and the community has increased, I look forward to making some great contributions!
Conclusion
In short, ListenBrainz went through a hell lot of changes in the past 4 months. If you were waiting for it to improve before using it, then now is the time that you should try it. I bet you’ll love its new look and you won’t be disappointed. 😀
Summer of Code ’16 with Picard
Hi! I’m Rahul Raturi, GSoC participant for Picard. This was my first GSoC, and it’s been a pretty awesome experience. Following is the overview of my project.
About the project
The outline of the project is to allow searching for albums, artists and tracks from within Picard. This avoids switching back and forth between web browser and Picard for searching, say release. If Picard fails to auto tag a file usual flow to tag the file with correct metadata is to first select the file, then click on “Lookup in Browser”, then search correct release, and load it into Picard by clicking the green “Tagger” button. In some systems, the “Tagger” button wouldn’t show, which was also a nuisance. With this patch, the entities can be searched and optionally loaded into Picard using built-in search dialogs, so no application switching.
Search dialogs
Picard already provides search options (through a web browser) for three entities; namely track, artist, and album. So I’ve built search dialogs for these three.
- Track Search Dialog — Searches for tracks and allows optionally loading corresponding album back into Picard.
- Album Search Dialog — Searches albums and optionally allows loading the selected one into Picard.
- Artist Search Dialog — Displays basic information about the artists. To get more information about the selected artist, there’s an option to lookup him/her in browser.
Searching similar tracks/releases
This is another important part of the project. Sometimes Picard fails to auto tag a file (or a cluster), or incorrectly tag it. These dialogs may prove useful here. To get expected data, right click on the file (should be in “Unmatched Files” cluster), and select “Search for similar tracks…”. The track search dialog would pop up, and expected release can be looked up there. Same procedure is for searching clusters.
Links to my work
- Picard pull request #475: includes base structure, and functionality of the dialog. Also the track dialog is written in this PR.
- Picard pull request #486: contains patches for the album search dialog. Currently in review.
- Picard pull request #487: for the artist search dialog. It’s also still open as of this writing.
Each PR is based on the previous one. A new dialog in each, plus some improvements to existing dialog. For trying the dialog, clone the artist search branch, until it gets merged into master. It has the most recent changes.
Note: To use these dialog for searching, an option in User Interface setting about built-in search needs to be enabled.
Conclusion
It was quite fun doing this project. Thanks to Michael Wiencek (mentor) for the guidance and leniency :). Also the Picard team for the reviews. I look forward to contribute more to Picard, now that I’ve a better understanding of the code. Also for another Summer of Code.
BookBrainz GSoC Gamification/Achievement System
Hi guys, I’m Max (AKA QuoraUK), a university student working with BookBrainz as part of Google Summer of Code. My project this summer has been to build a new gamification system, that introduces rewards for BookBrainz users and recognises their achievements. Here I will explain the system and the features I’ve implemented.
Overview
My original specification for the gamification system is here. To summarise, the idea behind gamification is to add game-like elements to the site in order to make it more engaging for users. The plan for the gamification of BookBrainz was:
- Add badges and titles for users to earn on the BookBrainz site
- Allow users to display badges and titles on their profile page
- Encourage regular and high quality content
To implement this plan we have added 12 achievement tracks – once an achievement track is completed a title is unlocked. The artwork for the badges is currently “programmer art” and we are very open to other people designing replacements for them. This could be a part of this year’s Google Code-In. The achievements that will be available on launch are:
All of these are unit tested and have unique badges for each tier on the track. If you would have already unlocked these achievements before the system was launched, you will earn them with your next revision/creation. Badge templates are available for developers to introduce new badges and adding achievements can be as simple as making a badge and adding a few lines of code.
Profile Page
The gamification system also brings some changes to the profile page. There is now a badge box which can contain your three favorite badges. Additionally, your selected title is shown next to your username. You can select your favorite badges in the new achievements menu on the profile, then drag and drop your favorites into the boxes. Titles can be selected by going to Edit Profile, and selecting them from the drop down menu.
Other Areas
On creation of an entity or revision you will now see an alert if an achievement is unlocked. This will prompt you to go to your profile page and set the ones you want to display. Usernames in other areas of the site can be hovered over in order to see the title they have set.
Demonstration
Here is a demonstration video I’ve made for the system:
Continue reading “BookBrainz GSoC Gamification/Achievement System”
Another AcousticBrainz update and a survey
Last year we started working on features to improve data produced from information about recordings that you submit to AcousticBrainz. First part of it was a way to create datasets that are used to train high-level models. The next were dataset creation challenges.
We already have a significant number of datasets created by AcousticBrainz community. The list of public datasets is available at https://beta.acousticbrainz.org/datasets/list. A couple of days ago our experimental challenge has concluded. It was related to classifying music with and without vocals. You can see final results at https://beta.acousticbrainz.org/challenges/14095b3b-4469-4e4d-984e-ef5f1a55962c.
Your feedback on high-level data
The latest addition to AcousticBrainz is a way to provide feedback about high-level output that you can see on summary pages for recordings. After a model is applied to all of the AcousticBrainz data we can understand how well it performs on a larger scale. This should help us make further improvements to models and underlying datasets. Keep in mind that you need to be logged in with your MusicBrainz account to see this.
Survey about new features
To help us understand how well new features work for you, we created a survey for you to participate in. If you have used AcousticBrainz, please fill out the survey here: https://goo.gl/forms/Oh3a9INBCCsW2I1i1. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. We’ll keep it open for about a week.
Your feedback is very much appreciated. Especially considering that we don’t have a lot of ways to collect it from people. Some come to IRC and tell us about issues they are having, some comment on blog posts or create tickets in JIRA. But at this point we need a better overview of the current state of the project.
Thank you! 🎶
Server update, 2016-08-15
This release features some more URL cleanup improvements from Yvanz, as well as a couple UI fixes, and some new events in our timeline graph from Mineo. Thanks, Yvanz and Mineo!
The git tag for today’s release is v-2016-08-15. (Note: This blog post was published a day late.)
Bug
- [MBS-8301] – Relationship tree misrepresented in the relationship editor
- [MBS-9042] – Misaligned rows in editor profile general information using some languages
Improvement
- [MBS-4864] – Add more events to the timeline
Task
Server update, 2016-08-01
We have one URL cleanup fix this week for ResidentAdvisor links — thanks to Yvanz for working on that! We’re still working very hard on moving to a more reliable hosting platform, which is why this week’s release is a small one again. Most of our services have been ported to Docker at this point, and we’re planning to start testing the deployment of these soon. We appreciate everyone’s patience!
The git tag is v-2016-08-01.
Bug
- [MBS-8148] – ResidentAdvisor reviews get selected as Other Database
MetaBrainz Blog 