Amarok/Archives/MediaDevices

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Considerations Common to All Devices

Hotplugging/Automatic Device Recognition

Amarok uses KDE's media device framework recognizing that removable media has been connected. This is known to work with KDE 3.5 with most recent distributions.

As we didn't want to dig into any lower level libraries, automatic recognition of the type of your device is not implemented. Because of this, you are prompted to choose an appropriate media device plugin, when Amarok detects a device for the first time. You can change this choice at any time when your device is connected using the device plugin manager.

Automatic detection of a hotplug event currently only works with file system based devices and with recent KDE versions and on supported platforms (i.e. recent Linux distributions). Because of this, there is also one device for manual connection. This device is also shown, when no media device is connected. If hotplugging works for you, then configure this device to "Disable" and configure your media device while connected. Otherwise, configure the static media device for your type of device.

In any case make sure that your device is only handled once.

Configuration

• Choose the appropriate plugin for your device
• Configure Pre-connect & Post-disconnect Commands
  • Pre-connect (alias mount) command (mine: mount %d)
  • Post-disconnect (alias unmount) command (mine: eject %d)
  • %d gets replaced by the device node for your device
  • These are vital for data integrity
  • Necessary for filesystem-based/mountable devices
  • eject could need root privileges, sometimes it is sufficient to be in group audio
  • eject makes the "Do not disconnect" go away on your iPod
• Mountpoint: only necessary when your system is not capable of automatic device detection and when
  • more than one iPod is connected
  • an empty iPod has to be initialized

Transcoding

For on-the-fly transcoding when transferring files to your media device you need a transcoding script. transKode for example integrates perfectly fine into the Amarok transcoding feature. Unfortunately, transKode is not compatible with Amarok >2.0 and a similar functionality doesn't seem to be available yet...

Syncing Ratings, Play Counts, ...

If enabled and supported by your media device (for the time being this means if you have an iPod), you can automatically increment the playcounts in your Amarok database by the values stored on your iPod. Likewise, ratings that have been changed on the iPod, can be synchronised to Amarok. If synchronisation and Last.fm submission is enabled, Amarok will also try to submit the songs played on your iPod to last.fm.

Specific Devices

Generic Audio Player Plugin

• For use with most media devices, which don't need a special protocol. Most cheap devices will probably work with the VFAT plugin.

iRiver IFP Plugin

• Works with older generations of iRiver media devices.
• Script: Playlist generator for iRiver T10 UMS

Apple iPod Plugin

• all kinds of iPods
• Motorola iTunes phones
• jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch (firmware 1.x only)

NJB Plugin

• Creative Nomad
• Creative Zen (Zen, Touch, Micro, Sleek)
• Dell Digital Jukebox (both generations 1 and 2, and Pocket DJ)

MTP Plugin

• Used for newer versions of iRiver media devices, Creative Zen Vision, Toshiba Gigabeat and Samsung devices.

Rio Karma Plugin

• Supports the Rio Karma 20 Gb hard-disk player.

Other Devices

Your portable player is not supported yet? How about writing a plugin for your portable for your favourite music player? Have a look at Writing a Media Device Plugin for some hints for writing additional media device plugins. We are happy to include additional plugins, and would also adapt the generic interface to your device's special needs.