Edgy-Penguins - "Linux for Non-Geeks" - Apps & Projects - XMMS Cover Viewer

XMMS Cover Viewer

Introduction: XMMS Cover Viewer, shown below, is an XMMS visualization plugin that shows the cover of the album for any song you are playing. It also automatically downloads an image of the cover for the album of whatever song you are playing and then stores it on your hard disk for future use.

Installing XMMS-Devel: Before you can install XMMS Cover Viewer, you will need to have the XMMS development libraries installed on your system. Depending on what disks you originally used to install your system, xmms-devel may be on your install disks in one of the RPM folders. If so, you can copy the file from the CD to your hard disk, change the permissions of the file so that you have Write and Execute permissions, and then just double-click it to install the file via the simple RPM method you learned in Chapter 8. You can also install it via APT/Synaptic by running Synaptic, typing xmms-devel in the Find box of the main Synaptic window, and then following the general procedures explained in Chapter 10 of the book. Either way you go about things, once the file is installed in your system, you are ready to move on. . . Installing XMMS Cover Viewer: Although there are some versions of XMMS Cover Viewer which come in RPM form, the most recent version, which is better in terms of features, comes only as a source tarball. You will thus need to compile and install this game via the command Terminal as you learned to do in Chapters 9 and 11 of "Linux for Non-Geeks." Fortunately, it is a very easy installation. The Steps: Download the most recent XMMS Cover Viewer tarball from the XMMS Cover Viewer project download page.  Once the download is complete, double-click the xmms-coverviewer tarball (xmms-coverviewer-0.11pre3.tar.gz as of this writing) to bring up the File Roller program. Once the program is open, follow the extraction process you learned in Chapter 11. Once the tarball is extracted, you will have a new folder matching the name of the tarball minus the "tar.gz" (xmms-coverviewer-0.11pre in this case). Now open a Terminal window and cd to the new folder. If the folder is in your Home folder, just type cd xmms-cover* and then hit ENTER. Note that you are using the wildcard character, *, to lessen your typing duties a tad. Now in the same Terminal window, type ./configure and then hit ENTER. Once the configure process is complete, type (in the Terminal, of course) make and hit ENTER. Once make has done its thing, and you are back at your prompt, become root by typing su and hitting ENTER, and then typing in your root password and hitting ENTER. Now that you are root, your prompt should be displaying a # rather than a $. If so, type in make install and hit ENTER.  Exit root mode by typing exit and hitting Enter. Type exit and hit ENTER again to close the Terminal (or just click the X in the upper right hand corner of the Terminal window). Using XMMS Cover Viewer: Now that the installation is complete, you can use XMMS Cover Viewer by running XMMS (Main menu > Sound & Video > Audio Player), right-clicking anywhere in the main XMMS player or Equalizer windows, and then selecting Options > Preferences in the pop-up menu that appears. Once the Preferences window appears, click the General Plugins tab, then, in the top pane of that tab, click on the name of the plugin, CoverViewer 0.11, to highlight it, and finally click the checkbox next to the words Enable plugin. You might also want to click the Configure button to check that the Preserve image ratios and Enable skins checkboxes are checked in the Configuration window. You should also click the Internet tab and to make sure that the Auto Internet Search checkbox is checked. When you are done checking for these checkboxes, click the OK button in the Configuration window (to close that window), and then click on then click the OK button in the Preferences window, after which it too will close. The XMMS Cover Viewer window will then appear, showing a picture of Tux, the Linux Mascot. Afer that, give XMMS Cover Viewer a try by playing one of your music files with XMMS. Assuming you are online when you do this, XMMS Cover Viewer will search a series of sites on the Internet to find the appropriate cover for the album you are playing, after which it will save the image to the hidden .covers directory it creates within your Home folder. Other Stuff: XMMS Cover Viewer's search and download feature is very handy indeed; however, it still isn't fully foolproof. Sometimes, it downloads the wrong cover for the Album in question. For example, it downloaded a Nora Jones cover when I was playing Lush's "Lovelife." In such cases, you will have take things in your own hands. Just go to an online CD reseller, such as Amazon.com, and search for the Album you are looking for. Then click the View Larger Image link (or equivalent for the site you are searching), and then download the image file on that page by right-clicking on it, and then selecting Save Image As in the pop-up menu, after which your browser's Save As window will appear. In that window, check the box next to the words Show hidden files and directories, and then scroll through the window until you see .covers. Once you do,double-click on that folder in order to select it as the download destination. Finally, change the title of the file you are downloading to match that of the incorrect image that XMMS Cover Viewer already downloaded (You will be able to see this in the window), being sure not to change the file extension if it is different - In other words, do not change a .gif extension to .jpg, and so on. Once done, click the Save button and XMMS Cover Viewer will use that image from then on. One other thing worth mentioning is that you can set things up to so as to only display XMMS Cover Viewer while playing music. Just right-click anywhere in the Cover Viewer window, keeping the mouse button depressed, and select Hide XMMS in the pop-up menu. You can then use the controls in the XMMS Cover Viewer window to control the basic XMMS playback functions.

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