Configuring the services

One of the things that I have known for a while had to be done, but I had not really gotten around to, was making proper configuration pages for some of the services. For instance, having to type your mp3tunes username every time you want to use the mp3tunes service or the new ampache service. Also, it should be possible to disable services that are not used. With the recent conversion of all the services to proper plugins, I decided that it was time to start looking at this.

First of all, the neat KPluginSelector widget gives us an easy way of showing available plugins and enabling or disabling them. This makes it simple for each user to have only the plugins that are interesting to him or her shown in the service browser, and allows us to ship a large number of plugins without having to worry about the service browser becoming overcrowded. Then the only big question becomes which services to enable per default. For now, I have settled on Jamendo, Magnatune and Shoutcast. The reason for this choice is, that these are the current services usable by any user right away without requiring a account on some external server. Here is first a screenshot of the main service config page:



In this screenshot is also shown the new last.fm service that Shane King has just started working on.

For now I have written config pages for 3 of the services. Ampache, Mp3tunes and Magnatune.


The Ampache config allows configuration of any number of ampache servers, and a service will be created for each in the service browser:



For now, the only config options for the Mp3tunes service is simply to store the username and password so the service can connect automatically next time it is shown:



For the Magnatune service, I added experimental support for the upcoming Magnatune memberships. These memberships are not available just yet, but will be soon. In fact, getting these memberships ready for launch constitutes most of my day job these days. When this is done I will get to spend some real time getting Amarok2 ready:


All in all, these config options go a long way towards making many of the services more useful and less like the "developer toys" they have been for a while.