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Manage and stream your music from a central server to clients connected through a LAN and/or the internet.
Focus is on easy navigation as well as speed.
If AmpJuke is unknown to you, please take a look at the features.
The best ? AmpJuke is free ! (GPL license)
 
12-12-2009: AmpJuke 0.8.1: Integration with the Bing API.
This release of AmpJuke has some exciting new features plus a few improvements so please read on (or download AmpJuke right away):

- New feature: "Scan metadata".
It's possible to auto-download and store images of albums and artists/performers, using a new functionality - "Scan metadata".
"Scan metadata" is using the API associated with the Microsoft Bing search engine to automatically find albums covers and artist images.
More information about configuration of AmpJuke vs. the Bing API is right here.
More information about automatic download of cover and performer images can be found in this FAQ-entry.

- New feature: Create and automatically populate a favorite list with tracks.
If you need to create and automatically populate a favorite list with music, this new functionality might help.
This was - once again - made possible using last.fm's API (and some heavy coding in AmpJuke, naturally).
More information about favorite lists can be found in this FAQ-entry.

- New feature: Using last.fm and Bing API vs. album covers and performer images.
The option to replace/lookup covers and/or images for albums/performers has been improved so it's now using the API from last.fm and the API from Bing.
Cover and performer images are used in a lot of places in AmpJuke.
Just take a look at "Browse performers by picture", "Browse albums by covers" and/or information about a specific performer - here's an example from the screenshots:

Display a specific performer w. pictures+bio retrieved from last.fm


- Improved: Scan+import can lookup local (ie. from the filesystem) album covers during scan+import.
If you have album images stored in the same folder as the album tracks, then activating a setting can look for album images to be used+displayed later on.
Thanks to wurlitzer (great nickname, btw) for notifying about it in the forum + contributing with some code to build upon.
More about scan+import of music can be found in this FAQ-entry.

- New feature: The option "Keep me signed in..." on the login page can be hidden.
More info. here.

- Error correction: "Re-process tracks found in database and on the filesystem" caused error(s) to be displayed.
This is no longer the case.
Thanks to enedene for notifying about it in the forum.

As mentioned above you can get AmpJuke 0.8.1 right here. I've taken some time to get the FAQ up to date.
The installation example/guide has also been updated.

Unless something really nasty shows up in this release, it will be the last for 2009. As usual, I've tested as much as possible before release.
Thanks to all who took the time to post (nice) feedback in the forum, and thanks to everybody else who uses AmpJuke to stream music online - may YOUR hits keep on coming in 2010 and beyond!

//Michael.


13-09-2009: AmpJuke 0.8.0: Flash player introduced.
As mentioned when releasing earlier versions of AmpJuke with a .0 at the end of the version number: Your mother/father/family/friends/whatever may have warned you about drugs, driving with strangers, and - especially - software releases that has a version number ending with .0 (point-oh).

Well...having done as much as possible to test+verify everything is OK, AmpJuke 0.8.0 is now available for download.

This release is about the introduction of one major new functionality as well as a change in the method album covers are retrieved:

- Automatic cover retrieval: Ditched Amazon, switched to last.fm.
Amazon recently made it a bit harder to fetch, download and display album covers automatically using the Amazon API/webservice.
So I switched to the functions dealing with covers in the API provided by last.fm.
From now on album covers are found, downloaded and displayed automatically - provided last.fm finds a cover, of course.
This makes it much easier to configure the album cover feature in AmpJuke, since no API-key is needed anymore.
Bear in mind you can upload your own covers as well.
More information in this FAQ-entry.

- New feature: Flash player introduced.
Having been asked for a flash player feature a while ago in the forum, it's (finally) implemented in AmpJuke - thanks to nevergone for pointing me in the right direction with some code for inspiration.
The flash player relies on the XSPF Web Music Player (it's also included in the download).
Please note that the flash player is not supposed to replace the normal way music streaming works, but rather supposed to be an "add-on" to the streaming music engine in AmpJuke.
More about the flash player in AmpJuke here and here....and a small screenshot to get your curiosity up a notch right away:
The flash player in AmpJuke


- Error correction: Scan+import of music only happened in subfolders.
A rather annoying error has been corrected.
It's related to the fact that music found in the "base_music_folder" was not discovered during scan+import.
F.ex. a track located in /music/track01.mp3 would not be found during scan+import, but /music/somefolder/track01.mp3 would.
This is no longer the case.
Yes...we've seen some cases in the forum in the past...I'm sorry for the pain, anger and grief this error might have caused.

- Error correction: "Play all..." from a specific favorite list.
Nothing started playing when clicking on "Play all..." in relation to any given online playlist (favorite list).
This is no longer the case, so feel free to stream your music using "Play all...", again.

- Optimized: Displaying images of related performers is now remarkably faster.
...really.
At least compared to earlier releases.
Furthermore, when clicking "Refresh related..." the existing images are left untouched and only new images are retrieved, stored and displayed.
More about related performers here and here.

- Fixed: Only administrators are allowed to edit biographies for albums and artists/performers.
...at least starting from this release :)
More about automatic retrieval of biographies from albums and artists/performers in the corresponding FAQ-entry.

So - what's holding you back ?? Download AmpJuke, follow the installation guide, and perhaps customize your setup with help from the FAQ and/or the forum.

//Michael.


07-07-2009: AmpJuke 0.7.9: More improvements.
Wow...when going through the changelog I saw there are a lot of improvements in this release of AmpJuke, - some of them as follows:

- Improvement: Upload performer picture.
If you happen to have a better picture of a performer/group compared to the pictures retrieved by the last.fm webservice, you can upload and replace a picture of any performer/group in your music collection.
So - if you have a picture of yourself drinking whiskey with AC/DC, discussing climate changes with Bono, spending time in the jacuzzi with Sugababes or perhaps just hanging out with Moby - you can upload that picture.
...and - naturally - brag about it to anyone who has access to your AmpJuke box.

- Improvement: Browse albums by covers.
It's possible to browse albums by covers (pictures) rather than a "plain" list (for old-timers the list is still an option).
This is a personal setting - so users decides for themselves what's best ("plain" list or covers).
Basically, it looks like this screenshot:    

Browse albums by covers.
More info. in this FAQ-entry: http://www.ampjuke.org/faq.php?q_id=67.

- New functionality: Edit biographies for albums and performers.
This functionality was made possible by including the TinyMCE JavaScript editor. Thanks! It's great somebody codes+documents something useful and makes it public for people to download!
Users with administrator access can edit the various biographies retrieved, stored and displayed automatically from last.fm.
Please note that: a) Bio's "operates" on two levels: A short bio (summary) and a long. Each is treated individually...  b) This is a coded-just-before-release-functionality, - if you encounter  any errors I'll be more than happy to know about it in the forum.
More info. in this FAQ-entry: http://www.ampjuke.org/faq.php?q_id=57.

- Improvement: Browse performers by pictures.
Basically same comments to this one as seen above.
More info. in this FAQ-entry: http://www.ampjuke.org/faq.php?q_id=68.

- Improvement: Retrieving "squared" images of related performers from last.fm.
Related performers retrieved+stored from last.fm's webservice, is now retrieving+storing the "squared" pictures.
The pictures comes in a fixed size of 126x126px. Previously, it wasn't possible to determine in advance the size of a picture from a related performer.
This approach looks much, much better - at least in my humble opinion...

- Improvement: Columns of related performers rather than rows.
When dispalying related performers and _not_ having a configured number of samples displayed, the related performers are shown in several rows rather than one related performer per row.
More info. in this FAQ-entry: http://www.ampjuke.org/faq.php?q_id=41.

- New theme: Minimalistic.
An attempt to make a theme for netbooks and other stuff w. relatively small screens.


For a complete list, please take a look at the changelog.txt.

And - as always - feel free to investigate the screenshots, take AmpJuke for a spin in the demo, or - even better - download and give AmpJuke a try on your own box.
Please note there's help available, - f.ex. the detailed installation example, the FAQ and of course the forum.

//Michael.


19-05-2009: AmpJuke 0.7.8: Improvements...
Hey! I'm just about to turn 41. I'm still accepting birthday presents...
However, I would also like to offer you a present (birthday or not): Get AmpJuke 0.7.8, and apply some magic to your music-collection.

The 0.7.8 release is mainly about improvements to existing functionality, as follows:

- Error correction: Change password in personal settings.
When changing the password in personal settings (Login -> Settings), the new password wasn't stored.
That is no longer the case.

- Unexpected behavior fixed:
When deleting something from the database (track,album,performer) and with "Confirm deletion" turned on in the personal settings, nothing happened.
This is no longer the case.
Thanks to Samme for notifying about it in the forum.

- More information about related performers.
When displaying a specific performer and with 'related performers' turned on, the part of the page with related performers now shows the number of tracks in the database plus a configured maximum number of track/samples for each related performer.
More information here: http://www.ampjuke.org/faq.php?q_id=41 .
 
- Advanced search introduced.
Besides using the simple search, it's also possible to do a more advanced search based on several parameters.
F.ex. is it possible to search all performers starting with a specific letter, search for all albums starting with "E" from a specific year, or search for tracks with the word "love" from albums starting with "A"....or another combination...
There's no FAQ-entry in relation to this, so you might want to give it a try in the demo (click on "Search" in the left menu to the left).
 
- Reflection on album image.
When displaying an album, a reflection of the album's image can be shown.
This is a site-wide setting that must be enabled before reflections are shown.
Please note that an AWS-key is required in order to obtain album images for your music collection.
Also please note that not all browsers will display reflections - no matter if it is enabled or not.
More information here: http://www.ampjuke.org/faq.php?q_id=10 .

- Added a new icon-set - "Boomy".
The icons are relatively large and therefore best suited on medium to big sized monitors/screens.
Feel free to add your own in order to apply a personal look to AmpJuke, see this: http://www.ampjuke.org/faq.php?q_id=49 .

As usual, more information is available various places on this site.
For starters, please take a look at the features, the demo, the FAQ or - if you're in a hurry - go straight to the download page...please don't forget there's a installation example available to get you started without too much headache.

//Michael.




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