From: "Brian Willoughby" <brianw@sounds.wa.com>
I suggest that you lose the OGG and MP3 directories, and just have:
pub incoming
Ugg. You want me to make it look like a *nix listing, don't ya. ;) j/k! I try to keep my FTP servers as "clean" as possible when it comes to the directory listings, hence the thought of the MP3 and OOG directories right at the "root" of the server (More thoughts on this below).
Perhaps you should require that files be renamed if they don't already have an extension.
That would be tough to enforce, at least on the server side. If someone uploads a file and there is no extension, however, I could look at the file in a hex editor to determine the format. MP3s keep the IDv1 tags at the end and IDv2 at the beginning of the file. The first three bytes in OGG files begin with Ogg (4F 67 67H) and vorbis (76 6F 72 62 69 73H) at position 67H.
I use Mac OS X, which is happier with the Unix file extension mechanism.
I can't imagine why... ;)
if there is an MP3-only song, or an OGG-only song, we will see it without looking in two places.
Ahh! Good point. Didn't think about that. See below for another idea :)
The only disadvantage is that it won't be very useful to download *all* files in a directory because there will be duplicates which vary only in format (and subjective quality).
Hopefully people will realize this when it comes to selecting them. Some may just tell their FTP client to download the directory, without themselves looking inside that directory to see what's there. I also hope to "seed" the directories with albums that are known to be around, but no one has uploaded yet, (A Wish List, if you will. :) ), so the directory may be completely empty.
One idea is to collapse the Low and High Quality directories and use naming conventions. song1.L.mp3 would be equivalent to MP3/Low_Quality/song1, and song2.H.ogg would be like OGG/High_Quality/song2
That could become an administrative nightmare on my side. If someone ups 50 tracks in one sitting, I would not only have to listen to every track and check for ID tags, but also rename them before I would move them to the public folder. Renaming them at the command prompt using these wildcards does work: ren *.mp3 *.L.mp3 ren *.oog *.H.oog But I would have to seperate them into different folders first anyway before I could rename them. It may be possible as long as it doesn't become a heavy burdon. I could definitely use the help from you all when it comes to judging the quality. :)
An added bonus is that if you don't have time to evaluate the quality, you can leave out the .H. or .L. part of the name. That effectively makes the quality unrated. You can later go back and rename the file on the ftp server once you have time to listen with a careful ear.
Good point. Check them for viri, trojans, and the like. Then dump them into the public directories. :)
You also mentioned organizing songs by album, and I really like this.
OK. Instead of the OGG and MP3 directories, we could have, from the root: Albums Hands On Yello - The Updates CD1 CD2 Hands On La Habanera Jingle Bells (Mercury 852 487-1) Interviews Singles Motion Picture Squeeze Please (562 421-2) 01 - Squeeze Please (Orginal Radio Mix).mp3 02 - Squeeze Please (Sounds Of Life Radio Mix).mp3 03 - Squeeze Please (Sounds Of Life Dub Mix).mp3 04 - Squeeze Please (Sounds Of Life Club Mix).mp3 05 - Squeeze Please (Goldkind's Different Class Of Brass Mix).mp3 Squeeze Please (562 639-2) Videos Upload (The entries above are a small part of what I have in my personal collection.) Having the record label and the "part number" (not sure what it's actually called) of the record or CD could also help for those that already have a release. I can create more root directories as things progress. :)
DO we want to establish a rule that song titles should begin with two numeric digits
OH YEAH! ;) Enforcing, again, will be difficult.
I'm borrowing ideas from other ftp collections.
I would like to keep it K.I.S.S. as possible, for those that are not so savy with FTP. There's no need to see bin, pub, and dev directories to confuse the masses. :) I have another FTP server designed this way, and the users love it. :)
we could support higher quality formats like .shn
I've been dithering with the idea of allowing CD ISOs, but I don't know it that would cause too much legal problems. It looks like .shn images could also fall into that area (Thanks for the info, BTW. :) I didn't know about that format so I'll have to read up more on it).
With .L. and .H. in the name, we could later add a middle quality level by simply using .M. in the name.
That could be rather tough to determine. Would we all base it on just sample rate, sound quality, or both? What I would consider middle, others may consider it something else: Audiophile - Low Joe User - High
(do people still use 8-bit?)
Shudder at the thought!! :D All in all, you've got some great ideas there. Glad to see an audiophile in our midst. :) I had to stop becoming one because I can't afford the equipment anymore. :D Keep the ideas coming folks! Remember, this is YOUR FTP server. :)