Due to the large response to the initial release of PlaylistGrabber, I have quickly revised some of the UI and functionality to bring it up to scratch with user expectations.

Changelog:

• Added App Icon (Green iTunes yeah close enough)
• You can now select a playlist by clicking the entire row, not just the checkbox
• PlaylistGrabber now remembers what playlists you selected last time
• You can save your progress of playlist selection by pressing “Save Selected”
• PlaylistGrabber now remembers what XML File you last used. Quick and Easy Startup.
• PlaylistGrabber skips copying files that already exist in the destination (good if you’re using a cloud service). It will however re-generate M3U Files so you will get playlist updates.
• Tableview now has pretty icons
• Tableview nests items inside folders at their level as depicted within itunes. Wish i could indent the icon too.
• “About” window updated.
• Auto build incrementing (current release is build 110)
• Automatically quits app on window close.

Things I’d Like it to do better

• Nest icons for folder indentation levels
• Delete songs when a playlist is de-selected. This could prove quite tricky

I’m pretty happy with what I have achieved over the few hours I’ve worked on this project. And after all, I’ve learnt how to program for Mac OSX.

You can obtain the source and self-compile here.

Spotify was great. I had my music everywhere, could add new music without a computer, however it lacked in a major area – Playlists. It seems to be a growing trend of music players to suck at this. Being unable to shuffle all music on the device is also a massive drawback. I will be cancelling my Spotify subscription once my 3 month trial is over.

Let me introduce PlaylistGrabber for OSX. This is my first Cocoa application, targeted at 10.8 and upwards (not tested much). PlaylistGrabber reads your iTunes library XML file, and allows you to choose playlists to export. It creates a folder structure that you can drag and drop onto your device (or export directly to the device if you have mass storage capabilities). It exports playlists in M3U format and understands that the duplicate songs in different playlists are the SAME song – so no stupid duplicates in your library, just as iTunes handles it.

Due to the nature and simplicity of M3U playlists, most music players understand these, including PowerApp, Samsung Music App and Google Play Music. This is good news, as now you are free to roam to other solutions than DoubleTwist for all your iTunes Syncing needs.

Eventually I will tidy up the application, however at this present time, I do not have enough time to do so. Eventually I would like to make the app do the following:

• Save Chosen Playlist Preferences for re-loading later on if a user decides they want to re-sync Implemented in newest version.
• Sync Daemon – Watches when Library Changes, and writes changes to a sync directory, from where you could auto sync with google drive
• Wifi Sync (With a client app on the phone)
• Better Async Handling so the program doesn’t appear to “Lock Up”

If you come across any bugs or have any suggestions, let me know, it’ll be nice to track them in the future for new releases in summer this year.

Latest version is available here

So far i’ve almost completed all the electronics components of the quadcopter. I am now waiting for my 5v regulator to arrive. I will use this to drive the Raspberry Pi from the 7.2 Lipoly battery. Once this arrives the quad will be able to become fully wireless (currently 5v power inlet is requiring a cable).

I wrote a basic program to control the PWM speeds from the RPi. This is letting me test the power that the quad has. At the moment it can easily lift off at about 40/100 (however I’m not sure if this is linear).

This video shows me bringing the controller speed up to 30/100:

The next challenge is going to be mounting everything in such a way that it’s accessible and still lightweight. At the moment electrical tape is a great mounting tool.

Cardboard stopping the bottom of the RPi shorting. Featuring Electrical Tape Mounting

Electrical Tape Mounting FTW

Need to find a safer place to house the battery. These things explode.