help - exporting

If exporting is turned on, you'll see the 'export' icon export appear in a variety of places, including next to lists and albums, and on the 'albums by genre' page (click on any genre to see this page).

You can use this export feature to:

  1. create playlists for your mp3 player
  2. back up lists you've created with calliope
  3. create a list of all artists/albums
  4. facilitate the burning of CDs

Exported files will be in the ~/calliope/var/ directory (defined in ~/etc/conf). These files will likely be owned by the User defined in the conf file (most likely apache:apache), and you may need appropriate permissions to use these exported files.

You can export a given category once, or you can export repeatedly, and concatenate each export onto a single file, thus building up a large exported m3u file. Do this by selecting "add to existing file." If you plan on multiple exports but want the end result onscreen, you can export repeatedly to the same file, and on the last step, export to the screen.

The 'exported music path' specifies the absolute path name where the music files are located. This will probably vary, depending on whether you're using the resulting m3u file on an mp3 player, vs to back up a list or burn a cd.

The 'output name' is the name of the actual m3u file created - it can be anything you like. However, you will notice that spaces in the filename are converted to underscores, to make certain no mp3 player has trouble with the name.

 

mp3 playlists

Anything you can export can be used as a play list for an mp3 player. Generally, you would export the list/album/genre in question, then copy the resulting m3u file to your mp3 player. Assuming you've set the "exported music path" correctly, and that the files are already on the mp3 player, you've got a new play list!

Playlists for mp3 players are normally "m3u" files, which are simply text files with the extension '.m3u'. Each line in the file contains the absolute path name to a digitized song. By default, this is the kind of file calliope creates when exporting.

If you're creating a play list for an mp3 player, the directory structure on that player may well be different than on your hard drive, and you'll need to edit the "exported music path" as appropriate (most likely it should be just '/').

 

exporting play lists

You can export individual lists one at a time via the web interface, and use them as mp3 playlists, or as a means of backing up your lists for any reason.

From the command line, you can also use calliope to create a backup "master" list (named "alllists.m3u" by default). This is useful if you're setting up another database, plan on flushing the DB and reloading, or just want a backup. It's an m3u-type file, but also contains the list owner, play order, and list name for each song.

    # calliope listexport [file]

Where the optional [file] is the file name in which to put the lists.

You can also import lists from the command line, one at a time or from a master file (e.g. alllists.m3u).

    # calliope listimport [file] [owner]

All lists will be imported (assuming the were previously exported to alllists.m3u), unless a file is specified. Giving a filename will of course import from that file (provided it's in ~/calliope/var), and make the list name equal to the filename. If you specify a file, you must also provide the list owner.

 

exporting all artists/albums

This feature is available under the "admin" menu, and allows you to create a list of all your artists and their albums, or all your albums and the corresponding artists. The list is alphabetical for readability. You can export the list to the screen and copy it, or create an m3u file in the ~/calliope/var directory. This is a quick way to create a portable list of all the music you currently own (very handy on a palm or laptop while you're out CD shopping :-).

 

burning cds (Also see 'burning cds' for additional help)

If you're planning on burning a cd (and this has been turned on for you), you can either use the web interface to burn directly to a CD, or the command line interface to burn a previously exported list or album.