beets/docs/plugins/web.rst
2014-02-02 13:15:50 -08:00

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Web Plugin
==========
The ``web`` plugin is a very basic alternative interface to beets that
supplements the CLI. It can't do much right now, and the interface is a little
clunky, but you can use it to query and browse your music and---in browsers that
support HTML5 Audio---you can even play music.
While it's not meant to replace the CLI, a graphical interface has a number of
advantages in certain situations. For example, when editing a tag, a natural CLI
makes you retype the whole thing---common GUI conventions can be used to just
edit the part of the tag you want to change. A graphical interface could also
drastically increase the number of people who can use beets.
Install
-------
The Web interface depends on `Flask`_. To get it, just run ``pip install
flask``.
.. _Flask: http://flask.pocoo.org/
Put ``web`` on your ``plugins`` line in your configuration file to enable the
plugin.
Run the Server
--------------
Then just type ``beet web`` to start the server and go to
http://localhost:8337/. This is what it looks like:
.. image:: beetsweb.png
You can also specify the hostname and port number used by the Web server. These
can be specified on the command line or in the ``[web]`` section of your
:doc:`configuration file </reference/config>`.
On the command line, use ``beet web [HOSTNAME] [PORT]``. In the config file, use
something like this::
web:
host: 127.0.0.1
port: 8888
Usage
-----
Type queries into the little search box. Double-click a track to play it with
`HTML5 Audio`_.
.. _HTML5 Audio: http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/audio.html
Implementation
--------------
The Web backend is built using a simple REST+JSON API with the excellent
`Flask`_ library. The frontend is a single-page application written with
`Backbone.js`_. This allows future non-Web clients to use the same backend API.
.. _Flask: http://flask.pocoo.org/
.. _Backbone.js: http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/
Eventually, to make the Web player really viable, we should use a Flash fallback
for unsupported formats/browsers. There are a number of options for this:
* `audio.js`_
* `html5media`_
* `MediaElement.js`_
.. _audio.js: http://kolber.github.com/audiojs/
.. _html5media: http://html5media.info/
.. _MediaElement.js: http://mediaelementjs.com/
JSON API
--------
``GET /item/``
++++++++++++++
Responds with a list of all tracks in the beets library. ::
{
"items": [
{
"id": 6,
"title": "A Song",
...
}, {
"id": 12,
"title": "Another Song",
...
}
...
]
}
``GET /item/6``
+++++++++++++++
Looks for an item with id *6* in the beets library and responds with its JSON
representation. ::
{
"id": 6,
"title": "A Song",
...
}
If there is no item with that id responds with a *404* status
code.
``GET /item/6,12,13``
+++++++++++++++++++++
Response with a list of tracks with the ids *6*, *12* and *13*. The format of
the response is the same as for `GET /item/`_. It is *not guaranteed* that the
reponse includes all the items requested. If a track is not found it is silently
dropped from the response.
``GET /item/query/querystring``
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Returns a list of tracks matching the query. The *querystring* must be a valid query as described in :doc:`/reference/query`. ::
{
"results": [
{ "id" : 6, "title": "A Song" },
{ "id" : 12, "title": "Another Song" }
]
}
``GET /item/6/file``
++++++++++++++++++++
Sends the media file for the track. If the item or its corresponding file do
not exist a *404* status code is returned.
Albums
++++++
For albums, the following endpoints are provided:
* ``GET /album/``
* ``GET /album/5``
* ``GET /album/5,7``
* ``GET /album/query/querystring``
The interface and response format is similar to the item API, except replacing
the encapsulation key ``"items"`` with ``"albums"`` when requesting ``/album/``
or ``/album/5,7``. In addtion we can request the cover art of an album with
``GET /album/5/art``.
``GET /stats``
++++++++++++++
Responds with the number of tracks and albums in the database. ::
{
"items": 5,
"albums": 3
}