Overview
Browsing and Playing mp3s with Andromeda
Installing Andromeda
Organizing Your mp3s
Annotations
Customizing Preferences
Skins
Security
Scenarios
Troubleshooting

The best way to get a sense of what using Andromeda is like is to visit one of the demo sites. To browse the demo sites all you'll need is a web browser. To play mp3s from the demo sites you'll also need an mp3 player and sufficient bandwidth.

One tip: unmaximize the window. Andromeda is optimized for a tall, thin window so that you can keep it open off to the side. Try it - you'll see.

having trouble playing mp3s off the demo sites? skip to troubleshooting...

Works with popular web browsers: And popular mp3 players: » Microsoft Internet Explorer » Netscape Navigator » Mozilla » Opera » others... » Windows Media Player » Real Player » Winamp » XMMS » SoundJam » QuickTime » iTunes » others...

Browsing the Collection

Click a folder icon or folder name to open that folder. Use the pulldown menu to jump to 'sibling' folders.

Playing an mp3

Click the play button to the right.

Downloading an mp3

Right-click the file icon or file name and choose 'Save As...'

Playing an Album

Click the play button to the right.

Search

Enter a search term and click the 'go' button. Andromeda will return folders and/or files containing the search term.

Playlists

Check the box next to the file(s) you want, and click 'add to playlist'

Allmusic

Allmusic.com is an incredibly comprehensive & cross referenced database of artist / album / track info, so I made it easy to search directly from Andromeda. When you're in a folder, its name appears in the search box. Make sure to adjust the pulldown to tell allmusic whether you're searching artists or albums. If the folder contains only mp3s, the pulldown defaults to albums, otherwise artists.

Installing Andromeda

Requirements
Andromeda's only requirement is that you're running a Web server which can execute ASP or PHP scripts. If you don't know what that means, click here.

If you want to serve mp3s over the Internet, you'll also need sufficient upstream bandwidth.

Andromeda runs on these platforms: » Windows XP Professional, 2000, NT Server with Internet Information Server (IIS) or any web server that can process PHP » Windows ME, 9x, NT Workstation with Personal Web Server (PWS) or any web server that can process PHP » Linux, BSD, etc. with any web server that can process PHP » Mac OS X with any web server that can process PHP

Overview

Basically, once you've got your webserver running, all you need to do is put the Andromeda script and your mp3s into a web accessible folder. Then, when you point your browser to the Andromeda script, you'll get a web page of the contents of the folder.

Getting Started

To get the appropriate Andromeda script, click here.

If you already have the script or just want to see the setup steps, go to the getting started guide.

The only configuration which you need to look out for is the hostAddress pref, which tells Andromeda which server name to use in URLs. Andromeda makes a good guess, but if didn't guess right you'll need to set the hostAddress preference. See below about preferences and hostAddress.

Organizing Your mp3s

Folder Hierarchy
Personally, I think it's best to organize mp3s into artist/album/mp3s or genre/artist/album/mp3s folders. This isn't exactly a feature, but the Andromeda interface is tuned to this assumption.:
c:\intetpub\wwwroot\mp3s\Artist
c:\intetpub\wwwroot\mp3s\Artist\Album
c:\intetpub\wwwroot\mp3s\Artist\Album\01 - Song.mp3

File & Folder Naming

You may already start your mp3 file names with numbers so they list in track order. If you use a 2 digit number followed by a space then a hyphen then another space, it will be displayed without the number. Furthermore, mp3s don't display their file extension. So, "01 - Song.mp3" becomes "Song". Works with folders too.

also,

» folders called "Name, The" will be displayed "The Name" (Jam, The -> The Jam)

» folders called "Name2, Name1" will be displayed "Name1 Name2" (Dylan, Bob -> Bob Dylan)

this lets the name display nicely while maintaining the right sort order

Storing your mp3s on a Different Drive

If you store your mp3s on a different drive, you can point to them by setting up a virtual directory with your webserver.

Let's say your mp3s are stored on d:\music\. All you need to do is configure a virtual directory (let's say you also call it 'music') pointing to d:\music\, and then put the Andromeda script in d:\music\Default.asp. Now when you open a browser to http://yourserver/music, Andromeda will return the contents of d:\music\.

If your music spans more than one drive, you can run multiple copies of Andromeda. However there are some limitations to this approach.

A future version of Andromeda will support multiple virtual directories without the need to run multiple scripts.

According to an Andromeda user's kind feedback, you can even run the web server on one box and the script & files on a second by mapping a virtual directory on the first box to a directory on the second. I haven't had a chance to try it myself yet, though.

Annotations

All of the annotations documentation can now be found here.

Customizing Preferences

All of the preference documentation can now be found here.

Skins

With Andromeda version 1.4 and greater, you can change the appearance of your site to suit your taste. You can download Andromeda skin files, or create your own.

Like the andromedaPrefs file, an andromedaSkin.txt file is a tab/return delimited list of keys and values, and it goes in the same folder as the Andromeda script. Unlike the prefs file, it is saved as a .txt file, and can be shared between asp and php installations of Andromeda.

Most keys require values which are colors. Many keys also require values which are dividing bars.

Colors can be defined in either of two ways: hexadecimal triplets and English color names. I prefer to use hexadecimal triplets.

Dividing bars consist of zero or more pairs of colors and heights. Color and height values are separated by a comma. Pairs are separated by a semicolon. Do not include a trailing semicolon. See below for examples.

a sample andromedaSkin.txt file:

bodyBgColor[tab]  ffffff bodyLinkColor[tab]  0000ff rowColor1[tab]  cccccc rowColor1[tab]  ccccff rowDiv[tab]  999999,1;ffffff,1

siteWidth
default: 100%
The width of your site within the browser window, in percent or pixels.

bodyBgColor
default: 9999cc
The background color of your site.

bodyTextColor
default: 333333
The color of text which does not appear in the folder/file rows, and is not a link.

bodyLinkColor
default: 666699
The color of the links which do not appear in the folder/file rows.

bodyVlinkColor
default: 996699
The visited color of the links which do not appear in the folder/file rows.

bodyAlinkColor
default: 999966
The active color of the links which do not appear in the folder/file rows.

bodyMarginSize
default: 0
The width in pixels of the frame around your site.

headDiv
default:
The dividing bar at the top of your site, above the menubar.

menubarColor
default: 999999
The color of the menubar.

siteNameColor
default: ffff00
The color of the site name appearing in the menubar.

menubarDiv
default: cccc99,1;9999cc,3;cccc99,1;999999,8;666666,1
The dividing bar below the menubar.

bodyFgColor
default: cccc99
The foreground color of your site.

formStyle
default: font-size:9pt;color:000000;background-color:ffffff;
Style atributes used on form elements.

bodyFgDiv
default: 999966,1;efefcc,1
The dividing bar used in the foreground.

bodyFgToRowDiv
default: ffffcc,1
The dividing bar leading from the foreground to the folder/file rows.

rowColor1
default: efefd0
The first folder/file row color.

rowColor2
default: efefef
The first folder/file row color.

rowLinkColor
default:
The color of the links which appear in the folder/file rows.

rowTextColor
default: 333333
The color of the text which appears in the folder/file rows.

newFileColor
default: cc6666
The color of the 'new mp3' text which appears in the folder/file rows.

rowDiv
default: d0d0d0,1
The dividing bar between folder/file rows.

rowToBodyFgDiv
default: 666666,1
The dividing bar leading from the folder/file rows to the foreground.

footDiv
default: ffffcc,1;999999,2;666666,1
The dividing bar at the bottom of your site.

Security

There are basically two types of security concerns when running Andromeda. One is limiting access to your music to only who you want to have access. The other (if you're also running ftp) is making sure that people can't upload and execute scripts on your server.

OS Authentication

The best way to limit access is to set file permissions on the Andromeda script and your mp3 files through your operating system (Windows 2000, NT; UNIX). To play those mp3s you'll need to use an mp3 player which can authenticate. Currently, I know that Windows Media Player and Real Player can authenticate. Winamp can't, but they might add that feature before too long.

Andromeda Accounts

If you don't want to (or can't) use authentication as mentioned above, you can turn on Andromeda's requireLogon preference, and set up accounts for your friends. Andromeda will then require users to log on when arriving at your site. This does not provide the same degree of security as authentication, but it does the trick. Keep in mind that requireLogon cannot protect files from being accessed if the user knows its full url.

To create accounts, all you have to do is create a text file (andromedaLogons.asp or andromedaLogons.php) and save it in the same folder as the Andromeda script (Default.asp or andromeda.php). You can create it with any text editor.

a sample andromedaLogons.asp file: download

<% 'amy[tab]  october 'justin[tab]  knicks %>

a sample andromedaLogons.php file: download

<?php #amy[tab]  october #justin[tab]  knicks ?>

You won't be asked to log on if you open Andromeda with a web browser on the same computer which is running the Andromeda script. Test the logon feature from a different computer.

ftp Concerns

If you let people upload files, you should make sure to implement at least one of the following two security precautions:

» files in the upload directory can not be accessed via the web

and/or

» the upload directory does not allow script execution

Either of these precautions will prevent people from being able to upload and execute scripts on your computer.

Scenarios

Personal Jukebox
If you keep a collection of mp3s on your computer, but you find making playlists or playing mp3s one at a time to be a hassle. Andromeda works great as a personal jukebox because it makes it easy to browse your collection, and play a full album or folder with one click.

Home Network

If you have a network at home, you can keep all your music on one computer, but play from any computer attached to the network.

Office Network

Create a central location for you and your co-workers to create a music collection. You'll be able to listen to each other's music without having to walk around the office looking for a good cd to borrow.

Remote Playback

Play your collection over the Internet. For instance, (bandwidth permitting) you can play music saved on your home computer while you're at work.

Private Sharing Community

Not necessarily. Andromeda is great for browsing your mp3 collection, playing full albums, and downloading individual tracks. FTP is great for downloading full folders, and for uploading. Lots of people run Andromeda and FTP at the same time. Share your collection over the Internet. For instance, (bandwidth permitting) your friends can play music saved on your computer. You can set up accounts to limit access. Take it to the next level by setting up an ftp server so your friends can contribute to the collection.

General Public Site

Use Andromeda to put a front-end on the music you want to share with the general public.

ISP hosted sites

If you have a web site hosted by an ISP, and their server can process asp scripts (Windows servers) or php scripts (UNIX servers), you can upload Andromeda to your site, and use it to play music from there.

Troubleshooting

NOTE: This section is still under development

Problems Browsing and Playing mp3s with Andromeda

If you're setting up Andromeda on your computer, and you're having problems browsing and playing mp3s, first visit one of the demo sites and see if you have the same problems there.

Make sure to configure your browser's mime types are set to play .mp3 and .m3u files (audio/x-mpegurl) with your preferred mp3 player.

Configuration Problems

If you get errors or a dialog box asking you to authenticate, you need to grant the Andromeda script the appropriate file system permissions

Conflicts

If you're using Windows and you get the Andromeda menubar, but then the page just stops loading, most likely you're running a recent version of Norton AntiVirus. NAV has a new feature called "script blocking" which prevents certain scripts from running, and Andromeda is such a script. Basically, Andromeda looks for files & folders using something called the "fileSystem object". Norton considers this suspicious behavior, stops it, and puts up a dialog box asking what you want to do. But, on win2000 the dialog doesn't seem to show up and you just get stuck. Please check out NAV tech support on this subject. If that link doesn't work, try going to the Symantec site, and going to service and support, then to Norton AntiVirus, and searching for "script blocking"