A freedb server for RISC OS

I've designed it so as to allow anyone to write clients to fit on top, this way I didn't need to write a CD player. :)

There is a mailing list for discussion of AcornCD use and development, I shall also post announcements about new releases etc. to the list.

You can jump straight to the latest release's download.

Requirements

AcornCD requires a fairly recent set of Toolbox modules to run, along with the nested Window manager. You can get hold of these from RISC OS Ltd., on their updates page, the Toolbox update zip.

Additionally, if you want to submit freedb entries (you do, honest...), you'll need Justin Fletcher's GMail, available from his software page.

Recent changes

I've released a 32-bit patch archive on Sourceforge, available on the files page . It includes the !Run and !RunImages for !AcornCD and !CdTester, which are now built 32-bit.

Copy these files over your current applications, and you'll be able to run on a 32-bit capable platform, which includes a 26-bit system with the new shared C library.

• AcornCD now uses freedb! I've finally seen the light and turned my back on CDDB, they no longer care about CDDB (only CDDB2), have stupid licencing conditions etc. etc.
• AcornCD now internally has all the code to support queued requests, just no method to actually go about queueing things, and no code to empty the queue. Considering putting my code on SourceForge and open sourcing it...I don't have enough time to work on it really.

• Fixed AcornCD sprites for app and test harness. Filer sprites are now the correct size. Thanks go to Stuart Halliday for providing the nicer sprite. :)

• Added the ability to be able to send a "hello" message to AcornCD to see if it's running. The test harness sends this message on start-up now, but does nothing if it discovers AcornCD isn't running.
• Also added a "Get CDDB ID" interface, so that a client app can get the CDDB ID of a disc in a drive without doing the calculation themselves. Added new button to test harness which uses this new ID request mechanism, so you can see an example of its use.

• Revamped AcornCD sprites for server and test harness.

• AcornCDDB has been renamed to AcornCD on the request of Escient, the owners of the CDDB™ trademark. The only changes in this release are to do with this name change. The documentation has been updated, the apps now call themselves different names, and a few more ™s have been liberally strewn about.

• A few bug fixes...default key handlers are now registered in both !CDDB and !CdTest, so you'll no longer find you've lost keyboard shortcuts like Control-F12.
• Fixed wimp message interface for handling of local-only CDBB lookups, the client will receive a message back from the lookup no matter what. Note to Developers: This change also added a new result code to the "QueryResults" message, "LocalCDDBError". This is returned if AcornCDDB has problems accessing its local CDDB. See the updated specification for the result code.
• Added new option for submission of CDDB entries using GMail. AcornCDDB will now use direct SMTP only if a choices option is set, otherwise it will use GMail's default action, which is to use the spool directory it finds on the user's system, i.e. ANTSuite, FreeSMTP etc. You'll get a warning if you start up AcornCDDB with your old choices file, just open up the Choices dialogue and resave your options.
• Renamed debug versions of !Runs and !RunImages, they are now called !RunD and !RunImageD.

• AcornCDDB has finally been verified to do submissions to the Internet CDDB™ and is now allowed to do so. So, this release enables remote submission of CDDB entries. AcornCDDB uses GMail to send the submissions by email, so you will need to install and configure GMail. At the moment the only GMail method AcornCDDB uses is the direct SMTP method, so I need to talk to GMail's author to see if there's a way to make this configurable. So, I've got a release I'd actually call quite complete, go get it.

Downloads

• User release - this is probably what you want, contains just the AcornCD server, to allow AcornCD-capable clients to fetch CD info off freedb servers.
• Developer release - this is for developers, and include the AcornCD server, a test harness client (including the source code of this, for now) and the documentation. This release shouldn't really be necessary any more, seeing all the source is in CVS now.
• Specification - Specification of the interface between the AcornCD server and any client application. Saves you downloading the developer release or checking the docs out of CVS.
• Example submission code - some example C code I posted ages ago for creating a dynamic area that holds an AcornCD database entry for use in submitting entries to AcornCD using the wimp message interface.