The Web Server for iTunes

The beta for the next major version is ready for you to test out. Among the major new features are automatic router config, iPhone support, multiple languages support, shuffle/repeat buttons and the ability to download all the songs from a playlist at once.

This being a beta, the homepage will still hold the link for the older stable release, and the windows updater facility won’t grab this one, so you have to get it directly from these links:

• pulpTunes 1.2.0 beta1 for Windows
• pulpTunes 1.2.0 beta1 for Mac
• pulpTunes 1.2.0 beta1 for Linux

Please post your bug reports or comments as usual at the Quick Help Forum, without forgetting to mention you’re using the beta.

Automatic router configuration
You know that to be able to access pulpTunes from outside the network where it’s installed, you needed to manually configure your router to forward port 15000 to the machine where pulpTunes is running. In this new version, pulpTunes will try to do that automatically for you, using a router featured called UPnP. Such feature is enabled by default in newer routers, and if not, you have to turn it on through your router configuration. Unfortunately Apple routers don’t support this. If you can’t or don’t want to use UPnP, you still can manually configure the port forwarding as usual.

iPhone / iPod touch support
Because of the lack of Flash support in the iPhone, pulpTunes was inoperable in that platform. Now, we’ve bypassed that limitation by providing a slightly modified interface when browsing pulpTunes through Mobile Safari, that simply provides direct links to the songs for the iPhone’s Quicktime to play. This also offers the nice capability of opening other iPhone apps while still having the music playing in the background. Nevertheless, it’s not the best solution yet because you can’t change songs from within Quicktime and the pulpTunes web interface is not well adapted for the iPhone’s small screen. This will be addressed through a future iPhone app that is in the works, that will provide an iPhone iTunes-like experience.

Multiple languages support
With this new version you’ll be able to switch the language in the settings section. Currently only English and Spanish are supported. Please send me a private message through the forums if you’d like to contribute with another language so that I can include it in the final version. Making a translation is pretty easy as you’ll only need to translate two files that I’ll provide you.

Other new features and bug fixes:

New features:

• Revamped player section: Longer progress line, bigger buttons.
• Added Shuffle and Repeat buttons.
• Added ability to download all songs from a playlist.
• Added permissions to enable/disable download. It’ll be disabled by default.
• Added advanced config setting to set timeout for starting to play a song before skipping it.
• Under Mac, no longer show the pulpTunes icon in the dock, just in the menu bar.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed iTunes9 incompatibility: crashing when iTunes DJ is disabled in iTunes prefs.
• Some songs were missing when sorting under some rare scenarios.
• When using a port different than the default 1500O, the connection instructions window was stating pulpTunes couldn’t receive connections from the outside, even if it really could.
• Albums with the same name but different artists were showing the same cover art.

ENJOY!