Subsonic Windows 8 client

[b1kamikaze]

Hi everybody,
I'm just writing this quick post to let anybody interested know that I recently released a free open source Windows 8 client for Subsonic called Subsonic8. It's available to download at: http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/s ... e70355a717 and the source is available at: https://github.com/Agilefreaks/SubSonic8 .
It's interface is pretty basic but the major functionality is present:
Initial release
- play audio streams
- play video streams
- search for songs/albums/artists
- see cover art
- save/load playlists (not Subsonic playlists but a specific format)
- shuffle songs
Update 1:
- follow the active item in the now playing view
- save/restore playlist when app is closed/started
Update 2:
- secure credential storage using Windows Password Vault
- live tile showing currently playing song
- manage remote playlists (save/delete/rename/update)
- big playlist view memory usage improvement by adding virtualization to the playlist items view
Update 3:
- added a diagnostic check when changing the configuration
- added the ability to filter current playlist items
- added better error handling including the ability to report errors
Update 4:
- added support for server urls which perform a redirect (like the service offered by subsonic.org)
- added a snapped view for the playback screen
- added generic snapped views for all the other screens
- added the ability to preserve the state of shuffle, isPlaying and current item between app suspension and resuming
- added the option to send error reports anonymously
- added a workaround for the bug where video playback would fail if it was started before starting any other kind of playback before that
- added a fix for crashes at the end of video playback due to an invalid arithmetic operation which would take place inside the media player
- fixed the bug where an item would be added multiple times to the playlist by suspending and resuming in some specific conditions

This project is also actively in development and as such the following features are waiting to be deployed/developed:
To do:
- add support for self signed certificates
- show audio playback progress
- skipping inside a while file playing it
- use the random songs feature of Subsonic
- add support for Ratings/Favorites
- save/load playlists to/from m3u
- add bitrate selector for video playback
- "first time running" tutorial

To stay up to date with the development check out the facebook/twitter pages https://facebook.com/subsonic8/https://twitter.com/subsonic8 or periodically check this page.

I know that there are already 3 other alternatives to this on the Windows Store but they just didn't feel right to me for one reason or another bee it due to the lack of features, due to bugs or due to price.

Hope somebody will find this useful.

Have a great day and thanks again to Sindre for all the work he put in Subsonic!

[bushman4]

Will it allow you to connect to a server using SSL?

[b1kamikaze]

If you have a valid ssl certificate it should work (haven't tested it yet but I see no reason why it shouldn't), however for self signed certificates it will show an error message as of the current version.

Edit:
I should clarify things a bit: if you use a self-signed certificate theoretically it shouldn't work but if you add the certificate issuer to the Local Computer Trusted Root Certification Authorities it should work (I don't know how you can do this on a Windows 8 WinRT only version but for the full version check this out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms788967.aspx).

Edit2:
Did some quick research on the matter of self signed certificates in WinRT yesterday and there seems to be no method to suppress the validation check as of now. So the only options are: use a valid certificate or add the certificate issuer to the Local Computer Trusted Root Certification Authorities.

[archrival]

If you have a valid ssl certificate it should work (haven't tested it yet but I see no reason why it shouldn't), however for self signed certificates it will show an error message as of the current version.

Edit:
I should clarify things a bit: if you use a self-signed certificate theoretically it shouldn't work but if you add the certificate issuer to the Local Computer Trusted Root Certification Authorities it should work (I don't know how you can do this on a Windows 8 WinRT only version but for the full version check this out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms788967.aspx).

Edit2:
Did some quick research on the matter of self signed certificates in WinRT yesterday and there seems to be no method to suppress the validation check as of now. So the only options are: use a valid certificate or add the certificate issuer to the Local Computer Trusted Root Certification Authorities.

I wrote some C# code to prompt for installation of an SSL certificate for my UltraSonic Windows client.

https://github.com/archrival/UltraSonic ... ow.xaml.cs

Check out the ValidateCertificate and GetSslCertificate methods. No idea if they will work in WinRT but it might.

Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk 2

[b1kamikaze]

Hi archrival,
thanks for the help, but unfortunately your implementation as well as any other I've seen done in .Net to allow the use of self signed certificates without installing the issuer as a Trusted Root Certification Authority relies on the ServerCertificateValidationCallback method from the ServicePointManager class which is not available in WinRT. WinRT applications are very restricted when it comes down to modifying security policies or even modifying basic system settings. They are seen as consumer apps that should just run on top of the framework and if possible shouldn't modify anything on the computer they run on.

Anyway thanks again for trying to help and have a great day!