Ok, you wanted the long description...

How it all works

The Scoundrel Project currently aims at taking the hassle out of Napster&co. When you use Napster you have to fiddle a lot. Enter repeated queries, browse the results, download four times as many files as you want because of transfer errors and whatnot. You also need to manually screen the tracklengths and bitrates. This is painful and time consuming. It also renders you with an enormous library of unsorted crap, all piled up in one directory.

WE WILL ACCEPT THIS NO MORE

The program, codenamed Scoundrel (currently in alpha-status), already takes away 95% of the aforementioned pain. It connects to Napster and/or OpenNap servers, and given a much more detailed query than you normally specify searches and then automatically downloads any found results. If it scored a good hit, it renames the file according to a nice standardized format, otherwise it leaves the name as it found it. In any case, the downloaded file is put in a nicely named directory. If the transfer is interrupted it is automatically resumed. If a file cannot be downloaded from a source, it tries the next. And the next. And the next. It is polite and tries not to download multiple files from the same source, if possible (this it doesn't do quite yet. Don't worry, it's on its way).

Now, you are a lazy bum, right? You don't want to enter a detailed query. You want to point and click. Well... you got it! Using the Built-In-Browser™ you just surf to Amazon and find the music you are interested in. Scoundrel then automatically quotes the query-information from the webpage. You just need to tell it to Get'em. (And this my friend, it does indeed do!)

It totally freaking rocks.

More detailed usage

Create a user/change user settings/Login

Scoundrel automatically logs in as needed and unless there is something wrong with your settings or you just want to login to share your files (which is automatic, but the client waits a little while), there is no need to use the Login-button.

However, you DO need to specify some servers to use. Click on the "Server-list"-link under the networks tab, then create a couple of new server-connections and add the info from the webpage as you see fit.

Renaming of downloaded files

I don't like getting all my downloaded files into one big directory. So downloaded files go into

base-dir\artist - album (year)\album - trackno - trackname.mp3

No, you can't customize this. Yet. Basedir is specified under the Configuration-tab. Note that if Scoundrel isn't really happy with the hit, then the file doesn't get renamed, but rather stored under the name it had when Scoundrel found it. It still gets put in the subdirectory though.

The tabs

Find

This tab contains the Built-In-Browser™ and your history-list. Every time you surf by a page containing track information recognized by Scoundrel, it gets added to the history-list. To return to such a page, just double-click on the entry.

If you keep getting songs that are cut off in the end, you can specify the exact length for a track by selecting the item in the Combo-box and then entering the track length (mm.ss) in the little edit-box next to the Combobox. Click ! to set the time for the currently selected track. Scoundrel will then only download search-results that have a track-length within seconds from the one specified.

If you only want a track or two, select the track in the combobox and click Get selected.

Progress

Quit staring at this tab. Go do something useful instead of watching those numbers tick.

It should be pretty self-explanatory. If you are especially eager for a specific download that is progressing slowly, you can click Skip to tell Scoundrel to stop downloading from that specific user and try the next hit instead. Abort does what you expect.

The ticker is the heartbeat of Scoundrel. It makes sure that files get downloaded and queries posted. Keep it enabled if you want something to happen.

Remove simply removes a posted query.

No, you can't change the order of the entries in the search queue. It is spelt A-L-P-H-A. Go get involved and add it yourself!

Downloaded

Simply a list of all downloaded files. Note that the actual filename of the downloaded file (that is, what it was called before Scoundrel renamed it) is also shown. If a song is not what it says it is, you might want to check with this list.

Failed

Eeeh... ok... uhm... Well... sometimes a query fails. It happens. Maybe no-one was sharing that tune. Maybe the name of the song was spelt in one way on Amazon and everyone else spelt it in another. Maybe all tries to download it failed. Retry it if you like.

Share

With tech-preview 2 came sharing. You can add a bunch of directories to share and all mp3's in these directories and their subdirectories will be shared. You can add "nested directories" (ie both "c:\mp3" and "c:\mp3\new") without any problems.

The list of shared files is updated every so often. This is can be set under the config-tab.

Since filesharing takes a little while, Scoundrel has to read the info in those directories, the program is polite enough to wait a few minutes before sharing. This way, you can start the program, add a few queries and walk away. Then, when you are not there, it'll do the time-consuming sharing.

MD5-hash. Most filesharing protocols out there submit a hash of the beginning of a file when sharing it. This is so that it is possible to download a file from one source and resume the download from another in case of interruption. That is quite a brilliant idea. Somewhat less brilliant is the lack of standard when it comes to exactly how much and what parts of a file to hash. Since MD5-hashing takes bloody ages (not due to the hash itself, but due to the fact that you need to read x megs from your harddrive) it has been disabled for the moment. It might get added later on if someone can point out just exactly how we are supposed to hash those files.

Config

The base directory is where downloaded files go. This directory will normally also be shared.

You might want to play around with the time filter if you keep getting cropped songs. Files claiming a shorter or longer tracklength will not be downloaded. If an exact tracklength is specified in the query, then that overrides the time filter.

Winamp integration kicks ass. Just wait for the music to start. Unfortunately, the "skip to next track and then start playing" doesn't really work (winamp bug?) so you might be hearing the same song twice. But that's a lovely song, isn't it? Yes, you need to manually enter the entire and precise path to the winamp.exe. Don't enter the path to any other executable. The checkbox is disabled if the file specified doesn't exist.

The bitrate filter dictates what gets downloaded, what gets prioritized and what gets turned down. A bitrate not in the list is treated as <112.

Legal stuff

Downloading stuff that ain't yours is illegal. Don't do it. Buy the freaking albums, ok? Scoundrel cannot and makes no claims to be able to determine if the stuff you tell it to search for and download is rightfully yours. Don't abuse it. Neither I nor the program is in any way responsible for your actions or what you instruct the program to do. That the process is automated does not take the responsibility away from you, as little as upgrading from a crossbow to a shotgun makes you any less a killer if you misuse it.

Scoundrel keeps no information about what people download or share and keeps no links to any download locations for potentially illegal material. All such information is extracted from the 'net and any complains as to the legality of distributing such information should be directed to whoever distributed it.

Scoundrel only quotes well known information from the Amazon.com service and in no way extracts the Amazon-unique information (Reviews, "Users who bought this album also bought..." etc) or eavesdrops on the users interaction with the buying-process. Scoundrel is in no way affiliated with Amazon and makes no profit from any records bought at Amazon through Scoundrel. You are however encouraged to buy stuff at Amazon. It's a great store, don't you think?!