iPhoto integration

[florian]

It would be nice if you could see the albums / events that you tagged in iPhoto.

[marcel]

Hi florian

iPhoto integration is something we would also like to have in boxee and i hope in the near future we will have a plugin in for it .

If any users would like to volunteer to build this plugin they can contact me at marcel[at]boxee[dot]com and i can point them in the right direction.

As a temporary work around just to view your photo's you can do the following:

Add a new source by going to Settings>Media Sources>Manually Add source.
Enter a name (such as iPhotos) and then the source path (/users/<username>/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals) and select the media type Pictures and then click "add".

Then when you select Pictures from the Main Menu you will see the iPhoto folder.

[xain09]

Already said it before but this and the iTunes integration is maybe the most desired option for the moment. I think it's a 10.5 thing :D iWeb, iPhoto, Mail, Toats, Comic Life, iDVD and iMovie can all handle it... Okay we're spoiled ;)

[marcel]

I agree with you ..any volunteers to help with the plugins..:)

[gkelegha]

Another nice feature (when iPhoto integration is there) is to allow you to replicate the library structure. For example my iPhoto is arranged in a hierarchy of folders and then albums so I can click Holidays, 2008, "france album". I have done it this way so that anybody can find a photo easily.

FrontRow honours the library structure but appletv does not (it only displays events or albums).

I am about to kick my appletv out for this very reason.

[marcel]

we will try our best to implement iPhoto in the future so stay tuned...:)

[xain09]

I probably dont' have to tell you folks but the new built of XBMC has iTunes and iPhoto integration as of today. It's still a bit rough but it's a start. I have full confidence in our boys here to have a similar option soon :)

[marcel]

Thanks xain09..:) we will be there soon...

[Gamester17]

I probably dont' have to tell you folks but the new built of XBMC has iTunes and iPhoto integration as of today.FYI; it is a python plugin so you should be able to copy it and use in Boxee:
http://xbmc.org/d4rk/2008/09/18/itunes-and-iphoto-integration-in-xbmc/
http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-addons/
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37313
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37574

You will have to add it as a source manually to sources.xml ;)

[marcel]

cheers Gamester17 for the info..:)

[g8trtim]

so I updated and boxee crashes on me when browsing a local iphoto originals folder with 607 high res jpgs in it. I'm using a 1st gen macbook with 1.5 gb ram.

I'm also interested in seeing iphoto integration with events view.

[nkrumm]

friends of the boxee:

The iphoto plugin for xbmc (http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-addons/downloads/list) does indeed work on boxee, with the following modifications and caveats...

I am using iphoto 6.0.6 (iLife 08). The plugin may have been designed to work with earlier versions. In any case, I had to make the following modifications to the script. Your Mileage May Vary.

- Line 427 in iphoto_parser.py:

media.has_key('GUID'),

- Line 645 in iphoto_parser.py:

if state.inmaster == 0 and self.currentPhoto.has_key('ThumbPath') and self.currentPhoto['ThumbPath']:

(these first were required changes because my AlbumData.xml [the file iphoto uses to record album information] did not have any GUID key entries. was this removed in iphoto v6?)

- Line 139 in default.py: (this is a functional bug, without it you cannot view the albums)

url=BASE_URL+"?action=pictures&albumid=%s" % (albumid),


- Add into the If block at line 187 in default.py:

elif action == "pictures":
return list_photos_in_album(params)

INSTALLATION:
In my case, I had to put identical copies of the plug-in directory (iPhoto) both:
/Applications/Boxee.app/Contents/Resources/Boxee/plugins/pictures/
and
/Users/nik/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/UserData/plugins/pictures/iPhoto
... although this may not be necessary with further tweaking.
(speculation: default.py uses BASE_URL="plugin://pictures/iPhoto/" ... where does this point? does it point to the user's plug-in directory? this might count as a bug...)

You can add the iPhoto application via the boxee settings page. the resulting entry in sources.xml should look like this:

<source>
<name>iPhoto</name>
<path>plugin://pictures/iPhoto/</path>
<thumbnail>/Applications/Boxee.app/Contents/Resources/Boxee/plugins/pictures/iPhoto/default.tbn</thumbnail>
<private>false</private>
</source>

RUNNING / KNOWN ISSUES:

- the plug-in appears under the pictures/internet sources tab.
- Selecting the option to import your photo library will result in an error, but you will still be able to see your albums afterwards.
- alternatively, you can run the iphoto_parser.py script standalone, with this command in the terminal: iphoto_parser.py ~/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/AlbumData.xml. this will create a iphoto.db file in your home directory. You then can move this file to the iphoto plug-in folder and rename it to xbmciphotodb.db (this is an sqlite database btw). The plug in will parse it accordingly.

If anyone else tries this or has additional fixes and improvements, please share or PM me. thanks!

nik