Yes, definitely. One thing I realized, though, after bringing the idea up on the mailing list is that not all tracks are available to play via Last.fm. General question: is it even possible in the Last.fm API to love/ban tracks that are not available?

Good point, Andrew.  Presumably we'd store or have access to the love/ban setting for a track (so that we can display that status), and I guess it would never get set correctly for tracks Last.fm doesn't know about.  Then the user would wonder what was going on for those odd tracks.

It would also be cool if Banshee's shuffle implementation took love/ban settings into account.  There are certainly some tracks in my library that I'd like to never hear, and "banning" them would be a cool way to improve my listening experience.

Changing component.  Also, it occurs to me that we could use similar logic as the Recommendations pane to determine whether or not the buttons should appear, if we want to go with the simple approach of limiting ourselves to tracks available on last.fm.

I guess it remains to be seen if most users would find this useful for their music library.  I think it's clearly useful for DAAP shares and the like, but maybe my situation of sharing my music library with my wife is an edge case (maybe most people only have tracks they love in their library).

Also, this potentially overlaps with ratings in a bad way.  Should Loving a track in your music library automatically give it a 5-star rating?

Some of these "clever" ideas should probably be configurable...

I just wanted to +1 this, it's a feature that is partially implemented in RB, however you have to click on the last.fm library source while playing a local track (see http://etc.joshuablount.com/love_hate_last_fm_in_rb.png)

It'd be much nicer if this love / hate button was available any time you're playing a source that the last.fm api accepts love or hate from. 

*** Bug 557344 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Created attachment 124703 [details] [review]
Add support for Audioscrobbler Love/Ban actions on non-radio source (v2). 

Updated version of the patch I posted in the duplicate bug report. I'm running Banshee hacked with this patch for 2 months. It works for me. Please report any bug/crash/unexpected behavior. Here is the ChangeLog:


2008-12-14  Warren Seine  <warren.seine@gmail.com>

	Update patch (deprecating previous).

        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Banshee.Lastfm.Audioscrobbler/
        AudioscrobblerService.cs: Remove useless code change.
        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Banshee.Lastfm.Audioscrobbler/
        AudioscrobblerActions.cs:
	Fix crash when scrobbling while not connected (not possible
	anymore).
	Could be improved (Banshee runs like 4 times the method
	AudioscrobblerActions.UpdateActions ()).
	Also, you have to be connected to Last.fm when starting the song
	to see the buttons or make them work, mostly because the event
	system for Last.fm is rusty. I'll look at it later.

	* All:
	Tab-to-spac'ed.
	Still need refactoring and protocol update (only UI stuff and
	recommendations should be in Banshee.Extensions.Lastfm - Radio and
	scrobbling should be in Librairies.Lastfm). Again, see bug
	#541227.


2008-10-21  Warren Seine  <warren.seine@gmail.com>

        Add support for Audioscrobbler Love/Ban actions on non-radio
        source.

        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Banshee.Lastfm.Audioscrobbler/
        AudioscrobblerActions.cs: New. Separate GUI from service.

        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Banshee.Lastfm.Audioscrobbler/
        AudioscrobblerService.cs:
        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Banshee.Lastfm.Radio/LastfmActions.cs:
        Move Love/Ban actions to Banshee.Lastfm.Audioscrobbler instead
        of Banshee.Lastfm.Radio. Radio and scrobbling work separately.

        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Banshee.Lastfm.csproj:
        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Makefile.am: Updated with new file.

        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Resources/GlobalUI.xml:
        * src/Extensions/Banshee.Lastfm/Resources/LastfmTrackActions.xml:
        Update GUI to show the Love/Ban smiley/buttons even if the
        current source is local (appears if connected to Last.fm and
        having a song loaded).

        Still a small problem in the NotificationArea: the Love/Ban entries
        do not appear in their placeholder. Looks like a bug cause by
        the Audioscrobbler plugin being loaded before the NotificationArea
        plugin.

        * src/Libraries/Lastfm/Lastfm/AudioscrobblerConnection.cs:
        Change enum State to AudioscrobblerState (for coherence with
        RadioConnection.cs).
        Add handler on Audioscrobbler state change.

Hey Warren, thanks for the patch.  Are all the XML-RPC methods you copied from RadioConnection into  into AudioscrobblerConnection.cs still used in RadioConnection?  If so, should be factored out and not duplicated, if not, should be removed from RadioConnection.

Also, the Notification action XML should be Global as much as the Source Toolbar xml should be, no?

Also, the splitting of Love/etc methods onto two lines is really ugly - as long as it's under ~ 120 chars wide, keep it on one line please - much easier to scan when they all line up.

One last, bigger thing - I think it would be good to make it a choice whether to show the Love/Hate buttons in the Source toolbar, at least.  I'm not sure I want it there whenever I'm doing anything in Banshee.

(In reply to comment #7)
Thanks for answering.

> Hey Warren, thanks for the patch.  Are all the XML-RPC methods you copied from
> RadioConnection into  into AudioscrobblerConnection.cs still used in
> RadioConnection?  If so, should be factored out and not duplicated, if not,
> should be removed from RadioConnection.

This has to change if the new Last.fm API is implemented anyway. But I totally agree.

> Also, the Notification action XML should be Global as much as the Source
> Toolbar xml should be, no?

I don't get it :s

> Also, the splitting of Love/etc methods onto two lines is really ugly - as long
> as it's under ~ 120 chars wide, keep it on one line please - much easier to
> scan when they all line up.

The Unix convention is 80 columns max (for technical reasons which I agree with). But if you don't use that convention, I will follow yours.

> One last, bigger thing - I think it would be good to make it a choice whether
> to show the Love/Hate buttons in the Source toolbar, at least.  I'm not sure I
> want it there whenever I'm doing anything in Banshee.

That's why I want to split Audioscrobbler and Last.fm extensions. I'm thinking of it.

That'll be a valuable feature, especially for lastfm subscribers! Looking forward to see it integrated :)

Bulk changing the assignee to banshee-maint@gnome.bugs to make it easier for people to get updated on all banshee bugs by following that address.  It's usually quite apparent who is working on a given bug by the comments and/or patches attached.

Just curious, is support for this still active?  I'd love to see it, and find myself often opening up my Last.fm profile in Firefox in order to love tracks I've just played.

There's been some work on the Last.fm branch lately AFAIK, so you'd be lucky if the patch I once submitted (one year ago \o/) still works.

Any news about love/ban any track from music library in new banshee ?
This is the only one future which is missing form banshee.

Ping. Any updates on this?
I don't see a lastfm branch, but it obviously wasn't merged..?

Just want to +1 this.

Any update. I am one of the many people switching over from amaroK to Banshee and this was a very prominent option in amaroK. It would be great if it was also available for Banshee.

It's waiting on somebody to update Warren's patch against master.

*** Bug 635894 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I'm willing to take a shot at updating this patch, but I don't really think this should go in the main UI. It's definitely cool to be able to love tracks, but can this possibly go in Tools > Last.fm or somewhere out of the way? We should try and avoid adding too many buttons. We can make it accessible via an accelerator for quickly loving a track without traversing menus.

I take it back, I don't really want to fix this up since I don't use Last.fm. Sorry for the tease. I am, however, going to stand by my "this should go in Tools > Last.fm" remark.

Why should it be put somewhere out of the way for people who enable the Last.fm plugin?  If you don't use Last.fm then you won't have the plugin enabled and the buttons won't bother you.

How is the status? The missing buttons are definitely a reason for not using banshee.

Hm, what player does support this right now? amarok?

I hope I'll find the time to start some coding on banshee in the next months, this task is high on the like-list. And having a patch to start with is definitely nice.  On the other hand, since there is no loved-radio any more (and it's not really clear how the mix radio is influenced by loved songs) I wonder if it is the most important enhancement..

There isn't a "Love" button in Amarok but there is in Rhythmnbox or even Songbird if it helps.

I also had Rhythmbox in my mind. Indenpendently from what last.fm does with it, it's nice to have a list of your favourite songs over a long period :)

@Sebastian, if you do start working on this, you might want to take a look at Bug 544052.  Maybe we don't need Love/Ban buttons in the toolbar (or even in the menus); maybe it would make more sense to accomplish this by automatically loving or banning based on a song's rating in Banshee.

That's an interesting idea (and actually something that come into my mind at some point). I subscribed to the bug report and will keep it in mind!

Any progress guys? I would love to have the love/ban function in Banshee!
The idea of automatically loving based on rating is a good idea, but it'll make more sense to have a love/ban button. What happens when I decide to change the rating of a song? and who decides which threshold I should love a track automatically? By just keeping it independent from other functions my help keeping it simple.
Nonetheless any approach will work :-)

Guys, is this bug gonna be solved? i really miss the love/ban buttons.
or at least, is it possible to apply a patch already? using banshee 2.4 and ubuntu 12.04.
i see the patch attached but with my linux skills i don't know how to apply it!

Still nothing? This feature request will turn six years old in less than a month.

Banshee is not under active development anymore and had its last code changes more than three years ago. Its codebase has been archived.

Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping to reflect
reality. Please feel free to reopen this ticket (or rather transfer the project
to GNOME Gitlab, as GNOME Bugzilla is being shut down) if anyone takes the
responsibility for active development again.
See https://gitlab.gnome.org/Infrastructure/Infrastructure/issues/264 for more info.