BROWSER RADIO~~~
This makes your iTunes music library accessible via a web browser, complete with next/prev/random, playlists, sorting, and more! You manage your music and playlists in iTunes, but you can listen to all of it via a browser.
Currently the only supported browsers are WebKit-based ones, such as Chrome, Safari, and Mobile Safari. Firefox doesn't support mp3 playback for some crazy reason.
Requirements
- an iTunes library full of music
- a web server service installed on your local machine (for example, OS X with Apache and PHP enabled)
- PHP 5.3+
- Node.js v0.10+
- npm
- the "express" node.js module v0.3+
Installation
First of all, put the code in a web-accessible place.
Next, you need to edit a few config variables. Rename config.example.php to config.php and edit it for the front-end interface options, play.js for the node.js playback options, and radio.js for some more front-end configuration. You must edit all three files with your path info and whatnot. The variables to edit are clearly commented near the top of each file.
The play.js file is for node.js and requires the express plugin to be installed, as in run npm install express in the same directory as play.js.
Usage
Run the play.js file by opening a terminal, going to wherever you dropped the files, and running node play.js. The app will listen on port 1337 (by default) for any incoming music playback requests, and send along the requested file accordingly. It has basic protection against using relative paths to grab stuff you don't want people to access.
If you want to keep it going for a long time, you may want to use a program like forever or pm2 to manage it in the background.
Once that's running, just go to wherever you dropped the files via a browser. It should automatically parse your iTunes library and show a big huge list of files. Enjoy! (Warning: huge iTunes libraries, as in >20GB, may take awhile to parse depending on the speed of your computer.)
Notes
This was built and tested on Mac OS Lion, Mountain Lion, iOS 6 and iOS 7. I haven't tested it at all on Windows; it would probably require some refactoring of file system calls to work on Windows in the first place.
I'm completely unclear on whether "file sharing" like this is considered illegal. It's a grey area. This works a lot like how local area network iTunes Library Sharing already works, which isn't illegal, but combined with the ease of Spotify in the browser. I'm not sure what to think. In config.php you will see that you have to restrict usage to certain IP ranges, most often your local network only, much the same way iTunes Library Sharing already works. I can guarantee that it's not a good idea to share your iTunes library over the entire internet.
Known Bugs
The playlist dropdown may be huge, depending on how many playlists you have. And for some reason certain song paths won't work, but I'm trying to figure it out. Also, there may be an issue playing high-bitrate mp3s. Again, not sure why.
Features To Add
- sorting options
- sort by artist and then album name and then track number ascending?
- sort by artist and then track name ascending?
- search for tracks/artists
The Why
Why did I build this? I was trying to hit two birds with one stone: first, I really hate iTunes built-in shuffle feature. It's not really that random at all. For someone who listens to music all day at work, this is very frustrating, and I couldn't find a satisfactory alternative. Secondly, iTunes built-in LAN sharing limits you to 5 users at once. I bounce around computers a lot, so I hit that 5 user max quickly, and it seems to "stick" for a long time. So even though I may only be connected in two places, iTunes "remembers" several old ones, making me need to restart iTunes a lot. Annoying. Plus, I don't always have access to an iTunes install. Thirdly, and I didn't intend on this feature, but the browser radio works great on my iPhone, so I can listen to my desktop iTunes library anywhere on the same network.