What is C86?
C86 is a small Macintosh application for sharing playlists.
Eventually it could evolve into a more generalized program for downloading music from the web, but for now I wrote it simply to solve a problem that's long bothered me: it's very difficult to send someone a playlist the way people used to share mixtapes with each other (the name C86 is a nod to the old indie mixtaping culture).
C86 is free for now, but if you happen to feel like supporting its development, why not buy a copy of one of my other apps: PodWorks :-)!
How does it work?
C86 is a special-purpose HTTP client that can automatically download a linked zip file containing audio files and an XSPF playlist, decompress it, transfer the files into iTunes, arrange them in playlist as specified by the XSPF, and clean up after itself.
Right now all of this is triggered by the end user clicking on a link that begins with the custom URL scheme "playlist://" and points to a zip file (see the ones below for example). C86 registers itself to handle this URL scheme, so as soon as the user clicks on a link of that type, C86 springs into action and downloads the specified file through HTTP. It then unzips the file, finds the enclosed audio files and XSPF file, and uses AppleScript to transfer the playlist into iTunes.
Requirements
- Requires OS X 10.4 or above
Limitations
For now, C86 is only an experiment and spare time personal project for me (a Sci-Fi Hi-Fi "20% project," if you will), so while I believe it's solid at what it does, it's got a lot of rough edges. These include:
- It's currently not a "true" XSPF client (only handles local files for the playlist tracks, not references to URL).
- It could use much better UI. It would be nice to show the download progress in kilobytes (in addition to the visual progress bar), and to show the user the playlist contents before sending it to iTunes.
- It's not multithreaded (can only handle one download at once).
- It has no facility for automatically creating the playlist files from iTunes playlists, which is kind of a pain in the ass.
- It should be able to handle, say, a special .c86 file type when the user double clicks on one of the zip files in the Finder. This will be especially important to work with sites like YouSendIt and Senduit that don't support the URL scheme.
- Doesn't do any form of content resolution. It would be nice to offer that as an alternative to including the files.
- The custom URL scheme is the kind of thing some people consider a bit dodgy. Maybe there's a less "un-webby" way to achieve the same level of slickness?
Sample Playlists:
Credits
- Cassette tape application icon courtesy of Wiley Wiggins.
- Inspiration and encouragement by Briana Mowrey.