I’ve written a new Facebook application called My Playlist. The application displays a playlist like the one shown here on your profile either on your wall or on your boxes tab. It works by reading an XML file version of your playlist off of any FTP or WWW server on the internet.
The easiest way to get an XML export of your playlist is to use a plug-in for your music player. Brandon Fullerhas written plug-ins for iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp and Yahoo! Music Engine.
Brandon has also written a Facebook application that will show information about the last song you played. I took that idea and expanded it into the entire playlist.
I used the Facebook.Net toolkit to write the application using .Net in VisualStudio 2008. There were some interesting hoops I had to jump through to get the playlist to show in the profile at all and to get the “Add To Profile” button to show up on the application start page. I think that story deserves an article all of its own. I hope to get around to writing that sometime soon.
Testers Needed
Right now, I need a few patient people to actually test this application out. I say patient because there is a little bit involved in getting the plug-in installed and working and because after going through all that, there’s a small possibility that it won’t work at all.
One of the problems is that Brandon Fuller’s plug-in costs $15. I will get a license for anybody who is willing to test this for me.
Another problem is that the output of the plug-in, the XML file, needs to be hosted somewhere on the internet where it can be downloaded by my program. This means an FTP or WWW server. I suspect that most people don’t have their own servers and wouldn’t know how to find one. Luckily, I do have an FTP server and will gladly host a place for you to put your XML file.
All this leaves is actually installing the plug-in and setting a few settings and I can help out with that.
If I haven’t lost you yet and you are still reading and you are interested in trying this out, let me know.
If you’re not sure that you want to help out, don’t worry about it. This is just for fun and isn’t important at all. I won’t hold it against you if you don’t try my application. Really. If you still want to help put, leave a comment on the application page or become a fan.