Despite my best efforts to move forward with a new release of HappyFish I have not been able to get it out the door.  HappyFish is a side project for me and as such comes after my work obligations and family.  I genuinely wanted to release a new feature-rich bug-free version, but I have to admit that I don’t have time for it.  If I get a few moments over the summer I’ll continue to tinker with it, but officially I’m suspending development.  I will leave this site up for downloading of the current release.  I will also leave the forum up for community interaction.  Most of the bugs in the current release are documented in some fashion in the forum.  Thank you to all the HappyFishers who have made this project so fun and rewarding.

I'm working to improve the file renaming options in HappyFish.  Here are the proposed options:

• Item Title
• Feed Title + Pub Date(mmddyyyy)
• Custom + Pub Date(mmddyyyy)

Should there be others?

The only potential problem I see with this is that some feeds do not express item pubdates according to the RSS (or Atom) specification.  I have added extensive code to attempt to divine the author's intent based on what is available.  Ultimately, however, if that fails then the only reasonable alternative is the current date.  Two items might have a naming collision if Feed Title/Custom + Pub Date is used.  Handling the collision is not a problem but the result might look something like "My Feed 12092008.mp3" and "My Feed 12092008 - Copy.mp3". 

One other note: I'm trying to stay away from sequential naming conventions that rely on an incrementing download count.  That strategy creates user interface and back end overhead to manage the count.  It also leaves open the possibility of getting filenames out of sequence if the enclosures are downloaded out of sequence.

As always, feedback is appreciated.

For the next version of HappyFish is there a preference for one type of ID3 tag support over another - ID3 1 vs. 2?  How about the ability to strip one out and replace it with the other?

Below are the options that will be offered for rewriting ID3 tags of audio files after download:

Feedback is appreciated.

As you may suspect, I spend a lot of time in front of the computer.  While I'm working I like to listen to music.  Some people find it distracting, but I find it adds to the enjoyment of coding - like caramel sauce on ice cream.  When I'm not listening to RadioParadise I have a few other sources of great new music.  One of them is All Songs Considered hosted by Bob Boilen on National Public Radio.  The show is available as a podcast and is one of those feeds that if you're like me - you keep every episode.

NPR: All Songs Considered (http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510019)

Happy listening.

I've made a few changes in the site in preparation for the new release.  I've changed the blogging engine to DasBlog.  I also upgraded the forum engine to the current version of Community Server.  The nice thing about the upgrade is that it adds support for OpenID.  In the process I moved the forums from happyfish.info/blog/forums to http://happyfish.info/forum.  The download page will be moved to within the blog itself shortly.

OpenID represents the future in single sign-on for the web and I would encourage you to get an OpenID of your own.  If you have a Yahoo mail account or a Blogger account, then you've already got one.  If not, I suggest MyOpenID as your provider.  It's a full fledge implementation of the protocol with all the bells and whistles run by a source I trust.  I'll be posting more about OpenID and lots of other changes through the summer.