JeFCo - The Jesterware freedb Collector

Preferences

The JeFCo Prefenences are used to configure JeFCo to fit your needs. There are three preferences sections or 'tabs': the 'General' tab, the 'Connectivity' tab and the 'Database Server' tab:

Your e-mail address is used by the database servers to identify the user who is requesting CD information. It is send with every request to the db server. This name is not used for access control but for statistical purpose only. So you may choose any name you like.
If you want to support freedb and to submit CD information not in the freedb database, this e-mail address is used to return submission infos. See 'Submit' for further information about submitting CD information. You have to enter your real e-mail address if you want to use this feature.

Your SMTP server

The server to send your outgoing e-mails to. If you do not want to submit CD information to the freedb server using e-mail you can keep this field empty. If you try to send a e-mail and this field is empty the destination mail server is used as e-mail server. This may work or it may not work.

Database Storage Directory

By default the file holding the collected requests and collected disc information resides in your home directory. Here you can choose a different directory to help keeping the home directory clean and to ease the sharing of this file between more than one operating systems or more than one users on one computer. You can use the 'Browse...' button to select the directory instead of typing it in.

Logfile

If enabled every message written to the Logging Window is also written to this logfile. How detailed these messages are is specified by the loglevel. The default logfile is written to your home directory and is named 'JeFCo.log'. You can use the 'Browse...' button to select the directory instead of typing it in.

Browser

If you keep this field empty the build in mini-browser is used. This is a lightweight browser which may be perfectly used for the display of helpfiles or documentation. But it is far away from being a full featured web browser. You may encounter problems after following links to other resources in the web. For example the mini-browser does not support Applets, ActiveX, JavaScript, Cookies, Dynamic HTML and downloading files. The exact capability of the mini-browser is highly dependent on the JRE you are using and may improve every time you upgrade your JRE.
If you prefer to use your favorite browser instead of the mini-browser you can enter here its executable or select it using the 'Browser...' button. To display this helpfile the browser must be capable to read files out of jar archives. While most of the current browsers like Mozilla are able to do so, there are still not too old browsers who fail like Opera5.

freedb ID helper

The feedb ID Helper is used to request CD information without any player program. It is called every time 'Disc -> Get Disc' is used out of the menu or the 'Request Inserted Disc' button

in the task bar is pressed.
There is no possibility to calculate the DISC ID of an inserted CD directly out of pure Java code (at lease I don't know how this could be done - please contact me if you have any idea!). For this JeFCo needs a native helper that runs on your platform. This program should output either one single line with the freedb query parameters or the complete query starting with 'cddb query' somewhere in the output. There are several suitable helper programs and libraries available at

. I've tested following programs sucesfully with JeFCo:

cddbidgen
A Windows command line utility developed by Andy Key. The sourcecode is included in the download package. The original program waits for a key pressed at the end. Depending on your system this may let JeFCo hang when using this tool! I have prepared a version of cddbidgen without this 'Hit any key to exit...' message that runs perfectly together with JeFCo here.
discid
A Linux program by Jeremy D. Zawodny with a project at freshmeat including sourcecode.
cd-discid
Another Linux program with sourcecode included developed by Robert Woodcock. This programs needs the device of your cdrom drive as parameter. You have to add this to the program path (e.g. "/opt/cd-diskid-0.8/cd-diskid /dev/cdrom").

Enable JeFCo Version Autocheck

With this option checked JeFCo looks itself from time to time whether a newer version is available. This check is done when 'Collect All' is called. Before the requests are send to the database server JeFCo determines when the last version check took place and - if is long enough ago - retrieves the information for the currently available version of JeFCo from www.jesterware.org. If there is a newer version found the action defined at Autocheck Action takes place.

Minimum Autocheck Interval

The version check is done only if the last check was at least this amount of days ago. If you want to have JeFCo check for the new version every time you use 'Collect All' you have to set this value to '-1'.

New Version found Action

You can choose what JeFCo will do when a new version is found. The possible actions are:

Pop up a small information Window
A small window is shown and has to be confimed. It displays your current version and the available new version.
Bring up a Browser with the JeFCo download page
A new browser window - depending on your browser configuration either the internal mimibrowser or your favorite external browser - is opened with the JeFCo homepage which shows the version information.
Show only a note in the Logging Window
No window will pop up but there will me a corresponding message in the Logging Window.

Connectivity

The Connectivity Tab shows you the options for connecting the database server in the internet and fro the connection beween your player programs and JeFCo.

Listen for HTTP Requests

If enabled this is the port JeFCo is listening on for database requests using the newer HTTP protocol. The default value is 8080. Note that it may not be possible to choose a port number below 1024 on some systems. You have to set the http-port or the proxy port of your player to this value to enable the use of JeFCo.

Listen for CDDBP Requests

If enabled this is the port JeFCo is listening on for database requests using the older CDDBP protocol. The default value is 8880. Note that it may not be possible to choose a port number below 1024 on some systems. You have to set the cddb-port or the proxy port of your player to this value to enable the use of JeFCo.

HTTP Proxy Settings

Use Proxy to connect to the internet

Check this if have to use a proxy to connect to the Internet for HTTP requests. If you are not sure about this option first try not to use a proxy. If collecting requests from database servers does not work ask your network administrator about your proxy settings. Please note: This setting only effects the connection to server using the HTTP protocol. CDDBP server can not be accessed using HTTP proxies!

Proxy Host

The name of the proxy to use to connect to the internet. This parameter is only used if 'Use Proxy' is selected.

Proxy Port

The port of the proxy to use to connect to the internet. This parameter is only used if 'Use Proxy' is selected.

Database Server

This list shows all your configured database servers. At the first start up of JeFCo this list is initialized with the default server freedb. If you request disc information the servers are connected in the order they appear in this list. You can reorder one server by selecting it (click on its name) and clicking on the buttons

and