5. The Web in Songbird
Table of contents
Browsing the web
What does "Play the Web" mean anyway? There are thousands of different music blogs where you can listen to music with more bursting on the scene every day. Some have a very limited player integrated and others just provide rough files. Songbird tries to bridge the gap between the web and your desktop media player.
Downloading and playing songs from the internet
Songbird features a fully integrated internet browser for streamlining the process of downloading and playing songs from the internet. If you use Songbird to navigate to a website that includes links to audio files, Songbird will automatically generate and display a playlist on a separate tab under the browser view. Any songs you download with Songbird are automatically added to your media library. You can also access them, as well as the songs you are currently downloading, from the Downloads view of the left Service Pane.
Downloading songs from the internet
Click the download button in the automatically generated playlist or drag the songs from the playlist
to Downloads on the left Service Pane.
✓ The Download button may be disabled on some websites, with links to online music stores provided instead.
Playing songs from the internet
Double-click a song in the list to start streaming it. You can also drag songs on the website to your media library or a playlist in order to manage and play them as if they were locally stored files.
Subscribing to pages
You can subscribe to music blogs and download music directly to your library. 
To Subscribe to a blog,
- Select File › New Subscription...
- Enter the website of your music blog of choice in the URL field.
-
Click OK, and your new subscription will show up under your playlists section.
➠ OR
- Right-click the bookmark button next to the location bar and select Subscribe to this page.
We're working on ways to improve this feature.
Webpage API
The Songbird Webpage API provides programmatic Javascript interfaces allowing websites and webpages being viewed from inside Songbird to richly integrate and interact with Songbird. It provides an interface to enumerate the user's media library/playlists, play media, and download media directly into the user's library. If you're building an online music store, developing a music webservice, or you write your own music blog, the Songbird Webpage API allows you to seamlessly integrate your site into Songbird.
If you're a developer, head over to the Webpage API section for more information.
Examples:
Music blog: A complete music blog with playback control and listeners to make the blog more dynamic and interactive.
Visit the blog
Music Store: A full blown music store with some inexpensive or even free selections. From start to finish: browsing, selection, shopping basket, checkout, and of course full Songbird integration for playback and library integration.
Visit the store
Tag Cloud: Uses the Webpage API to enumerate the user's library and build a cool tag cloud of genres, artists, and albums.
Visit the Tag Cloud (Caution: It may take a while to load if you have a large library)
Music Stores
The iTunes Music Store is the largest music retailer in the US based on the amount of music sold, and Songbird wants to do something about that! We are not trying to make our own proprietary store, but heavily integrate existing online music stores into Songbird, such as Amazon and emusic one day.
Currently you can try out the 7digital Music Store. You can buy high quality MP3s (up to 320kbps) from the 7digital store in Songbird. It uses your most recently played tracks to suggest albums for you. Plus, 7digital contributes a portion of every purchase back to Songbird’s development. Every song you buy supports your favorite artist AND our development. Woot! The UK store is fully stocked, but the US and other European stores are still continuing to populate a complete catalog of music.
- Tag page
- What links here
| File | Size | Date | Attached by | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 22_birdbite.png No description | 11.69 kB | 15:31, 17 Apr 2009 | mpurses | Actions | |
| 59_jukebox.png No description | 41.66 kB | 15:31, 17 Apr 2009 | mpurses | Actions | |
 | recordstore.png No description | 21.85 kB | 15:31, 17 Apr 2009 | mpurses | Actions | |
| subscribe.png No description | 11.05 kB | 23:04, 19 Dec 2009 | mpurses | Actions | |
