[RELEASE] Picasa Desktop

this addon read's the picasa database an shows all your albums in xbmc.

i dont want to share my picture with google also i dont want to manage all folder to view my albums in xbmc. so i created this tiny addon to access easily the albums from my picasa desktop.

maybe some other need this feature too.

Knowing issues
Not working with picasa 3.9

Version 0.6
Initial linux support
Testet on Ubuntu 11.10 with Picasa 3.0 Beta

Version 0.3
Added network support


network how to
1) download picasastarter http://sites.google.com/site/picasastartersite/
2) run and add a new database. in the base directory will picasa store the database. eg. \\192.168.0.100\Share\Picasa
3) click "Run Picasa"
4) add picture from the network to picasa. eg. \\192.168.0.100\Share\MyPicture\Holiday
5) make an album in picasa an add your picture
6) goto xbmc picture plugins and open the plugin settings dialog from picasa-desktop
7) switch location to network
8) enter the picasa network database location eg. \\192.168.0.100\Share\Picasa
9) if nothing went wrong you musst see your albums
i don't know why but xbmc can't show the thumbs over network. you have to force regenerate thumbs to see it

Picasa Desktop
http://www.da-tom.com/xbmc/plugin.image....esktop.zip


Picasa Desktop 2 Beta
https://github.com/datom/xbmc-addons

I have completely re written the source code. So we have now some very cool feature i think.
the first one, Picasa 3.9 is now supported
the second one is for every linux user, smb network share works now out of the box. this means you dont have to mount your network shares by your own. hello openelec :-)
of course everything from the old addon is working again

please keep in mind, it's beta ;-)

Will try this soon, great idea as picasa is a great tool for managing photos.

Hi, this Add-On doesn't work.
I have Win 7 and Picasa 3, XBMC 10.0.35647.
After installing the Add-On there is an Error, at this moment where i click on Picasa Dektop.
"Script Error in ...."

Sometimes it goes to the next page but displays nothing.

Any Idea of fixing this Problem?

Martin

This feuature is one of the most interresting for me at XBMC.
For the future I hope so i can access my QNap NAS and search by the tags that i have set with picasa.

Ok i have found the failur. Only the Albs will be shown.

(Ich fände es super wenn man ein Plugin bauen könnte dass, wie das normale Picasa Plugin ist. Nur halt auf localer Basis.
Ich kenne auch niemanden der diese bescheuerten Webalben benutzt, 1 GB was soll man damit schon machen und wieso sollte man überhaupt seine Persönlichen Bilder so nem Datensammler wie Googel zugänglich machen wenn man das nicht ohnehin schon mit der Desktop Anwendung macht. (Im Script standen Deutsche Bemerkungen, und da ich Deutsch ein wenig besser kann als Englisch habe ich es mal so probiert))

Gruß Martin

yeah that would be neat... don´t want to share my private family photos online too

what is the problem with linux ? as I see it is python

datom: da sind übrigens ein paar "persönliche" Daten im .pyo ;-)
wenn die Pfade so verwendet werden, dann wirds natürlich problematisch auf anderen Rechnern

thanks for the notice. i changed the comments and removed the python cache file.
the addon works with the Dharma release.

@Bourne23
have you still any problems?

@tequila
i think there is no (big) problem with linux but i have no machine to test the linux version.
---
im code sind die pfade natürlich dynamisch. pyo datei ist ja nur die cache file von python damit der code schneller läuft. aber gut zu wissen das da sowas drinn steht ;-)


some infos about picasa desktop:
There are 2 ways to load the albums from picasa

1) access the picasa database file (the addon use this solution)
problems:
i have sometimes the problem that the addon can't find the database because picasa is refreshing theses files. after 60 seconds or less it works again

network solution:
picasa have to use a network share to store there own database files
you have to enter the picasa database id in the addon config page


2) acces the albums via an hidden webserver in picasa
problems:
picasa musst run to access the albums
you have to send an shortcut to picasa to start the webserver
you can connect only via localhost

network solution:
works only if a tiny programm run and wrap the request from network to the localhost



I have not much time in the moment but i will try to check the linux functionality until the next week.

please stand by and thanks for testing :-)

Hello!, nice work!
I have picasa 3.6 installed in linux using wine.
In the same machine I've an xbmc running as a program, so it has access to the file system where the picasa is installed.
I've revised your code, and it seems that pointing the addon to the place in the file system where the picasa .pal files are located, should be enough to have the xbmc populated with the picasa albums.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to install your plugin (I tried the install from zip and the xbmc doesn't make any changes, and I tried unziping the addon in the plugins directory and it doesn't work )

Two questions:
-How can I install the plugin? If I'm able to install it, I could try to test my scenario.
- is it correct that the plugin only would need the path to the .pal files?. If the answer is yes, the picasa files could be located in a network path with a symlink to the "installation" path. This way for the picasa installation is transparent where the files are located, and every computer on the network could have a xbmc installation with the plugin that could access the .pal location.

gpulido Wrote:Two questions:
-How can I install the plugin? If I'm able to install it, I could try to test my scenario.

you only have to unzip the file and put the plugin.image.picasa-desktop folder in your xbmc addons. it should be work out of the box.

Quote:- is it correct that the plugin only would need the path to the .pal files?. If the answer is yes, the picasa files could be located in a network path with a symlink to the "installation" path. This way for the picasa installation is transparent where the files are located, and every computer on the network could have a xbmc installation with the plugin that could access the .pal location.

yes. its possible so tell the addon where the .pal files can be found. in detail: the addon needs the location of the \Google\Picasa2Albums folder. under vista / 7 its located at c:\users\_username_\appdata\local\. in xp its c:\documents and settings\... i think.

Hello datom!!
Thanks for the answer.
I tried to unzip the plugin in the plugins directory (I'm using dharma 10.1) and the plugin doesn't show in the picture addons.
I'll try again this afternoon at home.
About the location of the files, in linus+wine they are in a more complex path, but it can be located, so as soon I can install the plugin, I would try the two scenarios:
- Normal instalation of picasa with wine in the same machine as the xbmc program. Under Linux (ubuntu 10.10)
-Picasa installed with wine, the config files moved to a network location with symlinks. Two instances of xbmc accesing from two diferents nodes of the network.

Hello again,
To be able to test the addon in Linux, in the addon.xml the platform section should be remplaced to <platform>all</platform>

At this moment the addon doesn't works in linux basically for the \ and / diferences in the paths separator.

I'm cheking it, when I have the modifications I'll send them to you ok?.
(probably with a bunch of "if os.name == "posix":" added