Release Notes

OpenStrands 1.0

May 2006
MediaStrands, Inc.

Introduction
Software Requirements
Installation
Documentation
Code Examples
Support
Product Issues

1. Introduction

OpenStrands services allow you to programmatically perform many of the same functions available to you through your browser at the MusicStrands website. Access to OpenStrands is free to registered MusicStrands users.

All requests to OpenStrands require a "subscriberId". You must sign up for a subscriber ID before you can use OpenStrands.

Before running the examples you must enter your subscriber ID in the appropriate source code file, as described in the README included with each set of examples (Java, C#, and so on).

2. Software Requirements

You can experiment with OpenStrands requests and responses using nothing more than a Web browser capable of displaying XML documents. Enter an OpenStrands URL into your browser's address bar, and the browser displays the raw XML response.

The OpenStrands SDK includes code samples in C#, Java and Python.

To compile and run the included C# examples, you need the Microsoft .NET Framework installed on your system. The .NET Framework is available without cost from:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/default.asp

Use of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET is strongly encouraged. Solution and project files for the examples are provided. However, the .NET Framework includes command line compilers for .NET languages, so the IDE is not strictly required.

The provided solution and project files were created using Visual Studio .NET 2003.
To compile and run the included Java examples, you need the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition, available without cost from:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp, or
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.jsp

NOTE that the examples use Java 1.5 Generic Collections, so you will not be able to build the example code with earlier versions of java.
To run the included Python examples, you need a Python interpreter. Many are available for download without cost from:
http://www.python.org

The python examples were tested using python 2.4.1, though we expect they will work with Python 2.2 and above. We make use of urllib and xml.sax.

To run the python examples, please cd to examples/python and view the readme.txt file there.
Viewing PDF documentation requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, available without cost from:
http://www.adobe.com

3. Installation

Download the OpenStrands SDK, in either zip or tgz format and extract the files to the directory of your choice.

The extracted files have the following directory structure:

+{installdir}
    readme.txt
    +[docs]
       Personal_OpenStrands_Reference.pdf
    +[examples]
       +[csharp]
          readme.txt
          example code in sub-directories
       +[java]
          build.xml
          +[lib]
             xerces and xml jars
          +[src]
             readme.txt
             +[com]
                example code in
                com/musicstrands/examples/*.java
       +[python]
          readme.txt
          example code

4. Documentation

The OpenStrands SDK includes the following documentation: OpenStrands User's Guide (PDF format).

This document contains an overview of the product, and instructions on how to use it. You are encouraged to read the entire User's Guide. The OpenStrands User's Guide is installed in:

{installdir}/Docs/OpenStrands_UsersGuide_1.0.pdf

5. Code Examples

The OpenStrands Web SDK includes code examples in C#, Java and Python. Studying these examples is one of the best ways to learn how to use the library. Examples are installed in:

/Examples

You may see specific details about compiling and running the code in the readme.txt files found in each examples/{language} directory.

In broad overview, the examples show details about three aspects of Personal OpenStrands services:

You must deal with an SSL connection. Some examples do this by creating a dummy authentication service which does no checking. You will want to do something more effective.
The services send requested information in a simple XML format. You will need to parse the information. Since the format is simple, you may find that a SAX type parser is most efficient, though a DOM tool is also feasible.
There is a large variety of services. The examples make use of a small subset, chosen to give you an idea about the kinds of things that are available and how you may combine them to get interesting results.

If you choose to program in a language other than those in the examples here, you will still want to look through the code at least briefly, to get a general idea about how your program should flow, and what issues you may need to handle.

6. Support

First, please look at the example source code, and check online documentation.

If you still have questions, you may send email to: openstrands-support@MyStrands.com

Since this is a beta service, we cannot guarantee that we will respond to every email we receive, but we do value your feedback and suggestions.

You can also join the OpenStrands Development group.

7. Product Issues

None known at this time.

MyStrands

OpenStrands