Music preferences

When you click a song, web catalogs can play music right in the browser using the QuickTime plugin. You can set up catalogs to play music directly from your hard disk, or via your web server. The Music preferences pane lets you tell KavaTunes how to link to your music.

To link to music in the catalog, check the “Link to music” checkbox. If you don't want to make your music available online, uncheck the box.

You can enter a file:// URL, which will allow catalogs to play music directly from your hard disk. However, this will only work on your own computer. The following examples show URLs for the default music folder location, and a music folder on an external disk.

file:///Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/ file:///Volumes/FireWire/Music/

You allow people on other computers to play your music by sharing it using Web Sharing. Enter the URL where you would like to make your music available. For example:

http://localhost/music/ http://mymac.local/music/ http://mymac.mynetwork.com/mypage/music/

Click the “Share Music…” button to make your music available using Web Sharing. KavaTunes will create an alias (technically a symbolic link) in your webserver documents folder, pointing to your music folder, at the path corresponding to the URL that you have entered.

If you are using an http:// URL and Personal Web Sharing is not turned on, click the “Open Sharing” button and make sure that Personal Web Sharing is checked.

Then, click the “Test in Browser” button to go to the specified URL in your web browser. You should see a file listing, with folders each artist. (Note that Safari will open a Finder window for file:// URLs.)

The localhost host name will only work on your own computer, and a .local hostname will only work on your local area network. Using a fully-qualified host name (.com, etc.) will allow any computer on the internet to play music from your computer. (Note that computers outside your local area network will not be able to connect to your computer if you are behind a firewall and/or router, such as an AirPort Base Station).

If you get a 403 Forbidden error, then your web server may be configured to not follow aliases into your home folder. In this case, it is advisable to move your music folder to a location outside of your home folder. You can tell iTunes which music folder to use in the Avanced preferences. Then restart KavaTunes and click the “Share Music…” button again to recreate the alias.