Is this possible?

dtwconsulting

Is it possible to read the contents of a CD (or even just to detect if the CD is an Audio CD or data CD) on the client?

Obviously this can't be done using PHP but I'm hoping there is a way of incorporating javascript or VBScript into PHP to do this.

If so then can someone point me in the right direction?

Am doing google searches but so far no luck 🙁

dtwconsulting

Let me try and give so more background on what I'd like to try and do. I'd like to create an application that will allow me to catalog my CD's. I travel a lot so I'd like this to work from any location without having to install a client side application, which is why I thought about PHP. Ideally I'd like to be able to detect the CD drives on the client and then read the contents from the CD and then write this back to a MySQL database on the server.

Now, I appreciate the above might be a little vague, but is this possible in PHP or do I need to look at another language?

Many thanks for help on this.

dgrinberg

The CD details can only be retrieved in Javascript or VBScript. Once retrieved you need to put them into a HTML form and submit it back to the server. Then using PHP you can save the details into the database.

Saying that it is done in Javascript is a little bit of a lie. All of the hard work has to be done by an activeX control. You could look into using the Windows Media Player API (ActiveX Control).

Thus it may only work in IE, boo hiss, and the client machine will have to have windows media player installed (if you go with that control).

However, there may be other ActiveX controls out there.

dtwconsulting

dgrinberg,

Thanks very much for the information. That helps quite a bit 🙂

Now, could you point me in the right direction so that I can start looking into how to use the WMP ???

I'd appreciate that...of course I will google too, but sometimes that takes wading through lots of pages that aren't relevant 🙂 So, if you know of some useful websites that would be great.

dgrinberg

Unfortunately thats as far as my knowledge stretches!

dtwconsulting

dgrinberg,

Fair enough mate. Appreciate the info that you passed along 🙂

Can anyone else help on this ?

p.s. Sorry 'bout the Ashes mate 😛 Mind you, you guys had them for a long time 🙁

thorpe

windows media object model

dtwconsulting

I feel like I am getting close with this but still having some niggling problems that perhaps some knowledgeable person on here can help out on 🙂

Here is my code so far:

<html>
<head>
<title>TEST</title>
</head>
<body>
<object id="Player"
classid="clsid:6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6"
height="160"
width="120">
<param name="uiMode" value="full">
<param name="autoStart" value="false">
<param name="enabled" value="true">
</object>
<?php
echo 'WMP Test';
?>
<script language="javascript">
{
var mycount=0;
var message;
mycount = Player.cdromcollection.count;
message="I am here";
alert(message);
if (mycount == 0)
{
message="No CD Rom Drives Available";
alert(message);
}
}
</script>
</body>
</html>

Nothing seems to happen at all, apart from the printing of the test "WMP Test" and the WMP being visible. The alert is not showing. If I take out the line:

mycount = Player.cdromcollection.count

Then the alert(message); in the following line is coming up.

There are no javascript errors so I am at a loss as to why mycount = Player.cdromcollection.count is not working. It's what is specified on the MSDN pages.