Hi all,

I am in the process of creating a music library, and want to keep the different layers of implementation separate. My current plan, and understanding has my application divided up like this:

1. GUI Layer, talking to...
2. Music object (and implementation) Layer, talking to...
3. Data Storage Abstraction Layer, talking to...
4. Access Database

I understand and agree with the reason for doing this (I.e. I can change any one of these with little or no impact on the other layers). However as I implement this (parts 2,3 & 4 close to completion) I see an issue that I can't quite get my head around...

From the database the Music Object Layer creates an Album object for each album it finds, and within each Album object it will create several Track objects (I have around 30GB of music). Although all the information held about each it purely text my Album Handler Object (which holds all the Album objects) will still get pretty big.

Now, at some point my GUI Layer will need to access this list of Albums to display cover art and other information about each on the screen!

So my question is how should the GUI get the Album information?

Originally I planned to copy the Album Handler object to the GUI, but this might not be a good idea if this object becomes massive! Another way could be to get the GUI to called the Music Object Layer(MOL) with an Album Handler pointer (sorry im originally a C programmer) and then the MOL could create the album objects there (In the GUI layer instead)??

Anyway, what are peoples thoughts on this? How have other people tacked this problem?

Many thanks