CD Art Display RC4 Build 330

[Carlos]

CAD RC4 Build 330 (27 Jun 2006)

- Added Windows Live Messenger (WLM) interaction level
- Added default Display Picture (*)
- WLM interface improvements
- Drop image over CAD feature improved
- Small bugs fixed

http://www.closetosoftware.com/temp/cadrc4b330.zip

:)

[Carlos]

Build 333 (28 Jun 2006)

-Detect songs with the same Winamp title (rare but may happen)

http://www.closetosoftware.com/temp/cadrc4b333.zip

:)

[blindfold]

Hi.
Great app, must have for me, thanks.

I have some strange problem:

I got date instead of album name.

I'm using Winamp 5.24.

For example:
I play -
Name "Skip Divided"
Artist "Thom Yorke"
Album "The Eraser"


I got all files named in this pattern:
"Thom Yorke--2006-06-29 111320.jpg"


Cover folder is set correctly -
"C:\Documents and Settings\MyName\My documents\My pictures\CDCovers\"
(well, I have a different language, so I've translated folder names),


I have tried "Cover name" in 3 ways -
"%coverfolder%%artist%%album%.jpg"
"%coverfolder%%artist% - %album%.jpg"
"%coverfolder%/%artist% - %album%.jpg"

[Carlos]

blindfold,

It's probably an ID3 tag issue.

Can you check your mp3 tag?
Does it happens with all of your mp3?

Anyway, it seems that CAD read as null your album tag.

Can you send me one of your mp3? Or just a small part of it (using mp3DirectCut)?

[blindfold]

Well, yes I think it's rather rare problem. I have checked other files, those were okey.

Well, honestly I haven't checked all files and I feel kinda stupid, but this was an m4a file. I have uploaded file to
hxxp://www.blindfold.republika.pl/05 Skip Divided.m4a

(sorry not to url this, but I don't wan't to be accused for piracy and so on, this goes to http -> hxxp change).



BTW. I don't want to interrupt your developement schedule, the "Control Panes" closes sometimes during applying changes (when I click Apply, not Ok). If you need any testing I can do it as I often listen to the music at work.

[Jorell]

I made a list of remaining issues I have with CAD:

- %year% returns Unknown when used in Notifier text with .ogg files (tagged with Winamp 5.24).

- System tray option Cover as icon doesn't work (I'm using Vista Beta 2 build 5384). Instead I get a blank space on the system tray but it's unclickable.

- Fade in must disabled in Vista Beta 2 build 5384 otherwise I can't target the CD cover window, it clicks through it targeting the desktop behind it. Although I found out it works fine if I set desktop theme to Windows Classic instead of Windows Vista.

- Winamp plugins (the 2 .dll) makes Winamp crash at startup (again that's on Vista, used to work fine on XP). if I rename them, I can launch Winamp again (so a workaround for now is making CAD open Winamp and launching it up opening CAD instead).

and here's my wishlist :)

- CAD to remove previous display picture from the display picture list when it changes track (otherwise, you end up with a list of all your album pictures in there).

- More options on default picture and nocover, searching, webradio, etc. pictures (alternatives for WLM) i.e. use 2 different pic for nocover for example depending on where they are displayed (WLM or CAD). Maybe a paused WLM display pic default.

- Logitech G15 LCD support (could be an alternative to the already existent Media tag reader built-in, it's really basic & unconfigurable unlike notifiers in CAD).

- A possibility to remove the built-in buttons (play, next, etc from CAD) since I use it just to show the cover and use winamp for navigation.

- Although I use an English OS, it'd be nice to have CAD translated when it goes live, I can volunteer to make it in french :) Maybe there's a way to make it like a plugin so ppl could write language packs.

----

That's all I can think of for now, great app and it keeps getting better and better :D

[Leif]

"- CAD to remove previous display picture from the display picture list when it changes track (otherwise, you end up with a list of all your album pictures in there)."

Agree 100 %! My picture list looks plain ridiculous! :lol:

[Carlos]

blindfold

CAD does NOT read m4a tags. Only mp3 and ogg.

The best way to make CAD work properly with a m4a file is to create one folder for each CD and a folder.jpg as the cover.


Jorell

I'll try to fix all Vista bugs when I install Vista here. But I think I'll wait the final release. Anyway, I'm not sure I'll be able to fix some of the bugs since Vista does not support the old Windows GDI interface (at least it seems not to support it). Unfortunately, the CAD Vista ready will have less features. :(

See the DP "issue" below.

I'll see what I can do about the rest of the list! :)


Leif

CAD uses a default Messenger API to change the DP: CAD does not control how Messenger copy/rename the DP. For now, there's nothing I can do about it.

[FuNiOnZ]

Been away a while, lost everything due to a HD crash, good to see a new version! Time to redownload 500+ covers -_-

[noroom]

- CAD to remove previous display picture from the display picture list when it changes track (otherwise, you end up with a list of all your album pictures in there).I looked into it because I wanted to write a progam that did exactly what CAD does with WLM's DP (back when MSN7 was first released) and it's not possible. MSN doesn't expose an object or an API that allows a programmer to do this, so I thought of doing it manually.
I found that DPs are stored in the %appdata% folder, but even if you delete the files for them, there's still an encrypted map.dat file that stores some info for the pics, as they still show up (but as blank images) in the DP selection window after they've been deleted. That's why I never got around to writing that program, heh.

- More options on default picture and nocover, searching, webradio, etc. pictures (alternatives for WLM) i.e. use 2 different pic for nocover for example depending on where they are displayed (WLM or CAD). Maybe a paused WLM display pic default.I was thinking about this myself a couple of days ago. Maybe show the default DP when a cover hasn't been found, and never add the "searching" DP to WLM, just show the previous DP instead until a new has been found, or when there's no result, then the default is shown.

- Logitech G15 LCD support (could be an alternative to the already existent Media tag reader built-in, it's really basic & unconfigurable unlike notifiers in CAD).Honestly, you're one of the few users with this keyboard. You can't expect this feature to be high-priority. Would be nice, of course. But not even Carlos has this hardware, so programming for it and testing it would be too complicated.

- A possibility to remove the built-in buttons (play, next, etc from CAD) since I use it just to show the cover and use winamp for navigation.Agreed. I'd also be able to enable/disable the invisible buttons/hotzones in CAD.

- Although I use an English OS, it'd be nice to have CAD translated when it goes live, I can volunteer to make it in french :) Maybe there's a way to make it like a plugin so ppl could write language packs.I don't really mind about this. Would be nice, but it's not something that has to be implemented. Especially not before 1.0. Maybe if it gains enough international popularity.

Nice suggestions, Jorell.

[Jorell]

Nobody said it was all pre-version 1.0 stuff 8)

just ideas hehe

ps: about DP, could a macro do it ? maybe it's time I try Macro Runner :twisted:

[Carlos]

DP

Thanks noroom for the explanation!

DP for nocover etc.

The new build will show the defaul DP when searching etc. If you don't have a default DP CAD will act like before. Maybe some users won't like to see a cover from the previous song while a song from a different album is being played.

New build: http://www.closetosoftware.com/temp/cadrc4b334.zip

Logitech G15 LCD

I never say no but I don't have time to add this right now.

Built-in buttons

C'mon! They are invisible! We have to be selective in order to avoid tons of options that are not SO important after all. Is there any significant reason to make this an option?

Translation

I think it's a nice feature. But before that CAD must be ready. We're doing a lot of changes lately which makes impractical to keep a translation team working all the time. Who'll want to do this? Who'll have the time?

[Jorell]

Like I said I'm just providing feedback, I'm not expecting anything from a free product, it's already great as is imo 8)

Without feedback it wouldn't improve :D

[Carlos]

Your feedback is great! :)

Keep it up! :D

[FuNiOnZ]

Just a slight comment, blindfolds issue with the file naming, it's definately due to a null value in the Album title, I had the same problem, once I entered the album title manually, then tried it again, it saved properly.

[Carlos]

CAD RC4 Build 335 (29 Jun 2006)

- An empty album tag will not generate a date anymore
- ogg date/year bug fixed (finally!)

http://www.closetosoftware.com/temp/cadrc4b335.zip

:)

[Mangix]

i have a small question about CAD's WLM functionality. yesterday, when i uninstalled WLM, CAD had the WLM options enabled(CAD wasn't running at time of uninstall). when i used CAD again, Windows Messenger opened up. but does the personal message and personal picture change when using WM?

[Carlos]

I didn't test it just with WM.

[noroom]

Windows Messenger does not support Display Pictures nor Personal Messages.

[Hop Sing]

Didn't look for some weeks, now I see: extreme high Version-Number. But no changes to my request: Still it shows year as unknown, when playing an flac-file. And with the new version it even doesn't change the cover: the last cover of an mp3-file remains.
I'm sure you can fix that. And if you do: would you mind to put one more line to edit?
My View is as follows:
Title
artist
year

I wish, i could show year in a smaller Font. But I have to put it the same way like the artist. Or am I too stupid to get it right?
I know, my english is getting worse within the years... so I put a screenshot for you which shows both of my problems:
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/3146/projekt18ht.jpg

[Carlos]

Hop Sing,

CAD does not read flac tag that's why it's not working properly for you. If you know any Visual Basic 6 module that reads a flac tag just let me know.

This new build will take the folder as the album name when an album tag is empty so it'll work better for you I think:

http://www.closetosoftware.com/temp/cadrc4b343.zip

The third independent line is on my to do list. I didn't do it yet because it'll take a lot of my time and I'm busy right now.

[Jorell]

Apparently it's identical to the ogg/vorbis tag system:

What kinds of tags does FLAC support?

FLAC has it's own native tagging system which is identical to that of Vorbis. They are called alternately "FLAC tags" and "Vorbis comments". It is the only tagging system required and guaranteed to be supported by FLAC implementations.

Out of convenience, the reference decoder knows how to skip ID3 tags so that they don't interfere with decoding. But you should not expect any tags beside FLAC tags to be supported in applications; some implementations may not even be able to decode a FLAC file with ID3 tags.

What is the difference between (native) FLAC and Ogg FLAC?

You can think of an audio codec as having two layers. The inside layer is the raw compressed data, and the outside layer is the "container" or "transport layer" that splits and arranges the compressed data in pieces so it can be seeked through, edited, etc.

"Native" FLAC is the compressed FLAC data stored in a very minimalist container, designed to be very efficient at storing single audio streams.

Ogg FLAC is the compressed FLAC data stored in an Ogg container. Ogg is a much more powerful transport layer that enables mixing several kinds of different streams (audio, data, metadata, etc). The overhead is slightly higher than with native FLAC.

In either case, the compressed FLAC data is the same and one can be converted to the other without re-encoding.

Which should I use, (native) FLAC or Ogg FLAC?

The short answer right now is probably "native FLAC". If all you are doing is compressing audio to be played back later, native FLAC will do everything you need, is more widely supported, and will yield smaller files. If you plan to edit the compressed audio, or want to multiplex the audio with video later in an Ogg container, Ogg FLAC is a better choice.

http://flac.sourceforge.net/faq.html#general__tagging

I think the problem is that there's no 'fixed fields set' so a FLAC Tag created with software A could be different from one created with software B (not having the same fields).

FLAC files can be encapsulated in the .ogg container. would tag be read then? good question...

[Carlos]

Apparently it's identical to the ogg/vorbis tag system...

CAD ogg reader module can't read a flac. No "vorbis" header. :(

[Jorell]

I'm still looking :P

I found this:

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=336409

someone apparently made a VB module to read what winamp 5.xx is playing so if winamp is able to pull tag from FLAC this module should get those values from Winamp I would think?

hope it helps :)

[Carlos]

This module just opens Winamp file info box then tries to capture the text in it. Yes, it always opens the file info box window.

:)

[Jorell]

lol, you are the coder, it's all gibberish to me :p

[ravebot]

What can I say? Excellent job.
Still I have a problem: version 343 reads song's folder as album name and that is not helping me very much. :D
Maybe it is possible to add an option in control panel where you can select to search cover only by artist if album name is not present.
Otherwise is fun/taste/ic. :D

[noroom]

Is it possible that when the Album name is "II", that CAD only displays "I"? This is a problem with my skin (Lucid Black/White). CAD knows the album title is II, but the notifier only shows one I. Also, it shows something weird below the I. Here's a screenshot:

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8586/untitled7fm1.png (http://imageshack.us)

What's wrong with my skin? :(

And when a song has an artist and title in the tags, but no album, CAD still shows the cd art and title for the previous song. I wanted to see if CAD detected the song change, so I enabled the PM update, and that worked fine.

So, I'm playing a song with no Album tag, and CAD is showing the art and title for the song I played before. I open the Control Panel, click Ok/Apply and CAD "notices" the new song and updates to show no CD cover and no CD title.
Is it just me having this problem?

[Carlos]

noroom and ravebot

CAD won't take the album-folder information to make a search.

The "I" instead "II" was due a small width to draw the text. CAD has to calculate the width to draw the text in it. CAD will add a few pixels if the text is too short. I've tested here and it's working.

http://www.closetosoftware.com/temp/cadrc4b354.zip

:)

[Hop Sing]

Thank you for the new build. It shows the cover now, what more can I expect? :D
Never mind for the "year-problem". Actually I'm more than satisfied with your tool. As I mentionend before: This rocks! And always will!

[Hop Sing]

Still one Q: You say, that CAD does not read flac tag. But it reads artist and title. Why not year?

[Carlos]

CAD takes artist and title from Winamp window title when it can't read the tag.

[hcm]

Is it possible to show the id3 comment of an MP3 with CAD? Something like %comment%?
btw: Great work! :D

[Carlos]

I'll see what I can do about "%comment%"!

[Mangix]

when a new songs starts playing, and when it's FLAC, it can't read the tracknumber. so CAD just leaves it at zero. however, sometimes, when i don't click Next on CAD(to change the track), the tracknumber becomes a crazy number like 202 or 158 or etc...

this happens sometimes but not always.

[Carlos]

Really strange.

I'll see what's wrong as soon as possible.

//Topic closed due newer version.