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Topic: Program to download album covers (Read 281152 times) previous topic - next topic
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Program to download album covers

Reply #50 –
for the firsth - thank you for this cool program.

for the second - i have a guestion.
how to (if it is possible, and if not, may it be iplemented ?) to parse albums named like this:

Anekdoten  (2003)  Gravity  [MP3@320]

so it is

%artist%  (%year%)  %album%+ some meaningfull (at last for me) info, stamp, included into '[ ]', and two spaces before '  ' -> '  [...]'

without parsing such named folders i can't use it, please help  .

[EDIT]
for my foobar, i solved it by cutting the end of folder name from the position of '['
so firsth i cut it
$cut(%album%,$sub($strchr(%album%,'['),2))
then - can easily parse.
may also be
$cut(%album%,$sub($strchr(%album%,' ['),1))

Program to download album covers

Reply #51 –
Quote
for the firsth - thank you for this cool program.

for the second - i have a guestion.
how to (if it is possible, and if not, may it be iplemented ?) to parse albums named like this:

Anekdoten  (2003)  Gravity  [MP3@320]

so it is

%artist%  (%year%)  %album%+ some meaningfull (at last for me) info, stamp, included into '[ ]', and two spaces before '  ' -> '  [...]'

You should be able to use %junk% to ignore any remaing info, "%artist% (%year%) %album% %junk%" should work although I haven't tested it. (be sure there is something between %album% and %junk% or else it will probably just run together)


I also wanted to bump this thread as I've posted the newest version.

Program to download album covers

Reply #52 –
Congrutalution for this plug-in,

It's a bit less efficient than MA3D but much more faster and easier of use!!

I think that it would be quite hard to do it, but could you create something to check if any .jpg file is already in the directory as many of my discs already have a front cover but with various kind of names (Just "the request of my dreams" and I'm sufficiently lazy to ask you to do the work I don't want to do myself with renaming all the files cover.jpg  ...)

Something showing that the program has already searched a cover would also be nice (the same as before, I know it might be quite hard). For example storing data in a "parallel" file, kind of database. And displaying a thing like "*" in front of the name (but the show no cover feature is already doing a part of the job)

But anyway, this program is already really great and very useful. Great thanks for it

Program to download album covers

Reply #53 –
Is it possible not to write "error.log" on each launch? Maybe you should make an option for it, or give the file a less scary name
Life is Real...
(But not in audio :) )

Program to download album covers

Reply #54 –
Can you add the ability to accept multiple filenames (e.g. cover.jpg, front.jpg, or back.jpg)? Some of my ablums have no cover.jpg but other names. If you do add this, assigning an order to show the cover if multiple files exist will be great too (e.g., front.jpg, then cover.jpg, then back.jpg etc.)

Program to download album covers

Reply #55 –
First: Thanks for that great program!
But: What about adding the option to exclude directorynames to list, cuz I've got folders for pictures and videos in my artist folders, too. Currently they are marked as albums, too and that really sucks...

Program to download album covers

Reply #56 –
Quote
Any chance of having it query Walmart?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=295467"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That's my only wish!  More 500x500s!

(But my primary reason for registering is....well, my TWO reasons for registering are: A) To thank the creator of this program for an AWESOME job and B) Because I'm really tired of just lurking here, given how much awesome info abounds!)

Program to download album covers

Reply #57 –
Quote
Quote
Any chance of having it query Walmart?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That's my only wish!  More 500x500s!

(But my primary reason for registering is....well, my TWO reasons for registering are: A) To thank the creator of this program for an AWESOME job and B) Because I'm really tired of just lurking here, given how much awesome info abounds!)
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=298931"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Yes! I agree. Wallmart has the album covers that amazon.com doesnt...is there any chance the program can search walllmart? This program KICKS ASS its found albums covers for 90% of my collection! I wish i knew how to program...

Edit: I reccomend [a href="http://www.betterpropaganda.com]http://www.betterpropaganda.com[/url] more than below
Edit: www.cdcovers.cc has a large selection of large picture files of cd covers...

Program to download album covers

Reply #58 –
Some feedback:

Thank you!!!  This is the best program I've seen for downloading covers, but I'm suggesting a few features because I have a HUGE collection and it's going to be quite time consuming to download all art.

I'd like to see any features to speed things up, like the ability to download art for whole directory trees at a time and flip through quickly and review the results in a mini-browser.  I'd like to get rid of message boxes that require OK when there isn't a result found.  That's just extra mouse motion and clicking that isn't necessary.  I'd like to see keyboard shortcuts added so that I can key through everything quickly rather than having to use the mouse (it's a personal feeling of mine that keyboard can be much quicker).

again, thank you.
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. - Richard P. Feynman

Program to download album covers

Reply #59 –
Thanks for all the compliments and comments (and yay, I was part of the reason someone registered at HA). My ego has gone up a level

Quote
[...]
I think that it would be quite hard to do it, but could you create something to check if any .jpg file is already in the directory as many of my discs already have a front cover but with various kind of names (Just "the request of my dreams" and I'm sufficiently lazy to ask you to do the work I don't want to do myself with renaming all the files cover.jpg   ...)
[...][a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=298642"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I'm thinking of adding a feature to check for any images in your directories and allowing options like renaming, deleting, and changing the file type. (hehe, sounds like you're as lazy as myself. I wrote this program because I didn't want to manually search for all my album covers)

Quote
[...]
What about adding the option to exclude directorynames to list, cuz I've got folders for pictures and videos in my artist folders, too. Currently they are marked as albums, too and that really sucks...[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=298859"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I would have no problem adding such an option but I really can't see how it could be implemented given the way the program works. Unless there are some delimiting characters which differentiate the music, video, and picture folders it would be impossible to know that X is a folder for music and Y is a folder for pictures.

That said, some options I can think of as I'm writing this are:
* Checking for music files in a directory - however this would skip empty album folders or folders for which I have't programmed in the music format file extension so I don't really see this working.
* Adding certain user-definable names which are always excluded, e.g. "Pictures" - however I guarantee some artist has an album name which will coincide with an excluded name.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to implement this type of feature, let me know.

Quote
I'd like to see any features to speed things up, like the ability to download art for whole directory trees at a time and flip through quickly and review the results in a mini-browser.
I like that idea, unfortunately there are 2 problems.
1. Amazon has rules which limit the number of queries you can do in a certain amount of time (I believe it is 3 per second, but don't quote me). So to implement that feature and use amazon as the image source it would take a good deal of time simply to allow for that time window to pass between consecutive queries.
2. The image results are stored in the program's memory and not on disk. Doing massive cover downloads would either require them to be written to your harddrive or have the program use a massive amount of memory.

I will look for alternatives though and see if I can't implement something close to that.
Quote
I'd like to get rid of message boxes that require OK when there isn't a result found.  That's just extra mouse motion and clicking that isn't necessary.
Oh god that is so freaking annoying. Sorry for not removing it earlier. Gimme til Monday (may 6) as I'm out of town this weekend.
Quote
I'd like to see keyboard shortcuts added so that I can key through everything quickly rather than having to use the mouse (it's a personal feeling of mine that keyboard can be much quicker)
I agree, and can easily implement it. What in particular are you looking for?

Oh, and I scrapped and redid the tab order a few versions ago, so you should be able to tab around effectively (falls short of actual keyboard shortcuts, I know).

(FYI - ctrl+shift+d opens the console window if anyone wanted to know that.)

Program to download album covers

Reply #60 –
Querying sites other than amazon:

To everyone who wants to query alternate sites: I know. Trust me, I also would love to have alternate sites to query. Aamazon doesn't have a cover for two of my albums and it is driving me nuts whenever I play that album in foobar and there is an empty space where a cover should be.

The problem lies in the fact that I query amazon because they have a web services API which allows me (or anyone) to simply and easily get this type of information. All the program does as far as retreiving the cover image is send a SOAP message to amazon which asks for images that match the artist and album. Then it downloads the largest (there are usually 3 sizes) image for each result it returns.

Hopefully you can see the problem in trying to query other sites. I would have to find out the internal workings of each site in order to know how to send it the artist and album information, then I would have to parse the resulting HTML to get the cover image.
There are many problems with this approach, including the rather major issue that if the site changes even the slightest of details then the program will break. Not to mention the fact that I don't want to spend the time to code all of that

Result? Unless a site offers an access API, even if it's not through web services or over SOAP, I really don't think it's feasible to query them for images. If anyone wants to offer suggestions please do.

(FYI - Walmart has an "affiliates" program, to which I have applied in hopes it will provide a similar access method as amazon and I'll be able to adapt the progam to get their images. I'll obviously post updates if that turns out positively. Cross your fingers.)

Program to download album covers

Reply #61 –
Quote
Quote
[...]
What about adding the option to exclude directorynames to list, cuz I've got folders for pictures and videos in my artist folders, too. Currently they are marked as albums, too and that really sucks...[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=298859"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I would have no problem adding such an option but I really can't see how it could be implemented given the way the program works. Unless there are some delimiting characters which differentiate the music, video, and picture folders it would be impossible to know that X is a folder for music and Y is a folder for pictures.


That would be great, many thx.    Maybe u could check if the folder is named JUST pictures, not ... maybe pictures of my life or some crap like that.

Program to download album covers

Reply #62 –
I found another website that has 500x500 pixel album art images.

coconuts.com

It's a on-line retailer for music, dvds, etc....stumbled upon it today, and so far I have found 500x500 images for every CD I have ripped.  Perhaps this site can be integrated into Album Art Aggregator, which btw is an awesome little app!

Program to download album covers

Reply #63 –
Been using this for awhile, And its great, the best solution for getting album covers ive seen, so easy and quick (rather then searching manualy through hunderds of music sites, ugh).

Thanks for the time you invest in this app, and thanks for letting us have it

Program to download album covers

Reply #64 –
Can we make it search a certain string (like %artist% - %title) rather than just the dir name - if my dir structure is %artist%-[%year%]%album% it searches that and thus finds nothing at all
hi

Program to download album covers

Reply #65 –
Hi neksus,
I'm having a bit of trouble getting your album art tool to correctly parse my directory structure.

Basically, my structure is 'Artist\(Year) Album (Disc No.)\'
Songs with no album info are just stored under 'Artist\'
If the album has no Date or Disc No. info, then the structure is 'Artist\Album'

I thought I would be able to just parse using a couple of different strings, but no matter what I do, clicking 'Show no cover' displays all the 'Artist\' root folders as well as the albums. How can I get it to show just the albums?

Cheers!

Program to download album covers

Reply #66 –
excellent app, nice work mate

Program to download album covers

Reply #67 –
Can we have a command line version, so you can run...

album_command.exe "SEARCH_STRING" "PATH TO FOLDER.JPG"

Pleeeeease

Just it would mean that foo_openwith could be used to autoget covers


But let us MANUALLY SPECIFY THE SEARCH STRING


So you could have (as your openwith command) foobar reading the ID3 files.

So you'd tell foobar to do app.exe "%artist% - %title%" "$replace(%_path%,\%_filename_ext%,)\folder.jpg"

etc


Here's a screenshot to show you what I mean.

Notice that the search string is just exactly the same as the album folder name. This means it never finds anything




[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']moderation: please refrain from inlining images larger than roughly 800x600 and 80KB. please use thumbnails and/or links for large pictures instead. using PNG for screenshots might help to get the filesize down.[/span]
hi

Program to download album covers

Reply #69 –
I got that working, but thing is, it also includes anything on amazon's search like recommended albums, featured and guide albums

So it usually gets 7 odd false positives. Maybe if it displayed some sort of choosing thing then it'd kickass (although I have no idea how you'd do that in PHP without a webserver).
hi

Program to download album covers

Reply #70 –
Great program and works VERY well.  Now that I have that out of the way I did find one small problem (tiny really)

I have my flac files on a seperate linux file server and rip with grip/cdparanoia - auto query freedb

One of the album folders created had a space at the end and this is acceptable in linux of course.  When I add the files to my playlist I simply add the m3u file generated (this one contained the space at the end of the album name) and all is good.

PROBLEM: when you have AAA "Get Albums" for the album list if it runs across a folder with a space at the end it kind of craps out on that folder and stops loading any further folders.  It will display all the folders it finds up to that point though.  Just a FYI if it's an easy fix.  Thanks for this app btw
No mercy for the bandwidth impaired

Program to download album covers

Reply #71 –
ok here's my problem... multi disc albums...
most of my stuff is in artist/album but multi disc albums have disc # folders added...

example... songs are in
C:\My Music\Pink Floyd\The Wall\Disc 1

i keep the art in
C:\My Music\Pink Floyd\The Wall

so basically i want the program to work... to be able to ignore any folders beyond artist/album and save the art in the right folder
- sig removed, no code allowed

Program to download album covers

Reply #72 –
Installed smoothly, kicked in cleanly, learned quickly, searched perfectly and found instantly. What more could I ask for?

Wonderful job. Just what I needed.

Thanks
"Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought." - E.Y. Harburg (1898-1981)

Program to download album covers

Reply #73 –
I'm using v1.3.1956.6767 and I kept getting the error "There was an error when attempting to download the album covers from the internet."

I use the custom dir file name "%artist% - %album%".

Hope someone could help.

--Jaron.

Program to download album covers

Reply #74 –
Quote
Querying sites other than amazon:

To everyone who wants to query alternate sites: I know. Trust me, I also would love to have alternate sites to query. Aamazon doesn't have a cover for two of my albums and it is driving me nuts whenever I play that album in foobar and there is an empty space where a cover should be.

The problem lies in the fact that I query amazon because they have a web services API which allows me (or anyone) to simply and easily get this type of information. All the program does as far as retreiving the cover image is send a SOAP message to amazon which asks for images that match the artist and album. Then it downloads the largest (there are usually 3 sizes) image for each result it returns.


I don't know if buy.com fulfilles your criteria, but they have some nice covers. So if you have the time, It would be nice if you check if they have the same kind of API.

AtW