Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Album Art Downloader XUI (Read 2070569 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1250 –
Tested with about 30 albums, all images (except check below) at least 300x300px.. be it hidden or taken from API links. Not as much bigger images as I hoped for but nice addition (and partially replacing AAX.. for new users that is ). 1 example where it beats even AAX: TSOOL - Communion. Working fine. Thanks.

One example where users/testers might think that the modified script fails: searching for Bob James / Three AAD shows an image with 300x300px resolution but in fact is only 160x159px. Look at the API link, for some reason it has links to Amazon instead of the "normal" ones. This is not a failure of the new modified script, it's a failure (=wrong image size determined) of the old (+new) script. Found couple of these cases when testing.

Another example where users/testers might think that the modified script fails: searching for Bob James / H AAD shows an empty image of 300x300px (is in fact 1x1px). All of the API Amazon links are dead. So again, not the fault of the new script.

P.S. I found concrete evidence that some of the covers shown in last.fm are images taken from AAX (bigger image (+same size) in AAX with exactly the same defects).

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1251 –
Hi again!
i have 2 question:
1. sometimes i have to re-edit the search string for album or artist after a serch progress (eg. Albumname: Iron Maiden Live (CD1) - i need to remove the (CD1) to get proper results). But if i change the albumname and press enter or click search the filepath for saving won't fits anymore... it takes the last folder were i saved manually. the weird thing is - if i start a single search and hit the stop button fast enough and then edit the albumname and start the search the filepath is still the right!? Any way to fix this?

2. is it possibly to use AAD to fetch artist pics? cause the tool finds a lot of it while searching for covers. i have all my artist pictures in D:\Artist Pictures\Artistname.jpg
    is there a a search string to to check this folder ? cause then i would just google image search or last.fm artists and the tool would fetch all the artist pics

thanx for your work + help 

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1252 –
Quote from: Akkurat on
Thanks for your investigation. It looks like it is worthwhile replacing the current last.fm cover script with this new one, then: it doesn't make things any worse, and occasionally makes them better. The only downside is the lack of size info, but it sounds like that was unreliable anyway. I've pushed up the new script through online updates

Quote from: Der Internet on
sometimes i have to re-edit the search string
Try clicking the Options link, then unchecking the "Open search results in new window" checkbox.

Quote from: Der Internet on
is it possibly to use AAD to fetch artist pics?
I'm not sure exactly what you are asking for. You already know that AAD can search for artist images using the last.fm artist search script. Do you mean you want to use the file browser to get artist pictures for all the artists you have albums for?

In that case, given the location of the artist pictures you specified, try going to the file browser and in the "Specify path to find images" box put "D:\Artist Pictures\%artist%.%extension%". I think last.fm artist search ignores the album name, so that shouldn't matter. If you really wanted to do a search without the album name, you'd have to use the File Path Pattern Matching instead of ID3 tag matching, and specify a pattern with only the %artist% placeholder and not the %album% one.

I hope that helps,

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1253 –
it was exactly what i meant thank you very much
by the way, are google image and last.fm artist pictures the only plugin that will fetch artists pics? perhaps a myspace plugin would be nice

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1254 –
Not used this application before, but I want to attempt to get it to trawl through my entire MP3 collection to grab some higher resolution album art.
I have a folder.jpg in all my folders already though which are 200x200. I don't want to get rid of these yet though until I am happy with the larger files that are going to replace them, so is there a way to just get the program to search for all album cover art and ignore my existing folder.jpgs?

Also what exactly does the automatically download full-size images do. I have it marked as Always but it does not appear to do anything. I was rather hoping it would download the largest cover art image it found automatically (I can then do a batch resize to bring them down to 500x500 which is the size I want (I have set the minimum size to 500).

Thanks

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1255 –
Quote from: gsa999 on
Also what exactly does the automatically download full-size images do.

It doesn't "save" anything. It downloads ALL full-size images "to" AAD GUI. If it's off, AAD gets only "thumbnails" and when you click on the image to preview it, AAD then downloads the full-size image. IMO, the best setting for that is the middle one, "get when unknown"; filter by size works best when all sizes are known and covers with already known* sizes are not downloaded automatically, which speeds up the search.

Quote from: gsa999 on
I was rather hoping it would download the largest cover art image it found automatically

Bad idea if you want to have quality covers. Almost always the biggest covers (over 1000px) are straight from the scanner without any editing.. and those look absolutely horrible most of the time.

* Some "known" sizes are sometimes wrong in some sources.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1256 –
Quote from: gsa999 on
is there a way to just get the program to search for all album cover art and ignore my existing folder.jpgs?
In the File (or Foobar) Browser, click the Options link and edit the box labelled "Specify path to find images:". Replace the existing text with "Folder-new.%extension%" (or anything else you like) so that it uses Folder-new.jpg instead of Folder.jpg. That way it will ignore your existing Folder.jpg files.

Quote from: Akkurat on
Quote from: gsa999 on
I was rather hoping it would download the largest cover art image it found automatically
Bad idea if you want to have quality covers. Almost always the biggest covers (over 1000px) are straight from the scanner without any editing.. and those look absolutely horrible most of the time.
I second that. The results are not usually great, but you can do automatic saving if you want. In the File (or Foobar) Browser, click the Options link and select "Automatically download and save the first result that meets set criteria". Select the albums you want to get art for, and click the "Get Artwork for Selection" button. Instead of the usual search windows, a window will appear which will let you set up the criteria (required size, cover type, sources to search and so on), then you can press the Start button and let it go.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1257 –
I've been using AAD for a short while now and find it really helpful.

But I have a problem of sorts:  I'm having trouble finding my local content.  All artwork is in a single folder.  As I'm scanning all my covers, probably near 1000, it's a bit of a nightmare.  Some covers filenames are either the artist or album.  I know there is a way to do it through the local content search, but I can't figure it out.  I've hunted through the forums, but can't find anything that works. 

Additional:

Just found that "%album%*" and "%artist%*" work, but is there a way of combining them?

Ok, another thing.  Is it possible to give name wildcards?  Say I have Album "Cars For Stars", could it find the artwork if it's called "Cars 4 Stars"?

Thanks

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1258 –
Quote from: Pageygeeza on
Just found that "%album%*" and "%artist%*" work, but is there a way of combining them?

Ok, another thing.  Is it possible to give name wildcards?  Say I have Album "Cars For Stars", could it find the artwork if it's called "Cars 4 Stars"?
I'm afraid not, sorry. You can only do a local search for one pattern at a time, there's no way of specifying multiple alternate patterns to search for like there is in the file or foobar browsers. That's something that could be done in the future, though.

I can't think of any way a simple search could find "Cars 4 Stars" given an album name of "Cars For Stars", though. It would have to do some sort of percentage-match based algorithm, and give a list of possible results. I don't think that's going to happen, I'm afraid.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1259 –
Quote
I'm afraid not, sorry. You can only do a local search for one pattern at a time, there's no way of specifying multiple alternate patterns to search for like there is in the file or foobar browsers. That's something that could be done in the future, though.

I can't think of any way a simple search could find "Cars 4 Stars" given an album name of "Cars For Stars", though. It would have to do some sort of percentage-match based algorithm, and give a list of possible results. I don't think that's going to happen, I'm afraid.

Alex


Cheers Alex, how about getting it to search for a file using the first word from the album title?  I've noticed it's searching for the album string, so could it trim all the words in the album title apart from the first word?

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1260 –
Quote from: Pageygeeza on
how about getting it to search for a file using the first word from the album title?
That would still be a fuzzy search. The local file source isn't so much a search as a lookup at the moment - if your file is named in a predictable way it can be displayed, but it's not much use for producing a list of potential matches for search terms.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1261 –
I've recently started using Album Art Downloaded interactively and love it. Now I'm trying to invoke it from a Perl script that I use in the process of transferring all my vinyl records to .MP3s, and am running into trouble. Every time the script invokes AlbumArt.exe, I get an error log containing:

Album Art Downloader has encountered a fatal error, and has had to close.
If you wish to report this error, please include this information, which
has been written to the file: C:\Program Files\AlbumArtDownloader\errorlog.txt

App version: 0.34.1.0, running on Microsoft Windows NT 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 (32 bit)

System.ArgumentException: The property 'SearchPathPatternHistory' could not be created from it's default value. Error message: Item has already been added. Key in dictionary: 'libdir'  Key being added: 'libdir'
  at System.Configuration.SettingsPropertyValue.Deserialize()
  at System.Configuration.SettingsPropertyValue.get_PropertyValue()
  at System.Configuration.SettingsBase.GetPropertyValueByName(String propertyName)
  at System.Configuration.SettingsBase.get_Item(String propertyName)
  at System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsBase.GetPropertyValue(String propertyName)
  at System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsBase.get_Item(String propertyName)
  at AlbumArtDownloader.LocalFilesSource.Settings.get_SearchPathPatternHistory()
  at AlbumArtDownloader.LocalFilesSource.LoadPathPatternHistory(Settings localFilesSourceSettings)
  at AlbumArtDownloader.LocalFilesSource.LoadSettingsInternal(SourceSettings settings)
  at AlbumArtDownloader.ArtSearchWindow.LoadSourceSettings()
  at AlbumArtDownloader.ArtSearchWindow.LoadSettings()
  at AlbumArtDownloader.ArtSearchWindow..ctor()
  at AlbumArtDownloader.App.ProcessCommandArgs(String[] args)
  at AlbumArtDownloader.App.OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Application.<.ctor>b__0(Object unused)
  at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Boolean isSingleParameter)
  at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate callback, Object args, Boolean isSingleParameter, Delegate catchHandler)
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.WrappedInvoke(Delegate callback, Object args, Boolean isSingleParameter, Delegate catchHandler)
  at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.InvokeImpl()
  at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.InvokeInSecurityContext(Object state)
  at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.runTryCode(Object userData)
  at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RuntimeHelpers.ExecuteCodeWithGuaranteedCleanup(TryCode code, CleanupCode backoutCode, Object userData)
  at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
  at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
  at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.Invoke()
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.ProcessQueue()
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.WndProcHook(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled)
  at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper.WndProc(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled)
  at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.DispatcherCallbackOperation(Object o)
  at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Boolean isSingleParameter)
  at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate callback, Object args, Boolean isSingleParameter, Delegate catchHandler)
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.WrappedInvoke(Delegate callback, Object args, Boolean isSingleParameter, Delegate catchHandler)
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.InvokeImpl(DispatcherPriority priority, TimeSpan timeout, Delegate method, Object args, Boolean isSingleParameter)
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Invoke(DispatcherPriority priority, Delegate method, Object arg)
  at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.SubclassWndProc(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam)
  at MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods.DispatchMessage(MSG& msg)
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.PushFrameImpl(DispatcherFrame frame)
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.PushFrame(DispatcherFrame frame)
  at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Run()
  at System.Windows.Application.RunDispatcher(Object ignore)
  at System.Windows.Application.RunInternal(Window window)
  at System.Windows.Application.Run(Window window)
  at System.Windows.Application.Run()
  at AlbumArtDownloader.App.AlbumArtDownloader.IPriorInstance.Run()
  at AlbumArtDownloader.InstanceMutex.RunAppAsServiceHost(IPriorInstance instance, String channelUri)
  at AlbumArtDownloader.App.Main(String[] args)


Even just invoking it from the shell (Cygwin) produces this output.

It doesn't matter what (if any) command line options I specify. Same thing.

I'm aware of AAD.exe, but I still want to interactively choose the downloaded art, hence I'm running AlbumArt.exe.

Is this a known problem? Is there a work-around?

Thanks,
Stefan Vorkoetter
http://www.stefanv.com

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1262 –
Quote from: stefanv on
Even just invoking it from the shell (Cygwin) produces this output.
This is not a known problem, no. Does invoking it from the Windows command line have the same effect? With perl, is that also via Cygwin, or are you using the Windows perl installation?

You could try deleting your Album Art Downloader settings (delete the folder "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\AlbumArtDownloader", or uninstall and re-install), as the error log indicates that the problem is related to the settings.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1263 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
Quote from: stefanv on
Even just invoking it from the shell (Cygwin) produces this output.
This is not a known problem, no. Does invoking it from the Windows command line have the same effect? With perl, is that also via Cygwin, or are you using the Windows perl installation?

You could try deleting your Album Art Downloader settings (delete the folder "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\AlbumArtDownloader", or uninstall and re-install), as the error log indicates that the problem is related to the settings.

Alex


Perl is also the cygwin version. I'll try it from a Windows command-line tonight.

Here's an additional piece of information I discovered late last night: If an Album Art Downloader window is already open (from having clicked on the shortcut), then opening another one from the command line works as expected. So, I have a work-around for now.

Stefan

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1264 –
hi alex
i have the same "error" talking about the path or file name being too long (i use the file browser)
i've seen your help about a tiny config file in the same path of the program, but the created tracelog.txt gives no help, just stating that "Successfully read application version from settings"
is there a way to know which files i have to rename ?
thanks

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1265 –
Quote from: kheops on
i have the same "error" talking about the path or file name being too long (i use the file browser)
If this error is occurring when you click the Search button in the File Browser, then the problem is probably that the path to some of your music is longer than 256 characters. This is a limit imposed by both the windows API and .net. The only solutions I know of are to move your music files to a folder directly off the root of the drive (which usually saves a good few characters), or to use a shorter naming scheme for the folders they are in.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1266 –
Hi,

I just came across this tool and I really like it: however to be of maximum use to me, I need it to be able to a) tell that albums already have embedded ID3 album art and b) be able to store art into the .MP3 files.

(For a start: once it can do those two things, there are several other things which would be amusing. Like flagging inconsistent album art where the embedded art does not match the folder.jpg, or where several tracks in the same album have different album art).

In the spirit of openness and such, I wanted to just modify the code to support this myself and contribute the modifications back for consideration for inclusion into the main version. I have come across in a forum someplace that Alex will not make any changes for ID3 art retrieval/storage which is his prerogative of course.

I am a very experienced S/W developer but I am new to the whole XAML thing. I speak fluent C, C++, Python, PHP, all manner of pseudo-languages (MS app macros etc) a variety of assembly languages, and I have dabbled in C# before so I am not afraid of it.

I downloaded the code from SVN and built it. It builds fine, I can modify it and rebuild and step through it in debug mode and so on, so all is well there.
(In fact in the first instance, just recognizing files which already have embedded ID3 images is quite trivial).
So I think that in principle adding the modifications to support the ID3 stuff will be entirely possible.

My problem is with the Designer in VC# Express 2008 (which I am using for build/debug) will not launch the designer for several of the .XAML files. For instance, FileBrowser.xaml. There are quite a few errors , for example things like "could not create an instance of type StaticExtension". And a few others too.

Could some of the existing developers comment on what toolchain they are using to build?
Any idea why VC# 2008 doesn't like the XAML files?

As I say, I really like this app, it is the best thing out there that I have found, and I also have a real problem to solve using it (pretty much a lifetime supply of MP3s which have no album art and which I want to start accessing via a HTPC setup, so they need art ...) so I am quite motivated to make the modifications for my own use and contribute these mods back.

Will accept hints as to what I might be missing ...

Ta
Liam

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1267 –
Quote from: liamf on
Hello, and welcome! It will be great to have another developer on the project, and I'm certainly interested to see what you come up with for ID3 embedded image handling. I posted somewhere earlier that I considered embedded image reading (for the file browser, and potentially the local files source) to be within scope, but frankly never got round to actually coding it. It was just embedded image writing that I said wouldn't happen, but if you've got a good idea on how this should work then I'd love to hear it.

To answer your question:

The XAML designers are rubbish. They can only open the very simplest of files, and even then produce limited code. Think of XAML like HTML, and the designer as MS Word. If it's a simple file, you could open it in the designer, and even make some simple changes, but for anything substantial it's not going to work - and what it does produce isn't likely to be optimal. For working with XAML, I find the most helpful process is to use something like XamlPadX to reflect live changes to xaml code snippets and produce small parts of UI like that, then copy and paste into the main file.

I hope you'll learn XAML and be able to contribute directly to it; but if it gets too frustrating and is going to put you off entirely, then I can help with producing code from mock-ups.

The toolchain I am using is just Visual Studio 2008, plus NSIS and 7-zip for redistribution. I don't see any reason it wouldn't work in Express - those XAML designer errors are the same as I see in VS2008.

At present I'm the only active developer on this project, so you can PM or email me directly if you have any code questions.

Alex
 

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1268 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on


Hi Alex,

ah, I see. I had been coming to the conclusion from reading around that the XAML designers were, let's say, immature at the moment.
Good to have it confirmed. It will save me wasting more time on it.

Thanks for the pointer. I will download the tool you mentioned this evening and see if it makes sense.

I'll have to be able to add new controls etc to the UI to control the ID3 image/retrieval thing, and anyway it will be nice to experiment with XAML.
My experiments with ID3 reading are so far confined to adding a few lines of code to the file browser, just to see if it's possible to tell if an image is present (it is) and if you can decide if it is valid (ditto) and if you can decode it to get width/height info from it (ditto again). All that is easy. The next steps will require some UI changes, and some decisions about handling of the tags.

I was thinking that this could be best approached/released in stages:

1. Just detect that an album has embedded art and highlight this in the search results so the user can choose not to download this again
  - which requires some modifications to the UI (to allow the user to enable this)
  - and a modification of the way that results are displayed / highlighted
    - ie folder.jpg found, embedded art found, both found etc
  - and probably to the notion of an "album" to include its tracks, since the "album" only has art in it's entirety if either a folder image exists, or all tracks have art
2. Detection of incomplete embedded art
  - only x out of y tracks tagged etc
3. Detection of inconsistent embedded art vs folder art
  - probably the only thing that is feasible is binary difference between art
  - display of the inconsistent images, selection which of these is the best match, or just re-fetch from clean
4. Optional storage of art into .MP3 files in addition/instead of storing to folder.jpg
  - which definitely requires the matching of tracks to albums in case users have multi-album per folder setups, a not-unlikely scenario
5. ... and possibly other things that I have not thought of yet.

I do have a day job, and my interest in AlbumArt Downloader is part of a larger project involving building HTPCs and wiring and such.
But I would definitely like to get involved. I have tried applying art to a large, fairly disorganised .MP3 collection using MediaMonkey and a plugin for it called Batch Art Finder, but batch art finder while a valiant effort is very unstable, practically impossible to install (and tends to break at random after installation due, I think, to Windows updates - my installation is broken again and apparently unfixable), unpredictable, limited in it's searches, extremely slow, and not stand-alone to not really a good candidate for modification.

I will email you to take this conversation off the forum. It will be quicker to ask some questions rather than figure out from first principles how some things work. When I figure out what your email address is.

Cheers
Liam

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1270 –
This is an awesome program! Thank you! Regards.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1271 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
Quote from: stefanv on
Even just invoking it from the shell (Cygwin) produces this output.
This is not a known problem, no. Does invoking it from the Windows command line have the same effect?


I finally got around to trying it from the Windows command line, and it does work in that case. I wonder if there's some environment variable or other that it's failing to pick up when invoked from the Cygwin shell or perl?

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1272 –
Quote from: stefanv on
I wonder if there's some environment variable or other that it's failing to pick up when invoked from the Cygwin shell or perl?
I installed Cygwin myself, but couldn't reproduce the problem. I think you're right about it being an environment variable or setting, but most likely something additional that's set in your Cygwin environment, rather than something missing. Does "libdir" mean anything to you?

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1273 –
how to save the cover in the music file directly

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1274 –
Quote from: ice.fire on
how to save the cover in the music file directly
This is not supported in the current version. Until very recently I'd have also said that it won't be, but liamf is now working in this area, so it might be possible in the future.

Alex