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Topic: Album Art Downloader (Read 472926 times) previous topic - next topic
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Album Art Downloader

Reply #125 –
Indeed. I meanwhile figured this out myself.
Thanks!

Album Art Downloader

Reply #126 –
Quote from: Purple Monkey on
If it's an "another program is using the file", then uncheck the local files search. It would appear that it doesn't release the art after looking for it.

Oops, my bad.

Well, Microsoft's, technically (why should reading a file into a bitmap keep the file locked?), but anyway, I've fixed it for the next release.

Thanks for pointing it out!

Alex

Album Art Downloader

Reply #127 –
Hi first off great program really loving it. Im having a tough time figuring out how to use it effectively though. Is there any manual or docs I can look at?

The two questions I have are how do I automatically (or by clicking a button) save an image to the folder specified in the "Save To:" textfield in the output section. If I hit Save As it launches a dialog which I then have to browse through to reach the correct folder. Is there no way to automatically click a button and have it save to that folder?

The second question is regarding the "Save Toolbar" tab in the settings. How exactly do you use that? I think I saw someone mention you can create buttons which will save the selected image as the front cover, back, CD etc... It would really be great to be able to use these features.

thanks

Album Art Downloader

Reply #128 –
Concerning your first question: Try a double-click, or right-click -> "save"

Album Art Downloader

Reply #129 –
When I click on image to download preview, it often freezes, I have to kill process...
Is it a known bug (fixed in next build) ? (I use the latest version)

Album Art Downloader

Reply #130 –
AlbumArt Downloader XUI v0.2 Preview Released

Thanks for the many comments and suggestions I received following the preview release of AlbumArt Downloader XUI (I'm looking at you here, wraithdu!).

Here is a second release, which has the following changes made to it:
  • Added "Stop All" button
  • Added ability to toggle display of thumbnail information to go below the thumbnail
  • Enhanced auto download of full size images to give the options: Always, Never, and Only For Unknown Size
  • Added an optional Maximum Image size restriction
  • Fixed bug where Local Files source would lock the files it found, preventing them from being replaced
  • Added checkbox for setting AutoClose behaviour in the UI.
  • Added option to disable AutoClose behaviour from the command line: "/autoclose off"
  • Added option to restrict the maximum number of results to return per source
Things notably not in this release:
  • Foobar and file browsers (still)
  • Queuing up of searches. Multiple searches can be run simultaneously, one per window, but they can't be queued up to occur sequentially.
Download:
[a href='index.php?act=findpost&pid=515339']See main post for latest version[/a]

Album Art Downloader

Reply #131 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
AlbumArt Downloader XUI v0.2 Preview Released

Thanks for the many comments and suggestions I received following the preview release of AlbumArt Downloader XUI (I'm looking at you here, wraithdu!).


Looks great, and works pretty well! I am very impressed.

There are a few minor issues on my system (Athlon 64 x2 4400+ with 2Gb ram). It does tend to hang unless you let it finish searching all the sources before you try to do anything else. The "stop all" button also takes a bit of time to kick in, freezing the program for a while in the process. If you wait a bit it comes back, but you need a bit of patience.

It would be nice to be able to just search for a particular source, and then add a new source to the search without the program doing the entire search all over again. eg. do the initial search without GoogleImage (since that can take quite a while), then choose to add GoogleImage to the search if you need more results.

Something like the "Save Toolbar" from the previous version would also be useful, so that you can eg. save cover_front.jpg, cover_back.jpg, artist.jpg, cd.jpg or whatever custom pics you like without having to enter it manually every time.

Album Art Downloader

Reply #132 –
Nice job!  All the new features are great and work wonderfully.

However...as much as I love your program, I HATE .NET 3!!!!  This framework runs like molases on all my computers, crashes frequently, and uses more RAM than any program has a right to (hundreds of megs, at least).  Microsoft needs to address these resource issues ASAP, cause it SUCKS!

Album Art Downloader

Reply #133 –
Quote from: pirlouy on
When I click on image to download preview, it often freezes, I have to kill process...
Is it a known bug (fixed in next build) ? (I use the latest version)
This is not a known bug, and I couldn't reproduce it. Please try the new version 0.2 I just published, and see if it helps.

Quote from: dub_doctor on
The "stop all" button also takes a bit of time to kick in, freezing the program for a while in the process. If you wait a bit it comes back, but you need a bit of patience.
When stopping, it does generally need to complete the result it is currently adding before stopping a source. When using Stop All, there can be a lot of sources to wait for, but it still shouldn't freeze the program while it is waiting. I'll see if I can do anything about that.

Quote from: dub_doctor on
It would be nice to be able to just search for a particular source, and then add a new source to the search without the program doing the entire search all over again. eg. do the initial search without GoogleImage (since that can take quite a while), then choose to add GoogleImage to the search if you need more results.
Interesting. I like the idea, so if I can think of a good way of doing it, I might put that in.

Quote from: dub_doctor on
Something like the "Save Toolbar" from the previous version would also be useful, so that you can eg. save cover_front.jpg, cover_back.jpg, artist.jpg, cd.jpg or whatever custom pics you like without having to enter it manually every time.
The "Save Images To" box has a drop down history list, so if you have used that to define a pattern including _front or _back or whatever previously, you can just pick it from the list. The filename to save to will update in the results panels to reflect the change.

Quote from: wraithdu on
Nice job!  All the new features are great and work wonderfully.

However...as much as I love your program, I HATE .NET 3!!!!  This framework runs like molases on all my computers, crashes frequently, and uses more RAM than any program has a right to (hundreds of megs, at least).  Microsoft needs to address these resource issues ASAP, cause it SUCKS!
I can't argue with the runs like molasses. The thing is big and fat and slow. When I started working with it, I was hoping that WPF performance would be improved by release, but apparently not.

I wouldn't worry about the RAM, though, the way .net works (due to the garbage collection system) is to gobble up as much RAM as it can to improve performance, but if the system starts to run out and other things require it, it will release as much as it needs to.

I haven't noticed frequent crashes with it at all, though - that might indicate some problem that could be fixed, if you wanted to put in the time and effort.

Other than that, I can only apologise, but a large part of the reason for doing this rewrite was to gain experience in writing software in WPF which, for better or worse, is likely to become something I will need to know.

Album Art Downloader

Reply #134 –
No need to apologize, it's Microsoft that has to fix it's framework, not you.

I had just assumed that it was .NET crashing, since when it would happen the harddrive would just be clicking away and RAM consumption would keep going up until I killed the process.  Even then it would take up to a minute for everything to settle down.

In case it's something in AlbumArt, it happened twice to me last night, both times (and I think this is important) while the search was still actively running for at least one source -
1.  after trying to change 'Sort by:'
2.  after trying to change 'Maximum' px value

Probably changing 'Minimum' px value would do it as well.  If I changed either of these after stopping the search, all was ok.

Actually, after playing with this for another second, it seems to do better on resources than version 0.1.  It plays nice as along as I let it complete the search before trying to do anything else

Album Art Downloader

Reply #135 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
Quote from: pirlouy on
When I click on image to download preview, it often freezes, I have to kill process...
Is it a known bug (fixed in next build) ? (I use the latest version)
This is not a known bug, and I couldn't reproduce it. Please try the new version 0.2 I just published, and see if it helps.

The same as before.
I'm using XP SP2, framework 3.0. Maybe it's because all operations (downloads) are not finished. For me, it's very easy to reproduce. I launch a search, and I click (and stay clicked) on an image, if it does not freeze, I just have to click on another. In general, I need between 1 and 5 times to freeze AAD.

I'm not sure if image is downloaded before to freeze. Maybe it's linked to automotic sort (I sort by size).

Album Art Downloader

Reply #136 –
The program is indeed unstable.

I noticed one problem though. If the album name includes ", it doesn't work.

Album Art Downloader

Reply #137 –
Looks interesting enough to try (And there's a shortage of decent apps to grab album art NOT for iTunes or embedded in the file), I'll post if i come across any issues.

EDIT: Ok, the new version is much improved over the previous one (god save the %placeholders%), But i still miss one feature from the only other app i ever used - I need to point it to a folder, Have it find my albums, And I'll be able to search art for each album i got (better yet, detect which ones dont - no filename matching the given pattern in the save path in the current album folder).

Album Art Downloader

Reply #138 –
This looks like a great program. 

I would appreciate some advice about the best way to use this. I plan on ripping my music collection to FLAC and playing back over foobar using Cepi Perez's Dark Config (which links to this as one of the needed components).

I've read through this entire thread now and have a couple of questions:
  • It seems to me I can have this program search and download album art to something like an Album Art directory that is subsequently organized by Artist/Album name or alternatively the .jpgs can be placed within a 'Music' directory also organized by Album/Artist etc. alongside the FLAC files. I can see that one advantage to keeping a directory structure that keeps Album Art and Music separated is the potential to batch the Album Art file in Photoshop. I am thinking  I could  create a simple action in Photoshop to resize all images to 500 px square.  Not sure if Photoshop would have a problem with running this recursively on directories and subdirectories where .jpg files are mixed with FLAC files so it may be a non-issue but it would certainly be a possible advantage for keeping the Album Art and Music separated apart. My question is: are there any advantages/disadvantages to  keeping the art files separate from the music? I will have a fanless PC running a VIA chipset at 1.2GHz and 1  gig of RAM so this PC will not be a powerhouse.
  • Further up the thread someone asked if this program could be invoked to run recursively on an entire music directory structure. The idea would be that the program identifies the albums and downloads album art for any and all where it is missing. I never saw an answer for that. Is this one of the capabilities of the new  0.2 version and if so what are the implications for how music and art are stored as per my first question?

Sorry for the length and hope these aren't too basic questions. I've not downloaded/installed FLAC or Foobar yet and haven't started ripping my collection. Just trying to get all these issues sorted before diving in to the big project and don't want to have any nasty surprises. 

Best,

Dave M

Album Art Downloader

Reply #139 –
I'm not sure about the advantages of keeping the art separate from the music, I suspect this will come down to a matter of personal preference. I can, however, answer your question 2.

The XUI version of Album Art Downloader does not yet support the File Browser functionality, which would do the job of looking at files and determining album and artist from them, then checking if there was already art available, and giving the option to download them if required. It's always been on the list of things to do, but I've been working on getting the basic art searching and downloading working properly first. As you can see from some of the above comments, I still have some work to do improving this.

I will hopefully eventually get round to working on File Browser functionality, (or perhaps someone else might like to have a go! Open Source, after all...). When it does go in, it will be able to identify art for the album and artist using the same pattern as is used to save art at present, using placeholders. So, if you can get the current version to save your art where it is supposed to go automatically (using whatever scheme you prefer), then the file browser should be able to identify art stored using that scheme.

If you need file browser functionality now, then I believe the non-XUI version (at the top of the thread) provides this.

Alex

Album Art Downloader

Reply #140 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
The XUI version of Album Art Downloader does not yet support the File Browser functionality, which would do the job of looking at files and determining album and artist from them, then checking if there was already art available, and giving the option to download them if required. It's always been on the list of things to do, but I've been working on getting the basic art searching and downloading working properly first.
Alex


Thanks for the quick reply Alex. Not a programmer so sorry I can't help out.

One additional query/remark though. Assuming you (with or without some help) do get to integrating File Browser will it be able to tell album and artist for FLAC files? I ask because in my continuing learning curve I've read up on FLAC and found that it does not support ID3 tags but rather uses Vorbis comments.

I hope that the widespread use of FLAC means it's own tags are readable/utilizable by programs such as this one but thanks to confirm. And sorry again if I've got this all wrong. 

Best,

Dave M

Album Art Downloader

Reply #141 –
I assume I will use the same tag-reading library as in the non XUI version (called ATL), which I've just had a look at and can confirm does support reading FLAC files, and Vorbis comments. From the look of it, it seems that FLAC supports ID3v2, but basically I will just be throwing the file at the tag reading library, and using whatever it comes up with.

Of course, if anyone knows of a better tag-reading library that can be used from C#, as I haven't started development on this feature yet, I'd be open to suggestions.

Alex

Album Art Downloader

Reply #142 –
AlbumArt Downloader XUI v0.3 Preview Released

Thanks for the further support I've received for this project. Following bug reports and further suggestions, here is a third release. I'm hoping this will be the last release of the searching functionality, bringing it to a stable, polished state before I start work on porting the browser functionality.

This release has the following changes made to it:
  • Stability improvements:
    • Stop All should not cause the app to become unresponsive
    • Fixed bug where app could hang while previewing during a search
  • If a search is performed for the same album and artist, but with different sources, a minimal search is now performed where only the newly selected sources are queried, and the existing results are kept in the same window.
  • Added better error reporting. If a crash occurs, an errorlog.txt file will be produced. This can be used to report the crash, and I might have a chance of fixing it.
Download:
[a href='index.php?act=findpost&pid=515339']See main post for latest version[/a]

Album Art Downloader

Reply #143 –
quick question

would this work (stuff in bold)?

-ar "Artist" -al "Album" -f "Artist - Album"

I want my filenames to follow the input that I search for in the program

Album Art Downloader

Reply #144 –
Quote from: lyte on
quick question

would this work (stuff in bold)?

-ar "Artist" -al "Album" -f "Artist - Album"

I want my filenames to follow the input that I search for in the program

-f doesn't work without -p provided too. In fact, you don't need -f, you can just use -p.

You should specify the rest of the path of where you want the images to be saved too, though, as "Artist - Album" is not a valid path. Something like "C:\AlbumArt\Artist - Album" might be what you are after? Also, it might be better to use placeholders for the artist and album, so that they get automatically replaced if you search for different artists and albums: "C:\AlbumArt\%artist% - %album%"

You probably want a file extension on the filename too. You could use Artist - Album.jpg, but in case the found art isn't a jpeg, you can use %extension% to automatically use the right one. This leaves us with:

-ar "Artist" -al "Album" -p "C:\AlbumArt\%artist% - %album%.%extension%"

Album Art Downloader

Reply #145 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
Quote from: lyte on
quick question

would this work (stuff in bold)?

-ar "Artist" -al "Album" -f "Artist - Album"

I want my filenames to follow the input that I search for in the program

-f doesn't work without -p provided too. In fact, you don't need -f, you can just use -p.

You should specify the rest of the path of where you want the images to be saved too, though, as "Artist - Album" is not a valid path. Something like "C:\AlbumArt\Artist - Album" might be what you are after? Also, it might be better to use placeholders for the artist and album, so that they get automatically replaced if you search for different artists and albums: "C:\AlbumArt\%artist% - %album%"

You probably want a file extension on the filename too. You could use Artist - Album.jpg, but in case the found art isn't a jpeg, you can use %extension% to automatically use the right one. This leaves us with:

-ar "Artist" -al "Album" -p "C:\AlbumArt\%artist% - %album%.%extension%"


thanks Alex


it keeps freezing up on me, eating all my resources. no matter what ~~


[update]

I noticed that the list of resources the program uses to obtain cover art was somehow duplicated. This program works wonders with only a few resources selected, whereas having all of them applied causes the program to consume almost all of my resources ~~
 

Album Art Downloader

Reply #146 –
I am using albumart downloader with REACT2. I already have a lot of album art stored on my hard disk (but not all). Is there a way to browse the albumart on the hard disk and use that with REACT2 (they are often better quality versions than those on the net).

Rgds
G

Album Art Downloader

Reply #147 –
First, gotta say i love this application  thanks a milion!!

I use the new XUI 0.3 and i have two questions.
1, is it possible to change the priority/order of the search plugins in the right list?
2, the local files search plugin does only return match when there is a file with the same filename as in the -path or -file variable, is it possible to make that plugin show all image file in the target-directory?

Album Art Downloader

Reply #148 –
Quote from: lyte on
This program works wonders with only a few resources selected, whereas having all of them applied causes the program to consume almost all of my resources ~~
Personally I use it with only one, or maybe two sources selected. I like Coveralia for large images, or Amazon if I want smaller ones. If you don't find anything good, you can always select an additional source and press Search again, it will only query the newly selected source if you haven't changed the artist/album being searched for. Unfortunately WPF is very resource-heavy, I know. The 0.3 version should freeze less, hopefully.

Quote from: gsa999 on
I am using albumart downloader with REACT2. I already have a lot of album art stored on my hard disk (but not all). Is there a way to browse the albumart on the hard disk and use that with REACT2 (they are often better quality versions than those on the net).
I'm sorry, I don't really know REACT2, so I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve. As far as this app is concerned, if you have the art on your hard disk, the job is already done! If you are looking for something to help you organize images that are stored in an unstructured way, then I don't think this is the app you are looking for, sorry.

Quote from: Brasse on
First, gotta say i love this application  thanks a milion!!
Thanks, it's always nice to know when my work is appreciated.
Quote from: Brasse on
1, is it possible to change the priority/order of the search plugins in the right list?
Not yet, but I want to eventually add the ability to drag them up and down to reorder them in the list. This will change the sort order of the results when sorting by source (at the moment it is alphabetical), but won't have much other effect. Sources are searched simultaneously, there is no priority system.
Quote from: Brasse on
2, the local files search plugin does only return match when there is a file with the same filename as in the -path or -file variable, is it possible to make that plugin show all image file in the target-directory?
The idea is that the path to save the images to contains placeholders for the album and artist name, so if you have an image for that album and artist, it will show up. If more than one image matches, then all of them will show up. Other placeholders are treated as wildcards. So, if your target directory is c:\albumart\%artist%\%album%\%source%.jpg then all .jpg files in that folder will show up. I suppose if you really wanted all images regardless of whether they were for the right album and artist, you could cheat and use a path like c:\albumart\unsorted\*.*, that would return all images.

Album Art Downloader

Reply #149 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
Quote from: Brasse on
2, the local files search plugin does only return match when there is a file with the same filename as in the -path or -file variable, is it possible to make that plugin show all image file in the target-directory?
The idea is that the path to save the images to contains placeholders for the album and artist name, so if you have an image for that album and artist, it will show up. If more than one image matches, then all of them will show up. Other placeholders are treated as wildcards. So, if your target directory is c:\albumart\%artist%\%album%\%source%.jpg then all .jpg files in that folder will show up. I suppose if you really wanted all images regardless of whether they were for the right album and artist, you could cheat and use a path like c:\albumart\unsorted\*.*, that would return all images.


"C:\Program\AlbumArtDownloader\AlbumArt.exe" -ar "%artist%" -al "%album%" -p "$replace(%_path%,%_filename_ext%,)00-$lower(%directoryname%)-front.jpg" /autoclose

is the current command-line i use with "Run services"-plugin, it only shows a local source image if its a perfect match, how could i change the command-line to show all images in the albums directory?