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 2059168 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 5 Guests are viewing this topic.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1175 –
I'm using your program only for this script. I hate your program because it uses crappy dotNET. If AlbumArtExchange.com script leaves the package and it will be banned by future releases than i will mostly AlbumArtExchange.com for searching manually. And AAD XUI looses priority.
LAME 3.100.1 -V0

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1176 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
Quote from: Joe30 on
the "File Browser" finds "Artist = 1" or "Artist = .".
If the artist and album are part of the file or folder name, you could use file path pattern matching instead of tags. Alternatively, would you be able to send me a sample track that shows the problem? I can analyse the tags on it and find out what's going wrong.

Alex


OK, thank you.

Another little annoying thing I found is this:
When I right-click on a folder, and "Browse for Album Art...", after the selection, I can select a picture and it is saved in the corresponding folder. Great.
But let's say there is a little problem with the tags found (too many words, ...), and in the found pictures there is'nt the correct folder image. Then I manually modify the artist or album name, then search again. But then when I save a picture, it is saved in C:\...pictures, instead of in the starting folder. Would it be possible to add this please ? If I right-click on a folder, and manually modify the tags to look for, retain the original information of the directory. ?

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1177 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
I've had a request to remove the AlbumArtExchange.com script
Sad news cause, IMHO, AlbumArtExchange is one of the best sources (quality wise). I really hope an agreement can be reached that will avoid this drastic move.

Alessandro

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1178 –
Quote from: Joe30 on
Then I manually modify the artist or album name, then search again. But then when I save a picture, it is saved in C:\...pictures, instead of in the starting folder.
Try unchecking "Open search results in new window" in the options pane of the search window. That way, after you modify the artist or album name, the search will take place in the same window, and the results saved to the same folder.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1179 –
Quote from: (Sly) on
I'm using your program only for this script. I hate your program because it uses crappy dotNET. If AlbumArtExchange.com script leaves the package and it will be banned by future releases than i will mostly AlbumArtExchange.com for searching manually. And AAD XUI looses priority.
Who cares what you use? What an ingrate. This is not Alex's fault. Alex. great program, and thank you.
Surf's Up!
"Columnated Ruins Domino"

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1181 –
Album Art Downloader XUI v0.33 Released

This version adds one of the most requested features: automatic batch downloading and saving. To use this, in the File or Foobar Browser window, click the Options link and select the "Automatically download and save the first result that meets set criteria" option. Then, as long as you have more than one album selected when you click the "Get Artwork for Selection" button, a new "Get Artwork Automatically" window will appear. The first time this is shown, a warning message is also displayed, as this will download and save art without further prompting, even when overwriting an existing file. You can check that the criteria for minimum and maximum size are set correctly, and that the sources you want to search are selected, including any you might have set to search first.

There is also a new criterion you can set, for cover type (which is also now available as a filter in the normal search window). Covers with types which don't match one of the checked options will not match as results.

When everything is set the way you want it, click the Start button. From that point on the process can be left unattended. Each album will be processed in turn, with a search being done on each selected source, one at a time, until a result matching the size and cover type required is found. Sources marked as Search First will be searched first, then any remaining selected sources. Once a matching result is found, it is downloaded and saved, then the next album is processed. Only one result per album is downloaded, which will be the first one that matches the criteria set.

Happy Christmas!

Other changes:
  • Fixed LastFM Artist search script
  • Added support for filtering by cover type to both UI and command line (/coverType from the command line)
  • Fixed bug where Delete command would not work under a 64bit OS
  • Fixed bug with radiobuttons not properly updating
  • Removed AlbumArtExchange.com script (at request of site owner)

Download:
AlbumArtDownloaderXUI.exe (Installer. Recommended)
AlbumArtDownloaderXUI.zip (zip archive for those who don't like installers)
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (required, except for Windows 7)

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1182 –
I'm having a really strange problem. When I use the foobar browser, it detects album art in every single folder at a size of 0x0 for almost every folder. I can't tell which folders have art and which ones don't.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1183 –
Quote from: Momotombo on
I'm having a really strange problem. When I use the foobar browser, it detects album art in every single folder at a size of 0x0 for almost every folder. I can't tell which folders have art and which ones don't.
I suspect this is a problem with the "Specify path to find images" setting. This must be a filename (or path) which it can use to recognize an image. If your covers are called Folder.jpg, that makes it very easy, but if your covers could have various names (Front.jpg, Back.jpg, etc.) then it makes it harder. One option is to use ".jpg" instead of .%extension%, and just ignore non jpeg files. There are very few non jpeg covers anyway.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1184 –
Is there someone capable enough to write new AlbumArtExchange script? They can force Alex to stop distributing it with the program, but they can do nothing if it's manually added by the user from an external source.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1185 –
Not sure what happened, but I used to drag and drop the images to my music folders. If I had an image there already named folder.jpg (my default filename to save as), I would get the standard windows overwrite dialog.

today, I can't drag and drop at all if there is already an image. For some reason, AAD offers the option to overwrite the file in C:\WINDOWS, even though that is not the folder I am in....

what happened?

I am using version .33 and Windows 7, 64bit

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1186 –
Quote from: gelat on
today, I can't drag and drop at all if there is already an image. For some reason, AAD offers the option to overwrite the file in C:\WINDOWS, even though that is not the folder I am in....
Could you send me a screenshot of the overwrite window? Are you sure that it is offering to overwrite the file in c:\windows, rather than claiming that the destination file is in c:\windows? The Windows 7 Copy File dialog has two options, the first one is "Copy and Replace", under which it lists the source file, and the source folder, and the second one is "Don't Copy", under which it lists the destination file and destination folder.

Confusion may arise because when dragging an image out of Album Art Downloader, there is no source folder. Windows erroneously then displays the c:\windows as the source folder. You can try this with other applications that drag virtual files out (like attachments from emails, or embedded objects from WordPad), it always displays the Windows folder if there is no actual source folder.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1187 –
Ok, I attached the dialog.jpg to show that it shows "C:\windows" destination when I drag and drop images.


I also attached the error.jpg to shwo what happens when I double click an entry to just save to the default folder. Only with album art exchange


Oddly, I can drag and drop from any source, and it works, regardless of the C:\windows issue, EXCEPT album art exchange. When I drag and drop, it fails. Noting happens, no error, just nothing.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1188 –
Quote from: gelat on
Ok, I attached the dialog.jpg to show that it shows "C:\windows" destination when I drag and drop images.
Yes, it's as I thought. In my earlier post I explained: where it says c:\windows in that screenshot, it is talking about the source of the copy not the destination. It's saying that the destination file will be replaced by the file Folder.jpg from the folder c:\windows, not that it's going to replace anything in the c:\windows folder.

In fact the source has no folder, the file doesn't exist yet. Windows mistakenly displays files with no source folder as coming from the Windows folder, and I haven't found any way to tell it not to display a source folder at all.

Quote from: gelat on
I also attached the error [...] with album art exchange
I'm afraid I can no longer provide support for the Album Art Exchange script, as I've agreed to remove it from Album Art Downloader. If the old script has stopped working, then it is probably due to AlbumArtExchange.com having made changes to their site specifically to block it, and as I'm no longer providing the script I won't be releasing an updated version to work around their changes.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1189 –
Album Art Exchange script still working like it used to. No problems at all with XP. "Double click save to default folder" works, and so does the "drag and drop". I find it hard to believe that a site admin could change the website so that a separate app fetching the pages would start to crash (error message).. I'd call it a security hole in the app. 

Alex, was there any discussion of possibly using the script in AAD? I understand the site owner on one hand, but then again, the site (+the new movie art exchange.. branching out?) is totally illegal.. I guess I find it a bit "funny" that an illegal site issues (well kind of) DMCA notice..

AAX admin:
Quote
I do not want AAX to be accessable through these programs. In fact, I asked three different vendors to remove us from their software. Why? Well, running this site is not cheap and direct access to the images means that nobody will be be buying music through the links here which of course, means that the expense will be all on me. We have grown so much and so quickly that we are going to have to move to a dedicated server by year end or January which will easily double the cost of running this site. I MIGHT talk to one of these vendors about an exclusive product that would allow adding images from AAX to your music but at this time, there are no firm plans for this.
(source)

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1190 –
Hello, i found this great tool yesterday and spent 2 hours trying to figure the right filesyntax out.

My music is in this Folder Structure:

\Artist\Year - Album\Artist - Tracknumber - Title (Multidiskreleases are: \Artist\Year - Album\CDx\Artist - Tracknumber - Title), Various are in: Sampler\Albumname (Year)\ or in Soundtracks\Albumname (Year)\

Now i want the programm to save the artwork in the songfolder, using the Infos of the found Artwork as the filename (Cover, Back, Inside, Unknown). So i entered in the File Browser "Specify path to images" this:

%preset%.%extension%

I edited the Presets so  its fits with my structure. Now i had a list near the Floppy in the Download dialog where i could chang the type. if i choosed Back the cover the cover were saved to Back.jpg. But if i just klick the floppy, it always saves as the Default type, whether it has the Type: Unknown, Back, CD or Front and so on. How can i get this worked?

My second problem is, through the fileformat %preset%.%extension% i entered in the Options of the Filebrowser, that while scanning my files all albums were shown as if they had a coverm whether they do or not. What do i have to enter there that i still can save presets but scan my collection still correct?

thank you very much, sorry for my crappy english 

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1191 –
Quote from: Akkurat on
Album Art Exchange script still working like it used to.
I haven't done anything myself that would disable it, just stopped including it in the installer and making it available for download. AAD does not have the capability to remotely delete a script through the online updates mechanism, and I don't believe in writing software that acts against the wishes of the owner of the PC it's running on.

On the other hand, it's quite easy for the site admin to stop the script working - it accessed AlbumArtExchange through an API, all they would need to do is close, change, or move that API, and the script could no longer access it.

I did ask whether there was a possibility for a compromise solution, but it doesn't look like anything's going to happen. I was not sent any sort of DMCA notice or legal threat, but a polite request from the site owner himself. As far as I'm concerned, that gets a much better response from me. If you want to lobby for reinstation of the script, I suggest you take it up directly with Scott or on their forums.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1192 –
Quote from: Der Internet on
it always saves as the Default type, whether it has the Type: Unknown, Back, CD or Front and so on. How can i get this worked?
The %preset% placeholder is used to provide a dropdown where you can choose an option to save as. I think what you are looking for is the %type% placeholder, which inserts the type (Unknown, Back, etc.) of the cover.

Quote from: Der Internet on
fileformat %preset%.%extension% i entered in the Options of the Filebrowser, that while scanning my files all albums were shown as if they had a coverm whether they do or not.
This problem has been raised a few times, so I'm thinking of ways to resolve it. The basic issue is that if the art filename is %preset%.%extension% then when looking for existing art, the files searched for is "*.*", as %preset% could be anything, and %extension% could be anything. A temporary fix is to assume that all your art files are .jpg, and use %preset%.jpg instead, so that it searches for "*.jpg" files. Of course this isn't ideal, but luckily there are not many covers that aren't .jpg's.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1193 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
I haven't done anything myself that would disable it, just stopped including it in the installer and making it available for download.

Knew that. My point was: that GDI+ error doesn't (or shouldn't (security)) happen because of AAX site changes.. it could happen with other sources too.

Quote from: AlexVallat on
If you want to lobby for reinstation of the script

No no, nothing like that. I'm smart enough  to understand that that would be fighting against windmills.  Also, like I wrote, I do understand every side of this situation, and I really like your attitude and actions, even if that means that I've to learn BOO at some point.

P.S. Would adding a DPI information to search results be useless/clutter? (after the full image was fetched)

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1194 –
Quote from: Akkurat on
GDI+ error doesn't (or shouldn't (security)) happen because of AAX site changes.
It seems that AAX was returning partial or corrupted image data. Whether intentionally or not, this would cause a an error when GDI+ tries to parse it as an image. It doesn't crash or otherwise adversely affect AAD, except of course for not being able to save that image file. This would only be a security concern if there was an exploitable vulnerability within GDI+, which could be triggered by a maliciously formatted image file. It's not impossible, and has in fact happened before in GDI (not plus). When it does happen, though, it's a bigger concern than just AAD as anything that views images would be affected.

For DPI information, does that generally get correctly populated? I expect I can probably get at that metadata if necessary, but from what I can tell no-one bothers to set it anyway. You're better off just looking at resolution, as you already know what physical size a CD cover is.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1195 –
Quote
no-one bothers to set it anyway

It gets set when scanning.. and that's what I was thinking about. Just learned that amending it afterwards makes the DPI info in AAD kind of pointless.. if it's the original scanning value, then it would be useful. In the light of this new info about DPI, I say forget it. Just an idea that came to my mind when comparing several same album images in win explorer (or rather in "windows picture and fax viewer").. a 300dpi image was slightly better quality than other same size 72dpi image.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1196 –
Quote from: mobyduck on
Quote from: AlexVallat on
I've had a request to remove the AlbumArtExchange.com script
Sad news cause, IMHO, AlbumArtExchange is one of the best sources (quality wise). I really hope an agreement can be reached that will avoid this drastic move.

Alessandro



Hello,

My name is Scott and I am the owner of AlbumArtExchange.com. I understand your disappointment at my request and I am sorry to have to make it. Last month, non site traffic was at about 20% which is totally ridiculous. As quoted elsewhere in this thread is the matter of the cost of running a site on a decent host isn't cheap and about to get more expensive. The site cannot continue on a shared server and we are moving to a dedicated one and are barely meeting expenses as is. I want to preserve the integrity of this artwork by not plastering my site with unrelated advertising and giving out iPods in exchange for junky contributions. I have no interest in making a profit and with this moral code in place, I doubt that I will. I just want the site to operate as well as possible and handle an increasing amount of traffic and survive without my wallet. This requires users coming into the site through the front door.

What was not quoted was my other concern that our contributers often work long and hard on these images (I am one of them). They deserve the view count, votes and kudos for their efforts. The only way to do this is through the site.

While I understand your disappointment at my request and future security changes, I don't understand WHY AAD and similar programs are necessary to access the site. Is the search interface that we have not useful enough? Listen, I REALLY know that this is gonna sound arrogant and is it NOT meant in that way: I played with AAD quite a bit to see if I could find images of better quality than on my own site and I am proud of that I did not. God that sounds smug but, I swear it's unbiased. In your opinion are we lacking in the way of content that you need to compare it to raw scans and Amazon images? Do you want more back covers? With Safari you can just double click the thumbnail and the save or drag the actual full sized image.

Cheers,
Scott

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1197 –
Hi Scott and thanks for taking time to share your POV.
Quote from: AlbumArtExchange.com on
I don't understand WHY AAD and similar programs are necessary to access the site.
Speaking only for myself here, I can give you two reasons: first, who uses those kind of programs often has no idea where to search (poor excuse, I know, but I for one didn't even know your site existed before using AAD); second, while your site is great, it simply cannot cover (no pun intended ) every need: when searching for some obscure or exotic (read: any music that is not in the UK/US domain) album I need to widen my search scope as much as possible.
Quote from: AlbumArtExchange.com on
What was not quoted was my other concern that our contributers often work long and hard on these images (I am one of them). They deserve the view count, votes and kudos for their efforts. The only way to do this is through the site.
How about a link in AAD that opens a browser page instead of allowing direct download if a match is found on your site? I'm not a programmer so perhaps this is not something Alex is willing to do but I thought I'd try anyway.

Regards.

Alessandro

Edit: edited to tweak my poor English, sorry.

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1198 –
Quote from: mobyduck on
How about a link in AAD that opens a browser page
This already exists - the little round (i) symbol on a result indicates that there is a web page with more information for the result available; clicking on it opens the link in your browser. Most sources have these links available.

Quote from: AlbumArtExchange.com on
I don't understand WHY AAD and similar programs are necessary
If you're actually serious here, I'll give you a quick set of points:

Convenience of searching
Starting from your album collection, either as files in a folder or tracks in your media player, AAD can search directly for that album across multiple sources. You don't have to copy and paste the artist and album name. You don't have to search for sites to use. You don't have to figure out how to use those sites - for example, there's no Search link or button on your front page. It's not immediately obvious that you have to go to Gallery, and the search box on that page is not exactly obvious - at a glance you could easily think that the page is just a gallery to browse through. I'm not picking on your site in particular, there are other sites used by AAD which are even harder to figure out how to actually do a search.

Multi-threaded operation and improved search results UI
Both searches, and the download of full size images, is carried out in the background. If there are a few images you'd like to compare at full size, then clicking each of them to start the download will set them all downloading simultaneously. They will simply replace the thumbnail with the full-size image when it's ready, allowing easy side-by-side comparison at any size, and instant zooming preview simply by holding the mouse button down on them.

Convenience of saving
AAD will generally know exactly where, and with what filename to save your artwork. This can be because it has been told directly by the application that launched it, because it knows the folder the album music files are in, or because you've told it your filing scheme so it can work it out from the album and artist names, and other information available to it. This means that to save the image, you just need to press Save. You don't need to navigate to the right folder. You don't need to type in the right name. Just press save. With the latest version, if you so choose, you don't even need to do that, it can save the first matching result for a whole set of albums automatically, populating missing album art in your collection without further interaction.

Breadth of availability
Having multiple sources over multiple nationalities and genres means that chances are that if what you are looking for exists, it will be found. Quality is important (and AAX does have excellent quality), but availability can be even more important. A low-res poor cover may still be better than no cover at all. As a quick test I had a look through the latest requests on your wish list forum, and multiple results at over 1000x1000 were available for all of them.

Other artwork
Personally, I just use front covers, but I know some people also want back covers, CD images and inside covers.

Alex

Album Art Downloader XUI

Reply #1199 –
Quote from: AlexVallat on
Quote from: mobyduck on
How about a link in AAD that opens a browser page
This already exists - the little round (i) symbol on a result indicates that there is a web page with more information for the result available; clicking on it opens the link in your browser. Most sources have these links available.
Oh my... thanks for pointing that out and apologies for my ignorance.

So do you think it would be possibile to cripple AAX results only so that no images are returned and only that link is available? Or being AAD script-based this is just nonsense?

Alessandro