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Topic: Yet another front end (Read 2625 times) previous topic - next topic
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Yet another front end

About a month and a half ago, there was a discussion on front end programming. I paid close attention because it was something that interested me.

The result of that attention is TUF-E (The Ultimate Front End) (Humble I am not).

The short story: It's 100% configurable. You tell it what codecs you have and where. You create ANY NUMBER of macros that are translated into command lines and executed. You drag and drop, or add via dialog box, files to process, and you get a combo box that allows you to select the macro that is executed. If you have macros for FLAC, MPC, Monkey, Shorten and AAC and you drop a, SHN file ONLY the macros for SHN are presented to you. And you get to pick a default macro for every format you set up.

Having bastardized Jurgen Faul's ATL library, it knows from tags . . . and you can get the tags from the audio files to the command line you're building, so it ought to be useable as a front end for stuff like TAG.

Oh, yeah, it captures the command line and it's output to a log window, the contents of which can be saved to a text file of your choosing. And since you're building command lines, you get to do cool stuff like using stdin and stdout, and command concatenation, so it is literally possible to transcode from any format to any format.

For test purposes, it's set up to recognize
FAAC v1.1, FAAD v1.2 Beta, FLAC 1.0.4, Lame v3.90.2, LPAC, Monkey's Audio 3.97 MPPENC v1.12 Beta, MPPDEC v1.06, OGGENC.EXE, OGGENC2.EXE, OGGDEC.EXE, OptimFROG v4.21, Shorten v3.4 and WavPack v3.95. You'll have to get them yourself, but I got links to the home pages that make them available. (side note: I almost ignored them and to just send everyone to RareWares - I am impressed!)

Yet another front end

Reply #1 –
Oh this looks like a really nice frontend!

But I find the interface a little annoying; there's no standard maximize/minimize buttons.

How do you select bitrate or quality? I've read the documentation, but the only way seems to be creating a new macro?

I also had my try creating a frontend of my own, Frontah, which will be released "soon".

Yet another front end

Reply #2 –
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But I find the interface a little annoying; there's no standard maximize/minimize buttons.


I was being cute. That's fixable if folks in general find it annoying. Getting back to me so fast gives you TWO votes. 

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How do you select bitrate or quality? I've read the documentation, but the only way seems to be creating a new macro?


That's it, the only way so far.

I figured that most people pick their settings and leave them that way. Plus, since I'm trying to use a single tool to run any codec without blocking the experts, something with extensive pick-lists and such would need a recompile for every new format that pops up. Or maybe that XML-based method Mozilla uses to define user interfaces. I'm not familiar enough with that to try it . . . maybe version when-I-figure-it-out.

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I also had my try creating a frontend of my own, Frontah, which will be released "soon


I think I remember you mentioning that in the front end programming thread. I think I remember geting annoyed at how good it looked.

Let me know when it's ready and I'll help you shake it out.

Yet another front end

Reply #3 –
Cool!

Is it programmed in Delphi then? (since you use ATL...)

Yet another front end

Reply #4 –
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Cool!

Is it programmed in Delphi then? (since you use ATL...)

Yes, Delphi Studio 7 Professional. The things I did to ATL . . . actually, I just slapped an interface on top of the various file types it supports. One of the things I want to do for version 1.5 is do that correctly and give Jurgen the results - no way I could have done it in under two months without the head start ATL gave me.

Yet another front end

Reply #5 –
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I also had my try creating a frontend of my own, Frontah, which will be released "soon".

Wow... this one looks really great!!!
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