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Topic: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters? (Read 1680 times) previous topic - next topic
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Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Hey all,

I was wondering if there was any way with filenames to display full length characters that are legal versions of illegal mid length characters in Windows, such as colons and forward slashes under the "Title / track artist" header. Question marks work great as Foobar2000 actually eliminates the extra space that Windows Explorer displays, but the other full length versions of illegal mid length characters causes filenames (Not metadata song titles.) to display incorrectly.

Thanks for any and all help!

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #1 –
Hey there,

Trying to figure out your question, you want the filenames in Windows Explorer to display otherwise illegal characters like colons? (I'm not sure what you mean by "full length" vs "mid length")

If not, can you give an example?

I think the only way would be to use a substitute unicode character. Search on this site for a list - instead of a colon, you could use "Modifier Letter Colon" as probably the next closest looking. Either cut/paste the preview, or use the decimal number - for example $char(42889)

Then in foobar right-click > File Operations > Rename to > '...' and use $replace(%title%,:,꞉) - etc, etc for other characters.

Although having unicode characters in filenames might well cause problems in other programs. They might not even display correctly. I'm not sure it would be worth the bother.

Or are you talking about display within foobar? (In which case, why not use metadata?)

Cheers :)

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #2 –
you want the filenames in Windows Explorer to display otherwise illegal characters like colons?

In Foobar2000. My "illegal mid length characters in Windows" is just referring to characters that would be illegal in filenames for files in Windows Explorer, not me asking how to display those characters in Windows Explorer.

(I'm not sure what you mean by "full length" vs "mid length")

Mid length characters meaning the characters that are normally typed out on a keyboard, compared to full length characters that one needs to go to Character Map to insert into a filename.  Windows, for example, can't display "?", a mid length question mark, because it is used by the operating system itself. It can, however, display" ？", the full length equivalent of a question mark.

If not, can you give an example?

I have an album called Rockman Sound Box 2. There is a song in it called "Reggae Card / Unlucky". The forward slash character can't be displayed in Windows Explorer. Therefore, in order to display it, I used the full length equivalent character "／". As this displays fine in Windows Explorer, I presumed it would work fine in Foobar2000. Instead, the filename (I changed the display syntax to %filename%.) displays as "Unlucky", which is incorrect.

I think the only way would be to use a substitute unicode character.

That is what I did already.

Or are you talking about display within foobar?

Yes.

(In which case, why not use metadata?)

I presumed that character limitations in filenames would apply to metadata as well. Which is also why I assumed any characters I could display in Windows Explorer would display fine in Foobar2000.

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Damned536 on
There is a song in it called "Reggae Card / Unlucky". The forward slash character can't be displayed in Windows Explorer. Therefore, in order to display it, I used the full length equivalent character "／". As this displays fine in Windows Explorer, I presumed it would work fine in Foobar2000. Instead, the filename (I changed the display syntax to %filename%.) displays as "Unlucky", which is incorrect.
I have a couple of tracks with fullwidth slash in their filenames, and foobar2000 displays them correctly.


Quote from: Damned536 on
I presumed that character limitations in filenames would apply to metadata as well.
Why? Limitations of a filesystem don't affect metadata.

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #4 –
I have a couple of tracks with fullwidth slash in their filenames, and foobar2000 displays them correctly.

That is really odd. Here is my Window title syntax for reference...

[%album artist% - ]['['%album%[ CD%discnumber%][ #%tracknumber%]']' ]%filename%[ '//' %track artist%]

Why? Limitations of a filesystem don't affect metadata.

Because I was under the impression that, since both tasks are essentially the same (Naming a piece of data in a text field.), and both of those tasks are performed under the same operating system, which is essentially the backbone of all computer programs that run on said operating system, that said computer programs (Ergo, Foobar2000.) would share at least some of the limitations that the operating system has.

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Damned536 on
Because I was under the impression that, since both tasks are essentially the same (Naming a piece of data in a text field.), and both of those tasks are performed under the same operating system, which is essentially the backbone of all computer programs that run on said operating system, that said computer programs (Ergo, Foobar2000.) would share at least some of the limitations that the operating system has.

That makes no sense at all. ID3 metadata is nothing more than information stored inside the file which is independent of an operating system and (to a large extent) independent from the used tagging app. Basically you're wrong about every assumption you're making.

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #6 –
So, basically, metadata (I should mention I am using FLAC primarily, which doesn't use ID3 tags but whatever OGG uses instead.) has no limitations at all on what characters you can insert into it, and I should be editing that instead of the filenames themselves. Alright, thanks for the info. I just wish I knew that before I ripped about 30 GBs of music...

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #7 –
The fullwidth slash "／" also displays fine for me, both with %title% and %filename% and in the title bar. So it would appear to be specific to your system.

Some follow-up questions / possible reasons - Which fonts are you using in foobar? Are you using a custom foobar theme? (downloaded from DeviantArt for example)... Which OS and version/build? (Windows 10 v1809 has an issue with font substitution, not sure if that would be in play here?)... And are you using any custom Windows themes/styles?

Cheers

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #8 –
Thank you for trying to help, but I think I will stick to editing metadata from now on. FAR easier than my previous method, plus the song titles are 100% accurate in this case (Also I tried adding a mid width forward slash to some metadata and it worked).
 

Re: Possible to Display Certain Full Length Characters?

Reply #9 –
Incidentally, you can configure foobar2000's tagger to pull information from the file paths, which may help you get a head start on tagging the whole lot.