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[Darkness]

May i ask for a feature request?
i believe will be more nice to the eye an option to make or all artist pictures the same size!
if this is easy and can be done will be so cool! thank you for you hard work on this awsome player!

some examples are with yellow circle.

[HPBEME]

if this is easy and can be done will be so cool! thank you for you hard work on this awsome player!

I don't know if it is easy, and it has been requested before.  Unfortunately, you get what you get for the artist pix, which is a random mish-mash of aspect ratios. Hopefully a critical mass of interest can be achieved and get this moved up the priority list.  

I personally used a different media player (MusicBee) to initially retrieve artist pix. With no other effort than installing the program, it automatically finds/applies (mostly) 1000x1000 square pix for the majority of artists (images for obscure artists typically ~300x300). It found artist pix for ~90% of my library, and well over half of those were 1000x1000.  You will have to copy the folder where MusicBee stores them to where MC does, but as soon as you paste them, blammo, you have updated artist pix.

Even though most pix were large/hi-rez, I still ended up manually replacing 30%+ of those with images I liked better (I am picky).  FYI... use duckduckgo for image searches.  I won't try and explain how/why it blows away Google - just try it out and you will see for yourself.

And finally, do you like that fat white frame around the pix and large thumbnail spacing?  Maybe that is the default - I don't recall. Either way, if you dislike that layout, both can be modified. 
 - MC has a handy search box at the bottom of the Options dialog - search for "frame" and select "all off". 
 - Thumbnail spacing is accessed via the tab's dropdown menu (see attached pic)
 - In the attached pic, my thumbnail spacing is set to "none", but there is still a 2 pixel "pad" all around the image (Matt - any chance you can reduce that to 1 pixel?)
         NOTE: you have to precisely tweak the thumbnail size via the slider (upper right just below the Player Bar) to make the gaps as tight as possible

Anyway, hope the all the above info is useful to you.

[Darkness]

I don't know if it is easy, and it has been requested before.  Unfortunately, you get what you get for the artist pix, which is a random mish-mash of aspect ratios. Hopefully a critical mass of interest can be achieved and get this moved up the priority list.  

I personally used a different media player (MusicBee) to initially retrieve artist pix. With no other effort than installing the program, it automatically finds/applies (mostly) 1000x1000 square pix for the majority of artists (images for obscure artists typically ~300x300). It found artist pix for ~90% of my library, and well over half of those were 1000x1000.  You will have to copy the folder where MusicBee stores them to where MC does, but as soon as you paste them, blammo, you have updated artist pix.

Even though most pix were large/hi-rez, I still ended up manually replacing 30%+ of those with images I liked better (I am picky).  FYI... use duckduckgo for image searches.  I won't try and explain how/why it blows away Google - just try it out and you will see for yourself.

And finally, do you like that fat white frame around the pix and large thumbnail spacing?  Maybe that is the default - I don't recall. Either way, if you dislike that layout, both can be modified. 
 - MC has a handy search box at the bottom of the Options dialog - search for "frame" and select "all off". 
 - Thumbnail spacing is accessed via the tab's dropdown menu (see attached pic)
 - In the attached pic, my thumbnail spacing is set to "none", but there is still a 2 pixel "pad" all around the image (Matt - any chance you can reduce that to 1 pixel?)
         NOTE: you have to precisely tweak the thumbnail size via the slider (upper right just below the Player Bar) to make the gaps as tight as possible

Anyway, hope the all the above info is useful to you.

i see. well i hope someday it will be i use other methods too to make the cover the same size and when looks the same are awesome jriver is a very capable software! hope the devs gives it that litle boost!

[marko]

FYI... use duckduckgo for image searches.  I won't try and explain how/why it blows away Google - just try it out and you will see for yourself.

I have a link for that setup on the MC links bar. Works quite well...

Code: [Select]

<Link version="1.2">
<Item Name="Name">Artist Art (D-D-Go)</Item>
<Item Name="Action">1</Item>
<Item Name="Base URL">https://duckduckgo.com</Item>
<Item Name="Search URL">https:////duckduckgo.com//?q=replace([Artist],/ ,+)&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images&iaf=size%3ALarge%2Clayout%3ASquare</Item>
<Item Name="Type">0</Item>
<Item Name="Program Path"/>
<Item Name="Program Parameters">"[Filename]"</Item>
<Item Name="Filter">[Media Type]=[Audio]</Item>
</Link>

[HPBEME]

Thank you so much for posting that Marko.  Currently I just copy the artist name from the tag window and paste it directly into DuckDuckGo search. 

That said, I've never quite gotten the hang of scripts for links.  I copied your code and pasted it into the manage links dialog, but I get an error when I try and launch it.  Suggestions?

[JimH]

I had the same problem.  I think you have to copy and paste each section's value.  This works.

Thanks, marko!

[HPBEME]

okay… I got it now.  I have a vague recollection about this from a thread some time ago.  I pasted the code directly from Marko's email into the Manage Links dialog URL search field, which does not work!

Instead: copy the code but use the Paste Link Information from Clipboard button in the Manage Links dialog for everything to populate correctly

[lepa]

It should work if you have script in the clipboard and then in the manage links just press "paste link information from clipboard". New link should be created for you by MC then.

You could use hexify function instead of replace so every other special character than whitespace will also be handled

Code: [Select]

<Link version="1.2">
<Item Name="Name">Artist Art (D-D-Go)</Item>
<Item Name="Action">1</Item>
<Item Name="Base URL">https://duckduckgo.com</Item>
<Item Name="Search URL">https:////duckduckgo.com//?q=hexify([Artist])&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images&iaf=size%3ALarge%2Clayout%3ASquare</Item>
<Item Name="Type">0</Item>
<Item Name="Program Path"/>
<Item Name="Program Parameters">"[Filename]"</Item>
<Item Name="Filter">[Media Type]=[Audio]</Item>
</Link>


[HPBEME]

Thanks lepa - I think you were composing your message at exactly the same time I finally remembered how to do it correctly .  I even updated it to use DuckDuckGo's Wallpaper instead of Large for the size setting.

I love this!  It's a small thing, but being able to click on a link eliminates a number of extra mouse clicks, mouse movements, and copy tasks. 

[lepa]

You beat me by punch as i was still hexifying the link.  Changing replace to hexify will get you correct results for example if there is "&" in the band's name

[HPBEME]

Changing replace to hexify will get you correct results for example if there is "&" in the band's name

Sure enough… When I updated it to your code, it correctly returns results with "&" (without your modification, the search truncates the artist name after the &).  Thank you lepa!  Someday I'm going to sit down and figure out how to make my own links using the hexify command.

[dtc]

Pasting the hexified code worked great. I also did a Composer art link and an Album art link with [Album Artist] added to the Album link.

It would be nice if this could become a standard MC link.

Thanks.

[Darkness]

I don't know if it is easy, and it has been requested before.  Unfortunately, you get what you get for the artist pix, which is a random mish-mash of aspect ratios. Hopefully a critical mass of interest can be achieved and get this moved up the priority list.  

I personally used a different media player (MusicBee) to initially retrieve artist pix. With no other effort than installing the program, it automatically finds/applies (mostly) 1000x1000 square pix for the majority of artists (images for obscure artists typically ~300x300). It found artist pix for ~90% of my library, and well over half of those were 1000x1000.  You will have to copy the folder where MusicBee stores them to where MC does, but as soon as you paste them, blammo, you have updated artist pix.

Even though most pix were large/hi-rez, I still ended up manually replacing 30%+ of those with images I liked better (I am picky).  FYI... use duckduckgo for image searches.  I won't try and explain how/why it blows away Google - just try it out and you will see for yourself.

And finally, do you like that fat white frame around the pix and large thumbnail spacing?  Maybe that is the default - I don't recall. Either way, if you dislike that layout, both can be modified. 
 - MC has a handy search box at the bottom of the Options dialog - search for "frame" and select "all off". 
 - Thumbnail spacing is accessed via the tab's dropdown menu (see attached pic)
 - In the attached pic, my thumbnail spacing is set to "none", but there is still a 2 pixel "pad" all around the image (Matt - any chance you can reduce that to 1 pixel?)
         NOTE: you have to precisely tweak the thumbnail size via the slider (upper right just below the Player Bar) to make the gaps as tight as possible

Anyway, hope the all the above info is useful to you.

Using fanart.tv can help you without the use of another app all the artist covers are at 1000x1000! i download mine now looks awesome!

https://fanart.tv/

[HPBEME]

Using fanart.tv can help you without the use of another app all the artist covers are at 1000x1000! i download mine now looks awesome!

I have used fanart as well, but in my experience it has the artist image I'm looking for only about 1/3 of the time. Regardless, it is another good resource for finding artist images.

As for "without the use of another app", perhaps you missed the point. Whether using fanart, or duckduckgo, or Google images, you have to manually search for an artist image one at a time. Using the program I suggested above, it finds every artist in your music library automatically upon initial import into the program.  Depending on the size of your library (I have about 1300 artists myself) that took all of 15 minutes, which is the equivalent of a couple hundred hours of my manual labor to accomplish the same.

Granted, as time goes by I replace images for various artists with ones I like better, but the initial automated collection of square/high-res images as the starting point is spectacularly helpful.

[Darkness]

I have used fanart as well, but in my experience it has the artist image I'm looking for only about 1/3 of the time. Regardless, it is another good resource for finding artist images.

As for "without the use of another app", perhaps you missed the point. Whether using fanart, or duckduckgo, or Google images, you have to manually search for an artist image one at a time. Using the program I suggested above, it finds every artist in your music library automatically upon initial import into the program.  Depending on the size of your library (I have about 1300 artists myself) that took all of 15 minutes, which is the equivalent of a couple hundred hours of my manual labor to accomplish the same.

Granted, as time goes by I replace images for various artists with ones I like better, but the initial automated collection of square/high-res images as the starting point is spectacularly helpful.

indeed it's not every artist photo in there but still has many plus those you can't find simply find a proper resolution and crop or resize the photo and done hehe

[Buldarged]

I wouldn't say that this is necessarily a problem with the data source that delivers pictures in different aspect ratios. I think it is more a problem that is the consequence from the fixed grid layout MC provides. This layout requires all elements to have cover art of the same aspect ratio to really look good. It is often difficult to find covers of the same aspect ratios. I recently wanted to add books to MC. As you can imagine, book covers do not have the same aspect ratio.

However, there is a solution that requires JRiver to add more layout options. The screenshot you provided shows the default grid layout. However, there is a lot of software out there that does things differently, especially on the web.

Row layout with fixed size rows.

Column layout with fixed size columns.

Tetris layout with even more freedom.

Of course the drawbacks are that those solutions require more or less (non-uniform) scaling, cropping and reordering. But I could live with that, since those layouts look so much better. And grouping and sorting groups would still work.

I've looked at a implementations and it is actually much simpler than expected. The algorithm for the first two aforementioned layouts is linear and can be implemented in roughly 350 lines of Javascript. Not sure about the tetris layout. I also found a nice blog that has a lot of interesting entries on this topic including a talk.

[Darkness]

I wouldn't say that this is necessarily a problem with the data source that delivers pictures in different aspect ratios. I think it is more a problem that is the consequence from the fixed grid layout MC provides. This layout requires all elements to have cover art of the same aspect ratio to really look good. It is often difficult to find covers of the same aspect ratios. I recently wanted to add books to MC. As you can imagine, book covers do not have the same aspect ratio.

However, there is a solution that requires JRiver to add more layout options. The screenshot you provided shows the default grid layout. However, there is a lot of software out there that does things differently, especially on the web.

Row layout with fixed size rows.

Column layout with fixed size columns.

Tetris layout with even more freedom.

Of course the drawbacks are that those solutions require more or less (non-uniform) scaling, cropping and reordering. But I could live with that, since those layouts look so much better. And grouping and sorting groups would still work.

I've looked at a implementations and it is actually much simpler than expected. The algorithm for the first two aforementioned layouts is linear and can be implemented in roughly 350 lines of Javascript. Not sure about the tetris layout. I also found a nice blog that has a lot of interesting entries on this topic including a talk.

wow I'm layoutlove!!!!!

[jctcom]

Hi All.

Just started playing around with getting Album Artist Art work.

I have my folders and other stuff set up and working.  I noticed though that if I Right Click and go to "Get Artist Images from Last.fm" that it won't do artists with "&" or other characters separating two or more artists.

For example "Anderson & Stolt".  When I had it search automatically it did not download the photo.  I went to Last.fm myself, Found and downloaded the photo and named it "Anderson & Stolt.jpg" and it now shows up.

Is there a way to get it to download via right click like a normal single artist does?

Thanks.

Carl.