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[@l@n]

aTagger v1.0.12 is available for download at http://atagger.auldridge.biz.  If you already have v1.0.6 or later installed, press the [Check Now] button on the "Processing Options" tab to update automatically.  The ReadMe for the current version of aTagger is available at http://atagger.auldridge.biz/downloads/ReadMe.txt.

aTagger is a freeware plug-in for JRiver's Media Center (http://www.jrmediacenter.com).  The function of aTagger is to automatically update the Media Center audio files with Artist, Album, Year, Genre, Image, Rating, Styles, Tones, Type, Review and Parental Advisory information from online sources.

aTagger processes the files in a user selected playlist.  For best performance, the files should be sorted by album.  In order to store the Rating, Styles, Tones, Type, Review, and Parental Advisory data, the Media Center database must be updated (add the new Library Fields from Tools | Options... | Tree & View).

A summary of the fixes/updates included in this release:
    - Notify the user if there are no songs in the selected playlist
    - Prompt the user, "Do you wish to continue?", when loading a playlist with
      more then 1000 files
    - Button on the main page is deactivated and displays "Loading..." when
      loading the list of songs from the playlist
    - Don't reload the list of songs to be processed if the list is in sync
      with the playlist that it was populated from (assumed to be in sync if
      the number of songs is the same and the first and last song in each list
      are the same)
    - Added Cancel button to Interactive Processing dialog -- when pressed, no
      more songs are processed
    - Drop all the "tag" and "ID3" references as aTagger works for any type of
      audio file/tagging scheme that Media Center can handle (e.g., .mp3 with
      ID3 tags or .mpc with APEv2 tags) [skeeterfood]
    - Option to add "The" and "A" prefix to lookup and try lookup again if the
      Artist and/or Album lookup failed [TimB]
    - Option to replace "&" with "and" and vise versa when trying to locate an
      Artist and/or Album [udeups]
    - Option to strip "The" and "A" prefix when storing
    - Use Artist's Styles and Tones if the album doesn't list any [skeeterfood]
    - Option case insensitive option when comparing Artist & Album names so
      that a change in case will not trigger replacement [Jonas]

Enjoy...  @l@n

[LonWar]

Hi Alan,
This is some really great work...

I have found a few errors (Or User Errors)

1. If an album has , The at the end, it is not recognized.. ie,  Eyes of Alice Cooper, The
2. Some albums are picking the Rating and Review from a video, not a cd...
ie, Welcome to My Nightmare, (Audio Disc) This received a rating of 1 and the review mentioned it was a video??
\
Also and this is just because I am a big Pain in the a**, Any way to add the following?

Any way to get the Albums of a artist and the Members (credits) of a album??  


Keep up the great work!!

[drosoph]

Great plugin ... would love to know the source of the data ...

RFE:  Can you have it saved my preferences for Processing Options?

Does unchecking the FORCE EXISTING TAG DATA TO BE OVERWRITTEN cause the program to NOT write tags into fields that have data already ?

[@l@n]

1. If an album has , The at the end, it is not recognized.. ie,  Eyes of Alice Cooper, The

I already have an option to handle "A" and "The" at the beginning of an Artist/Album.  I'll update the logic to handle ", The" at the end.

2. Some albums are picking the Rating and Review from a video, not a cd...
ie, Welcome to My Nightmare, (Audio Disc) This received a rating of 1 and the review mentioned it was a video??

I'll check into it, I hadnt seen this problem.

Any way to get the Albums of a artist and the Members (credits) of a album??  

I can get the list of albums for an artist (I already have that listed as a ToDo) but do you REALLY want that info?  Where would you store that and how would you use it?

I also have a ToDo item to to get credits.  I was having trouble finding the data but I just figured out where I can get it.  Are you interested in names or names and role/instrument?

[@l@n]

Great plugin ...

Thanks!  I'm happy with the progress we've been making on this one  

Can you have it saved my preferences for Processing Options?

There is a [Save] button located on the bottom left of each of the Option tabs.  Pressing that button will save your preferences.

Does unchecking the FORCE EXISTING TAG DATA TO BE OVERWRITTEN cause the program to NOT write tags into fields that have data already

Yes, you are correct.  By default this option is unchecked.  

The "Non-Tagging Mode ..." option on the Processing Options tab will not allow aTagger to update any tags.  The "Force Existing Tag Data ..." option will overwrite the data in the Media Center database with whatever data aTagger finds (e.g., if your Styles contains "Soft Rock;Album Rock" and aTagger doesnt find any styles information, aTagger will overwrite your styles information with spaces).  Clear as mud -- right?  

I wouldnt recommend enabling the "Force Existing Tag Data ..." option under normal conditions.  I would probably only use it if I found that an earlier version of aTagger had put bad data in the fields and I was trying to clean-up.

Oh no, I just realized that the time changes this AM.  That means I'll need to get an hour early for Church.

I'm off to bed.  Goodnight...  @l@n

[drosoph]

After installing the plugin into version 10.0.106 ... MC is locking up ... constantly ...

No other plugins are active ...

I'm having a serious problem trying to get the "TYPE " field added ... MC doesnt want to take it .. does it conflict with something else ?

[skeeterfood]

Hi Alan,

This new version is great!

Still a few more suggestions though:
1) If the album name doesn't match, try removing all '[...]' and '(...)' text and ':' and '-' characters from it and retry.
2) It would be great if in interactive mode you could allow editing and selectively enabling/disabling each item before commiting/canceling the changes.
3) You might want to log hitting No during interactive mode as something other than an error as it is now.

This last one is totally pie-in-the-sky:
4) If an album doesn't match and you're in interactive mode, pull up a list of all albums by that artist and let the user pick the correct one.  This would really help for those mis-typed, or strangely named albums that nobody ever enters the same...

-John

[skeeterfood]

I'm having a serious problem trying to get the "TYPE " field added ... MC doesnt want to take it .. does it conflict with something else ?

I just posted a bug about this, though I'm seeing a slightly different problem.  MC lets me create and populate the 'Type' field just fine, but once you close and reopen MC, the field and all its data are GONE!    I'm really glad I didn't enter all that data by hand!

So, until this is resolved, don't try storing Type data into a field named 'Type', or it won't last long!

Unfortunately, MC is already using my next choice 'Album Type'.  Any other ideas for field names?

-John

[LonWar]

1. If an album has , The at the end, it is not recognized.. ie,  Eyes of Alice Cooper, The

I already have an option to handle "A" and "The" at the beginning of an Artist/Album.  I'll update the logic to handle ", The" at the end.

Excellent...

2. Some albums are picking the Rating and Review from a video, not a cd...
ie, Welcome to My Nightmare, (Audio Disc) This received a rating of 1 and the review mentioned it was a video??

I'll check into it, I hadnt seen this problem.

Just take any spare track and name it something from Alice Cooper  Welcome to my Nightmare and then run it.

Any way to get the Albums of a artist and the Members (credits) of a album??  

I can get the list of albums for an artist (I already have that listed as a ToDo) but do you REALLY want that info?  Where would you store that and how would you use it?

Currently I am getting this manually, (have no idea how to develop software...  
I use it to keep track of albums that I didn't know the artist had, and albums that I want...
(I just figured I'd ask, cause you already have everything else I need...  

I also have a ToDo item to to get credits.  I was having trouble finding the data but I just figured out where I can get it.  Are you interested in names or names and role/instrument?

Whichever you can get, If you can get instrument all the better.

[c1c9k72]

I don't know if I'd call this a request, but more a question for other's opinion.  I love the flexibility that the styles/tones gives me in choosing my music, but I've got them defined as Album Styles and Album Tones.  The plugin is already configured to get the Artist Style if no album one is available...but would it be more useful to have an option for retreiving the Artist Style, whether or not the Album has one or not ?

[Quisp]

Alan,

Finally had some time to try this out, and MAN what a great plug-in. One suggestion right now would be to allow for the error message to be stored in the file in a field of the user's choosing. This way I could go back and see why files weren't updated.

Thanks again for doing this. I had spent literally hundreds of hours doing what your plug-in accomplished in a few minutes.

Great work!

Jon

[pipsqueak]

alan

ive had a new error message pop up with the most recent version, can you pm me an email address so i can send you a screen shot (not sure how to add it here...)

[edit]

its only 1 song that does this. it triggered some issue with .net. i removed it from the library and its fine now.

[TimB]

First Alan, thanks for the option to retry with stripping "The" and "A".  I've just run my 18000 MP3s thru it and I'm feeling all uptodate!

To get those final few mismatches (I've got lots of (Remastered)'s, etc.) I also like the idea of:

1) If the album name doesn't match, try removing all '[...]' and '(...)' text and ':' and '-' characters from it and retry.

.

Thanks again!

-=Tim=-

[@l@n]

After installing the plugin into version 10.0.106 ... MC is locking up ... constantly ...

drosoph,

I'm sorry to hear about your problem w/ aTagger.  I don't think that aTagger is causing MC to crash (not repeatedly).  The only option that I know is for you to uninstall it using the Control Panel's Add Remove programs function.

Sorry...  @l@n

[@l@n]

Still a few more suggestions though:
1) If the album name doesn't match, try removing all '[...]' and '(...)' text and ':' and '-' characters from it and retry.
2) It would be great if in interactive mode you could allow editing and selectively enabling/disabling each item before commiting/canceling the changes.
3) You might want to log hitting No during interactive mode as something other than an error as it is now.

This last one is totally pie-in-the-sky:
4) If an album doesn't match and you're in interactive mode, pull up a list of all albums by that artist and let the user pick the correct one.  This would really help for those mis-typed, or strangely named albums that nobody ever enters the same...

#1 - Currently, I remove [...] text before the search unless it is [Live] or [Box Set.  I'll try removing the others too.

#2 - I like that idea.  It would be a lot of work but would be a good option.

#3 - I agree.  I'll change that.

#4 - I'll add it to the list but it probably aint gonna happen  

Thanks for all your suggestions...  @l@n

[@l@n]

I don't know if I'd call this a request, but more a question for other's opinion.  I love the flexibility that the styles/tones gives me in choosing my music, but I've got them defined as Album Styles and Album Tones.  The plugin is already configured to get the Artist Style if no album one is available...but would it be more useful to have an option for retreiving the Artist Style, whether or not the Album has one or not ?

I like your idea.  I'll allow you to store the artist styles/tones independent of the album styles/tones.  While I'm at it i'll probably store the Artist's Biography too.

[@l@n]

Alan,

Finally had some time to try this out, and MAN what a great plug-in. One suggestion right now would be to allow for the error message to be stored in the file in a field of the user's choosing. This way I could go back and see why files weren't updated.

Thanks again for doing this. I had spent literally hundreds of hours doing what your plug-in accomplished in a few minutes.

Great work!

Jon

Jonas made a simular suggestion.  I think it is a good idea that I'll add to a future release.

[BlueGlow]

Hi Alan,
This plug-in looks very, very nice. Thanks!

By chance, the first album I tried is a Mojave 3 album that has [US] and [UK] versions. So it wasn't found because [US] was at the end of the album title. Could you add a search option to add a user defined string or set of strings to the end of the album title? It could contain, for example,  [US] which would always search for "Album Title [US]" if "Album Title" was not found.  Feel free to tell me to just rename the album. The plug-in is already great as is.

Thanks,
  BG

[@l@n]

Hi Alan,
This plug-in looks very, very nice. Thanks!

By chance, the first album I tried is a Mojave 3 album that has [US] and [UK] versions. So it wasn't found because had [US] at the end of the album title. Could you add a search option to add a user defined string or set of strings to the end of the album title? It could contain, for example,  [US] which would always search for "Album Title [US]" if "Album Title" was not found.  Feel free to tell me to just rename the album. The plug-in is already great as is.

Thanks,
  BG

That's a great idea!  I'll add an option to add some user defined suffixes.  If I cant find the name normally, I'll add the suffix and try again.

Thanks for the suggestion...   @l@n

[BlueGlow]

The following string exception happened on the song:
Song: Brigitte
Album: Brigitte Fontaine
Artist: Brigitte Fontaine

The album year is listed as 197?.  Could you please add an option to replace puncuation in the year with 0 and also log an error?

Thanks!


See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.
   at System.Number.ParseInt32(String s, NumberStyles style, NumberFormatInfo info)
   at aTagger.ctlATagger.ProcessAlbum(MJFileAutomation parmMjFile, String parmHtml, String parmScrubbedArtist, String parmScrubbedAlbum, String parmScrubbedKeep, Boolean parmUpdate, Boolean parmIsMultipleArtists)
   at aTagger.ctlATagger.ProcessSong(Boolean parmUpdate)
   at aTagger.ctlATagger.cmdStartStop_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

[BlueGlow]

Another suggestion, I wouldn't mind adding 'aTaggerVersion' and 'aTaggerStatus' fields which would be filled with the aTagger version that processed the song and an string to indicate the status of the processing. Example status values: 'All fields filled', 'Artist values used', 'All except date', 'Not Found', etc. Hmmm, the status could get complicated, but it would make filters for missed albums much easier to create.  Anyone else like this idea?

[@l@n]

Another suggestion, I wouldn't mind adding 'aTaggerVersion' and 'aTaggerStatus' fields which would be filled with the aTagger version that processed the song and an string to indicate the status of the processing. Example status values: 'All fields filled', 'Artist values used', 'All except date', 'Not Found', etc. Hmmm, the status could get complicated, but it would make filters for missed albums much easier to create.  Anyone else like this idea?

Simular requests have been made.  I'm not sure exactly what I'll store but I will be adding an option to store aTagger status/info should the user choose too.

Thanks again... @l@n

[LonWar]

If it doesn't pick up anything, You can create smartlists inside MC to determine which tracks/Albums have missed fields...

[BlueGlow]

>>If it doesn't pick up anything, You can create smartlists inside MC to determine which tracks/Albums have missed fields...

Yes, I thought about that, I still would love to have them. Version and status fields would help for things like debugging a bad run. I got an error that stopped the tagging about 10% into my run last night, for example. You're right, of course, I just like to know when an app has touched my data. The logs are great, but they aren't easily parsable.

[BlueGlow]

Lunch time fun, a few suggestions and supporting error analysis text:
1. Option to strip all text like [...], (...), from target text for comparison.
2. Option to strip case sensitive user-defined text such as ' EP'.
3. Option to search for album title by itself if not found via normal channels.
4. Search album title instead of artist for 'Various Artist' albums.
5. See text for other small items.


Incomplete aTagger Error Summary 4-6-04
---------------------------------------
Artist
Album
Error comments

Breeders
Pod
aTagger Error: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Length cannot be less than zero. Date text weird?

Brian Jonestown Massacre
Bringing It All Back Home - Again
EP not listed in discography section. Found manually in another section on the same page.
Also found using album search for "Bringing It All Back Home Aga". Search string was cut off by input form.

The Clerks Group
Brussels 5557
Classical album only online in classical db.

The Queers
Bubblegum Dreams
Album listed online as Bubblegum Dreams EP [EP].

Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly
Album listed online as Buddy Holly [Castle].

Gerty Farish
Bulks Up
Album listed online as 'Gerty Farish Bulks Up'.

Bunk Johnson/Lu Watters
Bunk and Lu
Online search can't find complete artist string, but does find 'Bunk Johnson' with the album.

John Lee Hooker
Burning Hell
Listed online as 'Burning Hell [Catfish]'

Anders Osborne With Monk Boudreaux
Bury The Hatchet
Online search can't find complete artist string, but does find first artist listed with the album.

Arthur Dodge And The Horsefeathers
Cadillacs, Ponytails and Dirty Dreams ...
Artist and album are online, but the search results are unusual.

Cesaria Evora
Cafe' Atlantico
Album listed online as 'Cafe Atlantico [Holland]'. Source album title shouldn't have silly apostrophe in it, but perhaps you could filter that?

Dressy Bessy
California
Album listed online as The California EP [EP].

Various Artists
Calling All Kings And Queens
Not found with aTagger. Found online with manual search for album title.

[BlueGlow]

Long album titles seem to be troublesome as well, ex.
Acid House Kings - Mondays Are Like Tuesdays And Tuesdays Are Like Wednesdays
was not found, but there is nothing unusual about it other than the long name.

[BlueGlow]

Alkaline Trio - Goddamnit not found. Looks like punctuation. Album is listed as G***! online.
Amy Rigby -  18 Again An Anthology. Punctuation?

[BlueGlow]

Suggestion: Have the option 'Use Artist's Styles and Tones if none are listed for the Album." use the Artist's data when the artist is found, but the album is not found.

[@l@n]

BlueGlow,
Thanks for the 3 messages that list examples of the problems that you are having.  I can make changes to help with most of them.

Suggestion: Have the option 'Use Artist's Styles and Tones if none are listed for the Album." use the Artist's data when the artist is found, but the album is not found.

What you describe is what it is SUPPOSED to be doing.  I'll double check that it's not broken.

BTW, I'm going to send you a PM in about 2 minutes that you'll want to read.

Thanks again...  @l@n

[BlueGlow]

In case anyone else can use it:
'No aTagger Match' smartlist:
[Date (year)]==0 [Styles]=[] [Tones]=[]

[Deivit]

Hi @l@n,

Just wanted to say thank you for creating this plug-in and sharing it with us. It's really a fantastic job.

Now, a small request if I may

Added:
- Use Artist's Styles and Tones if the album doesn't list any [skeeterfood]

Would it be possible to have the option to also use the Artist's Styles and Tones if the album is not found but the Artist is? ATagger is not finding some albums because of a minor miss-spelling and/or small appends to the album name, and this prevents ATagger to perfom any further action.

Thanks again for your time and effort.

----
Listening to: 'Spirit of Freedom (Realising the New World)' from 'Sea of Light' by 'Uriah Heep' on Media Center 10

[@l@n]

I just wanted to give a quick status on the progress of my updates to aTagger.  I've been working every night the last week to make major updates to aTagger.

In summary, the updates fall into three types:

• all available album & artist information will be user selectable.  Album data includes Artist, Album, Year, Genre, Image, Rating, Styles, Tones, Type, Review, *Songs, *Credits, and Parental Advisory and Artist data includes *AKA/Members, *Born/Formed, *Died/Disbanded, *Genres, *Styles, *Tones, *Instruments, *Labels, *Bio, and *Albums (where * indicates new fields).
• Interactive Processing displays color coded data that is user editable.  What this means is new data is displayed green, data that is being updated is displayed red, and you will be able to update the tag data before it is saved in your files.  Clear as mudd?
• Tons of enhancements to try/retry locating an album.

Overall, I'm about 80% complete.  God willing, I may have something available late tomorrow (but no promises with it being Easter and all...).

Later...  @l@n

[LonWar]

This sounds amazing....

Thanks for all your work on this!

[TimB]

WOW!

...and I thought you'd been slacking off.

-=Tim=-

[BlueGlow]

Can't wait!

[pipsqueak]

WOW!

...and I thought you'd been slacking off.

-=Tim=-

yeah alan, enough with the easter turkey and chocs. easter's over now. lets see the new version. ive got a cpu to burn out before the warranty expires  

[@l@n]

lets see the new version. ive got a cpu to burn out before the warranty expires

I'm working on it  

Everything is looking good.  I'm 99% sure that I'll release v1.1.0 tomorrow evening.  I only have a little more testing to beat the bugs out.

Tomorrow...  REALLY!   I think?    

[pipsqueak]

alan

fantastic work - am looking forward to it...

pip

[iCamp]

*Songs, *Credits, and Parental Advisory and Artist data includes *AKA/Members, *Born/Formed, *Died/Disbanded, *Genres, *Styles, *Tones, *Instruments, *Labels, *Bio, and *Albums (where * indicates new fields).

So, does that mean I should create these fields within MC before running aTagger?  I'm interested in a lot of these fields and am excited by the prospect of this plug-in but I don't want to run it with all my files unless I'm sure it'll place "Tones" into a "Tones" field I create in MC.

Thanks!

[@l@n]

*Songs, *Credits, and Parental Advisory and Artist data includes *AKA/Members, *Born/Formed, *Died/Disbanded, *Genres, *Styles, *Tones, *Instruments, *Labels, *Bio, and *Albums (where * indicates new fields).

So, does that mean I should create these fields within MC before running aTagger?  I'm interested in a lot of these fields and am excited by the prospect of this plug-in but I don't want to run it with all my files unless I'm sure it'll place "Tones" into a "Tones" field I create in MC.

Thanks!

aTagger allows you to map the tagging info into "default" fields or into user defined fields.  If you plan to map into a user defined field, you will need to manually create the field (as aTagger is not able to create the field for you) before running aTagger.

To create user defined fields use the following menu options: Tools | Options... | Tree & View | Add.

Enjoy...  @l@n

[iCamp]

Very cool.  Thanks @l@n (I assume that's "Alan").  
I look forward to your new release.