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[Omni]

One of the greatest features of MC (for me) is its ability to move tracks (and images) around on one's hard drive via the Rename Files From Properties... tool.  (Truth be told, this was initially the primary reason I started using MJ8 eons ago. )

Anyway, it seems like this should be doable, but maybe I'm not thinking of all the possible ramifications or, more importantly, all the "exceptions to the rule" that might make this too hard to implement.

I scan all my own cover art and place the scanned images in the same directory as where the album's tracks are stored.  (I use the typical [Artist]\[Album]\[Track #] - [Name] directory/file naming convention.)  Then in MC, I manually associate the scanned jpg image with the associated tracks.  (I generally do not store images inside the file.)  My point in mentioning this is that MC knows about the jpg and has stored the association, so it's not like it's a guessing game.

Here's my annoyance (i.e., feature request).  (For the record, I actually consider this a bug.)  When I move the tracks, the associated images don't get moved.  Moreover, MC will still cite the jpg's filename, but doesn't display it.  (Apparently, it stores it as relative path, and now it's not finding it anymore since the tracks have been moved, but the jpg hasn't.)  When I close MC and manually more the image to the new directory and then start MC again, the cover art is shown again.

So ideally, if one uses MC to move the tracks, MC should also move (or at least copy) the linked cover art as well.

[Alex B]

The current system works for me, but that's because I import the album images and tag them. I usually scan several of them for one album (front, back, booklet, CD, etc).

Since those images are in the album folders and they have the corresponding album tag I can easily move them together with the music files and the pathless cover art link is automatically correct.

Though MC could ask if it should add paths to the image links or move the linked images too when music files are moved.

I only wish that a slideshow of the album images could start automatically and change when a track from a different album starts playing.

[modelmaker]

I do exactly as you, Omni, in my ancient 9.0. I don't generally move my file and folders around once they're set up. Or if I do, I move them with windows, delete them in the library and them reimport them. As I said, I rarely find a need to move them, so this works for me.

The only time I've had to move all the files is to move them to a new (larger) HD or to replace a failed drive. I just copy the drive (or the backup) with windows or Karen's replicator (it's already set up for backing up) and then rename the drives.

The one bug I do have, is that from time to time MC will drop the association for a whole album and I have to re-associate those connections.

[Alex B]

... or move the linked images too when music files are moved.

On second though I think that moving would not be a good option because it is quite possible that the same images are linked to other music files.

[KingSparta]

On second though I think that moving would not be a good option because it is quite possible that the same images are linked to other music files.

if they were, this could be checked for

my folder.jpg program will copy your cover art no matter if there is multi links to the media folder (album folder) as folder.jpg. even if it is still linked to a image at the old location.

[Omni]

Well, like modelmaker, I generally don't move my stuff around all that often.  I'm sure most people don't.  Sometimes, though, I do move things around, either out of necessity or sometimes just a case of the "spring cleaning" bug.

In this case, it was just my Christmas music.  (The older I get, the less politically correct I become, so I decided to rename the directory from "seasonal" to "Christmas." )

Unfortunately, I probably have purchased and ripped nearly every Christmas CD on the market--okay, I like the music... it's sad, I know--so having MC move the albums has left scores if not hundreds of multi-layered directories with nothing but the cover art jpg in it which I now have to manually move.

Now, like I said in my first post, I would just consider this an annoyance, not a bug, but unfortunately, MC still thinks each track has valid cover art which it doesn't anymore.  (For instance, using the filter "imagefile=[]" [one of the default Auto Smartlists] does not list the moved tracks even though it should.)  My point is that there was a great potential for me to lose a lot of work and effort had I not noticed this "feature."  (I might have deleted the old base directory thus losing all my scanned, trimmed, and resized cover art.)

[Bill Kearney]

Can someone give a run-down on how MC11 deals with cover art?  What files does it keep, where and how are they named such that it handles creating the thumbnails?  How does it guess what image to show for a genre and can this be overridden? 

My stuff's reasonably well tagged and in "Artist\Album\Artist - Track - Name - Album.mp3" formatted names.  The id3 and id3v2 tags contain accurate artist and album info. 

What, if any, other tools can be used to get better/more cover art?

[Alex B]

Can someone give a run-down on how MC11 deals with cover art? What files does it keep, where and how are they named such that it handles creating the thumbnails? How does it guess what image to show for a genre and can this be overridden? ... What, if any, other tools can be used to get better/more cover art?

MC has an option to link single cover art image with an audio track. MC has a default folder for cover art images, but they can be in any folder or embedded in the tag area of the music files if the file format allows that. If certain conditions exists it can find the images automatically. It can also search some Internet sources for cover art, but that is not exact science.

As far as I know MC does not guess anything or use genre tag information and naming is mostly up to user. If MC looks images from the default cover art folder I think it searches for "Artist - Album" naming convention. If the music files folder contains a single image MC finds it, but if there are more image files it does not know what to use. I don't know much about the thumbnails, but obviously MC keeps internal log about the images and that must include the full filename path since it can keep e.g. folder.jpg image thumbnails separate.

King Sparta has made some plugins and a web archive for cover art.

I deal with them mostly manually. Since MC can import images as well as audio files I scan and import them to the MC library. Sometimes I go to the artist's website and download promo images too. I wrote this recently:

I have always used external cover art in album folders, but I have never liked the "folder.jpg" naming system. That would lead having over 2000 "folder.jpg" files on my HD. I much rather give them descriptive names like "Artist - Album - Front.jpg".

Usually I have several album images for an album. I import and tag them. One of the images is used as a cover art. I have described my system here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=22841.msg159422#msg159422

MC11 can import also other documents. I have started to import text files from album folders. Usually they are rip logs, album information and artist bios files. MC doesn't show text files internally, but it opens quickly a Notepad window for each text file when needed. I find that quite convenient. And since all files are imported I can use MC Tools for moving them.

Usually I browse my album files in All Media mode at MC tree > Media library > Advanced > Hard Disk Location, so I can see them all together.

[Alex B]

I forgot to mention that you can use any image as an cover art if you link it manually. Right click the audio track > Image > Add from File...

(Just in case this wasn't already obvious.)

[hit_ny]

  (The older I get, the less politically correct I become, so I decided to rename the directory from "seasonal" to "Christmas." )

Why ever is it politcally incorrect to not refer to them as Christmas ? Most other religons refer to their main festival with its correct name.

More on topic, i use Drag n Drop in the tree. Never had the problem you describe. If i need to move stuff is usually genre folders which move the whole lot. Rarely might i need to move more than one folder at a time.

..i dont find it very intuitive to use Rename File from properties to move stuff (the idea petrifies me), rather only to rename them from ....properties.

All cover art gets found manually from the net and dropped into the same folder as the rest of the album. The Art relates to the album so the logical conclusion is to place it all in the appropriate album folder.

[Simple]

...More on topic, i use Drag n Drop in the tree. Never had the problem you describe. If i need to move stuff is usually genre folders which move the whole lot. Rarely might i need to move more than one folder at a time.

..i dont find it very intuitive to use Rename File from properties to move stuff (the idea petrifies me), rather only to rename them from ....properties....

You seem to be a little bit alone with your method .
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=25165.0

[hit_ny]

You seem to be a little bit alone with your method .
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=25165.0

Yep...and it works hehe.

I dunno, i used to organise my stuff in the winamp days using /genre/artist ...served me well. If you dont have any directory level organisation and depend on MC to do it, i can see the need for rename file from properties with the move shimmy.

But my aim was to only allow MC to interface with the tags...and not in terms of how/where things were laid out on disk. Using viewschemes and smartlists (which dont depend on where a file is etc) to streamline the display.

But I guess im already dependendent on MC to a certain extent as the library already has lots of useful info is in it.

[Simple]

Yep...and it works hehe.

I dunno, i used to organise my stuff in the winamp days using /genre/artist ...served me well. If you dont have any directory level organisation and depend on MC to do it, i can see the need for rename file from properties with the move shimmy.

But my aim was to only allow MC to interface with the tags...and not in terms of how/where things were laid out on disk. Using viewschemes and smartlists (which dont depend on where a file is etc) to streamline the display.

But I guess im already dependendent on MC to a certain extent as the library already has lots of useful info is in it.

I agree with you in one point. I love some sort of indepency. I like to have my tracks organized on my hard disks somehow (/artist/album). Not at last to correct errors.

But if I have to import a few albums or - more important - organize them once again (using one more external maxtor...) I appreciate 'Rename Files From Properties'. To avoid any problems I learned to save cover art inside tracks.

And it works fast and easy.

[Omni]

Why ever is it politcally incorrect to not refer to them as Christmas ? Most other religons refer to their main festival with its correct name.

From that naïve question, I am going to presume that you must not live in the United States; otherwise, you would know how taboo it is here to offend a minority. 

[KingSparta]

you would know how taboo it is here to offend a minority.

I make it My job is to Offend both

[hit_ny]

From that naïve question, I am going to presume that you must not live in the United States; otherwise, you would know how taboo it is here to offend a minority. 

Only in the US do u say Happy holidays for the x'mas season. Fine, not everyone celebrates x'mas so for this reason it might not make a lot of sense to wish those that dont celebrate it. The same applies for any other religous festival.

Now the media can't wish everyone for every major religous festival..in an impartial way so they call it happy holidays.

But i was talking about your music. If its X'mas music, it seems pointless to me to name it anything else. Look at the cover art.