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[flac.rules]

I'm considering using MC12, so I have downloaded the trial-version and tried to test. Until now I have used foobar2000 0.83. I have tried to read through the entire help-me-file, so hopefully not all the questions are of the type the manual answers.

Cover-art:
When I try to download cover-art with MC, by choosing "download cover-art" on a song. Only that particular song gets cover-art in the playing now picture, even though I in the settings have choosen to save cover-art as folder.jpg in the folder with the album, shouldnt all the songs in the folder get the cover-art picture, instead of just the one?

Playing:
Is it possible to make the double-clikbehavior be "add to play now (and play) if the song is not in playing now already, if it is in playing now already, just play the file, without adding a duplicate"

Tabs:
Is it possible to keep the "tab-locations" when i restart the program? I like to have on tab for playing now, one for audio pane, and one for feeds. But when i restart the prgram, all tabs are "reset" to beeing on start.

Devices:
I use MC for music-playing only. Is there a way to "clean up" other parts of the program? I don't want MC to do anything everytime I connect a mass storage-device to the computer, and i don't need the "drives and devices" or "images" part in the navigation, so it wouldn't hurt to be able to hide this.

Vista and file-assosiations:
Is there some kind of problem with file-assosiations and Vista? Even if I assosiate MC with windows-media-streams or quicktime-streams, if i open them (from inside MC), it opens in another program (media-player or vlc). Is this normal behaviour? Are the file-assosiations in MC-preferences independent from file-assosiations in windows?

Tagging:
How does MC12 handle padding id3v2-tags? What kind of tags does the program write? Id3v2-3 ISO-8859-1 or something else? When i create a tag in foobar with a name that is on the list of fields in MC, it seems to work (that is the filed is properly filled if I read it in MC12), but sometimes I have to first fill the field in MC, then change it in foobar, to get MC to see the fields written, and some fileds also seem to be a bit special in MC, for instance the BIOS-field. Is it possible to get a bit deeper explenations on how this works?

Furthermore, if i create a custom tag in foobar. for instance TESTTAG=testvalue. MC12 doesn't seem to find it, even if i choose "show all tags" or "show tags with values". Also, some fileds written by MC uses the filed name, like BPM=106, however a few uses the form "COMMENT=Media Jukebox: Tool Name: Media Center". How do i know what MC writes to a comment tag, and what is written to a unique field name? I also seem to be unable to find the star-rating in the tag, is this only stored in the database?

And last, how "automatic" is "update when file info changes" in the tag-settings? This must be on to even change the tags at all, but frankly I don't want any tags to be changed without me doing so myself, do i risk it just updating files automatically because of changes in the library? I also am not to intereste in it writen in "date, tool-version, toolname" and so on comment-fields. when i update tags. Is there some way to disable this when i update the other tags in the file?

Quite a lot of questions, and probably quite a lot of bad english. But i hope somebody can help me out with some of the questions.

[Alex B]

You would probably get more and better answers by posting each question in a separate thread (and also by not starting these separate threads on the same day.)

However, I'll try to answer briefly. Please consider starting a new thread if you would like to get more comprehensive answers to an individual question.

ICover-art:
When I try to download cover-art with MC, by choosing "download cover-art" on a song. Only that particular song gets cover-art in the playing now picture, even though I in the settings have choosen to save cover-art as folder.jpg in the folder with the album, shouldnt all the songs in the folder get the cover-art picture, instead of just the one?

Cover art is linked with each audio track separately. This makes possible to use separate image files with individual tracks. It would be better to select all album tracks before the lookup. You can use the "Quick Find In Album / Cover Art Directory" tool for adding the missing cover art links if you have already downloaded cover art for one of the album tracks.

Playing:
Is it possible to make the double-clikbehavior be "add to play now (and play) if the song is not in playing now already, if it is in playing now already, just play the file, without adding a duplicate"

That could be useful sometimes, but the user may want to repeat a track from time to time. MC has the "Remove Duplicates from Playing Now" tool available in three different places (For example, you can right-click the Playing Now tree branch for accessing the tool.)

Tabs:
Is it possible to keep the "tab-locations" when i restart the program? I like to have on tab for playing now, one for audio pane, and one for feeds. But when i restart the prgram, all tabs are "reset" to beeing on start.

You can only configure a global start up location, not save the individual tab locations. (I think this would be a good topic for a new thread...)

Devices:
I use MC for music-playing only. Is there a way to "clean up" other parts of the program? I don't want MC to do anything everytime I connect a mass storage-device to the computer, and i don't need the "drives and devices" or "images" part in the navigation, so it wouldn't hurt to be able to hide this.

You can "right-click > delete" the Image and Video tree items if the categories are empty. In "Options > General > Advanced > Features" you can disable (and hide) various parts of MC. Though, I don't think the Drives & Devices root tree branch can be removed.

Vista and file-assosiations:
Is there some kind of problem with file-assosiations and Vista? Even if I assosiate MC with windows-media-streams or quicktime-streams, if i open them (from inside MC), it opens in another program (media-player or vlc). Is this normal behaviour? Are the file-assosiations in MC-preferences independent from file-assosiations in windows?

Sorry, I am using XP.

Tagging:
How does MC12 handle padding id3v2-tags? What kind of tags does the program write? Id3v2-3 ISO-8859-1 or something else? When i create a tag in foobar with a name that is on the list of fields in MC, it seems to work (that is the filed is properly filled if I read it in MC12), but sometimes I have to first fill the field in MC, then change it in foobar, to get MC to see the fields written, and some fileds also seem to be a bit special in MC, for instance the BIOS-field. Is it possible to get a bit deeper explenations on how this works?

Furthermore, if i create a custom tag in foobar. for instance TESTTAG=testvalue. MC12 doesn't seem to find it, even if i choose "show all tags" or "show tags with values". Also, some fileds written by MC uses the filed name, like BPM=106, however a few uses the form "COMMENT=Media Jukebox: Tool Name: Media Center". How do i know what MC writes to a comment tag, and what is written to a unique field name? I also seem to be unable to find the star-rating in the tag, is this only stored in the database?

MC adds some amount of padding on a tag write if the file does not already contain padding. The amount seems to be big enough for lots of usual short text tags.

By default MC writes ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 tags (and ID3v1.1 tags).

MC supports many, but not all standard ID3v2.3 tag frames. MC writes its proprietary and all user (=custom) tags to Comment frames with descriptive headers. It does not support writing user tags to TXXX frames.

The Rating field value is stored in the ID3v2.3 POPM (aka Popularimeter) frame.

For displaing what physical file tags MC writes, you can click the "format" link in AW > Tag:

And last, how "automatic" is "update when file info changes" in the tag-settings? This must be on to even change the tags at all, but frankly I don't want any tags to be changed without me doing so myself, do i risk it just updating files automatically because of changes in the library? I also am not to intereste in it writen in "date, tool-version, toolname" and so on comment-fields. when i update tags. Is there some way to disable this when i update the other tags in the file?

MC does not automatically rewrite tags unless you use a feature that writes tags. Be aware that adding a cover art link manually forces a tag write unless the general option to write tags is disabled.

You can disable the comment field writing in the field specific options. It will disable writing the main comment frame and all custom comment frames.

[eba]

Tabs:
Is it possible to keep the "tab-locations" when i restart the program? I like to have on tab for playing now, one for audio pane, and one for feeds. But when i restart the prgram, all tabs are "reset" to beeing on start.

You can only configure a global start up location, not save the individual tab locations. (I think this would be a good topic for a new thread...)

Go to Tools -> Options -> Startup -> Startup Interface and you can set the startup location to Last Location which will work for all tabs.

[Alex B]

Go to Tools -> Options -> Startup -> Startup Interface and you can set the startup location to Last Location which will work for all tabs.

You are right. That makes possible to keep the last location in each tab.

Though it does not make possible to always start from predefined root locations. The last used locations can be different.

A feature that would make a snapshot of the current view (including the tab or split view configuration) and save it as a preset that can be selected in the startup location options would be nice.

[flac.rules]

MC adds some amount of padding on a tag write if the file does not already contain padding. The amount seems to be big enough for lots of usual short text tags.

By default MC writes ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 tags (and ID3v1.1 tags).

MC supports many, but not all standard ID3v2.3 tag frames. MC writes its proprietary and all user (=custom) tags to Comment frames with descriptive headers. It does not support writing user tags to TXXX frames.

The Rating field value is stored in the ID3v2.3 POPM (aka Popularimeter) frame.

For displaing what physical file tags MC writes, you can click the "format" link in AW > Tag:

MC does not automatically rewrite tags unless you use a feature that writes tags. Be aware that adding a cover art link manually forces a tag write unless the general option to write tags is disabled.

You can disable the comment field writing in the field specific options. It will disable writing the main comment frame and all custom comment frames.

Thanks again for a very helpful answer. And thank you very much for your tips eba. I have a few follow-up-questions though

1. Can you force MC12 to always write the default-tag types (2.3 8859 and 1.1)?

2. I was not aware that id2.3 had standard tagframes actually, I though you could just make fields with any name (like you can in ogg and flac). But now I see that some fields (custom ones) are of the Txxx-type you mention, what is special about theese TXXX-fields? And is there a list of "official" id3v2.3-fileds somewhere?

3. Does one have to add a cover-art-link? I would rather that MC just looked in the folder for a folder.jpg, and used that if present with all files in the folder, without changing the tags. Can this be achieved?

4. If i look at the file-info I get the POPM-field up in MC12, but the value is "unknown data type", in foobar the popm-field is nowhere to be seen if i inspect the tag. Is it stored in some special way?

AtW