Hi there guys,

I'm the author of Mp3/Tag Studio, which I have understood that some of you like and use quite a lot, is that right?

I have been working quite hard on the new version 3.0, and it is scheduled for release pretty soon now.

For those of you who are curious, I have put up a special preview version of it, just for you, the people who read this message board. (board admins are very welcome to add this to the announcements forum too if they please).

If you find any bugs that I can fix before the final release, please let me know by email, and I'll do my best.

Please don't submit any new feature suggestions at this point though. Instead, there will be a web-forum opened at the Mp3/Tag Studio website for this (and for support issues) in connection with the 3.0 release, and your input will be very welcome there!

You can find the special 3.0 preview at the following address:

http://www.magnusbrading.com/ftp/mp3ts30rc2.zip

The zip file is password protected, and the password is "empegpreview" (without the quotes).


For those of you interested, here is what is new and updated in version 3.0 (quite a lot actually):

* Changed the licensing policy.
All registrations are now for life (for the
exact same price as before)! That is, if you
register the program you will get all future
updates of it for free!

* Due to popular demand, a second type of
program installation package was added.
This new package does not contain any banner
at all, but it does instead have limitations
in the unregistered mode. The reason for
this new package is that so many people are
terrified of anything that has a banner in
it, even though the banner in Mp3/Tag Studio
is a completely harmless image that has been
compiled into the program. Please note that
the old style package with a banner in the
unregistered mode is still available though.
This new package is only an addition for
adware-paranoids.

* Added a new tool, the list importer.
This tool can extract data from files with
user defined formats (e.g. text or HTML
files) and tag or rename files based on this
data. It has a bunch of quite powerful
features to play around with.

* Added a new tool, the file search tool.
This tool will let you specify any criteria
(using the normal filter) and then search an
mp3 collection of any size using these.
The results will be presented in a spread
sheet style window. It's quite good if you
just want to practise setting up the filter
for the rest of the tools too (since nothing
is modified, you only get to see exactly
which files will pass through certain filter
settings).

* Added a "preview mode" option for all tools
in the program that do any kind of tagging
or renaming. Using this, the results of any
mass processing operation can be viewed
before deciding to perform the operation for
real.

* Big upgrade of the casefix tool.
Both added functionality to it and redesigned
its GUI. The new "Advanced mode" should be
powerful enough for any casefixing needs!
(read more in the help file)

* Big upgrade of the mp3 processing filter.
Both added advanced functionality to it
(read more in the help file) and redesigned
its GUI.

* Big upgrade of the program main settings.
Added many options and redesigned the GUI to
be much more efficient and good looking.

* All tools for tagging and renaming (in
advanced mode) can now use arbitrary ID3v2
text fields as targets and sources! These
fields use the format <V2_XXXX>, where XXXX
is the ID3v2.3 frame ID of the specific
frame.

* Added cancel-capability to all mass file
processing operations.

* Added progress meters to all mass file
processing operations.

* Upgraded the custom files list box, so that
it now has checkboxes for each entry, and
also has a horizontal scrollbar when needed.
The entries in it can also be manually
rearranged in any order, or automatically
sorted by file name or file date.

* Added even more advanced functionality to
the advanced mode of parse-templates (e.g.
the auto tag tool). You can now parse out
data to a single field from any number of
parts of the source (e.g. a filename).

Example:
You have a file with the following name

"Britney (my future wife) Spears - Track 3 CD 1.mp3"

You can then e.g. let the artist be set to
"Britney Spears", and let the tracknumber
be set to 103. That's just one simple
example anyway, the possibilities are
pretty endless.

* Added an advanced mode to the "Direct tag
manipulation" tool. It can now use templates
(similar to the ones in the auto rename tool)
to write new tag contents, and it can also
process any v1 field, any v2 field (including
all special v2-fields) and also corresponding
v1 and v2 fields at the same time!

* Upgraded the list maker tool.
Both added an advanced mode and custom
sorting to it, and also added options to
insert custom headers and footers to the
lists. It can now output very complex lists
(including completely custom HTML lists and
multi-line entries). Some new fields were
added too, e.g. all ID3v2 text fields (in
advanced mode) and relative file paths.

* Upgraded the repair tool.
Added a new repair mode to remove junk data
before the first mpeg header in mp3 files.
This can recover many types of problems,
mostly caused by other programs that have
written bad ID3v2 tags or VBR-headers to the
file. The "Totally remove corrupt frames"
mode is still planned for a future version
of the program, but I cannot promise exactly
when it will be.

* Added the "absolute path mode" also to the
direct rename tool.

* Made it possible to add custom commands
(i.e. calling of external programs) that
can be performed on files from the browse
tool menu and shell extension menu.

* Made the program more responsive during
mass processing operations.

* Enabled use of track numbers larger than 255
(only in ID3v2 tags though, in ID3v1.1 tags
this is theoretically impossible, but as long
as ID3v2 tags are enabled inside Mp3/Tag
Studio, it is handled as smooth and seamless
as possible anyway).

* Enabled addition of own genres to the genre
drop-down boxes in the program.

* Added auto completion of genres when typing
in the genre drop-down boxes in the program.

* Enabled use of "/" in ID3v2 track number
fields, e.g. "5/16", according to the ID3v2
standard.

* Enabled auto parsing of genres from filenames
to tags. It being left out in the first place
is a relic from the ID3v1 days, when genres
could not be set to arbitrary strings, but
only to certain genres from a closed set.

* Rewrote and optimized parts of the undo code,
to get rid of a strange bug that caused some
people to get random crashes while undoing
lots of files. I think I finally found this
bug, but please report if you have any such
crashes in this version!

* Added access to all saved casefix/substring-
replacement presets from the shell extension.

* Added access to all saved filter presets from
the shell extension.

* Added access to the remove tag commands from
the shell extension.

* Fixed so that the program will remember if it
was started with the "-resize" parameter the
last time, when executed from the shell
extension menu. Previously it only remembered
the "-noresize" parameter in this way.

* Added an option to set the number of
characters that track numbers should be zero
padded to, when used in e.g. file names.

* Added an option to preserve the file date
(timestamp) of all tagged and renamed files.

* Added an option to use a custom directory for
temporary storage (e.g. of undo data).
Good for people that for different reasons
can't write data to the Mp3/Tag Studio
install dir, which is used for this purpose
by default.

* Added an option for the user to customize the
font used in the tag field text edit boxes.

* Added an option to automatically truncate all
created filenames that exceed a certain length
(some portable mp3 players have relatively low
limits for filename lengths).

* Added an option for the browse tool to
primarily display another tag version than the
global primary tag version in case of unsynced
tags in selected files.

* Added an option to disable the warning message
that is displayed when leaving an unsaved
edited file in the browse tool.

* Added an option to enable/disable the
descriptive header row in created mp3 lists.

* Added an option to issue a warning in the auto
rename tool when any of the fields used to
rename a certain file is empty.

* Added cut/copy/paste/delete/select-all
capabilities to certain context menus inside
the program.

* Added an optional disk space check when
writing ID3v2 tags to mp3 files, so that an
mp3 file can never be damaged even if the disk
space runs out during the operation.

* Added support for ID3v2 tags with multiple
comment fields (with non-equal content
descriptors). Comment fields with non-empty
content descriptors are now treated as non-
directly supported ID3v2 frames.

* Upgraded the "error and warnings" window,
it is now fully resizeable. It can also be
detached, so that one can investigate the
files listed in it while it is still visible.

* Added a hotkey for the "Execute" command in
all tools (ctrl-enter).

* Added an "up one directory level" button for
the working directory box.

* Added some new items to the browse tool
context menu, and also added hotkeys for every
item in this menu.

* Added a display of the mean bitrate in VBR
files.

* Made the program a bit better on extracting
the mp3 sound data from files with certain
kinds of damages.

* Fixed a bug that under certain conditions
could cause problems in the program when the
current working directory had been moved or
deleted by the user.

* Fixed a bug that under certain conditions
resulted in some bad data in the first sound
data frame of files that were VBR-header-
repaired.

* Fixed a bug that under certain conditions
caused the genre field to seem empty in the
browse tool, even though the current tag
actually contained a genre.

* Fixed a bug that caused the mass clean tool
to under certain conditions create unnecessary
empty tags, even though they did not exist to
start out with.

* Fixed a bug that caused fixed-width fields not
to always work correctly in the direct rename
tool.

* Fixed a bug that limited the user input to 30
characters when writing to advanced ID3v2 fields.

* Fixed a bug that made the shell extension act
somewhat different for mp3:s with an uppercase
file extension.

* Fixed a bug related to processing some tag
genres that had originally been written by
Winamp. This bug arose from Winamp fixing a
bug in their program, which I have earlier
compensated for. :-)

* Fixed a bug that under certain conditions made
the genre in the "mass set tag" tool not to be
remembered between executions of the program.

* Fixed a bug that under certain conditions made
the comment in the "mass set tag" tool not to
be remembered between executions of the program
(unrelated to the similar genre field bug that
was also fixed).

* Fixed a bug that could cause an entry in a
created list to be broken into several rows if
any of the listed information in that entry
contained a line break.

* Fixed a bug that caused the program not to warn
when only special v2 tag fields had been edited
(without saving), and the user selected another
file in the browse tool.

* Fixed a bug that caused the "include subdirs"
box of the direct tag manipulation tool to be
enabled in custom file selection mode, although
it can't be used in that mode.

* Fixed a potential memory leak in the undo data
generation code for some of the tools.

* Made a lot of smaller fixes, GUI detail
adjustments and other stuff.


Have fun guys, thanks!

/Magnus

I'm glad you like it. :-)

/Magnus

You sir, are THE MAN.

There's a feature I was going to request, and from reading through your release notes, it looks like you may have already included it.

/me scrambles to download it.

No, Tony. I think we can accord him status of DA MAN. Apparently in some dialects it's even more important.

If we all pooled together and bought him an empeg, could we get a bulk release of the software?

If we all pooled together and bought him an empeg, could we get a bulk release of the software?

Better yet, get him and Mike working together, so that some of the tag-writing code features of Tag Studio could be integrated into Jemplode. OOOOhhhh...

Now you're talkin'!

Running the new MP3 Tag Studio with no command line parameters produces the expected behavior (that I saw in all previous versions): Flickery main window. I've got nostandard sized fonts and menu bars etc.

Doing the old work-around of running it with the "-noresize" parameter works, however, the program initially reports:

Acces violation at address 00447377 in module 'MP3TAG_S.EXE'. Read of address FFFFFFFF.

After OK'ing this message box, I get:

Error reading main datafile, using defaults!

After that, the program runs fine.

Note that this is on every re-run of the program, not just the first time.

Thanks for the report Tony, I had missed that one.

You can find a fixed patch at the address below (just copy the file over your existing 3.0 RC2 installation):

http://www.magnusbrading.com/ftp/mp3ts30rc2a_patch.zip

Password is still "empegpreview"

Just tell me if you find anything else, and I'll fix it ASAP.

Wow Magnus you have been busy. I've been a registered user for quite some time and I'm off to download this right now .

I just noticed that the preview and errors/warnings windows looked a bit funny in the -noresize mode too, so I just updated the patch to fix that. If someone have downloaded it yet and plan to run it in -noresize mode you might want to download it again.

Damn you non-standard-Windows-settings people, why can't you just be like everyone else? ;-)

Hmm, exactly which problems was that? The ones where some encoders seemed to insert their own proprietary format VBR-headers?

(and thanks for your support in registering, I wish more people were that honest...)

Cool, thanks for the bug fix!

/me kicks himself for not registering yet and promises to register with his next paycheck.

Okay, bug is definitely fixed in the patched version. You are again DA MAN.

New bug report:

I just auto-renamed-from-tags a small collection of files which did not have all of the fields filled in. The format I wanted the filenames in was done with advanced mode, and the spec was thus:

<Artist> - <Album> - <Title> (<Year>).mp3

I was looking for output that resembled:

Norah Jones - Come Away with Me - Cold Cold Heart (2002).mp3

Actually, I just noticed that I did that backwards and I really wanted the (<Year>) after the album instead of after the title, but for the purposes of an accurate bug report, the above is what was entered.

For some tracks this worked fine. However, some of the tracks did not have their album and year filled out, so the file names were funky. Okay, this was expected, except that it didn't do what I was thinking it would. I expected:

Norah Jones - - Day Is Done ().mp3

but instead I got:

Norah Jones - - Day Is Done).mp3

Is that a bug or am I not understanding how it works?

Another bug report. When I press F5 in the Auto Rename From Tags screen (which is my automatic-pavlov reaction that I do every time I want a refresh a list of files on the screen), I get:

Access violation at address 00402332 in module 'MP3TAG_S.EXE. Read of address FFFFFFFF.

And after that, when I exit the program I get:

Access violation at address 004EAB0B in module 'MP3TAG_S.EXE. Read of address FFFFFFFF.

Followed by a few other errors, including a runtime error box that never goes away and requires a shutdown of the system to dismiss.

theres also a bug when using the direct tag manipulation on id3v2 tags. it changes all the cr-lf's in the comments field into cr's which gives us the all too familiar effect of editing linux texts in notepad.

another bug:
the autocase setup is static for both tag manipulation AND renaming.

i like to have the id3v2 tags w/ correct capitolization, but like my files to have all lowercase and special characters stripped. can you make it so that each tab remember their own presets? yes, i can just change the presets everytime i goto the tab, but thats 5 extra clicks ...

laziness is a bitch.

also, is it possible to get a "whole word only" to the substring replacements? i currently add whitespace to make sure that its the whole word only. "Dj " -> "DJ ".

last thing... in preview mode, if ALL of the files have a null field, can the corresponding column be suppresed?

No, this is not a bug actually.

According to the ID3v2 specification, newlines should only be represented by an LF (0xA). Any program that has added CR-LF:s to your tags is erroneous, and it should hence be reported as a bug to them. Mp3/Tag Studio follows the ID3v2 standard exactly.

>another bug:
>the autocase setup is static for both tag manipulation AND renaming.

No, this is not a bug, I have made it like that fully intentional.


>i like to have the id3v2 tags w/ correct capitolization, but like
>my files to have all lowercase and special characters
>stripped. can you make it so that each tab remember their
>own presets? yes, i can just change the presets everytime i
>goto the tab, but thats 5 extra clicks ...

My opinion is that this might confuse people to have different settings for each tab, so I like it better like it is. As you say, 5 mouse clicks for the few people that need to change it between tagging and renaming (I don't think really many people do this) is worth the rest don't having to be confused, so I'll leave it like that for now, sorry. Maybe I'll make it an option in a future update then, but too many options also confuse people, so I have to be caution there too.


>also, is it possible to get a "whole word only" to the
>substring replacements? i currently add whitespace to
>make sure that its the whole word only. "Dj " -> "DJ ".

The method with the trailing space is the best right now. If I would add "word extraction" like that I would have to let people specify their own "word-separators" to make it generic, and it's the same there, too many options scare people away. Maybe in a future update anyway.


>last thing... in preview mode, if ALL of the files have a null
>field, can the corresponding column be suppresed?

Of course I could, but that would require an option too. Again, adding options for really small aesthetical things like this is bound to make more damage in confusing most people than it will gain in pleasing the few that use it. I always have to consider that balance, I hope you understand that.

Ok, I've fixed that bug too. It was also, just like the other one, only occuring in the -noresize mode.

http://www.magnusbrading.com/ftp/mp3ts30rc2b_patch.zip

Password is still "empegpreview"

This fix was a bit special though, so there is a slight possibility that your window might start flickering again, or something else. Please tell me if you notice any such degradations after this patch, and I'll take a look at that too.

I'll look on that other empty-field bug tomorrow.


*mumble*... non-standard Windows settings... *curse*... ;-)

When doing a batch modification using "Mass set tags/flags", fixing something as simple as genre in the tags on a set of mp3's I sometimes get a list of warnings saying, "Some field(s) were truncated while writing to ID3v1 tag in file [FILE] ..." Yet when I look under "Browse/Edit tags & flags" the information looks okay. Is this a bug? Could you fix it so it doesn't warn me unless it really truncates something?

Thanks!

introvert

I need support for large fonts. There is also no maximize button!

This is not a bug. Some field is actually truncated every time this warning occurs (not necessarily the field you're actively setting though).

The reason that you can't see the truncated ID3v1 fields in the browse tool is the "Intelligent tag-sync checking mode" setting (in the "tagging core" settings). Please read more about it in the help, and try to turn it off and you'll see what I mean.

If you don't want these warnings at all, you can turn them off by disabling the "Warn when ID3v1 tag fields are truncated when set" setting (in the "General tagging and renaming" settings).

The "Large fonts" setting in Windows is a really disgusting feature of the operating system which, when enabled, automatically resizes and moves around all texts, objects and windows of any program, using an AI algorithm that isn´t really that intelligent after all. It totally destroys the functionality of the intelligent resize feature of Mp3/Tag Studio anyway, so you have to turn it off for proper function of the program (and trust me, it's not just me, really big programs like e.g. 3D Studio MAX openly announce that they simply do not support this Windows setting). Even all Microsoft programs released prior to the introduction of that operating system feature are totally messed up by it too.

Sorry, you'll just have to settle with using the "-noresize" command line switch, it should make it at least usable.

And you can resize the program to any size by dragging its borders (if you aren't using the "-noresize" mode of course).

Ok, I've fixed the rename-with-last-field-empty bug too. It wasn't really a bug, it was a relic from the older days when there was no advanced mode, and then the last separator could practically always be removed without any disadvantages if the last field was empty. In advanced mode that is apparently not always the case, so I have disabled that feature for now.

Download the latest patch here:

http://www.magnusbrading.com/ftp/mp3ts30rc2c_patch.zip

Password is still "empegpreview"

I'd still like to hear if the RC2b and RC2c patches cause any degradations in -noresize mode compared to the earlier versions, on your computer Tony (like e.g. flickering)?

Anyone else having any problem with them is of course very welcome to report that too.

Hey! I have to use the large fonts feature. Otherwise everything is absolutely tiny on my screen!

But -noresize does seem to fix most of the problems. Your banner at the bottom of the window does look a little odd however.



- Trevor

The "Large fonts" setting in Windows is a really disgusting feature of the operating system

I still have to use -noresize even though I don't use large fonts. The reason I need -noresize is that I've chosen different styles of font for the menu bar and window title, and so they are a slightly different size than the OS's default fonts.

I'd still like to hear if the RC2b and RC2c patches cause any degradations in -noresize mode compared to the earlier versions, on your computer Tony (like e.g. flickering)?

I have not noticed any "noresize-related" problems since the first patch you released, that side of it seems to be working fine.

I hope I get time to try out the most recent patch later today. Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to play with your new version.

May I ask why you can't simply reduce your screen resolution if you think that everything is tiny? I have a feeling that at least a _very_ large part of the people using the "large fonts" setting, if not all, would only need to reduce their screen resolution instead. They would certainly get rid of a lot of problems by doing so anyway, that's for sure.

And about the messed up logo, I know about it, that's why I said that the program will be "at least be usable", it's still somewhat aesthetically messed up in some places. And this is ONLY because the operating system goes in and messes around things in my program without even asking me or letting me know, when the large fonts setting is enabled. If I try to move them right, it will only take vengeance by messing everything up completely (which is what you see when you are not using the "-noresize" parameter). As I said, it's a completely disgusting operating system feature. :-(