Help me test Cover Art Vis 2.5

[acozz]

Hello, everyone. This is the new version of Cover Art Vis, rewritten from the ground up.

I'd appreciate it if some of you could help me test it. Just report any bugs here.

The first thing you should do after installing is go to the plugin configuration. I tried my best to make it as easy to use as possible. I added a new priority dialog that allows you to see which order the plugin searches for covers. ID3v2 tag reading (for stored covers) has been added, as well as the possibility for internet templates (for those of you with your own webspace). If you use folder.jpg or whatever pictures, the plugin should work right out of the box for you.

Notes: I have not tested the internet template as I have no webspace, so any help testing that would be appreciated.

Very Important: If you are using a Windows version lower than XP
You need to download the GDI+ redistributable. It is a one time install.
To download it click here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=BFC0B436-9015-43E2-81A3-54938B6F4614)
If you are using Windows XP or Server 2003, you need not download any extra files.

I think this should work on 4.11 too.

[hedge]

I LOVE this new version, the only thing i missed from musicmatch was the ability to read album covers from id3 tags, and now qcd does this too thanks to your great new plugin!!!
I havent found any bugs yet, but all ive really used is the reading from id3 tags... which works well.

[Azimuth]

Any reason this would not work in 4.51a?

[acozz]

Are you using the version from the plugins page? It's working for me in 4.51. If it still isn't working, what Windows version and what are you trying to do?

[Azimuth]

Nevermind! I just saw that a newer version was on the plugins page!

[acozz]

Use the one from the plugin page and tell me if it works.

[Psy]

Looking to the new gracenote music browser I'm wondering why we can't get the covert art directly from gracenote. I think that they don't mind if we put the covert art somewhere clickeable to the gracenote info page.

[Azimuth]

Use the one from the plugin page and tell me if it works.
Everything is AOK!

[acozz]

Psy: 90% of the time the cover isn't found or it's a picture of the artist.

[Psy]

Psy: 90% of the time the cover isn't found or it's a picture of the artist.
That's because the browser tries to locate the cover of the single, instead of the album where the song is. Anyway, I'm talking about use a service that it's already built in QCD, and perhaps make it a QCD's standard vis plug-in.

[thetribe]

Just installed it and it's working great.

I'm using the filename template method and it picks the images up no problem. Will let me quickly see which images aren't in my folder for my now playing webpage so I can see it being very handy, cheers. :)

[jebster]

Very Important: If you are using a Windows version lower than XP
You need to download the GDI+ redistributable. It is a one time install.
To download it click here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=BFC0B436-9015-43E2-81A3-54938B6F4614)
If you are using Windows XP or Server 2003, you need not download any extra files.

I think this should work on 4.11 too.I feel like an idiot! The file you show to download is a self extracting zip, it's default unzip location is windows temp dir, where do I put the gdiplus.dll file? System dir? Sorry for being a moron...:depressed

Nevermind, I'm an idiot who needs to read stuff more carefully:
***IMPORTANT NOTE***
If you are using a Windows version less than Windows XP, you must click on the "website" or "support file" link above and download the GDI+ redistributable from Microsoft. Install it to your Quintessentail Player application folder. This is necessary to load the covers. If you are on XP or Server 2003, you need not install this as you already have it.

[acozz]

The support file link isn't self-extracting, just the website link. The support link was supposed to be an installer that would install it to your Quintessential directory, but Paul changed it on me. Oh well.

[jebster]

On my computer(500mhz celeron, 320mb ram, running win98SE) it takes quite a bit for the new image to show up after I go to a song from a different album, is this cause it takes a bit to read it from the ID3 tags? Would it be faster if it like cached them in an "album cover" directory or something? Just wondering.

BTW, thanks, was wanting to be able to see all the covers(which I spent a crap load of time loading into files with MusicMatch) again. :biggrin: This plug-in should be standard ;)

[jebster]

The support file link isn't self-extracting, just the website link. The support link was supposed to be an installer that would install it to your Quintessential directory, but Paul changed it on me. Oh well.
The link your provided in your first post to MS, the file on that page was ;)

[acozz]

Hmm, how long does it take to get the cover from the id3 tag? It does have to read through the tag until it finds the cover art, so the closer to the top fo the file the cover tag is the faster it'll be. Though you really can't control that.

[jebster]

Hmm, how long does it take to get the cover from the id3 tag? It does have to read through the tag until it finds the cover art, so the closer to the top fo the file the cover tag is the faster it'll be. Though you really can't control that.10-20 seconds for my Metallica stuff.

[acozz]

Can you send me one of those files so I can try to make it faster? My email is acozz@hvc.rr.com

[thetribe]

Is there a way to get round the Various Artist albums? Currently when I play a compilation no cover is shown. I use Virtual Prince's Now Playing plugin for my Now Playing page on my website and that works well to get album art for VA but the cover art plugin only shows my default no art image.

Is there something I've missed?

I'm using the filename template method, I don't have art embedded in the tags

[acozz]

For those, use the image list feature. Move image list above No Cover Image and just below filename template in the priority queue. When it doesn't find the image via the filename template, it'll move down to the image list.

Let me know if it works, I don't use the image list as much as the filename template. It would be nice to know if it's working properly.

[thetribe]

I have image list 2nd in my list after filename template, the problem is it seems to be looking for artist - album (which is correct for an album by only one band) which would mean me having to set up the image list with each separate artist for each album and as my current playlist has 232 tracks that would take a lot of doing.

For Example
Black Sabbath - The Best Heavy Metal Album In The World.... Ever! (D1)
Iron Maiden - The Best Heavy Metal Album In The World.... Ever! (D1)
Motorhead - The Best Heavy Metal Album In The World.... Ever! (D1)

What happens with the Now Playing plugin that I use is that it looks through the album list to see if artist - album exists, if this doesn't exist it then looks back through the list for 'just' the album name and uses the setting found for that.

in this case:
The Best Heavy Metal Album In The World.... Ever! (D1)

Now Playing also auto-generates the link for the cover art instead of having to manually select the art. Being able to set a root directory for the image list (as with the filename template) so it knew to always look in one place for the cover art would help with this.

I currently have the image list set to point to the image list I use with Now Playing and I see that the lists are very similar.

If you're not familliar with the Now Playing plugin check it out here - http://www.vprince.com/np/help/index_e2.html and click the 'Images' link to see how it works.

I'm really liking this plugin and I think if you could combine some of the best bits from Now Playing along with what you already have it could be great for those of us without embedded tags.

Thanks :)

[acozz]

Both Now Playing image lists and Cover Art Vis image lists are supposed to be identical or close to it.

I believe, if I remember the specs correctly, if you have this entry in your image list, it'll search for this before it searches with artist - album:

[]
The_Best_Heavy_Metal_Album_In_The_World...._Ever!_ (D1)=<filename here>

If you have that and it doesn't work, can you send me your image list and I'll do some testing.

[thetribe]

ah, right, in that case I believe the problem may be that Now Playing doesn't use the full path to the file, it uses only the artist - album.ext or album.ext

The_Best_Heavy_Metal_Album_In_The_World...._Ever!_ (D1)= The%20Best%20Heavy%20Metal%20Album%20In%20The%20Wo rld....%20Ever!%20(D1).jpg
(added a space so the line would wrap)

so on my webpage I get
<img src="/playlist/The%20Best%20Heavy%20Metal%20Album%20In%20The%20Wo rld....%20Ever!%20(D1).jpg"
(as I have the "/playlist/" in the template for output)

So being able to set a root directory for the image list to work from would solve this problem, if this is possible

[acozz]

Problem solved: use the internet template ;)

[thetribe]

yes, thanks acozz.

Problem solved in real time on IRC (More Info (http://beta.quinnware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1499)). As I am using the Now Playing plugin to display my tracks and art online I set cover art plugin to use the internet template too and set that only to look for album names. I then set the cover loading priority to check Filename Template, then Image List then Internet Template so it should find a cover for almost anything now. (ADSL and being online constantly obviously helps with this)

So once again, thanks acozz for your time. :)

[t_journeyman]

Did the download link disappear?

[acozz]

Did the download link disappear?

This is mad old, so I took it down. We're at version 2.95 on the plugins page: download it from there.

I'm going to lock this thread.