Browse by Cover (Coverflow) - Updated 11/8/07

**moahdib** · 11-22-2007, 01:07 AM

Originally Posted by lbridges

Not sure this has bearing since I don't know much about winamp, but when I look at a playlist generated by coverflow it consists of a simple list of the songs. However, when I use my regular music browser skin to have RR/Winamp save a playlist it has the following header added:

RR/Win amp music browser version of the m3u file
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,Gregg Allman / Laid Back / Midnight Rider
Allman, Greg\Laid Back\01 - Midnight Rider.mp3
...other songs follow

Coverflow version of the <album.m3u> file
01 - Midnight Rider.mp3
...other songs follow

Note the "missing" first two lines in the Coverflow m3u file. Also, please understand this is not a universal header, it just compares the winamp vice coverflow playlist for the same album, Greg Allman's Laid Back, for which the first song is Midnight Rider.

Also in the XML files under the coverflow subdirectory the following would be found: Allman, Greg\Laid Back\ but I don't know how these connect.

So, my simple-minded guess is the missing first song has to do with the universal differences, namely the first line in the RR/Winamp version line #EXTM3U, and/or the opening of the second line in the RR/Winamp playlist #EXTINF:0

Said another way - does Winamp 2.95 expect an extended m3u file, or is a simple file enough?

One final note, this is with Winamp 2.95. I might try a version 5.X copy I have around to see if it still exists, but that won't be soon.

This is a winamp version issue. For one thing, the m3u files are unicode encoded, so winamp can read ANY language mp3 file / directory. Currently only winamp 5.3 and up supports that. Winamp 2.95 might have a hard time reading those m3u files.

I shoudl've just given the playlist files the extension m3u8, which is for unicode playlists.

The issue on post 148, I've seen plenty of my mp3 with apostrophe and never seen that weird character. It might be a Xpregional language setting.

Originally Posted by lbridges

Honestly haven't got that far into testing.

I did find out that simply adding one blank space in the Coverflow generated m3u file fixes (for me) the 2nd song issue, and it seems not to affect the display, i.e., the song titles show up all lined up as if the space didn't exist. I have no idea what Winamp is expecting so I don't know if this would fix it for you or not.

If you want to try it, just open an album's Coverflow playlist using notepad, or any simple text editor, and insert a single space before the first entry.

If you open the m3u in notepad and save it, you are effectively turning it into a ASCII file instead of UNICODE. I believe only wordpad supports unicode.

**kbreeden** · 11-22-2007, 07:51 AM

Originally Posted by moahdib

This is a winamp version issue. For one thing, the m3u files are unicode encoded, so winamp can read ANY language mp3 file / directory. Currently only winamp 5.3 and up supports that. Winamp 2.95 might have a hard time reading those m3u files.

I shoudl've just given the playlist files the extension m3u8, which is for unicode playlists.

Thanks, Moahdib. I'm using Winamp 5.13, which I guess isn't that much different than 2.95. So should we manually modify our .m3u files or is this something you can address in the builder?

Originally Posted by moahdib

The issue on post 148, I've seen plenty of my mp3 with apostrophe and never seen that weird character. It might be a Xpregional language setting.

Okay, at least now I know there's somebody who is not having the apostrophe issue. It would be helpful, though, to know if anyone else is having it so I can know whether it's just some peculiarity with my system. I've always used English as my language in XP, so I don't think that's the issue. I'll see what I can find out.

**Sonicxtacy02** · 11-22-2007, 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by kbreeden

From my perspective it's a great idea, but I have 25,000 songs and am afraid it would slow things down too much. Plus, I don't add songs incrementally so it's no problem running the builder manually every month or so when I do an update.

The script sets itself as a low thread priority in windows so it reduces its footprint... but if you dont add files often or incrementally it really dont do anything for you. Songs are basically added/updated/cleaned up everytime i pull up to my home cause i use ezsync. But it terms of memory/cpu usage my 1.3ghz celly has no issues when this is running daily.

Originally Posted by Enforcer

Hey, I skipped most of the posts before and was just offering an observation based on your question.

Anyway, surely you could build into coverflow the ability to 'remember' the last browsed

Hmm, that is something I could add to Upd8 hmmmmm.

upd8 is done via autoit? didnt know that. I'll put the .au3 file in with the .exe when i release it later today

**kbreeden** · 11-22-2007, 09:20 AM

Update: Just so everyone knows, the apostrophe issue was a tagging problem on my end. All is now well.

**Enforcer** · 11-22-2007, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

upd8 is done via autoit? didnt know that. I'll put the .au3 file in with the .exe when i release it later today

No, it's done in VB6.

What I meant is, maybe I could code a similar function into it. As I already did a VB version of the previous script that Mohaib had to work with the way my music was set up.

I just need to know exactly what coverflow is expecting to find as far as XML's and txt files are concerned

**lbridges** · 11-22-2007, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by moahdib

This is a winamp version issue. ...snip.

I changed my winamp to version 5.5 (nothing else changed) and the problem went away, so that suggests the traditional v2.95 is not suited for use by Coverflow. Of course it could still have been some setting I was overlooking since I know little about Winamp except I use it with RoadRunner.

**carputer1** · 11-22-2007, 12:12 PM

just changed my m3u files to add a space to the first line,
now both players are running,flash and winamp.
so changed my m3u files back again and still have it 2 players.

so i went to rebuild everything from scratch,reloaded all the files built new builds
now i get coverflow open with no background and a error while loading.

any ideas

ok had alook through my music folder,after running artist build and genre build,
all xml files are made but no m3u files in the music folder, i tryed this with both download scripts the 1's with coverflow and the seperate download.

ok found the m3u files, the scripts are placing indavidal m3u files in each music folder(album)
not in the artist folder, so if i have 4 albums in the artist folder,i get 1 m3u per album, where before it was 1 m3u file per artist folder with all tracks for all ablbums in 1 m3u file.

**kbreeden** · 11-22-2007, 02:22 PM

Originally Posted by carputer1

ok found the m3u files, the scripts are placing indavidal m3u files in each music folder(album)
not in the artist folder, so if i have 4 albums in the artist folder,i get 1 m3u per album, where before it was 1 m3u file per artist folder with all tracks for all ablbums in 1 m3u file.

Isn't a playlist for each album the way it's supposed to work? That's what I've been getting (I have no artist .jpgs) and everything works perfectly except for the first song not playing.

**carputer1** · 11-22-2007, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by kbreeden

Isn't a playlist for each album the way it's supposed to work? That's what I've been getting (I have no artist .jpgs) and everything works perfectly except for the first song not playing.

hav'nt a clue what happened,your right kb 1 for each album. i still had the m3u file in artist folder from before i changed the .jpg names, thats why i thought it was that.

my problems started from when i tryed to change the 1st track of each album by sticking a space or a # as mentioned before. which total screwed up CF.but i'm getting the 2 players running now,theres got to be away of shutting the internal player off.

ibridges: now you have up gradeed winamp dose it play 1st track with out any mods to the m3u file.

**kbreeden** · 11-22-2007, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by carputer1

ibridges: now you have up gradeed winamp dose it play 1st track with out any mods to the m3u file.

I also loaded 5.5 and can confirm that it plays the first song without any problem. Now I'll have to play with RR for a while to see if 5.5 causes trouble elsewhere.