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Author Topic: Album Art: Tag Expressions  (Read 2009 times)

WackaMold

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Album Art: Tag Expressions
« on: April 27, 2020, 09:35:49 PM »
Under Options / Preferences / General / Album Art / Reading Options, we have many choices for the filename that WacUp uses to search in the folder containing the sound files for graphic files to be loaded for display in the Album Art pane. There is no option for my preferred format of naming the files for cover art, which is "Artist Name - Album Name.[PNG|JPG|etc]"

The existing choices are (listed here in an organized sequence):
1 Embedded art in the tag of the file (if supported)
2 albumart      .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
3 cover            .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
4 folder            .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
5 front              .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
6 %album%    .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
7 %filename%.<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
8 NFO file with same filename as an image file in the containing folder

My feature suggestion/wish: allow the user to input their own name or naming scheme, following the logic used in Advanced Title Formatting https://getwacup.com/atf_help.html or perhaps a subset. For example, an additional selectable choice like:
[CheckBox] [InputBox].<supported_image_format> "Enter your own filename or tag expression" See second screenshot.

When input is complete, WacUp will provide some kind of feedback about the input. At minimum, WA must display an indicator about whether or not any graphic file is found which matches the user's input. Ideally, each choice should have its own indicator. WA should also display the actual graphic that is found, perhaps in the album art pane temporarily.

When the dialog is closed, the input value is stored in the Preferences data. Later when it's time to find+load+display the album art, WacUp loads the config value from the Preferences data and evaluates it. The evaluation logic is like:
- If the config value includes any tag expressions, then the actual tag values are substituted from the current media file.
- The config value (after any tag substitutions) is used to search for matching graphic files in the containing folder.
- At this point the existing logic takes over: The first matching file is displayed in the Art pane. If no matching file is found, then the Default / Fallback art is used, unless Fallback is disabled and the pane remains blank.

With this feature, choices 2 through 8 above would no longer be needed (they might remain operational but hidden for historical compatibility). User would be able to name their art files "Album-Art.IMG" or "Album Cover.IMG" or "2017 - Beethoven, Ludwig v. - London Symphony Orchestra - Greatest Hits Picture.IMG" or whatever they prefer. For the last example, the 'album art expression' entered by User would be "%year% - %composer% - %albumartist% - %album% Picture.IMG".

This approach seems more sane to me than trying to provide separate checkboxes for various arbitrary/historical naming conventions; it would be silly to have enough choices for all relevant tags. Obviously maximum flexibility for users means maximum effort from DrO and other developers, but that's what we signed up for :)
« Last Edit: April 27, 2020, 09:38:26 PM by WackaMold »