foo_pod - Foobar2000 meets the iPod, iPod -> Foobar2000 0.8 Options

[Aero]

Actually, if/when you do update the plug-in to v0.9, cover art in tags is actually supported properly.  foobar2000 no longer deletes binary data from tags...

Thanks for the info. Do you know if there is an interface for getting at the binary data, or just that it isn't deleted when you write tags?

Since 0.9 apparently breaks existing plugins, whether I update foo_pod or not will probably depend on how much work it would take update the code to the 0.9 SDK.

[mobyduck]

Since 0.9 apparently breaks existing plugins, whether I update foo_pod or not will probably depend on how much work it would take update the code to the 0.9 SDK.

Now that's worrisome!

Alessandro

[kl33per]

That is worrisome. It should not take a huge amount of effort to update foo_pod to support 0.9. A few edits, and a recompile with the new SDK and you should be fine. In terms of features, 0.9 has some significant advantages and I would be sorely disapointed if foo_pod was not updated.

[Aero]

That is worrisome.  It should not take a huge amount of effort to update foo_pod to support 0.9.  A few edits, and a recompile with the new SDK and you should be fine.  In terms of features, 0.9 has some significant advantages and I would be sorely disapointed if foo_pod was not updated.

Is there even a 0.9 SDK available? I don't see anything on the beta page, and in fact, I haven't really even seen a list of new features in 0.9.

[stevekim]

foo_podders:

First, big thanks to Aero, Otto, and all others involved in this fabulous plugin. I've been living without iTunes for a few months now, and have absolutely no regrets.

I thought I'd share my simple IPOD_LAST_PLAYED_TIME conversion TAGZ-script. Anyone using this will have to modify the variable 'gmtCorrection' for their appropriate timezone. Please fee free to modify/clean as you see fit.

CODE

#script 1
if (meta_test("IPOD_LAST_PLAYED_TIME"))
{
iPodTime =  meta("IPOD_LAST_PLAYED_TIME");

secondsPerYear = 31557600;
secondsPerDay = 86400;
secondsPerHour = 3600;

gmtCorrection = -6 * secondsPerHour;
iPodTime += gmtCorrection;

years = iPodTime / secondsPerYear;
days = (iPodTime % secondsPerYear) / secondsPerDay;
hours = (iPodTime % secondsPerYear % secondsPerDay) /   secondsPerHour;
minutes = (iPodTime % secondsPerYear % secondsPerDay %   secondsPerHour) / 60;
seconds = (iPodTime % secondsPerYear % secondsPerDay %   secondsPerHour % 60);

year = 1970 + years;

jan = 31;
if (year % 4 == 0)
{
 feb = jan + 29;
}
else
{
 feb = jan + 28;
}
mar = feb + 31;
apr = mar + 30;
may = apr +31;
jun = may + 30;
jul = jun + 31;
aug = jul + 31;
sep = aug + 30;
oct = sep + 31;
nov = oct +30;

month = 1;
day = days;

if (days > jan)
{
 month = 2;
 day = days - jan;  
}
if (days > feb)
{
 month = 3;
 day = days - feb;  
}
if (days > mar)
{
 month = 4;
 day = days - mar;  
}
if (days > apr)
{
 month = 5;
 day = days - apr;  
}
if (days > may)
{
 month = 6;
 day = days - may;  
}
if (days > jun)
{
 month = 7;
 day = days - jun;  
}
if (days > jul)
{
 month = 8;
 day = days - jul;  
}
if (days > aug)
{
 month = 9;
 day = days - aug;  
}
if (days > sep)
{
 month = 10;
 day = days- sep;  
}
if (days > oct)
{
 month = 11;
 day = days - oct;  
}
if (days > nov)
{
 month = 12;
 day = days - nov;  
}

day++;

date = pad_left(year,4,"0") # "-" # pad_left(month, 2, "0") # "-" # pad_left(day, 2, "0");
time = pad_left(hours, 2, "0") # ":" # pad_left(minutes, 2, "0");
}
else
{
date = "";
time = "";
}
print(date # " " # time);

It's kinda ugly, but that's my solution given the limitations of TAGZ-script!

[saratoga]

That is worrisome.  It should not take a huge amount of effort to update foo_pod to support 0.9.  A few edits, and a recompile with the new SDK and you should be fine.  In terms of features, 0.9 has some significant advantages and I would be sorely disapointed if foo_pod was not updated.

Is there even a 0.9 SDK available? I don't see anything on the beta page, and in fact, I haven't really even seen a list of new features in 0.9.

No. Its not going to be released until the beta is over in order to discourage beta testers from using 3rd party plugins (and reporting problems with them).

This post has been edited by Mike Giacomelli: Jun 1 2005, 23:42

[KyPeN]

stevekim:

That looks plakomkex. What exactly does it do or improve on. I don't code and that looks like latin translated to aramaic translated to chinese to me.

[Aero]

First, big thanks to Aero, Otto, and all others involved in this fabulous plugin. I've been living without iTunes for a few months now, and have absolutely no regrets.

Thanks!

I thought I'd share my simple IPOD_LAST_PLAYED_TIME conversion TAGZ-script. Anyone using this will have to modify the variable 'gmtCorrection' for their appropriate timezone. Please fee free to modify/clean as you see fit.

That is some pretty impressive coding!

Edit: If it would be useful, I could add another metadata item that could be formatted according to a foo_pod preference item. Something like a strftime() format string?

This post has been edited by Aero: Jun 2 2005, 05:02

[Aero]

Is there even a 0.9 SDK available?  I don't see anything on the beta page, and in fact, I haven't really even seen a list of new features in 0.9.

No. Its not going to be released until the beta is over in order to discourage beta testers from using 3rd party plugins (and reporting problems with them).

Hmm, that is very odd and, frankly, discouraging. I'm fairly certain that the SDK was released during the beta phase of previous Foobar releases (I have been writing components since 0.6).

I think your last sentence could be slightly reworked:
"Its not going to be released until the beta is over in order to discourage developers from writing 3rd party plugins."

[stevekim]

stevekim:

That looks plakomkex.  What exactly does it do or improve on.  I don't code and that looks like latin translated to aramaic translated to chinese to me.

Well, this doesn't really do anything new - it just reformats some data for human-readability. When tracks are played on the iPod, a variable called 'IPOD_LAST_PLAYED_TIME' gets updated to reflect the (you guessed it) time the track was played. However, this is stored as the number of seconds elapsed since Jan 1, 1970 - which is not too intuitive. The above tagzscript simply converts this big integer number of seconds to a more digestable form of "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm" format.

To use this, I put the code (including the '#script 1') into the 'Display' tab of a ColumnsUI column.

I seem to recall that someone, somewhere in this long thread asked about a way to format it. Here it is:
Link

Enjoy!

[stevekim]

That is some pretty impressive coding!

Edit: If it would be useful, I could add another metadata item that could be formatted according to a foo_pod preference item.  Something like a strftime() format string?

Thanks, Aero! While I was fiddling around with the tagzscript, I was wondering where the "IPOD_LAST_TIME_PLAYED" value came from. Am I correct in assuming that it is derived from iTunesDB/PlayCounts data, but then modified by foo_pod? While poking around the iTunesDB/PlayCounts databases, I saw that the iPod understands epoch time as Jan 1, 1904. So I'm assuming that foo_pod does converstion to Unix epoch.

At any rate, the ability to format the date through foo_pod to some user-definable format like strftime() would be great! If you're willing to put in the work, I'm willing to submit the feature request!

[TomGroove]

Folks,

saw that there was already a lot of discussion about VA here, but is hard to track through the 58 pages.

I am currently planning to have all VA songs and relevant tags changed in the following way:

%artist% = Various
%title% = artist - title
%album% = album

This gives me a less long artist listing at the IPOD as all various artist songs are listed with various.

Any feedback ? (hope you don't mind me listing that question here)

[kl33per]

use album artist. eg:

%album artist% = Various Artist
%artist% = Track Artist
%title% = Title
%album% = Album

[TomGroove]

thought also about that tag, but iPod doesn't list that one, does it ?

[stevekim]

foo_podders:

Aero will not have access to posts on the forum for a few days. If you don't get quick replies from him in the meantime, don't panic.

Steve

[StarLimit]

I've tried reinstalling foobar2000, using several different versions of foo_pod, and uninstalling/reinstalling iTunes, but after I get to a certain number of songs on my 40gb 3rd generation iPod (the barrier seems to be ~4500), whatever database is written seems to be plagued by error 13, making foo_pod write the backup database and cutting access off to hundreds of songs. Is there anything I can do to stop this from happening?

[kl33per]

thought also about that tag, but iPod doesn't list that one, does it ?

No it does not, but you can use formatting strings to correct this.

On the Advanced tab in the foo_pod preferences, I use the following.

Title: $if($stricmp(%album artist%,'Various Artists'),%title%' (Performed By '%artist%')',%title%)
Artist: $if2(%album artist%,%artist%)
Album: $if($or($stricmp(%album%,'Greatest Hits'),$stricmp(%album%,'Number Ones')),$if2(%album artist%,%artist%)': '%album%,%album%)
Genre: %genre%
Composer: %composer%
Comment: %comment%
Tracknumber: $num(%tracknumber%,2)

This causes the output to look like the following:

One Artist Album:
Title: Walk Of Life
Artist: Dire Straits
Album: Brothers In Arms

One Artist, with featuring artists:
Title: The Boys Of Summer
Artist: Don Henley
Album: The Perfect Beast
(Even though this song is performed by Don Henley & Steve Porcaro, it just shows the Album Artist, Don Henley, on your iPod)

Multiple Artists:
Artist: Various Artists
Title: Superman (Performed By Lazlo Bane)
Album: Music From Scrubs

Greatest Hits/Number Ones Album:
Artist: Journey
Title: Don't Stop Believin'
Album: Journey: Greatest Hits
(Even though the album is called Greatest Hits, because the iPod can't handle albums with the same name properly, the name of the artist gets put on before hand when you have an album named either Greatest Hits, or Number Ones).

To use these tags properly, Album Artist should only be tagged on those files that require it (albums with multiple artists, or albums with guest/feature artists).

[mimeryme]

kl33per, which tag do you use to indicate a guest/feature artist? I've been using WITH or FEATURING. That's probably non-standard, but it gives me an easy way to clean up TITLE for renaming the file and I can append the tags for display.

[kl33per]

I don't, all artists involed in a song get listed under Artist.

Eg.
%ALBUM ARTIST% = Don Henley

Track 1 %Artist% = Don Henley & Steve Porcaro
Track 2 %Artist% = Don Henley, Lindsey Buckingham & Pino Palladino
Track 3 %Artist% = Don Henley, Belinda Carlisle & Charlie Sexton
Track 4 %Artist% = Don Henley & Steve Porcaro
Etc.

[mimeryme]

Thanks. I understand a bit more now of why %album artist% is used.

[Klato]

kl33per,

I can't seem to get your alternative metadata settings to work. I'm using your Title, Artist, and Album settings.

i.e. if I have:
%album artist%=VA
%artist%=Toto
%title%=Africa
%album%=The 80s
%genre%=80s

Then I think it should appear in the iPod as:

Africa (Performed By Toto)
Various Artists
The 80s

But instead it shows as:

Africa
The 80s
The 80s

Any ideas? btw I already changed "Various Artists" in your string to VA.

This post has been edited by Klato: Jun 3 2005, 10:17

[kl33per]

I'm assuming you've checked that you're tags are all correct?

Make sure that when you changed 'Various Artists' to 'VA' that the apostrophes are retained.

Other then that, I'm not sure what you're problem is. It works perfectly for me.

Edit: Make sure you've got "Flag Compilation Albums" turned off. That (for some reason) might screw with it.

This post has been edited by kl33per: Jun 3 2005, 10:26

[TomGroove]

hey kl33per, thx a lot for your big help... I will check it out later today. Rgds Tom btw nice location, a little too far from Europe.

[kl33per]

No worries, yeh, Germany's a long flight.

[Klato]

I'm assuming you've checked that you're tags are all correct?

Make sure that when you changed 'Various Artists' to 'VA' that the apostrophes are retained.

Other then that, I'm not sure what you're problem is.  It works perfectly for me.

Edit: Make sure you've got "Flag Compilation Albums" turned off.  That (for some reason) might screw with it.

Yep, it was that "Flag Compilations Albums". Finally got my tracks looking how I want. Thanks!