iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator, A tool to check, validate and fill missing tags Options

[~*McoreD*~]

Hi All,

iTSfv – iTunes Store file validator is an add-in for iTunes. It is aimed for iTunes users who are keen on maintaining or having the goal of achieving iTunes Store file standard tags for all the tracks in their iTunes Music Library.

iTSfv has many number of visible and hidden features.

• Fill Track Count, Disc Number and Disc Count
• Fill AlbumArtist from Artist tag
• Add Artwork from explorer to tracks without embedded artwork
• Copy Folder.jpg to album folders
• Backup and restore play count and ratings
• Report tracks with missing tags (Artwork, Track Number, Lyrics etc.)
• Capitalize each word of tag and rename file accordingly
• Add new tracks to library (manually or by automatically monitoring)
• Delete unreferenced tracks from library



Latest Release:
http://code.google.com/p/itsfv/

Source:
http://code.google.com/p/itsfv/source/list


Digg edit:

If you would like others to know about this add-on then please Digg it from
http://digg.com/software/iTSfv_Hands_down_..._could_ever_ask

Note: The title of the digg article - It is not my interpretation of the software but one of the users': http://wakoopa.com/software/itunes-store-file-validator. I thought it sounded nice and grabs attention which is really essentially in digg.

This post has been edited by ~*McoreD*~: Sep 19 2008, 06:42

[~*McoreD*~]

I have just finished up an auto Rating system and this is how it looks in my Top 25 Most Played smart playlist.



Considering PlayedCount, Last Played Date and Date Added, what do you guys think?

Edit:

My Top Rated:



This post has been edited by ~*McoreD*~: Mar 11 2007, 04:03

[Jojo]

I have just finished up an auto Rating system and this is how it looks in my Top 25 Most Played smart playlist.



Considering PlayedCount, Last Played Date and Date Added, what do you guys think?

could you explain how it works? And how did you get the .5 rating to work?

[~*McoreD*~]

Hi Jojo,

Sure; I am more than happy to explain. I thought My Rating is more like the current status how you 'feel' about the song. Our all time best songs will be always accessible in Top 25 Most Played smart playlist. Therefore giving 5 Stars for best songs will not be good idea because a month or two later that song will not deserve a 5 Star rating by you as your taste changes in favor of other songs.

So we need a system that automatically increments and decrements My Rating.

The Rating is a function of Played Count, Last Played and Date Added. The more played count, the Rating will go higher. The more days since last played, the Rating will go down. The more days since Added to library and played recently, in other words, when older songs were recently played, they will be favored more than new songs which were played recently.

If you see the screenshot, #3 Dhol Wadja with 322 played count has got a 4 Star rating. #4 Me & U with 318 played count has a got 4.5 Star Rating. Why? I haven't played Dhol Wadja since January and I have played Me & U more recently.

You will also see, #24 Me & U (Dope Remix) has got a 3.5 star rating with 148 played count where as #17 Like Glue has got only 1.5 star rating because I haven't played it since November!

I you like the idea, you are welcome to try it.

The top one is the Latest Beta:
http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/beta/?M=D

Cheers,
McoreD

[~*McoreD*~]

And how did you get the .5 rating to work?

5 Stars will go to the song most played Count or songs which are very close to most played count, AND played recently. 80% of the weight for the Rating comes from Last Played.

[Jojo]

I like the idea a lot since I've been fiddling around with smart playlists in order to achieve that. Anyway, does your program act as a plugin for iTunes or how does it work? Or do I have to run it each time I want the playlist to be updated.

And how did you get the .5 rating to work?

5 Stars will go to the song most played Count or songs which are very close to most played count, AND played recently. 80% of the weight for the Rating comes from Last Played.

I think you might have misunderstood my question. I wasn't aware that iTunes is able to display ratings in 0.5 increments. So I was wondering how got that to work.

later

[Jens Rex]

On a more general note, I never understood the fascination with ratings. Ratings are subjective, and only ever valid for one person - the rater, eg. myself. I already know what I like. I can look at any given song in my playlist and tell you whether I like it or not, without a rating tag.

Other than that, why would I keep music in my playlist that I don't like? If I were to rate a song 'zero' because I hate it, I might as well just delete it.

[~*McoreD*~]

I like the idea a lot since I've been fiddling around with smart playlists in order to achieve that. Anyway, does your program act as a plugin for iTunes or how does it work? Or do I have to run it each time I want the playlist to be updated.

iTSfv works as an add-on. Whenever you feel like it -- e.g. when a friend comes over and you wanna show your best picks from play lists of the past few months, (JensRex, this is why I rate) -- you run iTSfv for the library to re-evaluate the Ratings.

Indeed I had misunderstood the question. I see the . (dot) before 5 now. The 0.5 increments happens when you pro grammatically give a rating like 90/100 which interprets as 4.5 out of 5.

JensRex, on the side note, I myself collect music as full albums. Deleting a track will be the ultimate damage that could be done to my library.
iTSfv wil in factl tell me what albums are incomplete. Right Click > Logs > Albums with inconsecutive tracks.



By the way, here is another feature run down.

Here I have searched in iTunes for all tracks that has the ` instead of '



and I am going to replace them.

Cheers.

This post has been edited by ~*McoreD*~: Mar 11 2007, 02:09

[Jojo]

Here I have searched in iTunes for all tracks that has the ` instead of '



and I am going to replace them.

Cheers.

I can't tell you how much that has always annoyed me. Seems like I'm not the only one

[~*McoreD*~]

Glad to realize the same, Jojo.

Here is another feature run down : Decompile Album



Say I have a Compilation album with different Artist tags but I want to move it to one Artist (Ministry Of Sound i n this screenshot), also preserving the Artist tag in each song.

I am going to move the Artist to Track - Artist.mp3 and move it out of Compilations. The new Artist for the track will be Ministry of Sound.

This process is captured in action in the screenshot.

Edit:

In ID3 tag point of this, for a track this is what happens.

From:

Track: Voodoo People
Artist: The Prodigy
Album: Maximum Bass 2
Compilation: True

To:

Track: Voodoo People - The Prodigy
Artist: Ministry Of Sound
Album: Maximum Bass 2
Compilation: False

This post has been edited by ~*McoreD*~: Mar 14 2007, 11:44

[~*McoreD*~]

#3.

Sometimes even CDDB has either CAPSLOCK or simple letters in ID3 tags.



Within iTunes you can fix it with iTSfv > Selected Tracks > Capitalize First Letter.

[x5nder]

Small bug report -- I hope this can be fixed in the application and that it isn't a .NET-bug:

My music is on a network drive. My iTunes-library path is \\N2100\iTunes. However, opening iTSfv gives an error that the path is invalid, probably because it isn't a local path. Is this easily fixable?

[~*McoreD*~]

Hi x5nder,

Thanks for pointing that out. It was FileSystemWatcher not accepting a Network folder as a monitor folder.

Next time you check for Updates, it should notify you the download URL for the latest build fixing the issue.

5.4.0.1 Fixed bug where music folder that is a network folder could make FileSystemWatcher crash [x5nder]
5.4.0.0 iTSfv will remove white spaces in Artist, Album and Name tags during validation
5.3.0.1 Albums didn't show Disc Number if the Disc Count was absent
5.3.0.0 Force update Artist Folder thumbnails in music folder (useful in Windows Vista)
5.2.5.0 Added AlbumArtist statistics to Statistics window
5.2.4.0 Ability to set Compilation tag before validating tracks
5.2.3.3 Previous stats file will not be accidentally overwritten if the parsing iTunes library task was interrupted
5.2.3.2 Manually checking updates did not prompt the Update status dialog box

Cheers
McoreD

[patashnik]

McoreD, thanks for the useful utility.

One feature request -- while I know iTSfv will identify files without album art, would it be possible to add a function to identify files with album art below a certain resolution specified by the user? This would be handy for identifying low-res art for upgrading.

[~*McoreD*~]

Pleasure pataashnik. Yep, definitely. A new build will be released as soon as it is build and tested. There are a few things the SDK is not helping in this regard, so those stuff has to be taken care of before implementing this feature. Will do post when it is ready.

Cheers,
McoreD

[~*McoreD*~]

http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/beta/iTS...5.0.1-setup.zip

5.5.0.1 Repetitive Check for Update would give false update notification in McoreSystem.dll
5.5.0.0 Ability to log tracks with low resolution artwork. Dimensions are specified in Options [patashnik]
5.4.1.0 GUI reconfiguration to support additional functionality

pataashnik, have a look at this build and appreciate feedback.

In iTSfv > Validate > Checks

Tick checkBox Check for Low Resolution Artwork
Press button Validate iTunes Music Library

once the process is complete

Report will have something similar to



or

Right Click iTSfv
Open Log Files > Tracks with Low Resolution Artwork

Should give something similar to

590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\01 I Can't Let You Go.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\02 Inspiration.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\03 Where Are You Now_.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\04 Crying.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\05 Crazy.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\06 My Own.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\07 Waiting 4 You.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\08 Do You Feel The Same.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\09 Come 2 Me.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\10 Time 2 Go.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\11 Rollercoaster.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\12 Without You.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\13 Believe.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\14 Walking Away.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\15 To Fall In Love.mp3
590x600 for F:\Music\Ian Van Dahl\Lost and Found\16 State Of Mind.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\01 Take A Bow.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\02 Starlight.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\03 Supermassive Black Hole.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\04 Map Of The Problematique.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\05 Soldiers Poem.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\06 Invincible.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\07 Assassin.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\08 Exo Politics.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\09 City Of Delusion.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\10 Hoodoo.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\11 Knights Of Cydonia.mp3
600x540 for F:\Music\Muse\Black Holes And Revelations\12 Glorious (Bonus Track).mp3

Report mode as in http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/tracks-2...T09-report.html will be in the next build.

The first run will be slow as it is caching Artwork dimensions to a file. The runs after that will be faster.

This post has been edited by ~*McoreD*~: Aug 25 2007, 02:51

[patashnik]

Excellent, McoreD, thank you very much! I'll check it out for sure and offer feedback as necessary, but from what I see here you've implemented my request very well. I sincerely appreciate it!

[Jose Hidalgo]

Hi everybody,

I'm learning to use this useful piece of software. Here's a bug report (it happens when I click on "validate selected tracks") :

CODE

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.InvalidCastException: Unable to cast COM object of type 'iTunesLib.iTunesAppClass' to interface type 'iTunesLib.IiTunes'. This operation failed because the QueryInterface call on the COM component for the interface with IID '{9DD6680B-3EDC-40DB-A771-E6FE4832E34A}' failed due to the following error: Cette interface n'est pas prise en charge (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004002 (E_NOINTERFACE)).
   at iTunesLib.iTunesAppClass.get_SelectedTracks()
   at iTSfv.frmMain.btnSelectedValidateAlbum_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
iTSfv
    Assembly Version: 5.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 5.5.2.5
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/iTSfv/iTSfv.exe
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.VisualBasic
    Assembly Version: 8.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 8.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Microsoft.VisualBasic/8.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Runtime.Remoting
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Runtime.Remoting/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Runtime.Remoting.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
McoreSystem
    Assembly Version: 1.11.0.2
    Win32 Version: 1.11.0.2
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/iTSfv/McoreSystem.DLL
----------------------------------------
Interop.iTunesLib
    Assembly Version: 1.9.0.0
    Win32 Version: 1.9.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/iTSfv/Interop.iTunesLib.DLL
----------------------------------------
yef3ziro
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
Accessibility
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Accessibility/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Accessibility.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
    <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.

This post has been edited by Jose Hidalgo: Aug 30 2007, 02:29

[~*McoreD*~]

Jose, that's strange. What version of iTunes are you running, not version 7.3? Will there be more description to reproduce the error? This is like one of the core functionality and it is unfortunate that it is not going well.

This post has been edited by ~*McoreD*~: Aug 30 2007, 03:19

[~*McoreD*~]

Jose,

I have changed how iTunes is initialized. Coming from a C# base, I had new iTunesAppClass but in VB.net it is recommended to have New iTunesApp.

Could you please replace the binaries with the files in this zip, mainly iTSfv.exe
http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/beta/iTS...5.3.0-patch.zip

and have a retry?

It turns out that the problem is outside of iTSfv afterall.

Try this:

Could you please replace the binaries with the files in this zip, mainly iTSfv.exe
http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/beta/iTS...5.3.0-patch.zip
It should do the following programmatically.


Q: I'm seeing something about COM in my error log in QTFairUse6. (E.G. com_error: (-2147319779, 'Library not registered.', None, None) ). WTF?
A: Try the following: Click start, run, and type "iTunes /regserver" and click ok.

Cheers,
McoreD

This post has been edited by ~*McoreD*~: Aug 30 2007, 05:40

[Jose Hidalgo]

It solves the problem (see my other topic for all the details).

[~*McoreD*~]

Jose,

Well, that would be great IMHO, it would make things clearer.

Done in v5.6 BETA : Options > Validate > File System

So I don't see any option that would say "Export Artwork next to the MP3" or something...

It was indeed exporting the Artwork next to MP3, regardless of you having iTunes to organize music or not. Like I mentioned before, iTSfv gets the mp3 file path and determines the folder to export the artwork. So wherever the mp3 file is, the artwork files will be created there.

And where is the log to be located ? I haven't found it... Maybe there isn't a log file for Validate Selected Tracks.



Actually there was no log file with no Artwork at all. There was only a log file for tracks that artwork was added. Done in v5.6.

Cheers.

Download:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=204248

Source:

http://itsfv.cvs.sourceforge.net/itsfv/itsfv5/

This post has been edited by ~*McoreD*~: Aug 31 2007, 14:47

[~*McoreD*~]

I have a few questions to throw at you, out of curiousity.

Now I have distributed my 25 test MP3 in 3 separate folders, and I have re-created an iTunes library so that iTunes can find the MP3's at their new locations (of course I don't use the option "keep the iTunes Music folder organized" because my file system is different

You shouldn't have any problems with that for exporting %Artist% - %Album%.jpg files. However I will tell you a case where not using the option "keep the iTunes Music folder organized backfires you. Say you have two albums in the same folder and wish to export Folder.jpg. As the folder.jpg differs from one album to the other, the second folder.jpg will overwrite the first one because two folder.jpg cannot obviously reside in the same folder.


What I'm getting is 24 "Artist - Album.jpg" files instead of 25 (well, in face I should get 21, don't you think ?).

I do! So what are those extra 3 "Artist - Album.jpg" files? Are they album arts from any of the already download album arts?

[Jose Hidalgo]

Thanks for the quick update. I'm going to try it out right now.

EDIT : I've just tried 5.6.0 beta. IT WORKS BEAUTIFULLY ! THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME !!!

It was indeed exporting the Artwork next to MP3, regardless of you having iTunes to organize music or not. Like I mentioned before, iTSfv gets the mp3 file path and determines the folder to export the artwork. So wherever the mp3 file is, the artwork files will be created there.

All right, but in that case what's the use of the "Validate > File System" preferences tab ? I see "Export Artwork to...". Maybe you meant "Export Artwork from..." ? (well, it doesn't matter anyway, since it works for me )

I will tell you a case where not using the option "keep the iTunes Music folder organized backfires you. Say you have two albums in the same folder and wish to export Folder.jpg. As the folder.jpg differs from one album to the other, the second folder.jpg will overwrite the first one because two folder.jpg cannot obviously reside in the same folder.

Of course. But this never happens in my entire library. When one album contains several CDs, I name each CD "Album name (CD 1)", "Album name (CD 2)", etc... And each CD has a separate folder.

what are those extra 3 "Artist - Album.jpg" files? Are they album arts from any of the already download album arts?

I'm sorry ! The 3 extra files are your "AlbumArtSmall", "Artwork" and "Folder" files. They are not "Artist - Album" files, so everything is OK.


Oh, one more thing : I still can't see the log. Where should it be ? Thanks.

This post has been edited by Jose Hidalgo: Aug 31 2007, 15:30

[Jose Hidalgo]

EDIT : oops, this time I think I've found a small bug.

When I try to generate "Artist - Album.jpg" files, I get 21 files, so that's perfectly OK.

But if I try to generate "Artist - (Year) Album.jpg" files, I only get 6 files !!!

Of course I've checked : all my 25 MP3 have the "Year" tag filled in iTunes.