Album Art Downloader XUI, A tool for downloading cover art Options

[AlexVallat]

AlbumArtDownloader XUI - You know you want it...

This project is a rewrite of the Album Art Downloader code, using .NET Framework 3.5.

Features:

• Dynamically resizeable thumbnails
• Thumbnail information
• Sort by Name, Size, Source, Type, and Page
• Filter results under or over a specified size, or by type (front, back, etc.), or by maximum results for each source
• Substitution syntax path to save images
• Local files search that matches save pattern
• Enable or disable scripts from the command line
• New strongly typed interface-based script model; write compiled scripts in any .net language
• Backwards compatible with existing scripts
• Backwards compatible with existing command line parameters, including old CoverDownloader parameters.
• Analyse files to find Artists and Albums from tags, and check if album art is already present.
• Analyse folder and file names to find Artist and Album names based on a path pattern, and check for album art.
• Read your foobar2000 media library or playlists to find Artists and Albums, and check for album art.
• Checks for existing album art embedded in file tags.
• Queue up multiple searches to occur sequentially.
• Automatically download album art that matches set criteria for several albums as a batch.
• Show previews windows to compare art side by side, zooming and panning to check details.
• Many, many scripts included. (I would seriously not recommend using all of them at once, choose the ones that suit you best.)
• Prioritised searching - can set some sources to always search, and some to only search if the first ones didn't find anything.

For the graphically-minded out there, although this app isn't skinnable, the UI is all created in XAML, so if you want to grab the source and start editing the UI, please feel free. It is under the XUI folder in the SVN Repository

Links:
SourceForge project page
Wiki and reference guide (incomplete)
Donations

Download:
AlbumArtDownloaderXUI.exe (Installer. Recommended)
AlbumArtDownloaderXUI.zip (zip archive for those who don't like installers)
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (required, except for Windows 7)

This post has been edited by AlexVallat: Jun 27 2011, 20:19

[AlexVallat]

do you mind to save data in the AAD-programs folder? (relative path, without a fixed harddrive-letter)?

Probably not a good idea in general because of Vista and limited account compatibilty. If I'm not mistaken it allows the .net framework to choose the best place to store the config. However if you want to take your settings with you on your usb stick, you could try creating a file called AlbumArt.exe.config and copying the user.config file mentioned above into this file. I don't think the program will create a user.config file on other machines if the user doesn't change any settings, however I haven't looked at the internals of the XUI version, so you'll have to test it for yourself.

david_dl is correct in that you can copy your user.config file to AlbumArt.exe.config to have local settings. I think, technically, if no settings were changed then no user.config would be created, but in practice the settings include window sizes and positions, so are almost certain to change.

I won't be changing AAD to store its settings in its own folder, as david_dl points out, this breaks Vista compatibility, and is generally not recommended anyway. What I could do, if it were helpful, would be to add some command line parameter that would cause AAD to ensure it does not save any settings.

you could add an icon file (AlbumArt.ico/bmp/png) to your provided zip-file/installation

Sure, no problem, I'll stick the .ico in there. You say you already extracted one now, though, so I won't send it to you now.

ok, it crashed again. did not done alot with AAD meanwhile.

This is the same bug as iElectric reported - something is going wrong when trying to download a full size image. I still haven't been able to figure out what, and without knowing which artist/album result it was trying to download, I'm not sure how I can test it.

Alex

[fuffi]

david_dl is correct in that you can copy your user.config file to AlbumArt.exe.config to have local settings

thank you both, portability of programs will be the most important thing in the next years. a long time ago (before win95, hehe) there were no problems with storing program settings in program folder. now, as you both say, vista doesnt like it, i'm very amused. :-) i'm still using XP
anyway. AAD isnt not a very important application for me (although i dont wanna miss it, so dont get me wrong!!) so it it stores security-based information on computers which i dont own, its my fault anyway. now, that i know it, it is no problem. thank you again, your program is a really help!