This is the story...

I'm developping an application to show info about "MP3 albums" stored in dirs,
thumbnail, cd art, and general info about audio files... (format, bitrate, etc..)
It's a kind of cataloguer / database (when It will be in a "stable version" I'll
post a new here).

The technical layout:

To avoid to scan all the audio files every time I show a folder I thinked in
collect all the data the first time and create an XML file in the folder where
to store the info about the album... so next times I only need to read an show
info stored in the XML file.
I'll add an option to "reescan folder" if necessary.

So I'm "designing" the XML structure, I'll appreciate your opinion...
Do you think there is some importante information missed?

Best regards and TIA.
b:.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<albumdata>
<artist>Depeche Mode</artist>
<album>Violator</album>
<year>1990</year>
<genre>Pop</genre>
<time>40:35</time>
<tracks>
<track>
<title>Enjoy The Silence</title>
<time>6:36</time>
<tracknumber>01</tracknumber>
<format>MP3</format>
<encoder>LAME</encoder>
<mode>CBR</mode>
<bitrate>192</bitrate>
</track>
<track>
<title>Personal Jesus</title>
<time>6:36</time>
<tracknumber>02</tracknumber>
<format>MP3</format>
<encoder>LAME</encoder>
<mode>CBR</mode>
<bitrate>192</bitrate>
</track>
<track>
<title>World In My Eyes</title>
<time>6:36</time>
<tracknumber>03</tracknumber>
<format>MP3</format>
<encoder>LAME</encoder>
<mode>CBR</mode>
<bitrate>192</bitrate>
</track>
</tracks>
<URL>
<![CDATA[http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=CASS70305150927&sql=Ariaxlf3e5cqq]]>
</URL>
<review>
In a word, stunning. Perhaps an odd word...........
</review>
</albumdata>

if the filesize isn't relevant u can decide for yourself to include some informations picked out eac.log like these



Or md5-information for verify procedures like these



or a Cover Scan path to show a Preview pic of your Album, or Personal Ratings and a Big Comment Field. Or the Path to Live Radios/Videos Links on WWW.

Is ur Software only for Mp3 ?

Please tell me more about it.

Hi Leonardo.
Thanks for your suggestions...
The software will support al least (I hope :-) MP3, MPC, AAC, APE and OGG (maybe WMA) in the beginning... I think these are the most popular formats...

I'll add the filesize to te tracks, maybe interesting to store it...

The preview PIC (thumbnail) for the album will be automatically displayed allways It could be finded in the album's folder and named as "cover.jpg" (of course this will be configurable...)

I think is a good suggestion too the rating and "personal comments" maybe interesting...

What do you think about a 5 stars rating? from * to * * * * *
Will be the rating usefull for both album and track data?

Best regards.
b:.

i don't know if this can give you some idea for your soft.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=11946

instead of having the user select an option to rescan folders, you could just check the last modified date of the folder / contents, and compare it to the xml.

if you have one large xml file that you keep appending to, then you can store the scan date or the last modified date of the files inside of the xml.

automating this process will reduce the attention the user has to pay to the program, thus making it more valuable and 'smart'.

indie:
It's incredible! Your work It's almost the same that I'm doing...
What a coincidence!!!, the yours displays more "technical" data than the mine...

paranoos:
Thanks for your suggestions.
I'll consider it for the next version, maybe I'll add the scanning date in the XML for the first one, but now I want to release a first version to test it...

This week I'll clean a little the code, fix small bugs, write a little "specifications", finish to create the style sheets, etc... So I hope to release a beta versión next week, if you are interested In give it a try I'll send you a "private message" to alert you...

Best regards from Spain.
b:.