Aero -

What is error #76 or #78? I get it on occasion (especially lately...) when trying to add music to my ipod using foo_pod - I have room to spare on the ipod, but it won't let me add more, citing that error. Any ideas?

Would you post the relevant section of the Foobar console output, so I can see the error in context?

While I have not seen an actual Apple brand audio book, it is my understanding that they have several pre programmed "bookmarks" at the chapter stops. I am guessing these are not temporary like the bookmark the iPod sets on its own.

That could account for more of those unknown entries in the database.



This is consistant with my xcopy.exe hack. For some reason it worked once for me (when I had already loaded a handful of m4b files via itunes first), but its not working now on a blank iPod. Could a simple hexedit on foo_imput_std.dll give us a stop gap solution by changing a currently suported (but not often used) format into "m4b"? I'll have to give that a try.

If there is more than one bookmark, then there must be some unknown list in the database, because there aren't that many unknowns left. Or they could be creating multiple database entries, each pointing to the same audio file, with a start/stop time for each chapter. Without knowing any more, I'd bet they are doing it like that.

Edit: BTW, is it possible to actually create/modify a bookmark on the iPod? In my limited testing, I only saw that you could seek to a certain point in iTunes, and the iPod would start playing from that point.



Yeah, you will need to do 2 substitutions:

1. Look for "*.MP4;*.M4A;*.M4P". Change the MP4 to M4B.
2. Then approximately 16 bytes later, there will be the string "M4P M4A MP4" (the spaces shown here are actually the null (0) value). Again, change MP4 to M4B.

I actually just tested this to make sure I was giving the correct information, and uploaded the modified version of foo_input_std.dll (from Foobar v0.8.3). If you want to try this out, make a backup copy of foo_input_std.dll, and realize that by adding support for .m4b files, supported for .mp4 files was removed.

I must have been mistaken about the multi bookmarks. I downloaded some free audio books from the iTMS (just search for 9-11 hearing) but I didn't see any indexing bookmarks at all. Oh well. That would be a good idea for the future.

Thanks for the link to the patched foo_input_std.dll file. I loaded it up and it works great. I don't have any mp4 files so I don't care that they are gone. And its easy enough to rename them if I ever need to support them.

So this is just the last time that the file was at? Cool. I'll rename it to something more useful.

For what it's worth, I use my own M4B files all the time on the iPod and iTunes. Essentially, the iPod simply remembers the last point at which it was playing an M4B file. This transfers in both directions with iTunes, near as I can tell. I figured it was in there, but I had not found it yet.

I *think* that the one weird "timestamp" field in the Play Counts file contains the last point that the iPod played an M4B and this is how it transfers the info back to iTunes.

Yep - I checked, and PCEntry::unk1 is the bookmark time/last played location on the iPod.

So not only is another MHIT unknown discovered, but PCEntry is now also completely fleshed out.

Sweet. I've changed iPodDB to rename both of those entries to "bookmark". Seems descriptive enough.

I've just started to use the Smart Playlist Editor and I must say it does everything I could hope for. I was able to create all kinds of interesting smart playlists for both music and my talk radio clips.

The problem I am having is that my Smart Playlists disappear from the iPod after every sync. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong?

If this is normal, would it be possibile to add an import and export feature to the Smart Playlist Editor so we don't have to re-enter the lists constantly?

It isn't normal - the smart playlists should persist until you delete them. Are you using iTunes or any other program (other than foo_pod) with your iPod?

I am currently working on adding support for import/export - not only of smart playlists, but of the whole iTunesDB database. You can already export the database as XML, but I'm adding the ability to import it from XML as well. Then I will create a subset of those functions to only include the smart playlists.

Is it normal that when I go to Components --> foo_pod --> Smart Playlist Editor the two dropdowns (where I define the rules) aren't working?

I have to use the keyboard (arrows or first letter) to select an item because clicking on arrow button doesn't expand the field (hope this is clear ).

Please note that the Match All/Any dropdown is functioning correctly.

Thanks.

Alessandro

Nope. Just foo_pod. I do have iTunes installed, but I haven't used it for quite some time.

I have two playlists on my PC which I use to load up my iPod. One holds all of my music and the other holds some talk radio shows. I have them both loaded in foobar (and no other play lists are loaded).

I create some SPL's which work okay. I can mount and unmount my iPod all day long and the SPL's stay in place just fine.

If I go to the foo_pod menu and select "Sync All Playlists" it does it work and then comes back (if I haven't changed anything (like a rating) then no files are moved, but the iPod database gets rebuilt). Now if I to do the SPL Editor, everything is blank and I have to start over with my SLP's.

I've done this twice now with the same results. Next I will do a foo_pod "Delete all iPod music and playlists" and then a "Sync All Playlists", build some SLP's, sync again, and see if they still come up missing.



Cool. That will do exactly what I am looking for.

PS, I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the ratings, play count, and time of last play values are exchanged between the iPod and foo_pod. I've read through the thread for the details, but it seems the thoughts were never completed. I'm working with ratings now. From what I can tell, I have to do the ratings in foo_pod and then load those into the iPod. Is there any exchange of ratings from the iPod back to Foobar?

Okay, I wiped my pod, did a sync all playlists, made a SPL entry, did another sync all, and the SPL was missing again. That should pretty much rule out intervention from an outside program like iTunes.

What can I do to help now? I'm running windows XP SP2, foobar 0.8.3, and a 4th gen 20Gig iPod. I'm not sure how to tell what version of foo_pod I have, but its 384,000 bytes and dated Spet 10th.

I'd post a XML dump, but I'm not sure its relevant quite yet.

Hi, I would like to thank the author of this plugin, it's awesome.

There's just one little thing I would like to ask about if it's possible. Since the iPod likes to arrange the songs by the song title in the id3 tag if there's no tracknumber it gets kinda messy sometimes. Is it possible that the plugin can edit mp3s "on the fly" when transfering them and add a tracknumber? Lets say I have some songs that's name 01 - something.mp3 02 - something.mp3 and when transfering it adds 1 as tracknumber in the id3 tag if there isn't one without changing the mp3 on the harddrive? That would've been awesome.

Thanks again!

Thanks!



Yes, that would be very possible, since the iPod relies solely on the database for metadata.

There are a couple of ways that this could eventually be implemented. First, I have been planning all along to embed a Lua scripting engine into foo_pod, so users could write simple scripts to do exactly what you are looking for. It is more of a long term goal, though.

Another way to do it would be to use the (upcoming) XML database import feature. Or I could extend the Pod interface so developers could create Foobar components that could better interface with foo_pod. Finally, I could borrow code from Foobar's MassTagger to guess at missing metadata.

Out of those possibilities, adding the scripting support would probably be the best solution. I'll get around to adding it sooner or later!


FreydNot and mobyduck - I'll look into your smart playlist problems tonight.

That isn't normal, but I can't reproduce it on my system, either.

One question - when you press the tab key until the first drop down box is selected (Edit: or just click in the box), then press F4, what happens?

Exaclty the same thing that happens when I click on the arrow button.

To be more precise, the item "loses focus" (it isn't highlighted anymore) and a black line appears below the combo.

As I said, all ohters combo are behaving correctly, su I suspect it may have something to do with the "repeat region" where the rules are drawn (BTW, tab order should be arranged, I think).

Using Win2K SP4 (no problem on XP).

Thanks for your time.

Alessandro

Sounds good. I'll be waiting.

I have that too, and like mobyduck, i run on w2k sp4..

I have a test version of foo_pod that might fix this problem. Try foo_pod_comboboxtest.zip and see if it helps.

Nope, sorry: no difference here.

Alessandro

Great plug-in. Thanks so much!

A request: I like to have the music directory on my ipod arranged by artist and album (music\artist1\album2\song3), rather than F?? (music\f00\song3). Is there any way to do this in foo_pod? (I tried to read the whole thread, apologies if I missed this.)

Thanks!


You can not currently control how foo_pod places songs on the iPod. I haven't done any experiments to see what you are requesting would actually work, but it might cause problems with other iPod utilities.

This isn't quite what you are asking for, but you can export songs from the iPod to your hard drive and have foo_pod place the songs in a directory structure like you suggested.. Just select one or more files in the iPod playlist, right click, and select Save iPod Files To Disk.

There was an extensive discussion of this on some of the ipod forums a number of months ago. No one reported any problems using this method. People liked it because it made it easy to sync with a simple directory sync utility and because it made it easy to copy files to a hard disk without special software. This was before the latest gen Ipod and iTunes.

In any event, could I set up the directory structure and songs on my ipod as I want, then use foo_pod to create a new iTunesDB?

why not just make it so this could play music from any addon-harddrive?

Like thumb-drives, digital audio players , etc.

I know winamp has some plugin called gUSB that works like that

Is this a new question, or a follow up to an earlier post?

If you are asking why foo_pod doesn't support thumb drives and such, it is because there is no need for a plugin - Foobar can play songs from those devices without assistance. Since an iPod has a database that contains lots of metadata, even through the songs are technically playable directly from the iPod, a component like foo_pod is required.

If you also mean why doesn't foo_pod support other devices, then that is easy - I don't have any other players (other than an old unused Rio 500)...

Almost. foo_pod has a "Repair iTunesDB" feature, which rebuilds a database based on the metadata contained in files on the iPod. So in essence, this is just want you want - it will search for songs and create a functional database.

Unfortunately...it is currently hard coded to only look in the Music\Fnn directories, and only a single level deep.

There are only a few other dependancies on the Music\Fnn layout in foo_pod, so I guess I could make it more generic so at least Repair would search the entire Music directory and subdirectories. Then you could just put your artist/album subdirectories under the iTunes\Music directory, run Repair, and you would be set. Maybe I could even create a little utility that would just start up Foobar/foo_pod, automatically run the Repair feature, and then exit. So updating your iPod would be as easy as using Windows Explorer to copy/remove files, and then running the utility to recreate the iTunesDB. Hmm...that's not a bad idea, if I do say so myself!


Another option would be to wait for my Import iTunesDB From XML. Then assuming you could find a utility to create compatable XML, you could use that feature to convert XML to a iTunesDB file.

Ah. didnt know that. Good deal.

As far as I know, the only program that can currently do this is Sveta Portable Audio, which does a pretty nice job:



It would be nice to see something just as customizable, if not even more so, in foo_pod

That would be great!

I've used Sveta. It makes you load too much stuff just to get the one function. I prefer foo_pod, if Aero can implement the change he suggests.

The real question regarding this sort of thing is is it iTunes compatible? If you only use foo_pod, great, but if you switch around a lot and use iTunes, then this might cause issues. Of course this means a simple preference switch to toggle on/off or something, but you get my drift.

at least it is compatible in read-mode. itunes reads itunesDB and gets paths accordingly. deleting files from itunes works. (used anapod explorer and itunes combo with the above mentioned directory structure - works except when you run itunes it recreates Fxx subdirs - no time to crack itunes just to remove this behavior)

Version 0.9.4 is now available.

Well, long time no build. There isn't a whole lot new in this build, but it should fix the combo box problem people have been reporting on Windows 2000, and it also modifies the Repair iPod Database feature to support richard123's idea about supporting non-Fnn directories for the music.

It works like this - first, Repair iPod Database has been renamed to the friendlier "Rebuild iPod Database". The other big change is that it will search for any iPod playable file in the iPod_Control\Music directory or any subdirectories, and add those songs to the database.

What this means is that you can using Windows Explorer to copy any files or directories into the Music directory, run Rebuild iPod Database, and you should end up with those songs being playable on the iPod. And since the database is completely rebuilt each time you run it, you can also delete and move files with Explorer (or other file utility). So if you want, you can avoid using foo_pod to add/remove songs.

The major caveat is that rebuilding the database will wipe out all playlists (smart and normal), along with certain fields in the database, such as play counts and stars. So this feature may not be appropriate for everyone, but if you just want to add/remove songs to your iPod, it could be useful.



From the Readme file:

Thanks.

yup, works!

2 Aero:

one more feature request:

please, add a checkbox and code that allows to rebuild database from the root of ipod ( eg. h:\ instead of h:\iTunes_Control\Music\)

i hope that should not be too hard... and i don't use iPod for other file storage so i prefer to access the drive for music only.

ps. the paths like H:\foo.mp3 works with ipod perfectly if it is written in itunesDB (should be :foo.mp3 in DB)

[edit]
pps.
ofcourse itunesDB should reside where it was.
[/edit]

Yeah, that is no problem. I guess the only question is if anyone would want another preference item that would limit it to iTunes_Control\Music?

I was actually thinking about this yesterday when I was using the Windows "Send To" feature to copy some files to my USB drive. (When you have a removable device connected to a Windows machine, you can right click files or folders, and select the device under the Send To menu item, and Windows will copy the files to the root of the device). So if Rebuild acted on the whole iPod, you wouldn't even have to open up Windows Explorer to copy files to the iPod - you could simply select Send To. And with a global Foobar shortcut key set up for Rebuild, you wouldn't even have to go to the Foobar window to start the Rebuild process.

I am also going to modify Rebuild so that it doesn't destroy your smart playlists.

Just a quick question. Where's this "Rebuild iPod database" located? I cant find it anywhere, haha.

Do you have foo_pod 0.9.4 installed? If so, it is located under the Components menu -> foo_pod -> Rebuild iTunesDB database on iPod

Hey aero, i have a couple of suggestions for you.

When i load my ipod tracks in foobar using components > foo_pod > load ipod songs to playlist, and i delete one or more tracks in that playlist using rightclick > foo_pod > delete file from ipod, the file gets removed from the ipod, but it will stay in the playlist. It would be cool if you could make it so that the file gets removed from the playlist as well.

My other question is concerning the synchronize option. I don't know how this option works (technically speaking), but is it possible to not let foo_pod's synchronization look at differences in certain (perhaps user defined) tags, cause now, whenever one of these tags (PLAY_COUNTER, PLAY_DATE, PLAY_TIME) get changed, foo_pod deletes the tracks from the ipod only to upload them again.

I think the real problem is the play counter (and last played?) foobar plugins are writing the data into the id3 tags of the files. This causes the size and date of the audio files to change and foo_pod has no way to knowing it should ignore them.

I just wanted to confirm that iTunes works on the same principle. Any changes that cause the timestamp of the file to change will cause iTunes to resend the file to the iPod on a sync operation.

I'm probably just stupid but I cant find it;

foo_pod.gif

Hi Majdas,

You can find the foo_pod options in the "Components" tab in the options menu above. There should be a foo_pod menu. It's not in the "Preferences" page.

Haha. I understand now, thanks! I dont have the "Menu" there by default.

I'm trying to add a column to show the last played time into a Columns UI preset (Watercolor by Silverbolt). My problem is I'm not sure what format the date is in. A string of "[%ipod_last_played_time%]" gives me values like "1096012076" which I'm guessing is seconds after some fixed date and time.

How is the ipod_last_played_time value formatted? Is there an easy way to convert it to human readable form using TAGZ?

It's the number of seconds since the epoch (1/1/1970). So 1096012076 = Friday, September 24, 2004 07:47:56 GMT. I dunno about "TAGZ", but here's a nice little conversion javascript page for you: http://dan.drydog.com/unixdatetime.html

First off, let me just say thanks for foo_pod, it's really great.
Secondly, is there a foobar global variable to get the iPod drive usage so I could display it in the status bar like I do with "__bitrate" and "__samplerate"?

Thanks!

By "iPod drive usage", do you mean the song's filesize, or the amount of free disk space on the iPod?

If it is filesize, then I think %__filesize% is what you are looking for (or something like that, I am unable to check right now). If you want the free iPod disk space, then I don't think that is available, although if you know the iPod's drive letter, maybe there is a TAGZ function to get free disk space?