This is a branch of the popular audio tool Mr QuestionMan 0.6:
© 2004-2005 by Gambit

You can download v0.6.2 (setup, zip and source) from: (Nowhere.)

Changes from Mr QuestionMan 0.6 © Gambit
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+ Ability to scan recursively (with customizable level of recursivity)
* Now, selecting a folder does not start scanning by default. Instead, I
introduced a new button "Scan!". Also, there is now an option - "Autoscan"
whose job is to work exactly as previous, e.g. selecting a folder => start
scanning
* All fonts changed to Tahoma for a better xp-erience
* Window size defaults now to desktop width/height (a.k.a. full-screen )
+ Mr QuestionMan remembers now last scanned folder on exit
+ XP theme support
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Changes from Mr QuestionMan 0.7 to Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Now called Mr QuestionMan ME (Miriam Edition)
* To avoid confusion, I labeled is as 0.6, and stated in About that this is
A BRANCH of original version
+ ESC cancels scan
+ "Scan!" button becomes "Cancel scan" on scanning
+ Way fasteeeeer that previous version (actually, it should be as fast as
Mr QuestionMan 0.6)
* Some changes in about
! Fixed a bug that may cause AV error on startup when last browsed directory
was in the meantime deleted or became invalid
! Fixed an "Out of list bounds" bug which appeared ocasionally on scanning
* Some changes in setup

Warning
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This version - Miriam Edition is unnoficial, as the modifications were
made by me, Miriam (a.k.a. Vlad) and not by Gambit.
Thus, I am NOT responsible for any damages, sexual agressions or the like that
this program may produce...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr QuestionMan is © 2004-2005 by Gambit
http://www.burrrn.net/mrq

Mr QuestionMan ME is Portions © 2005 by Miriam
(Link removed.)

Originally posted here:


I guess any future requests/comments should be made here, to save further confusion.

Miriam. Thanks, that works great.

That's good. I think I can take some rest now...

Thread title changed and thread moved. Use this thread for all further version announcements. New minor versions (and especially in this situation) don't go to "Validated News", sorry.

Miriam, please remove my mail from your posts. I have specifically not included it anywhere on the web to avoid spam. Thanks.

I've written it fancier, using [at] and [dot]. Hope it's now ok. If not, at your solicitation, I'll remove it entirely.

I think modern spiders can get even this, but I'm not sure

His e-mail is still available at the top of your post

It's still there (at the beginning of your post). And yes, please remove it completely. If anybody wants to contact me, they have the mail in the app and the readme. I get xxbox amounts of spam on my old mail account, I'd really like to avoid it with this one (at least for as long as possible).

I can still see it at the very top of this page.

EDIT: eek! popular thread

Ooops, ok, done.
Always must be a bug passing unnoticed...

(.. after 2 days of heavily developement...)
Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.66 released!

(Link removed.)

Huge list of improvements!!!

Changes from Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.2 to Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.66
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ a la EncSpot file coloring!!! The red level/green level limits can be set
in Settings for each supported extension separately!
+ Ability to export the list (all or only selection) as HTML!
(with or without coloring)
+ Favorites!
* New statusbar behaviour: if no files or all filess are selected from the list,
the statusbar will display average bitrate & info for all files (like before).
When selecting several files, the statusbar will display average bitrate &
info only for the selected files
+ Righ-click Popup menu in list
+ New parameter: -R
Usage: MrQuestionManME -R<level>, where <level> is the level of recursivity.
Example: MrQuestionManME -R0 "c:\music\black sabbath"
! auCDtect was broken in previous version
+ Better integration with auCDtect (appears in righ-click popup menu when
selecting a .wav file)
+ Splash screen on scanning
! Flicker-free list (now, double buffering is used)
! Closing the program now automatically abort scan
! All the settings (e.g. Scan Levels) are now kept
! Pressing "Cancel scan" didn't work
! Better invalid files handling
+ now shipped with auCDtect v0.8.2 (Copyright © 2004 Oleg Berngardt. All
rights reserved.
Copyright © 2004 Alexander Djourik. All rights reserved.)
* Settings window was heavily changed. Now it also have "OK" and "Cancel"
buttons
* Exe name & ini changed to MrQuestionManME.exe and MrQuestionManME.ini
* Overall more user-friendly/responsive
! Some source code optimizations
* 666 kb tiny exe

Wow! Fast coder indeed.

That's amazing, thnk-you very much, Miriam.


Edit: IMO, the colors are a little too scandalous. Could you provide a setting so that you can define your own colors for bad, average and high quality?

In that case, you could change the quality estimation setting tab with "Draw BAD if bitrate <" and "Draw GOOD if bitrate >=" or something similar

Or at least a setting to remove all colors, with the usual white listing.

Nice idea, but Encspot takes many more factors into consideration than just the bitrate. I think this can feature be greatly improved.

Also, maybe you should contact Gambit and get a few issues out of the way. The current situation is quite unfortunate, seeing how he's so upset. It's an act of courtesy to talk this over with him.

Yep, I know. Actually, the files encoded using --preset standard/extreme are always drawn green. This is the only extra-consideration taken into account.


I know, I'll write an email to him ASAP. Fortunately/unfortunately, I've concentrated all my efforts on coding, but I hope there's still a chance for reconcilement.

Thank you too, Roberto. I'm pleased to see people appreciate some man's work.
Today was a full, I think 16 hour day of coding @ Mr QuestionMan ME. Damn weekends!


Yep. A good idea! I'll release an update in the next days.

No. It also takes into account the encoder, stereo mode, sample rate...
Maybe you don't know this, but it was me who once proposed that "traffic light" rating for Encspot when it was in initial testing. I was very happy about how sophisticated the implementation became. Yours is at square one, but i hope it becomes better and wish you good luck with your fork.

I suggest some changes in the defaulted quality step for some formats:

- OFR: RED if < 128 kbps and GREEN if > 224?! Weird for a lossless format. If you had in mind the lossy branch of OptimFROG (called DualStream), the extension is *.ofs (and minimal bitrate for stereo stuff is ~230 kbps, and therefore couldn't pretend to transparency/green colour).

- WV: RED if < 128 kbps and GREEN if > 224. Again, it doesn't make sense. WavPack lossy has a bitrate floor at 196 kbps (for stereo CD encoding).


I also agree with Roberto: current color are shoking (for my taste). Why not limit the colour to one cell instead of the complete line (like encspot)? I think it will be more pleasant (at least, for me), whatever the color choice.

No, no, no. I wasn't referring to EncSpot, but to Mr QuestionMan ME's file rating alogorithm.

You're right and your arguments are perfectly solid (and informative), I'll update things soon.

Ah sorry, a misunderstanding. Anyway, i think the code for Encspot's rating is somewhere in here: EncSpot_Console_2.01.zip Maybe you can draw some inspiration.

Could be nice to implement it. I think that MQM could be even more reliable than Encspot for rating the quality level of recent lame encodings. MQM is currently reading the encoding profile (-V3 --vbr-new as example), and could consequently rate the encoding on this simple basis.
As exemple, I have some -V5 encodings in my folders. Bitrate varies a lot (from 80 kbps to 160 kbps). Logically, these files should have the same quality, corresponding to the V5 one. But according to encspot and to current MQM, there's a great disparities between all these files (some are red, other yellow, and the last green). Ideally, MQM could give the same rating to all these files, simply because it could detects the encoding profile stored in LAME headers (encspot is also able to read these informations, but there's nobody to update the software), and base the rating on this profile instead of bitrate (which isn't necessary significant with VBR encodings).

There are now interesting datas stored by recent LAME encodings, which could reveal interesting thing about quality. All we need is a software exploiting them. And of course a developer (sorry, two developers ) to code it.

Once again, thanks for implementing my requests Miriam.

I agree the colours are way too much at the moment.

Until you can set the colours yourself, and the colours are based on some detailed and knowledgeable data, I could personally do without them. If you, Gambit, or whoever can work with someone who really knows their stuff to get the colours accurately representing quality that would be superb.

Thanks again.

the way EncSpot displays the quality level is quite good. So maybe adding an extra column for the quality would be nice (that way files could be also sorted by quality). I also like EncSpot's way of using 2 colors for displaying files...it makes it easier to read.

I agree, the quality feature needs some improvement (and I'm not just talking about the colors that are way too bright). It should also consider ABR files. LAME ABR 190kbps is displayed yellow and some FhG CBR 192 file is displayed green even though the ABR file is way better...

maybe you could improve the HTML template a bit.

At first, valid html documents need a Doctype, i suggest XHTML 1.0 Strict as there are only a few elements.

remove the align="left" and the bgcolor and add a text-align:left; and background:; respectively to the css part

align="center" for the last table becomes margin-left: auto and margin-right:auto;

You can check whether the document is valid here: http://validator.w3.org/

btw, thanks for your work

Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.7 released.

(Link removed.)

Changes from Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.66 to Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.7
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ List coloring is now much more nicely (with a separated column - Quality).
Clicking on the Quality column sorts files according to the estimated quality
(in order: Bad, Average, Good, LossLess)
+ Better HTML export, also, now 100% W3C standards compliant
+ On first startup, window is maximized and the columns/folder list are
automatically adjusted to fit best on the given screen resolution
+ Window state (minimized, normal, maximized) is now saved on exit
* Double-buffering is now off be default, but can be set in Settings
! Playlist support was partially broken in Mr QuestionMan 0.6.
Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.7 has a better handling system
+ Some new options in the Settings window
* Some changes in About =)
+ Some code optimizations
! Some fixes
+ ... More of "some"

Hope you like it!

Why no more zip download, only setup?

I find it much better now. The "lossless" quality is a very good idea. I'm just a bit perplex when I see a direct jump from "bad" to "good"; something intermediate would be more pertinent in my opinion (like "bad - average - good").

I noticed something strange: the first column (relative path) is systematically empty. Is it normal?

Because I wanted that the usear actually delete first "MrQuestionManME.ini" from the installation folder, thing that is done automatically by setup (still, it ask you for cofirmation).
Nevertheless, I've uploaded the .zip file and updated the website.

Good ideea. Updated. Please re-download.


It is normal. "Relative path" is the relative path to the selected folder from the list (left side). Set "Scan Levels" to 0 and press click on a folder with many subfolders to see the difference.

Now, as with version 0.6.7 released and the guy design being relatively done In the next releases, I'll concentrate on improving the quality rating algorithm.
Yeah, I [also] think it can be greately improved.


I have it already. I downloaded it two or three days ago when I started working on Mr QuestionMan ME. Until now, I didn't draw any inspiration from it and I prefered working on other aspects of MrQM ME...
Anyway, seems it's a nice source-code to play with...

I've just understand the logic, and the purpose of "recursive scan". It's a powerful tool to list a complete library and to sort it by bitrate! Thank you


EDIT: a small bug occurs when sorting by bitrate: 80 kbps is considered as superior to 700 kbps.

Ok, Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.7 Second Edition released.

(Link no more.)

NEW: Play option!!!

Changes from Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.7 to Mr QuestionMan ME 0.6.7 Second Edition
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Play option in right-click menu. Also, double-clicking a file in main list
opens the file in the default player (thanks Bert). Now, for .wav files,
auCDtect is available only via right-click menu
! Sort on column click fixed (thanks guruboolez)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How long before MQM has some sort of tag for quality classification - combine that with foobar2000's title formatting, it could be interesting.

Or even lib_mqm?

Or MQM plugin for foobar2000?

In any case, excellent work Miriam!

Ruairi

I've noticed a bug. I could easily repeat it. When a problem occurs during scanning, the scanning process is stopped, but the clock picture remains on screen. There's no way to remove it. Moreover, the scanning stops on the file which cause problems, and doesn't go further.

Just for information, the scanning process stopped on my computer for two reasons:
- too long filename or filepath
- some "illegal" (?) characters (polnish), which also cause some troubles to explorer (it's therefore not necessary I suppose to consider this cause as a bug).

I also experienced this one - when I clicked on my root music folder with Autoscan on, and then tried to cancel (by pressing Escape). There is around 20GB of music in subfolders in that folder. There is most definately some long paths/filenames.

I am one for clicking buttons repeatedly, so I didn't think too much of it (I thought I'd just confused it unfairly by repeatedly clicking "Cancel"), and simply closed and restarted.

Could that clock dialogue only appear if the process has taken more than 1-2 seconds or something? On smaller folders it's a bit of a distracting flicker. It would be good if it didn't appear at all on small waits.

Edit: spelling

personnaly ... I don't like that clock too ... not because it's buggy, I dunno I've sticked to v0.62 ... but because, like the flashy colors, it's ugly ... simply ...

MrQM is supposed to display info ... no to hide them behind a clock ...

... also plz for vorbis colors use nominal bitrate instead of average ... it's very unpleasant to see a vorbis file with a high nominal bitrate in red just because average bitrate is low ... it tells nothing about quality ...

When I place the Quality column to the left, all column to the right of the 'Quality' column are colored, where only the quality column should be colored... (0.6.7SE)

a good idea would be to remove the relative path column if the scan level is set to 1 - or if there are no relative folders. I can't notice any difference between double buffering though. However, great work

Edit: how about splitting the encoder column into "encoder version" and "setting"? It would be nice being able to sort files according to their setting used. Also, is there any use of displaying "MPEG 1 Layer III" for mp3 files? To save some space I'd say that "mp3" would be sufficiant.

Edit2: I have a wave file that according to MQM has a bitrate of 353kbps. That seems a bit strange to me for a wav file. These are the specs: PCM; 44.100KB/sec; 22.50KHz; 8bit; Stereo (2 channels)

Edit3: an extra column for the file's mode i.e. vbr/cbr (maybe even ABR if a file has been identified as preset <bitrate>) would be nice too


confirmed

Thank you all for reporting problems and for your suggestions.
When I'll have the time, I'll take a look on the code and see what can be done.
'Till then, any bug reports and ideas on improving MrQM ME are very appreciated.

I've found a bug:

click on a file and use the up/down keys of your keyboard. The file stats dislpayed on the very bottom reflect the previous selected file. This also applies for multiple selections when holding down the shift key...it's always one selection short. However, pressing the right mouse button refreshes the selection and everything is fine.

Also, to save some space in the list I'd disable the 'Ratio' column since that's what the bitrate column is for...or maybe let the user select what columns he wants to see.

What about looking into archives (at least 7zip/rar/zip)?
Probably on XP works by default, I don't know, but I'm still using 98SE and W2K (and I don't plan to migrate soon).
Of course if the majority find it useful

Edit: OS versions mismatch

44.100 KB/sec? WTF, isn't it the sampling frequency in Hz?
Normal PCM (as extracted from audio CD) parameters are: 44100 Hz/16 bit/stereo, which yield 1411 kbps. Cut that down in two by downsampling it to 22.05 KHz — ~706 kbps. Cut that down again by downsampling it to 8 bits — 353 kbps.
Check out the specs again, you have simply mistaken, IMO.

hmm. all i'd like to know if a console version with text output only is still considered. that should work fine with wine, i guess

Currently, a console version of Mr QuestionMan ME is not in the plan, sorry.
Still, IMO, I think a Linux binary *GUI* version is possible (without too much hassle).
For that, I'd need Kylix, in addition to Delphi (which I use for Win32 developing) and a Linux test environement.
Unfortunately, at the moment, I don't have Kylix, and, nor a Linux distro installed. So, at this time, I can't promise anyithing.
AFAIK, one "bottleneck" would be that MrQM is using tpshellshock component (for the tree folder list), which is by design Win32-only.
Anyway, it should be [easily] replaceable, so I don't see this as a major problem.

Edit: I've just started download Kylix 3 trial...
Hope to install a Linux distro somwhere in the next days.
Still, no promise on a Linux version soon... but we'll see...

Hi Miram:

Great work on improving Mr. QuestionMan. It's a useful program to have around, no doubt.

I have a couple of ideas for improving the interface, if you'd be so kind as to consider them:

1. A blank text box to manually enter in the path to scan

2. The ability to drag & drop files into the MQM window.

Is there anyone else who could find these interface enhancements useful? Personally I've never liked scrolling through long directory lists to find what I'm looking for.

That would be very nice

Agree, I'll do this.

Still,


Why would you find this so useful? I don't get the idea behind it.

If you are browsing with Explorer and switch to Mr QuestionMan, you can copy and paste the contents of Explorer's "Address" bar, without having to manually navigate through the whole tree.