My directory structure is D:\Music\Various Artist\Date - Album\XX - Artist - Title.mp3

Would your code work for me?

Oh and is there a way to make it display Artist - Title (Compilation -> Album -> Artist - Title)on the iPod as opposed to just title?

yeah it should work with that, give it a try.

Sweet thanks a lot, this works out.

Hi musicmusic,

I'm running foo_dop 5.6.2.1 in foobar 0.9.5.1 to manage my ipod classic 160 gb. For some reason, it seems to take quite a while to get the art copying process started. I think it spent ~3-5 minutes after it copied all the music files to START copying the art. Is this expected? If so, could you please display a message that tells the user that copying is about to commence?

EDIT:

I also see a warning in the console whenever i connect the ipod:


This might be the reason why my ipod plays aren't being scrobbled.

EDIT 2:

Also, Eject iPod rarely works for me (it claims device is busy even when "Safely Remove hardware" works perfectly.)

What was the exact message displayed during the delay? How did you check the files are finished copying, and how many tracks are on your iPod? Thanks

No it's harmless. After the file has been processed it is removed so it doesn't always exist.

The only message that foo_dop may give from that command is "iPod is busy". The rest come from the operating system. On VIsta you'll need to close any explorer windows that have your iPod open. If you're still stuck, use something like Process Explorer's handle search to find out what's using it.

Hi musicmusic,



I was starting on a blank ipod, and coyping a total of ~3900 files. I know the files were copied because it displayed that "x files remaining" stuff, and then displayed the "Copying Album Art (3900 remaining)". It was stuck with this message for quite some time.


Scrobbling from my ipod should be working, though, right? (Or is it not supported for ipod classic?)

OK, there's a minor bug in that the 'remaining' count in that instance doesn't decrease (the progress meter should still update though). That's corrected for next build.

Yes it should be working fine for the Classic. When you run any command that modifies the iPod (e.g. rewrite iPod database) any full plays since the last time you did that should be, provided you have a recent version of foo_audioscrobbler (I don't know if there is any set up you need to do on the foo_audioscrobbler side).

you just need to enable "import played tracks from portable devices" and it should work. the tracks you've been listening to on your ipod will then be sent when the next song is being scrobbled by foobar.

Any chance of an answer to this?
Sorry for quoting myself...

This is a "smart playlist" in Apple speak... musicmusic has said that there is no documented Apple API for them and foo_dop is based upon that API, so he can't implement them.

That said, the winamp plugin for iPods does support smart playlists so they can be implemented outside of iTunes... I presume they don't use the Apple API (3rd party libraries like GNUPod support them for example).

On the other hand, I've used iTunes to create smart playlists and it didn't screw up my iPod at all, which is otherwise managed by foo_dop. That is your best bet.

But there already are smart playlists in foo_dop
There is no rename function, and preview is strange - but creating works.

Hi musicmusic,

Would it be possible to:
-> add a "playcount" column in the "browse ipod" view?
-> add a "reset playcount to 0" option?
-> enable sorting by the column header (not important) in browse ipod view?


thanks.

What was wrong with my previous answer?



I think you are mixing things up a bit. I only ever said there wasn't an Autoplaylist API which was in regards to converting auto playlists to smart playlists.


1 & 3: That page needs a bit of work, I'll consider those things for when I do that.
2. Why would you need this?

Thanks for another great component, musicmusic.

I was wondering it's possible (or if it would be possible) to add music to the ipod, by passing a command, such as



or



Or something like that, so that it would be possible to send music to the ipod, from the right click menu on folders (like how we can currently play/queue in foobar).

Ideally, you would be able to use foobar2000 /context_command:<command> <files>. Replace <command> with say "iPod/Send to iPod". Not sure why /context_command isn't included in the help from foobar2000 /?.

However, I never planned for this: I don't think it will work if foobar2000 is not already running, because the thread that scans for iPods will probably not have initialised before the command is executed, so you'll probably just get a 'No iPod found' message. You can check this for me I can fix it otherwise.

Thanks for the quick reply

I used



as a command from the right click menu on folders, and it seemed to work fine



edit:

you were correct about the "no iPod found" error, if foobar isn't already running.

shouldn't be a problem for me though, as I always have foobar open -- it's just more convenient for me to right click a folder > "send to ipod", than queueing in foobar, selecting all songs, right clicking, sending to ipod. heh.

Can I get %play_count% from iPod? I play song on iPod, then sync, and playcounts doesnt update. I store them in id3tags.

that's because the plugin isn't able to do that at the moment

Right now i've got a REALLY roundabout way to implement playcount sync:

1. Use winamp to create an autoplaylist with songs which have been played
2. Open playlists in foo_dop
3. use text tools to infer path in drive from the tag info
4. import the playlist into foobar
5. Use masstagger to automatically update playcount, last played and firstplayed (if necessary). Note Last played is stamped with current time so it isn't accurate.
6. Use winamp to reset the playcount in ipod to zero.

Repeat process every now and then .

Yeah, that would explain everything...
But if ipod scrobbles to last.fm, it would be possible to retrieve counts. I saw program for iTunes that can do that

It does. and ml_ipod's implementation of the scrobbler is better than the one official one. (official one requires you to use ipod in "automatic mode", and works very rarely)

Well, official foo_playcount primarily stores play counts in a private database and there's no API.

It does seem like writing the the metadata field would work as it looks like foo_playcount prefers that over what it has in its database if it is higher. But, it will be messy unless you enable "automatically sync file tags with play counts". Basically, for anything half-decent some kind of foo_playcount API is needed (or, foo_playcount could use the same foo_dop API that foo_audioscrobbler is using).

So all we need is a litle program that will sync last.fm plays with %play_count% ^^ But thats one big walkaround.

.

It does look quite bad, but it's like 5 clicks once you've set up. 1st click is in winamp to "refresh" the autoplaylists, 2nd in Foobar to refresh to reflect those changes, 3rd to export playlist using text tools, 4th to import playlist, 5th to update the playcount using a masstagger script.

So yeah, it is a lot of unnecessary back and forth, but hey, it works right now .

heh alright
anyway its not very important. Its like 5th on my tobum list

Tag mapping is gorgeous. Ive remapped my "title" tags with "artist - title" so finally I know whats in my playlists.

Hi musicmusic, I've just tried to scrobble from my ipod 3G, using foo_dop 0.5.5 and foo_audioscrobbler 1.3.15, but foo_dop can't retrieve my play count.
I get the error:
[code]Error reading Play Counts file : Unsupported format or corrupted file[code]

Maybe it doesn't work with the 3G, but I'm not sure. What should I do ?

Check if the file is zero bytes - it should be in "\iPod_Control\iTunes\Play Counts" on your iPod. If it is, delete it, it should work after that (AFAIK this is a bug with 3G iPods). [edit] Actually foo_dop should be deleting it anyway so it's probably not this.

If it is not zero bytes, can you upload it somewhere so I can check it?

Well, that can explain the problem.Although I did listen some track with it, I don't even have a play count file :/



edit: Hmm I rewrote the database and now it's working. It did'nt count tracks I played before though, I don't know why the play count file disappeared.




Thanks !

edit2: By the way, I can't use $cwb_ltrim(%artist%,The ,Les ,A ,La ) in artist mapping, it doesn't seem to work, you add a checkbox to ignore leading "The", but it would be great to choose what we want to ignore leading (I'm french, and I prefer to ignore leading "Les" and "La" too)

OK. As I remember the 3G iPod will sometimes corrupt the Play Count file (make it zero bytes). When that happens, it doesn't create a valid one until the file is removed. I think this has something to do with when the iPod goes into deep sleep or the iPod rebooting. If you search on google you should find some info about it.

No, you can't use $cwb_ltrim etc. in the remappings. I may be able change this now, I'll look into it.

BTW: That checkbox affects sorting only, whereas the remappings affect display as well.

I have a question..
My girlfriend is buying me a 160G iPod for my 30th birthday and I have NO plans of using iTunes and this plugin seems just perfect..

All my album covers (Folder.jpg) are in high resolution wich are between 1 and 2 meg each. I've read that this plugin adds it into ID3 tags.. is there an option to resize album covers before adding it to the tags?



I don't have the iPod yet but I took a look at the plugin anyway and didn't see that as an option. 1 to 2 megs added to each mp3, that will take a lot of space on the iPod for nothing..

Thank you for your good work!! Works fine for me!

Hi, when I update my iPod with my playlist containing FLAC, APE, and WMA files, it throws up an error message

No the original images are not copied to the iPod, unless they were already embedded in the files (in which case they would be copied with the file).

Great

Well, what are your conversion settings (command line)?

Ah, found the problem. Silliest problem ever. I had a file with a very long title, and the nero plugin choked on the file, refusing to process it. No problems aside from that. Works great especially the conversion on-the-fly, which is just something awesome that iTunes refuses to do. Thanks!

I updated from 0.5.3 to 0.5.6 and I found that some of my album art is stuffed up.
All of my album art that is not 1:1 ratio, ie: my DVD album art with the ratio of 300 pixels to 407 pixels gets all squashed.

Any reason why?

But, input into the encoder is done via a pipe, so it doesn't know what the source path is. Strange.

Yes, sounds like a bug. Can you describe exactly how they look (squashed horizontally or vertically or to a square etc.) and also what iPod model do you have. Thanks.

I just received my 160G (Classic) iPod and have to say that everything went well so far with this plugin, no problem at all. It's actually the first time of my life I touch an iPod.



One thing tho, wich I believe is on the iPod side that needs to be 'fixed' but maybe it's possible to fix it with this plugin, and had been addressed a few times already and couldn't find an answer really....

I really don't like having the artists that are in compilations listed when browsing. I'd rather have them listed under Compilations only or their 'Album Artist' tags. Having a whole bunch of artists with only one song when browsing and browsing in CoverFlow, no good. Is there a workaround? If only we could browse by 'Album Artist', that would make things so much easier.



Any way to prevent this? Then everything would be A+++++++++++++++

Anything is possible using 'artist' mapping.
I use this string:

All my compilations have 'album artist' tag (compilation author or 'various artist'). Dunno whats your situation, but I guess it will work. It displays 'album artist' as artist if avaible, if not - displays 'artist'.
Thats probably the best thing about dop

Everything is tagged with 'Album Artist', compilations have 'Various Artists' for 'Album Artists'.

For artists such as 'Neil Young' and 'Neil Young and crazy Horse' I have set 'Album Artist' to Neil Young, so I'm guessing with the string above they will show up both as Neil Young? That's good, I'll try it now thanks.

Foobar2k and its components never cease to amaze me. I Wouldn't be surprised if there was a plugin out there that could do dishes and laundry for me

Edit: Doesn't work. I even tried putting %album artist% in Artist Mapping just to test and it didn't work. It was still showing artists that are in compilations...

Oh, u must select menu -> ipod -> rewrite ipod database or refresh meta tags, not sure which one, I do both xD sorry ive didnt said it in first post :/

Yes I did that and it didn't work. I've tried many times with different strings and I got the same results each time, artists from compilations still listed.
I noticed at one point that compilations were not listed in 'Compilations' anymore even if I still had the string to set compilations as compilations..

I must be doing something wrong..

- All my files have 'artist' and 'album artist' tags. 'Various Artists' for compilations in 'album artist'
- Artist mapping: $if3($meta(album artist),$meta(artist))
- Compilations mapping: $if($stricmp($directory(%_path%,2),'Various Artists'),1,0)
- Menu File > iPod > Synchronize iPod... > Synchronize with Media Library (Wich has only 4 directories for testing purposes: 2 normal albums + 2 compilations)
- Done adding file and album art to iPod.
- Menu File > iPod > Rewrite iPod Database. Done.
- Menu File > iPod > Rewrite iPod library metadata. Done.
- Eject iPod

Edit:
Another solution would be to browse by directory structure, is this possible?
Then it would be pretty much the same as browsing by 'Album Artist'.
I have my alburms sorted liks this:

Artist1
... Artist1 - Album1
... Artist1 - Album2

Artist2
... Artist2 - Album1
... Artist2 - Album2

Various Artists
... Various Artists - Album1
... Various Artists - Album2

You shouldn't use the path field in the metadata mappings, it can refer to either the path on the iPod or your computer so will give inconsistent results.

It works on my ipod very well, dunno whats the problem o.0 i do same moves as you. Maybe try syncing at the end? After rewriting database.

PS

If ALL your files have ALBUM ARTIST u can just use string
$meta(album artist)

foo_dop 0.5.6.22 released. Fixes some bugs.

Regarding iPod touch support: What I really need is someone who is able to backup and restore the iTunesDB on the device to try and send a file to the iPod with 0.5.6.22 and see what happens. This could be one of the following:
-foo_dop dies
-The song shows up correctly
-Nothing appears to change on the device. In this case, with the iPod app on the device open, hold the home button down for several seconds to kill it. Then open it again and see if anything has changed.
-Nothing at all shows up on the device. In this case, there is something going wrong with the hash calculation and you should restore the iTunesDB backup and restart the iPod app as above.

Also, check what happens with regards to the display on the iPod (does it display the 'sync in progress' screen?)

After some testing, it seems that my Album Artists tags don't get recognized.
I get empty fields if I put $meta(album artists) or %album artist%
I don't know why because it works with other tags. I've tested $meta(album) and $album% and both works.

musicmusic

The album art is trimmed/cropped vertically. It seems alright length wise, but the width of the album art is shortened - centered. It doesn't squash it shorter, but crops it shorter.
IE: It goes from say a 300:407 pixel ratio to a 200:407 ratio - with 50 pixels cropped off each side of the album art.

I am using an 80GB iPod 5.5G.

The version of foo_dop that I was previously using before trying the new v0.5.6.21, was v0.4.6, which worked perfectly with this ratio of album art. This the only update I have tried. I do not know at which version this bug appeared.

You may have a typo, so try $meta(album artist)

The later versions obey requests from the iPod to crop the artwork.

But, the last copy of the iPod property list from a 5.5G iPod I have doesn't request the artwork to be cropped (firmware 1.2.1).

If you go to foo_dop prefs and hold CTRL whilst clicking on view iPod device information there should be some XML formatted info displayed - copy the artwork section here which will tell us if this is the problem or something else. It looks like this:

[edit] Actually, I think this is related to some other change I made. I'll try reverting that.

I know there's a typo in my last message, but I did type $meta(album artist) in Artist mapping.

It's like if all tags were transferred exept the album artist ones because both $meta(album artist) and %album artist% don't work (empty). So they appear as 'Unknown' on my iPod, and the fields are empty when I browse my iPod with foo_dop.

Edit: Actually no, when I use %album artist% it actually uses %artist%.

Edit 2: I've checked with foobar and my Album Artist tags are empty. I tagged them with Tag&Rename, maybe that's the probleme. Something wrong with Tag&Rename.

Please try this version. I basically reverted a couple changes from memory that are probably the culprit.