Notepad shows UTF-8 as the encoding method when saving the file. I think typically, by default, it is usually ANSI but when I open it and/or save it, it shows as UTF-8.

Oh wow... I am running out of ideas jgcrews. Could you please email me the file to have a look?

Thanks.


Edit:

I was also experiencing some weird behavior with string replacement today morning. I quit reopened iTunes and iTSfv, and now it seems to work fine.

One thing I noticed was your attempt to replace _ by a whitespace. This would not work as expected because for accuracy reasons, each line is trimmed before usage. So whitespace becomes an empty string. I have modified this in the latest build to support whitespaces by the following way:

,,,,_,,,,, ,,,,

If you need a whitespace anywhere, that would be the correct usage.

I have published the latest build here
http://wmwiki.com/mcored/research/itsfv

5.60.11.0 Extended ability to replace characters with whitespaces e.g. ,,,,_,,,, ,,,, via replace-words.txt
5.60.10.1 Fixing folder thumbnail will retain the folder modification date
5.60.10.0 Extended Export Selected Tracks to optionally also export Artwork if present [jgcrews]
5.60.09.0 Added %BitRate% syntax for getting string from pattern [jgcrews]
5.60.08.3 Getting string from Pattern truncated strings in brackets for Name tag [jgcrews]
5.60.08.2 Fixed possibility where Update Database refreshing tags in file setting could execute if enabled as part of Check Standard in Selected Tracks
5.60.08.1 Prevented possibility where Album Artist, DiscNumber and DiscCount tags were not updated when iTunes erraneously showed these tags were populated
5.60.08.0 Overwrite tags checkBox is now disabled for Add New Files prompt when multiple albums are found in order to prevent accidental overwriting of wrong album tags into another album

Reposting this quick question from over on the Sourceforge Forum:

McoreD,

Thanks again for creating this great tool! I last used this a couple months ago, right before my pc crashed and took everything with it. I just recently re-installed the latest version of the app and wanted to make sure I recalled how to use it correctly. My basic question is whether or not ALL of the checked box operations are performed regardless of which tab they appear on, or if I need to individually run the validation for each tab within the app? Does that make sense?

Thanks,
Jeff

Thanks for looking into this more.

The substitution of a white space for the underscore was added to the file by iTSfv, not by me. I had used the SELECTED TRACKS | EDITOR | REPLACE function to change the underscore into a space in a bunch of songs I imported. And it worked. But the next time I opened the replace words file, I noticed that “_,,,, “ had been added to the bottom of the list. I thought that was iTSfv’s way of saving search/replace strings which had been entered & performed manually through the Editor tab – so I just left it there.

Can you give me a little info on how to install using the link you provided below – when I clicked the “Install” button, I got this:



I must be missing something.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your feedback! If you press "Validate Selected Tracks" button that is outside of the tabsControl it is going to take into account all the checked states of the checkBoxes. However if you press the buttons that are inside each tabPage then it only considers the checked states inside that tabPage.


jgcrews,

Sorry about that. I realized IE does not handle the Install button properly. It is supposed to execute

http://wmwiki.com/mcored/research/itsfv/setup.exe

Please click the above link to start installation.

Thanks,
McoreD

I like the idea of the automatic updates. How do you go about using the ClickOnce version? As I had mentioned, I didn't have success earlier today and as you replied, yes, I was running IE, but I also run Firefox. What do I need to do to utilize the ClickOnce version?

Jeff

Hi jgcrews,

GREAT idea about the ignore-words.txt

ft can go there for example so iTSfv will not process it

I will incorporate it into the next build.


From your email, I figure you got the ClickOnce version sorted out. Are you getting same or different results?

To my knowledge the Replace function in Edit : Selected Tracks : Replace does not add the current values to the replace-words.txt. That is a bizarre behaviour if that's the case.

I was also wondering what words that do not properly get capitalized by the current usage of replace-words + capital-words + simple-words combination.

Cheers,
McoreD

Thanks for adding the ignore-words file. I got the ClickOnce installed and its working - just updated to v5.60.12.0.



Using lots of strange phrases in my test file, this is it before running it through iTSfv:



and this is it after completion of iTSfv processing of the data:



All seems to be OK except the handling of the group name "fix8:sed8" (which is the proper way for it to appear) and only in the Artist field - it ends up getting changed to "Fix8:Sed8". That means that it is at least processing the values from replace-words file because the hyphen is getting changed to a colon but then the replacement string (fix8:sed8) is getting the regular capitalization routine afterwards instead of skipping to the next word. I've got a bunch of entries in the replace-words file to handle this. They are:

FIX8-SED8,,,,fix8:sed8
fix8-sed8,,,,fix8:sed8
Fix8-Sed8,,,,fix8:sed8

Other than that, since going to 5.60.12.0, other little odds & ends have gone away.

One other item - since iTSfv seems to remember your settings from the last use, it would be nice to remember the drop-down choice for "Remove the following tag from Track..." choice - it automatically defaults to "Lyrics" each time you start iTSfv.

Keep up the good work - and thanks for listening!

Jeff

Jeff

I really like your in-depth testing.

I was able to reproduce Fix8-Sed8 getting changed to fix8:sed8 on the 2nd or later attempts of normal capitalizing routines.

Please add

fix8:sed8

to ignore-words.txt and retry.

I was able to avoid this behavior afterwards.

Cheers.
McoreD

Edit:

This happens because once the

FIX8-SED8,,,,fix8:sed8
fix8-sed8,,,,fix8:sed8
Fix8-Sed8,,,,fix8:sed8

are properly replaced to fix8:sed8, fix8:sed8 will no longer be replaced so it will be stop at usual capitalization routine. Either you can have another replace argument in replace-words.txt ( Fix8:Sed8,,,,fix8:sed8 ) or simply have the fix8:sed8 in ignore-words.txt - I can already see how useful ignore-words.txt is

McoreD,

Thanks for the tip. I have a new question. I have currently checked the box to "delete tracks that do not exist".

Using windows explorer, I deleted a folder that contained some crappy tracks. I assumed that itsfv would delete the entries for the songs within the deleted folder, but instead, they are just showing up in itunes with the exclamation point next to them. Is their a way to get itsfv to remove those suckers from my library/itunes as a whole?

Thanks,
Jeff

Wow. I was expecting your reply to be something like "Boy, you sure are a pain in the ass..."

As best as I can tell, all seems to be working as expected with all of the word files. Unless I come across some other strange group name or something, I think you got it all nailed down.

I'm really impressed with all of the features and your responsiveness to adressing the few "issues" (they aren't really bugs, now, are they?) that had popped up over the last week or so.

And thanks again, Mike, for adding the "Include Artwork" checkbox to the Export Tracks feature - it saves an extra step and is working like a charm.

Jeff

SliderJeff,

In iTSfv Menu click Jobs : Delete dead or foreign tracks function should be what you are after.

jgcrews,

My pleasure and thanks back at you for the nice tweaks we worked on.

Cheers,
McoreD

Awesome! Many thanks!

Regs,
Jeff

Hello,
does iTSfv have something like the OP requested here ?
http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=229102

That'd be cool

McoreD,

Got another one for you that I can't seem to find. I know that there is the checkbox to embed artwork from either itunes or Artwork.jpg. Is there a way I can tell itsfv to prioritize Folder.jpg over downloading the art from itunes? I added my own artwork to a few files and it seems that it got overwritten with itunes art (which is the wrong art, anyway) when I ran itsfv with that checkbox checked. I could have sworn this was addressed in an earlier release of the app, but I might just be still a little tipsy from celebrating the Wing's Stanley Cup win last night.

Regs,
Jeff

Jou,

iTunes Store file validator has some basic tag retrieval abilities:

Genre from Last.fm
Lyrics from LyricWiki
Artwork via Album Art Downloaded XUI CLI .

These are what I call final touches to songs.

Unless I am mistaken, primary tags such as Artist, Album and Name should be taken care of, prior to using iTSfv. I let the applications are which are already specialized in such operations e.g. Mp3tag to handle these.


-------------------------------

Current beta build:

5.60.12.1 Bug Report Wizard did not successfully report bugs for POP email addresses that sometimes require password [jgcrews]
5.60.12.0 Capitalizing words can now utilize a file called ignore-words.txt to avoid being processed [jgcrews]
5.60.11.0 Extended ability to replace characters with whitespaces e.g. ,,,,_,,,, ,,,, via replace-words.txt
5.60.10.1 Fixing folder thumbnail will retain the folder modification date
5.60.10.0 Extended Export Selected Tracks to optionally also export Artwork if present [jgcrews]
5.60.09.0 Added %BitRate% syntax for getting string from pattern [jgcrews]
5.60.08.3 Getting string from Pattern truncated strings in brackets for Name tag [jgcrews]
5.60.08.2 Fixed possibility where Update Database refreshing tags in file setting could execute if enabled as part of Check Standard in Selected Tracks
5.60.08.1 Prevented possibility where Album Artist, DiscNumber and DiscCount tags were not updated when iTunes erraneously showed these tags were populated
5.60.08.0 Overwrite tags checkBox is now disabled for Add New Files prompt when multiple albums are found in order to prevent accidental overwriting of wrong album tags into another album

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989



SliderJeff

Try Options : Advanced : Validation : Artwork

Manually choose best Artwork.

By default, iTSfv automatically chooses highest resolution Artwork.

Gotcha. Will do when I get home. Any idea what happens if the resolutions are identical? Alot of the itunes stuff is 600x600 and that's what I resize my own personally scanned covers to, as well. So who wins in a "tie"?

thanks,
Jeff

SliderJeff,

If the resolutions are identical, then iTSfv will choose the first highest resolution in this order.

iTMS
iTunes Artwork Cache
Album folder
Embedded Track Artwork
Album Art Downloader XUI
Album Art Downloader XUI CLI

Ref: http://itsfv.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/it...amp;sortby=date

Currently there is no way to re-order this, but certainly in an upcoming build.

Coolness! Thank you, sir!

Regs,
Jeff

All/Bluenote,

The next build has

5.60.13.0 Extended Automatic Rating system to reduce PlayedCount scaling of long tracks from 1% to 100%

which will allow you to Scale PlayedCount based on TrackDuration to a certain degree you specify.



Earlier behaviour only allowed you to either enable or disable this feature.

this application is exactly what i need to organize my extensive library. i have 10k+ songs and plan on adding another 5k or so when i have the time. the problem is that i just can't get this program to work. i tried using the "Start > Run > "iTunes / regserver"" command but that didn't seem to help. anyway...here is a screenie of what i am trying to do and the result.
(just to be clear, the button i clicked on was the "check standard in selected tracks" button)



thanks in advance.

Hi amnioticentity

Do you have any debug/warning/error log files in your Documents\iTSfv\Logs folder? If not, could you go to iTSfv Options > Advanced > Paths and make sure you have a settings folder set?

How does this window look in yours:



Cheers.

checked the log file dir and the single file was named "81D3CC2AF66C73C9-stats.cache"

for some reason i didn't think to check for an options menu - there were already so many in the main interface, lol! your program just got twice as big with this discovery

well, it seems to be working, but i still get the null error box whenever i finish any operation, so i can live with that for now. either way, u just saved me roughly 12 hours of working on my itunes library (manually) - wish i knew about this 6 monthes ago when i was (manually) tagging 7000 files... THANK YOU!

amnioticentity

Wow I am glad it is doing at least what you expect. Next time you get the crash could you please copy the text inside that crash window and paste it to http://pastebin.com/ and post a link here?

When you press Continue, all back to normal?

I will definitely look into the issue. This is a weird one.

Thanks.

Edit:

In case you haven't noticed, there is a slightly updated build released as stable:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243713

The error happens after any operation, even when just trying to exit the program. I have to use 'Quit' to exit the application and start a new batch/op.

I uploaded a bug tracker request on sourceforges itsfv page as anonymous, it's the most recent post.

here are the 2 most recent error message from my system. The first popped up when the operation 'Check for tracks without Track Number' seemed to complete (Entire library selected). The second after Capitalizing did complete (1 album selected).

Details
Details 2

Thank you again.

EDIT: When I attempt to install Microsoft .Net 3.5 it fails. I have .Net 2.0 SP1 installed.

amnioticentity

Thanks for the logs. Very strange. That can only mean the file path for warning logs is null so that means it hasn't configured Files and Directories properly.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/n7hxbz

Could you try that build and let me know if you get a different error?

Thanks.

Operations complete successfully! Sweet...now i can complete multiple operations but...

When i try to exit i get this

This program is frickin sweet...did i mention that?

amnioticentity

That's good news! Thanks for your feedback.

The crash after exit happens for the same reason - your folders are not being configured correctly for some strange reasons.

Here is an update:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zjduq0

Hope this fixes the previous crash.

Cheers.

Mike:

Today, I tried to use the "Trim" feature in the SELECTED TRACKS | EDITOR tab.

What I was trying to accomplish was to remove "-RhR" from the end of each track name.

I selected "Trim" and specified 4 characters from the RIGHT. There's no option to specify which field you want to trim/append so I assumed that maybe the Track Name field was the one that would be affected.

Well, it removed those 4 characters from each of the track names. However, it also took 4 characters from all of the tags.

Is there a way to specify which tag/field you want to work with?

So, I'm not quite sure if I used it wrong, had something set wrong or what.

I had iTSfv set like this:



Jeff




Never mind. It didn't dawn on me to alter the "Write Tags To:" checkboxes. Once I went and looked at that tab again, I realized what I had done wrong!

-- Jeff

ok two quick questions...

is it N.E.R.D or N.E.R.D. ?

and, i was attempting a couple operations at once, "Validate > Tracks > Embed Art+Fill Genre+Convert JPG" while listening to one of the 12 tracks selected in iTunes. i got the null error again when the operation seemed to finish. though, it did not in fact finish. it seems iTSfv wasn't able to update the track that was playing at the time and this caused the error?

other than that, the .1 update u gave me fixed my error issues, until it comes time to quit the app and the aforementioned anomaly.

thank you so much

amnioticentity,

It is N*E*R*D from Artist's home page.

An error log would be very handy to resolve the issue as earlier.

Did u try http://www.sendspace.com/file/zjduq0 where I tried to fix the crash on exit?


jgcrews,

OUCH! Sorry for your tag loss. Another alternative/safer method is to use the Replace feature where you can go -Rhr can be replaced by Empty string.

thanks for the nerd info.

only a .cache file exists in the log directory

zjdug0 fixes crashing, but not on exit.

this is new and it happens when i go to Logs > iTSfv Report.

amnioticentity

Thanks - the root of the problem as discovered a couple of posts earlier is that for some strange reason the user folders are not configured properly.

Do you have My Documents\iTSfv\Logs\ folder? If so do you have a debug file? Could you paste the initialization part of it?

Something like this:

2008-06-12T08:42:57 Job Started: INITIALIZE_PLAYER
2008-06-12T08:42:57 iTSfv Version: 5.60.13.1
2008-06-12T08:42:57 Logs Directory: H:\Users\Mike\Documents\iTSfv\Logs\
2008-06-12T08:42:57 iTMS Artwork Directory: H:\Users\Mike\Documents\My Pictures\iTSfv\
2008-06-12T08:42:57 Temporary Directory: C:\Users\Mike\Application Data\iTSfv\
2008-06-12T08:42:57 iTunes Version: 7.6.2.9
2008-06-12T08:42:57 Total tracks in iTunes: 22027
2008-06-12T08:42:57 iTunes Library XML Path: H:\Users\Mike\Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml
2008-06-12T08:43:03 iTunes Music folder: F:\Music\
2008-06-12T08:43:03 Mike's Music Folder 1: F:\Music\
2008-06-12T08:43:03 Mike's Music Folder 2: C:\ASOT\
2008-06-12T08:43:04 Job Finished: INITIALIZE_PLAYER


If you cannot access the debug file, please open iTSfv then Logs > Debug... should show you a Debug window or open any file.

Thanks,
McoreD

debug output from a job that seems to have completed fine. yet, when i try to open a tracks report i get this and here is an output from a warnings log file...the only file that actually exists, the rest never save (probobly b/c the program crashes on exit?)

amnioticentity,

Noticing null paths:

# 2008-06-12T23:39:52 Retrieved 0 simple words from
# 2008-06-12T23:39:52 Retrieved 0 capital words from

which is not a good sign.

It should be having fullpaths:

2008-06-13T23:51:52 Job Started: EDIT_SELECTED_TRACKS
2008-06-13T23:51:52 Retrieved 22 simple words from H:\Users\Mike\Documents\iTSfv\Settings\simple-words.txt
2008-06-13T23:51:52 Retrieved 8 capital words from H:\Users\Mike\Documents\iTSfv\Settings\capital-words.txt
2008-06-13T23:51:52 Retrieved 7 words to ignore from H:\Users\Mike\Documents\iTSfv\Settings\ignore-words.txt
2008-06-13T23:51:52 Retrieved 51 words to replace from H:\Users\Mike\Documents\iTSfv\Settings\replace-words.txt

Could you please try this build which will throw a MessageBox during file/folder configuration error?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/y1zmva

Thanks,
McoreD

Mike:

I'm running 5.60.12.1/

Today, when I started iTSfv, I received a message to check the error log and the following was in the log:

2008-06-14T17:22:26 000001
2008-06-14T17:22:26 Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {DC0C2640-1415-4644-875C-6F4D769839BA} failed due to the following error: 80080005.
2008-06-14T17:22:27 at iTSfv.frmMain.sBwAppLoadPlayer()

Ideas?

Jeff

jgcrews,

An error such as



could happen if you had Get Info window opened in iTunes while loading iTSfv.


Related: errors such as

Unable to cast COM object of type 'iTunesLib.iTunesAppClass' to interface type 'iTunesLib.IiTunes'.

means that

a known problem with some iTunes installations.

Close iTSfv
Close iTunes
Try the following: Click start, run, and type "iTunes /regserver" and click ok.

Cheers,
McoreD

hehe, a personalized version just for me? thank you much

EVERYTHING works perfectly. i'm not sure if this is matters, but, i have unchecked everything under the Validate>Checks tab and with your latest build i get zero errors.

love the version histroy btw.

hey do you have a paypal or...?

amnioticentity,

Glad it works out all well with you and yes I use Paypal.

Just letting all know that I will be going overseas for one month so I won't be able reply within my usual time.

Bye for now,
McoreD


5.60.14.0 Extended Automatic Rating system to include influence of previous rating adjustable from 0% to 99%
5.60.13.2 Fixed rare possibility where TrackCount could be not written for some mp3 files
5.60.13.1 Fix for crash while writing warnings log and exiting iTSfv in some rare situations [amnioticentity]
5.60.13.0 Extended Automatic Rating system to reduce PlayedCount scaling of long tracks from 1% to 100%
5.60.12.2 Fixed possibility where TrackNumber could be cleared while writing DiscCount etc. during some rare cases after build 5.60.08.1

just updated to the newest version. It's getting better and better

1)
I get some weird cahracters when importing certain lyrics (happens quite frequently):



From "The Killers" - "Where The White Boys Dance"

2)
Also, is there a minimum character count before lyrics are imported. I've spotted stuff like "/* Empty */"

3)
In addition, how do I turn on that feature that creates a dummy file and then searches for artwork in the iTunes store?

4)
Finally, what does "Forcing thumbnail in [path]" do? I says that in the log tacker, even though I just checked for lyrics.

Edit: Program freezes when changing lyric folder / format (import & export)
Edit2: Lyrics imported from files, still show those ’ weird MS word apostrophes
Edit3: Exporting artwork to custom set folder and format doesn't work

Is there a way to have itsfv monitor an itunes media library and db from one pc where the db and library and files are on another networked pc?

I'll explain a little more. I rip cd's using eac and react into flac and mp3 on a main server pc. I then plan on batch copying those mp3's to a notebook pc where my family typically sync's their ipods. I would like to update react to call itsfv to command line process itsfv add_folder "folder_path" to update the notebooks library to recognize the new files on the notebook, however execute this command from the main server pc as a part of the react rip commands.

Do I need to set the music folder in itunes and itsfv on the main server to the remote notebooks music folder? Will itsfv update the remote notebooks version of the media library that will also be read on the notebooks version of itunes?

Any thoughts on how I can set this up?

Thanks for your help.

I'm making the switch from Windows to Linux. So therefore I must give up iTunes, but I don't want to lose my ratings and playcounts (I'm pretty sure Select All>Right Click>Convert ID3 Tags>2.3 should save all my metadata to ID3 tags minus playcount and ratings).
I was wondering if there was an option in this program that I can select that will do exactly what I'm asking, and if not then I would like to request that it be added.

EDIT: What exactly does writing to frame mean? "Write PlayedCount to PCNT frame as part of validation"

Mike - It's been a while since we last communicated and all has been well with iTSFfv. However, I have a suggestion (as usual) for a small change in the next build:

Under the export tracks function, when clicking the "Browse Destination Folder To Copy Selected Tracks..." button, can we have the "Browse For Folder" dialog default to the last folder location, instead of always defaulting back to the top level? This would prevent the user from having to drill down through so many levels each time you go to export tracks. Not a biggie but it would make it quicker and easier.

Also, I'm running v5.60.12.1 which says it is up-to-date but I noticed there have been several beta builds since then. What's the right link to use to get the latest beta?

Jeff

Hey ~*McoreD*~,

Still loving this app! Everything is working great with it, and it seems to do everything I need! I did notice one small thing:

I set up a scheduled task to tweak my library nightly, but when I run 'itsfv adjust_ratings' it doesn't seem to use the settings I set up... If I run it via command line I get one set of ratings, then if I run it manually they all change the way I want them.


I switched back to your recommended config, and it works well.

Keep up the good work man!!

Ryan

Any news on the topic of inserting artwork in the library (like it does with "Get Album Artwork") without embedding in the id3tag? The problem is, that i don't want to embed large pictures in every single id3tag. I know it is possible: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?sto...006100111071871

This Python-Script acts like it is the Itunesserver. It would be a great feature to implement in iTSfv!!!

What do you think?



Yes, I know... However, more than half of my albums are not found in iTunes, or the downloaded artwork is wrong - e.g. My album is "The Judds: Greatest Hits", which if you click on accessing iTunes store, it's there, but when you try to download the album artwork, you get the artwork for "The Judds: Greatest Hits Vol 2" instead!!! Or, the album is listed in the iTunes store, you check that artist, title, album and track number is the same as what is shown in iTunes, and yet iTunes cannot download the artwork... So, what do you do in those situations? Why can't iTunes allow import of artwork without embedding it in the tracks?!?!?! Sigh...

what happened to ~*McoreD*~?

Hi All/Jojo,

Sorry for the quite delayed reply. After coming back from overseas beginning of this month, I was overwhelmed with work and all sorts of other catching up.

jgcrews,

Definitely should be possible to do. I was under the impression this was happening already. As for the different beta builds that popped out later, I think there was an internal change in the update_check URL. I hope this will be gone after the latest final build.

neonstorm,

In response to: I set up a scheduled task to tweak my library nightly, but when I run 'itsfv adjust_ratings' it doesn't seem to use the settings I set up... If I run it via command line I get one set of ratings, then if I run it manually they all change the way I want them -- I am afraid this is due to iTSfv running under SYSTEM account? Could you run the task as a specified user?

Vasto,

Sorry, you post was up while I was overseas so I have completed missed it. iTSfv already supports writing and reading PlayedCount|Rating info to file. You can do this in two ways. The first way is the preferred way: go to Tags tab in the main window and you have the options to backup tags, and restore them. If you press F2 while you are in this tab, you will be presented options related to this task. By default, PlayedCount and Rating tags are already selected to be backed up. Once you are in linux, you will have to use some other script to process the XML files generated by iTSfv.

----

Bad news for me is that I will be busy again for an Earthquakes Engineering project for a year, so free time in the computer doesn't as sound as good. That said I will be checking this monitoring this thread at least once a week for discussing feedback. I am not stepping down from the project at all, I am a user of iTSfv myself with iTunes so that won't ever happen. It is just the time allocation problem.

I can't wait to see iTunes 8 coming in 2-3 weeks. Once I get to look into each issue in detail, all should be back to normal.

Thanks all for the great feedback and suggestions.

Cheers,
McoreD

1/ I will check this out. Thanks. I think it is to do with ™ character.

2/ There is no minimum character length to import lyrics. I am sure iTSfv doesn't write the lyrics tag as "/* Empty */" anywhere. That is strange, Jojo.

3/ I guess you have got this figured out by now. If you to Tools menu and click iTunes Artwork Grabber... a separate window will show up, which lists the steps you need to setup so iTunes will automatically download the artwork when a new song is added. You need an iTunes Store account for this and you can create one for free with a CC using the URL in that window.




rme, I see you are having batch files to copy the newly ripped music files to the laptops. Are you replicating your whole music library or just parts of it? My best advice for synchronizing music files would be using Allway Sync. It is a freeware application for personal use and has unlimited number of customizations. How are you going to remotely execute a program/iTSfv in the laptops? I have no clue on that. The closest I can get to is schedule iTSfv locally in each laptop to find new files (add_folder) from the music folder.

If you set the iTunes library on the main server to be the library.xml in the remote notebook, then iTSfv will be able to update the library that resides in the notebook, yes, but this is not a preferred way to do it because you are then limited to one notebook.

Easiest way to do all this is to share the Music folder in the main server. Add/manage music in the main server. For all other iTunes in notebooks, set the library path to be the shared Music folder in the main server. Use iTSfv locally in each laptop to do a synchronize.

If you plan copy music files to the target laptops then, it is still easy for the whole music folder with Allway Sync because it is able to monitor file changes and copy new files to the destination.



This means that PlayedCount in iTunes will be written to the ID3v2 frame called PCNT in MP3 files whenever you validate tracks.

Hi, hope all went well during your trip!

I played around a little, and let me clarify:

If I run 'itsfv.exe adjust_ratings' via command prompt, I get the wrong result. If I open ITSfv and run ratings manually, it rates the songs properly.

I'm not aware of any way to run it via command prompt as a specified user. Can you please expound?

I also tried ITSfv's built in schedule setup, but the hour setting doesn't seem to differentiate between am/pm, and I can't seem to get the auto ratings to run this way either....

Thanks for the great work! Hope your new project goes smoothly.

Ryan

neonstorm,

Thanks - I was able to reproduce the bug where you execute itsfv.exe adjust_ratings and you get all 0 ratings. However, Manual rating works fine like you said and the built-in scheduler works fine too. The times are in 24-hour format so if you have it like this:



That will schedule it for 9 PM.

You have to also enable which task to be scheduled:



Cheers,
McoreD