Today I decided it was time to release a new version

Changes:

• Fixed some graphic-glitches
  
• Included manifest for WinXP
  
• New icons thanks to SacRat!
  
• Fixed some memory leak problems
  
• Fixed loading .m3u8 playlists with file://
  
• Shows bitrate/length for WavPack (.wv) and Monkey's Audio 3.98 (.ape)
  
• Moved some external files into frontah.dat (uncompressed zip-file)
  
• Some bugfixes

Download

Comments/suggestions are welcome!

Always nice to see a new version of my favourite frontend eventhough I never had a problem with the old version

Same comment as Jan S... I like the slick new package. Two thumbs up! B)

Great frontend indeed! I just tried with it. But there seem to be some slight bugs in it.

They are as follows, when I encoded APE to MPC:

1. APE-tags V1.0 are simply taken over from the original file, instead of writing V2.0 to MPC-files.

2. "Skipping"-function of the already encoded files does not work at all.

3. "Bitrate" and "Length" of the original files are not shown (at least at APE-files).

If I find more bugs, I´ll write them down here.

But anyway: Maybe the best frontend for generating MPC´s at the moment.

That's the default behaviour. To change it, go to Settings->Tagging->Advanced and make sure "Use same format as input if possible" is unchecked.



You'll have to manaully remove them, using "Remove files marked OK"-menu in the Remove-button. I'll add an option to always remove "OK"-files before doing another encode/decode in next version.



What version of Monkey's Audio are those files encoded with? Does it show anything if you right-click on the file in Frontah, and select "View / Edit Tags..." then tab named "File info"?

Yes, I know. I already did uncheck the function "Use same format as input if possible", but the mistake mentioned above appeared anyway (still generates only APE V1.0-tags).


If it´s in the next version included, it´s OK. But better would be in my eyes, when the files wouldn´t be removed completely, but only skipped. Like in "Monkeys Audiocompressor". So, you are always able to see, how many files have been already encoded.


I used "MAC.EXE V3.96 Beta 6" from Frank Klemm´s Page to encode them. In WinAmp APE´s encoded with this version are shown as V3.96´s. But the routines in it are the same as in 3.97 (file-size generated is absolutely identical). And displayed with WinAmp the TAG´s are shown correctly (as V1.0´s). Also in Frontah itself (as you described it).
The following is displayed then (for example):


And a last little bug I saw: The CPU-factor is also shown always as "0.0 x".

Wishlist for Frontah in the future:
A real useful thing would be, when Frontah would allow the output in different formats, encoding-levels, and output-directories in one session. That means, you drop some lossless original albums in the Frontah-window and the program remembers the actual settings for it: In which format to encode, the quality-settings and output-dir - simply all. Then you change the format or the quality-level or the output-dir (all or some of it), drop in the same lossless files into the Frontah-window again, and Frontah takes then for those new dropped in files the changed settings. This could be repeated as often as wanted. After it, you start the encoding-process, and a few hours later you have the result of different formats put out in different directories ready.
Is this to make real? - Or simply too difficult to code? It would be a real progress for the whole batch-encoding, as no other Frontend offers this yet.

:'(

It's such a crying shame I can't run Win2K/XP on my machine... this software would definitely be worth it (I've only once used it on a friend's WinXP box, and it was love at first sight )...

In fact, I'm just about to transcode some lossless albums to MPC, and I'd love nothing more than a program that preserves the folder structure and copies tags...

Is there a way to use extra switches with Frontah? E.g. -Z?

You can add that in frontah_script_user.ini.

Remember that you shouldn't use -Z anymore.

I have a general question about frontends:
Why do most front-ends give the user limited options?
Why can't all front-ends have an option to use a custom commandline?

To avoid that users do something stupid. To make it easy to just select from a list.

Weird, I tested this myself and it works fine. Will do some more testing before releasing the new version.



Ok, I've added the option to skip already processed files. I'll release Frontah 0.91 sometime today or tomorrow.



The problem is ID3v2! I thought no-one would ever use it with APEs, so I didn't add code to skip it! But it's now fixed.



I had some similar ideas for Frontah 2. Like you could still drop files while encoder is running, have mulitple encodes running at the same time etc. Encoding directly from one big .flac + .cue into separate tracks and such things. Nothing is too difficult to code, the problem is only time...



Lossy -> MP3 -> Custom. You'll have to enter the whole commandline yourself, eg "--alt-preset standard -Z". But do not use -Z if you're using LAME 3.90.3.

For more control, make changes to frontah_script.ini. Note that this file now resides inside frontah.dat, which is a regular uncompressed zip-file.

Hi, I like this frontend and i want to use it to transcode various formats to mp3 for my mp3 player. My player has only 64MB (~60.5 after formattting) so I usually calculate highest the ABR bitrate that fits on the 60.5MB.
It would be nice if you could add the total length of all files to your frontend. If i know that, i can calculate the average bitrate that i should use.

Of course it would be awesome if your frontend did all the calculations . For example if the total length is 74minutes and i want total filesize to be 60.5MB, your frontend could do this calculation: (60.5*1024*8)/(74*60)=111.63kbps.

Nice GUI, good program, great job!

Maybe I told you some bullshit before. Because when I tried it out with my today´s generated APE´s (already with new GUI of Monkey´s) it also worked fine (APE-Tag´s V2.0 were written to the MPC´s). The problem seems to be more, that the "uncheck" is not taken over when you quit the program. So, it´s set again, when you newly start Frontah. But that´s now not 100 % sure. I only suppose it. I still have to test a little bit around with it.

I just tried it out again. That was the cause for not writing my APE V2.0-tags to my MPC´s.

And another bug I found also:
When you replay-gain these MPC-albums, the album-values of every song are not calculated correctly, as there are all directories seen as only one album, instead of every dir as an album. It´s the same mistake, which already the "MPC-Batch-Encoder" made (and still makes).

You're right, that setting was never saved. Will be fixed in 0.91.



Hopefully this will be fixed in 0.91.



Since it was so easy, I've implemented it in 0.91

If there are no more bugs found in 0.90, I'll release 0.91 in a day or two.

Yet another one I found: The translation of the german special characters ("Umlaute"), like ä, ü, ö etc. is not done correctly. For example an "ä" becomes simply "a", "ü" -> "u" in the target file and so on. I suppose the same problem exists with others languages special characters (swedish, french etc.). Can this be corrected? There´s a program called "win2dos.exe" which does the translation correctly in MPC-Batch-Encoder and other Speek´s frontends for example. Maybe it can be implemented to avoid this.

And last but not least: A directory-search function for choosing the output-directory would also be helpful. (Will surely be yet implemented in later versions I suppose.)

Maybe you could add support for the new optimfrog settings?

Looks like you have "Convert åäöÅÄÖ -> aaoAAO" enabled? Or do you mean you want "ä -> ae" and so on?

There shoule be no need for "win2dos.exe", because Frontah runs the program directly (without going thru command.com/cmd.exe) and it passes all arguments and filenames in unicode to the encoder. But if the encoder itself is not unicode-aware, windows will convert the commandline using current codepage (often ANSI/Latin-1).



How do you mean, a search-button like in windows-explorer?


0.90 already supports OptimFrog 4.505, only difference in the new 4.506 is the "highnew"-mode. It will be added in Frontah 0.91.

You can add it yourself this way: Open frontah.dat with winzip/winrar and extract frontah_script.ini in the same directory as frontah.exe.
Change line 285 into:
TrackbarValues = fast,normal,high,extra,best,highnew,extranew,bestnew

Oh. I didn't realize how customizeable frontah is.

@madah

Great work!

However a small request, could you please add an option for adding an ID3v2 tag only if the data does not fit in an ID3v1 tag.

My mistake. The mentioned function above was indeed enabled by me. Still don´t know, what I was thinking, when I did it. And "nope", converting "ä" -> "ae" etc. really is not needed. If all special characters are translated correctly, it´s sufficient.


No, I mean an extra window should be opened (by clicking on an "dir"-icon before), where you can browse thru the directories of the hard-disk and generate a new target-directory, if needed. All done out from Frontah. Until now, you have to type in manually the path of the main target-dir. And generate the target-dir from a program outstanding of Frontah. If that process would be included, it would make things much more user-friendly.

And another slight problem I experienced before: It´s nearly impossible, to hit an exact encoding-value (for example: 6,00) of Vorbis, when you once moved the cursor a little bit around with the mouse. Maybe a manual value-input window besides the quality-level-bar would help to avoid this.

Perfect program!
Bug (only for me?):
When checked "Preserve dir structure", and I write "mp3" in output dir, he creates mp3 folder in frontah working dir.
What should I write in this case in output dir if I want frontah to create folder "mp3" in the source dir?

probably: "c:\sourcedir\mp3"

.... where "c" means the drive-letter of course.

WITH "Preserve dir structure" CHECKED output path will be "c:\sourcedir\sourcedir\mp3"!

Can I shorten lossy+lossless items at first button's menu to 2 items only - "mp3 average" and "MusePack"? How?

Press the button "..." to the right of the output-dir. If you want to create a new dir you'll have to type it in yourself at the end, Frontah should create the dir if it doesn't exist.



You can use the keyboard cursors to position more exactly.



You've found a bug. If no absolute path are given, Frontah should append the path to the source dir, but it's not working at the moment. Will be fixed in next version.



Open frontah.dat with winzip/winrar and extract frontah_script.ini in the same directory as frontah.exe.
Remove all sections in the file that you don't want to appear.

Maybe those dots "..." should be replaced by a directory-logo like shown at "add folder". Because the dots are nearly not noticed by a user.

Okay. I didn´t know, that the keyboard-cursors are also set with functions.

Thx man, i can't wait to see how it will look in the next release (don't find more bugs please ).

If all the above mentioned bugs are fixed, there shouldn´t be any more in it.

I was dreaming last night about Frontah...
And 2 little things I saw in that new version:
1st: "Shutdown system after encodings are finished"-function.
2nd: There was a combination of encoding and replaygaining in one step. That means, there was a button, which allows you to activate the replaygain-function after the encodings are done by automatic.
Will this be reality soon? - Or stay only a dream?!

P.S.:
There will soon be released a pre-beta of another multiple-encoder-frontend, which works a little like "Frontah". It´s called "Universal Front" and is programmed by Max Bureck, you know, the guy who already encoded the excellent "the tagger that uses tag"-frontend. A preview arrived at my HQ yesterday, and it looks really promising.

It seems to me that a lot of these feature requests could be satisfied by a batch function. Open a window and create tasks in it similar to the .avi editor VirtualDub.

For multiple encodes with replaygain that shuts down automatically, just add your lossless files to the window and run a batch as:

1. encode to .mpc --standard --xlevel
2. replaygain .mpc
3. enocde to .mp3 --alt-preset-standard
4. replaygain .mp3
5. shut down

There could be other tasks such as "delete original files" and a checkbox "make log file."

Destron

... oh yeah, I think Frontah is a great front-end also. I have yet to downlaod the new version, though, as I have no files to encode at the moment!

Destron

Some small wishes:
1. When pressing output dir button (with 3 dots) let the dir window position into source dir, if output dir field is empty, or into the folder written in output dir field.
2. In Tag Editor window (Alt+3) let present buttons "next" "previous" for navigating through filelist.
3. In Settings\Tagging window at "Additional tag items:" area let "Modify Tag Value" form appears by dbl-clicking only on tagname (Item), but on once-clicking on tagvalue this value starts edited directly here. I appreciate it demands of changing simple list control into more complex control.
4. A large button "Close" in Settings window
5. Yes, I'm a stupid, I couldn't understood what tagging does "Tagging" script. Then, I've understood that he takes tags from Settings\Tagging. On Help page any words about it. Maybe for that stupids as I am it's need to explain?

Maybe some else will be sooner

Thank's, Madah, for such beautiful program!

One additional suggestion: It would be good, if the ReplayGain-Values (Title/Album) are read out from the TAG (or wherever it stands) for each file and then shown in the encoder-window of "Frontah". Then you can see at first sight, which MPC´s (as an example now) are already RG´ed and which not (prevents double replay-gaining).

And one thing I nearly forgot: A big "thanks", Madah, for limiting the quality-settings in MPC to --q7 (even that is too high in my eyes) and -q7 for Vorbis. (That´s now meant serious!!!).

Damn crashin' IExplore still means to fu*k all my written words up ... <cry>Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy</cry>?
Okay, here's a new try:

Frontah is a nice frontend and I decided to use it for my mission yesterday.
As I understand Frontah is possible to transcode from mpc to mp3 (so it accepts mpc-input and mp3 output).
93 files were dropped, 50 minutes were worked off, a lot of processing was done.
But at 100% all buttons still stayed inactive (except abort-Button) and the sand glass was still cognizable, no files were written (i was astonished since frontah seemed to work all the 50 minutes - okay, maybe the HD-Led could have been more active, but I thought that with 4x realtime (LAME) there is not very much to write (Hmm)).
I am using LAME 3.90.3 with --aps and the last mppdec of the SV7-branch (1.95z6).

This morning I started troubleshooting and could not find the answer.
Maybe the mppdec is too fast for LAME, so working with pipes is not possible.
Then I took all2lame, same problem (I do not have written down the message, but LAME was started after mppdec, but mppdec gave the message that it could not write anything - very suspicious).
Also very interesting is, that mpc2mp3 gives up too, same error-message like all2lame.

I can do both on its own (decoding to wav and encoding with lame) but I want to try this way since it is very comfortable (yes, using mpc-frontend and all2lame is no mentionable work, but...).

Maybe somebody of you (I would like to add 'guys', but do not know if you feel annoyed cause of pretending nearness which is not there (in your view) - silent sPeziFisH is reading every day but is barely not apparent :-) ) can help me?

I think I remember Case saying that there is a bug when using pipes with mppdec.

Edit: OK, I think I have found it. You need to use an older version. See here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=7702&hl=stdout

sPeziFisH, I have seen the kind of behavior that you report (processing continues to 100% but corresponding files not produced, buttons stay grayed out) with the new Frontah when the file-tagging and/or newfile naming schemes are not correct.

As soon as Frontah starts working, you should see your first output file, correctly named, appear in the output directory. If no file appears, or if the file has an incorrect name or incorrect tags carried over, check your naming and tagging schemes.

You can check and edit most things in Frontah by editing the frontah_cfg file with, say, notepad.

madah,
why you recommend Monkey's Audio version 3.96?
Yes, the new alpha 3.98 is alpha, but there is 3.97 from august 2, 2002. What wrong with it?

Because it is modified by Frank Klemm and supports pipes.

@Gambit:
Thx for your advice - *buff* all problems are gone and I am very happy it is working and this way can be used in future.

Thx to mrosscook for your 'come to rescue'

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Parental Advisory - post contains explicit lyrics

Frontah 0.91 is now available here

There are some new features and code changes, so there could be some new bugs...

Changes:

• Fixed problem with ID3v2 and Monkey's Audio
  
• Some settings where not saved
  
• Added option to skip already processed files
  
• Added option to show ABR target in statusbar
  
• When running replaygain in album mode, every directory is now handled as a separate album
  
• Added some useful commands to right-click menu
  
• Added some more options that could be useful
  
• Ctrl + A will now select all files
  
• Added somewhat better tag handling
  
• Some bugfixes

Awesome! THX

I'm having trouble understanding how to use replaygain with frontah. I've got replaygain.exe in the frontah folder, and when I add a folder (album), and click replaygain, the dos box flashes briefly, and nothing else happpens??

I've tested it and have the same problems, but only with replaygain.exe for musepack.

It gives errors like this: (look in stderr-redirection.txt):

Replaygain 0.84 © 2001-2002 Klemm/Robinson/Sawyer
Can't decode 'D:\path\filename.mpc'

But running replaygain.exe from cmd/command works fine.

Although it works fine with the old 0.0.0.2 version, but fails in any other...

Madah, I sent you a PM the other day. If you've not already, could you check your messages? (Not wanting to nag, just wanting to know it was read. Any response - even negative - is better than none. )

- M.

Is there a different version available? Do you know where I can get it?
Also, yep, that's what I got in "stderr-redirection.txt".

OK. No yummy GUI

One other thing: I've got some mpc's that I've accidentally put a id3v2 tag on as well as ape2. Is there a way for frontah to strip the id3's, leaving the other tag?

Found the solution: DISABLE "redirect stderr to file". The problem seems to be that replaygain.exe is piping data from mppdec.exe.



Select all files, right-click and select "Tagging -> Convert/Update Tag Format". This will leave only the chosen tags, in Settings -> Tagging -> Advanced.

Thanks! B) This is great, but...


I still can't figure it out!

This is what I do:
Put Frontah files, mppdec, mppenc, replaygain into a folder.
Open frontah, disable "redirect stderr to file", add a folder of mpc's, select ReplayGain (album), click the big replaygain button.
The dos window flashes briefly, and my files all say OK, but the RG_Track, RG_Album show 0.00 dB and Time, cpu etc. are blank?