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OS/2 Help File | 1998-08-18 | 45.7 KB | 578 lines

ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. About this program ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This program will display information about MP3 audio files and allow you to add an ID3 information tag to them. As well as working with single files, Minta allows you to edit the tags for multiple files easily, either one after another or all at once. Additionaly you can remove the tag from one or more files and automatically have files renamed. The program also can create a list of the MP3-files, with all or just selected information for each file. Please note that there are many things that could (and will) be included into the program in future versions. Send me your comments about what you would like to have ... (though I do not promise anything ;-). Additional info Disclaimers & legal stuff Minta version history (aka "Author's tale of woe") Bugs Future enhancements Author & Minta homepage Credits Help for the main window The selected files list The file information display The tag information display The push buttons & menu Help for the list window General help for the list window Help for the settings window General help for the settings window ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. Disclaimer & legal stuff ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Following are the usual disclaimers. For those of you, who have read them far too many times, here is just the short version: "I didn't do it! I didn't do it! Butthead did it!" ;-) Everyone else, please read this and keep in mind: Though this program has been tested quite a lot, there may still be lots of bugs in it (even serious ones - though I do not think so). Do not blame me, if this program screws up your files or whatever. YOU ARE USING THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK! I don't take any responsibillity for damages, problems, custodies, marital disputes, etc. resulting from use, inability to use, misuse, possession or non-possession of this program directly or indirectly. I also don't give any warranty for bug-free operation, fitness for a particular purpose or the appropriate behaviour of the program concerning animals, programers and little children. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. Or, in a few words: If its good, I am responsible. If its bad, its all your fault. ;-) Permission is granted to redistribute this program free of charge, provided it is distributed in the full archive with unmodified contents and no profit beyond the price of the media on which it is distributed is made. Exception to the last rule: It may be included on freeware/shareware collections on CD-ROM, as well as on magazine cover CD-ROMs. All trademarks mentioned anywhere around her are property of their owners and the like ... (Strange, this sections is getting longer and longer with every program ... :-) ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. Known bugs ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ The following bugs are known: When removing all files from the selected files list, the name of the file, which was selected last will remain in the display. For some strange reason clearing this field does not work (But it works somewhere else! Strange as I said). I must admit, that like most of my programs, Minta too will not work right when very long pathnames (> 255 chars) would have to be used (while autorenaming e.g.). But I never have seen such a "monster" appear by now ... When changing the Title for a file, autorenaming will not rename this file, when the tag has not been saved before. But I don't know if we really should call this a bug. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4. Version history ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Here you can see what was added or changed in the different versions of the program. Version 1.00 This version was only a beta testers' release and never made it into the public. Version 1.16 Due to the wish for additional features from the testers and ideas of my own, the following things were added: Selection of multiple files Removing of tags for multiple files at once Global adding of tags for multiple files at once Easy editing of multiple files one by one Last working directory (where you selected files from) and position of the main window will be saved to MINTA.INI and restored the next time you start the the program Included an install script for creating a Minta WPS object. Version 1.29 Again the testers requested another function to be added, and so I did. If this continues, perhaps Minta will become the first program with its first release being v2.0! ;-) Added function for outputting the selected files to a list. The options for the list will be saved to MINTA.INI too. Removed a small bug concerning the main windows' push buttons Version 1.34 I think I've got to find myself some less demanding beta testers ... Added selection for files in multiple directories. Added possibility of output of filenames to the list. Added menu bar (by now, there are enough user actions to justify one ...) Fixed a number of small bugs. Added an internal version number to MINTA.INI to prevent possible errors when using an old file with new versions of Minta. Version 1.41 No comment. But they're gonna pay for this ... (Oh no! It's freeware! ;-) Added possibility for automatic selection of files in (sub)directories. Added detection and handling of read only files. Added autosize option for the columns in the MP3 file lists. Version 1.44 I just say "v2.0" ... Window title now shows currently processed file/directory while performing global operations (Save all, etc.). Added option for outputting only tagged files to list. Replaced my own (weird, incomplete, perhaps buggy) MP3 header decoding routine with the one from the mpg123/2 sources (a little bit modified). Internal restructuring of some parts of the code. Fixed some bugs, added new ones, fixed those ... Version 1.45 I can't believe it! Live at last! Finally it is done ... First release to the public. Version 1.67 The following things were changed/added: Minta now supports ID3 v1.1 tags too. You can now output Version, Layer, Frequency, Bitrate and Mode too, when listing files. Added the autorenaming function (allows to rename all files after their Title). You can now use macros in the comment field to automatically insert playing time etc. there. You may now hide (and re-show) the buttons and/or the fileinfo group as you like. Settings window, where you can enable/disable the various notification messages. Color and font of the main window may now be easily changed using Drag&Drop from the appropriate palettes. This values will be saved to MINTA.INI too. Modified Minta's icon to meet the standard MP3 file icon. Fixed a few small bugs. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5. Future enhancements ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This features will (hopefully) be included in Minta someday: Easier manual selection of files in multiple directories. Allow different sorting of the files in the selected files list. Allow different order for the info fields when outputting lists. "History" function for the tag entry fields (i.e. you'll get a drop-down list for each field where you can choose from the last n entries). Possibility to keep (some of the) tag information when switching files with ALT+N/ALT+P (may be useful for songs from one album, so you don't have to enter Artist, Album, etc. everytime). Using the "Save all" function will allow something like that already (i.e. insert album, artist and everything that should stay the same, "Save all", then use ALT+N/ALT+P to insert the missing fields). Rename all, Save all, Remove all, Scanning/Writing the list and searching for files would perhaps better have their own thread and I would like to have a status window instead of displaying the stuff in the titlebar. Drag & Drop support (add files to the selected files list by dropping them on the window, adding a tag by dropping from window on the file icon, etc.). Function for launching an MP3 player with the currently selected song. Support other languages. Read genres from a user editable file (yes, yes, I promised it for this release ...) Make Minta handle ID3 v2.x tags. Please note, that due to the complexity of the v2.x tag format this will take some time ... ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6. Author & Minta homepage ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Author Snail mail Thorsten Thielen, Postfach 3928, 54229 Trier, Germany e-Mail thth@gmx.net (this is prefered though thielen@treveris.uni-trier.de is still valid) WWW http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/CIP/thielen Fidonet 2:2452/455.999 (I rarely check my Fido mail, only once per month or so, so answers here may take some time) Proud member of Team OS/2 Region Trier (www.teamos2.trier.de) Suggestions and bug-reports are always welcome. Well ... bug-reports are perhaps not that welcome ... ;-) Minta homepage Visit the Minta homepage for info and new versions: http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/CIP/thielen/minta ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7. Credits ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ I wish to thank the following people, for their help and support with Minta: Thanks got to Sascha Weber and Dirk Riemekasten for their excellent beta testing of Minta (And a kick in the *ss for forcing me to add new features all of the time ;-) Big thanks also go to the mpg123 team for writing the mpg123 MP3 player and including the sources so that I could borrow their MP3 header decoding routine! It is way better than the thing I wrote ... (You can find out more about mpg123 at http://www.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de/~hipp/mpg123.html). ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 8. The selected files list ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This list holds the selected files, i.e. the files that you may work with. You can add files to the list using the file dialog that appears when you press the "Open" button or select "Open..." from the "Files" menu. To search directories for files to add, choose "Auto-open..." from the menu. A dialog will appear, in which you may select the directory, that should be searched for MP3 files to add. Note: All subdirectories of the selected directory will be searched too. You can remove the current file from the list by either pressing ALT+'d' or selecting "Remove current" from the "Files" menu. You can remove all files from the list by selecting "Remove all" from the "Files" menu. Global file operations like "Save all" or "Remove all" affect all the files that are in the list. Single file operations like "Save" and "Remove" affect only the file that is currently chosen from this list. The title of this section displays the number of files, that are currently in the list. Pressing ALT+'n' (or selecting "Save & next" in the "Tag" menu) will automatically save the current tag and make the next file in the list the current file. Pressing ALT+'p' (or selecting "Save & previous" in the "Tag" menu) will do the same, but make the previous file in the list the current one. This way you can easily edit multiple files one by one. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9. The file information display ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This section of the window displays (technical) information about the current MP3 file. This values are taken directly from the MP3 file header and can not be modified. Version This field shows the version of the MP3 file. Layer This field shows the layer (1, 2 or 3) of the MP3 file. Frequency This field shows the sampling frequency or sampling rate of the file. Bitrate This field shows the bitrate of the MP3 file. The bitrate tells the MP3 player, how many bits should be decoded per second. Mode May be stereo, joint stereo, dual channel or mono (single channel). Please do not ask me, what exactly joint stereo or dual channel are ;-) Est. time The estimated playtime of the MP3 file. It is calculated from the size of the file and the bitrate. Emphasis Rarely used today. Something for noise reduction ... Private This tells, if the MP3 file is private or not - whatever that is supposed to mean. Copyright This tells, if the MP3 file is copyright(ed?). Original This tells, if the MP3 file is an original or a copy. I do not now, what exactly knowing this might be good for - or who adjusts it, by the way ... CRCs This tells, if the MP3 file has some kind of error checking included. Padding This tells, some technical stuff which is related to the format of the MP3 file. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 10. The tag information display ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This section of the window displays the information contained in the ID3-tag of the file. You may happily modify this values (or enter new ones, if the file did not have a tag attached before). Note: The length-limits are those of the ID3-tag specification, so do not flame me, if you are not able to squeeze "The siege and investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's castle at Weisseria" into the title field ... Title The title of the song (or whatever piece of sound the file contains). May be up to 30 characters long. Artist Mozart, Black Sabbath, Bananarama, a barking cat ... you get the thing. May be up to 30 characters long. Album What album this song (or whatever) is from. If it is not from any album-related thing, you may leave this field empty if you like. Another field that may contain up to 30 characters. Year When the song was recorded, published, No.1 in the charts or whatever you think might fit here - even letters, as there is no restriction only to numbers. Who knows, what it might be good for ... Up to 4 charactes will find space here. Genre What kind of music it is. Select one from the extensive list. I do not know, who "invents" this genres, but there seems to be common agreement about them, so do not ask me, to add or remove any of them. In the next version of Minta they will be read from a file anyway ... Comment Place a comment here. Not about the program of course, but about the MP3 file. 30 characters (only 28 if you do use "Track #"), the same old thing (I just wanna shut it down). Note: You may use macros here, which will automatically be replaced by the appropriate values when saving the tag (works as well for "Save all"): $v - MPEG version number $l - Layer of the file $t - Estimated playing time $m - Mode $f - Frequency $b - Bitrate Example: If you entered "Playtime=$t, Mode=$m" here and saved, the comment would read something like "Playtime=03:14, Mode=Stereo" then. Track # Here you may enter or select what the track number of the song was (if it came from a CD or something). Note: This field is an extension to ID3 v1.0 (it's v1.1). If you set this to 0, the tag will be v1.0. If you set this to a value other than 0, the tag will be v1.1: The track number is stored in the last 2 Bytes of the comment, so the comment may then be only 28 chars long. If you entered 29 or 30 already, it will be clipped to 28 when saving. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 11. The push buttons and the menu ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Open... This will pop up a file dialog, which will allow you to select the files you want to add to the selected files list . Auto-open... (menu only) This will pop up a directory dialog, which will allow you to select the directory that should be search for files you want to add to the selected files list. Subdirectories will be searched too. Delete current (menu only) This will remove the currently selected file from the selected files list. Delete all (menu only) This will remove all files from the selected files list. Rename all (menu only) This will automatically rename all files to their Title. Characters that appear in the Title but are not allowed in HPFS-Filenames ("*", "?", etc.) and Spaces will be converted to "_" before renaming. If a file with that name already exists, "_n" will be added to the name, where n is a unique number. Files without a tag or with no contents in the Title field will not be renamed. This function will horribly fail (i.e. show an error message) if a file's name would be too long (e.g. on a FAT drive). List... This will open a dialog window, which allows you to output a list of all the selected files to disk. You may also choose what tag information should be included in the list for each file. Exit As you may have already guessed, this will cause the program to end. Save what you do not want to lose, as there is no "Really quit?" ... Save (current) This will save the data in the "tag information" entry fields as the tag for the current file. Save & next (menu only) This will automatically save the current tag and make the next file in the list the current file. Save & previous (menu only) This will automatically save the current tag and make the previous file in the list the current file. Save all This will save the data in the "tag information" entry fields as the tag for all files in the selected files list . If you leave one or more of the entry fields empty (and that means empty, no spaces, nothing!) the value of this field will not be changed if a file already has a tag with information for this entry. Selecting "(none)" for the genre gets you the same effect for that field. Remove (current) Using this will remove the tag from the current file - if it has one (otherwise this will be unselectable). Not very useful for reducing your allocated diskspace as it will only shorten the file for 128 bytes. Remove all Using this will remove the tags from all files in the selected files list. Handle with care! Show buttons Using this will show (if hidden) or hide (if shown) the buttons on the right side of the window. About / Product information This will display a message box with information about the version of Minta you are using as well as how to reach the author and such things. (General) Help This will bring up this help. But I guess you found that out by yourself already ;-) ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 12. The list window ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This window allows you to output a list of all the selected files to disk. The list will contain one line for each file. Output file & "Find..." button Here you can enter the name of the file, where the list should be saved to. Clicking the "Find..." button will open a file dialog, that allows you to specify the file more easily. Information to include Here you can select, what information from the tag should be included in the list for every file. Please select at least one item. The order of the fields can not be changed by now (maybe in a future version). Output list header If you check this button, the list will contain a headline for the information columns. Output total time If you check this button, the playing time for all the files in the list will be summed up and included at the end of the list. Autosize columns If you check this button, the information columns in the list will be sized using the longest occuring entry. If this button is not checked, the maximum possible length of the columns info field will be used. Note: If you included File & Path, this column will always be autosized; I do not think it looks good to make the column's width 256 characters (the maximum size of a HPFS path) all the time. Please also note, that using this feature will approximatly double the time for creating the list, as Minta first will have to check all files for the maximum lengths of the fields (except for the filename/path field, where the maximum length is calculated when adding the files to the selected files list). Only files with tag If you check this button, only files that have an ID3 tag will be written to the list, files without tag will be ignored. Ok This pushbutton will save the list to the selected output file. Cancel This pushbutton will close the window without taking any action. Help This pushbutton shows this helpscreen. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 13. The settings window ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This window allows you to enable/disable the various notification messages, that show up after certain events. Ok This pushbutton will activate the new the settings. Cancel This pushbutton will close the window without taking any action. Help This pushbutton shows this helpscreen. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ MP3 is a format for encoding audio data (songs, pieces of music, etc.) which allows much sound to be encoded in few bytes (i.e. very good compression ratios). ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ An MP3-file may have a so called "ID3 tag" appended, which is just a piece of data at the end of the file, that includes additional information about this piece of audio: Title, Artist, Album, Year, a comment, the genre (song type), track number (ID3 v1.1). This information is displayed by many MP3 players. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Residing on the album "Imaginos" from Blue ╨⌐yster Cult. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Taken from the lyrics of "Shut it down" from Mot╨ñrhead's album "Iron fist".