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OS/2 Help File | 1998-09-25 | 80.6 KB | 1,047 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. What's new? If you want to find out, what is new or was changed in this release, see the version history Please note that there are more 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 ;-). "Registering" Minta is mailware, so please write me a short mail (or a postcard or something if you like) if you use Minta! (see also "The Top 10 reasons why not to register Minta" ;-) ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. The windows ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This section informs you about the various windows of Minta, what functions they offer and how to use them. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.1. The main window ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ The main window is the window where you do most of the work. Here you can edit the tags of files and get info about them. The main window has the following sections: The selected files list Fileinfo display Taginfo display The pushbuttons and the menu ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.1.1. The selected files list ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This list holds the selected files, i.e. the files that you may work with. Adding files to the list There are several ways to add files to the list: You may use the file dialog that appears when you press the "Open" button or select "Open..." from the "Files" menu. You may have Minta search directories for files to add, by choosing "Auto-open..." from the "Files" menu. A directory 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 may drop files and/or directories onto the Minta main window using direct manipulation (drag'n'drop). The files will be added to the list, directories will be search for files to add. Removing files from the list There are several ways to remove files to the list: To remove only the current file, press ALT+'d' or select "Remove current" from the "Files" menu. To remove all files from the list select "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 2.1.2. 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 2.1.3. 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). Of course only if the file is not read-only (e.g. has the read-only flag set or resides on a CDROM). 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. If you like, you may edit them yourself (see also "The genres file"). 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 2.1.4. 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 for the file system (e.g. on a FAT drive where you can only have filenames up to 8 characters long). List... This will open the list 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 selected files list. Handle with care! Play file (menu only) Using this will launch an MP3 player of your choice using the current file. See The player CMD-files for more info about this. Show buttons (menu only) Using this will show (if hidden) or hide (if shown) the buttons on the right side of the window. Show fileinfo (menu only) Using this will show (if hidden) or hide (if shown) the fileinfo group. 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. Help contents (menu only) This will show the contents of this online help. (General) Help This will bring up this help. But I guess you found that out by yourself already ;-) ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.2. The settings window ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ The settings window allows you to modify and adjust various things like if you want Minta to notify you of certain events (e.g. when files have been added to the selected files list) or what language you want to use. Selecting the "Ok" pushbutton at the bottom of the window will close the settings and activate them. Selecting "Undo" will revert all your changes for the currently selected page of the notebook. "Help" will display the help screen for the current page. The settings notebook has the following pages: Notification Keep info Misc Language ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.2.1. The Notification page ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ On this page you can select, of what events Minta shall notify you and how to do it. Notify me when ... Here you can select of what events you want to be notified. This section is pretty self-explaining I guess. Notification style Here can you select how you want to be notified. "Click-away message box" will display a message window with an "Ok" pushbutton, that you have to select to dismiss the window. "Timer controlled auto notifier" will display a message window that will automatically disappear after several seconds (you may also click it with the mouse to dismiss it). "Audio-acustic beeping device" will just output three beeps using the speaker. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.2.2. The Keep info page ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ On this page you can select, if (some of) the tag information should be kept in the fields for the new file when switching files with ALT+'n' or ALT+'p' and what should be kept then. Keep (some) tag info when switching files Check this button, if you want to use the "Keep info"-feature. If you do not check this button, when switching files the new file will only get the information that is saved in its own tag. Keep ... Here you can select what parts of the tag information should be kept. Pretty self explaining, I guess. Options Some options for the "Keep info" function. "Increase/decrease track number" - If you activate this, the track number will be automatically increased when switching to the next or decreased when switching to the previous file. "Only keep if info not already present" - If you activate this, information that you selected to be kept will only be kept, if the new file not already has that info (i.e. entry field is empty, track is 0, genre is "(none)"). If the new file has the info, this info will not be changed. Example: You selected "Title" and "Artist" in the "Keep ..." group and "Only keep if info not already present" (and "Keep (some) tag info when switching files" of course too) is activated. The current file's Title is "I wish you were a beer" and the Artist "Cycle Sluts from Hell". You press ALT+'n' (or select "Save & Next" from the "Tag" menu). The new file already has a Title (let's say "Dark Ships") but no Artist. The info in the entry fields for the new file will now read: "Dark Ships" in the Title field and "Cycle Sluts from Hell" in the Artist field. If you had not selected "Only keep if ..." in the above example, the Title field for the new file would read "I wish you were a beer". Hmm, I hope understanding it is far less complicated than programming it was ;-) Note: When using "Keep info" and reaching a file that is read-only or has info for a field and "Only keep if not already present" is enabled, Minta will not keep the info of the "original" file but use the info of this file from now on. This will hopefully be fixed in a future release. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.2.3. The Misc page ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ On this page you can adjust various miscellanious settings. Read genres from file ... Here you can enter the name of the (text-)file where Minta shall read the names for the genres from. For more information see "The genres file". Player command Here you can enter the command that shall be used to start an MP3 player when you select "Play current" from the "Extras" menu of the main window . Enter $f on the place where the filename should be provided on the command line. Note: For some technical reasons you must use a CMD-file to start the player, directly calling the EXE-file may not work. I have included command files for most of the wellknown MP3-players for OS/2 in the Minta distribution, please modify the one you want to use to reflect your configuration (can be done with any texteditor). Example: Enter "goPM123 $f" here if you want to use PM123 to play your files. Other options Here you may adjust various other settings: "Use filename as Title when file has none" - If you enable this, Minta will automatically insert the file's filename in the Title field in the tag info group when the file has not got a Title by now. "Use 31 chars max. when autorenaming" - If you enable this, the auto-renaming function (see "The push buttons and the menu" for more info about this) will not create names that are longer than 31 characters (including the ".mp3" extension). This is useful if you want to build CDROMs with MP3s as names then may only be 31 characters maximum. "No warning about invalid files" - Minta sometimes cannot decode the header of an MP3 file (some files do have really strange headers) and will assume that the file is no valid MP3 file (this will happen too of course if the file is indeed no MP3 file!). If you have got many such files you can disable the warning message that Minta will show in such a case here. "Read-only: entryfields only read-only" - Normally if the current file is read-only, Minta will disable all the fields in the tag info group. As this makes them hard to read sometimes, you may enable this option and Minta will just make the entryfields read-only, so you cannot modify them. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.2.4. The Language page ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ On this page you can select, what language Minta shall use. You may select any of the languages that are shown in the list. Note: If you select another language here, it will not change until you restart the program. Note: If you want to translate Minta to another language, you are very welcome to do so! Please see "Help wanted!" for more info. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.3. 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 2.4. The auto-open window ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This window allows you to select the directory that shall be searched for MP3 files. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. Commandline arguments ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ The (only) command line argument that Minta accepts is a file- or directory-name. This allows you to specify the file to be loaded or the directory to be searched for files on the command line as well as associating MP3 files with Minta on the WPS. Example If you type "minta c:\mp3s" on the command line, Minta will search the directory "c:\mp3s" (only if it is a directory of course ;-) for MP3-files and the main window will pop up with all the files found already being added to the selected files list. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4. Tips & tricks ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Here you find some tips & tricks that will save you work or make things easier when using Minta. Tagging whole albums - The "Save all" approach One way to easily tag whole albums, without having to enter the same info over and over again is by using the "Save all" function: 1. Load all the MP3 files belonging to the album into the selected files list. If you keep them together in one directory, you can use the auto-open function. (Make sure that these are the only files in the list, if necessary by using "Delete all" before!) 2. Enter the Artist, Album, Year (and possibly Genre) info in the appropriate fields of the tag info display. Make sure, the other fields are empty (or 0, or "(none)"). 3. If you want stuff like playtime, etc. in the comment for each song, use the appropriate macros in the comment field. 4. Select the "Save all" button or "Save all" from the "Tag" menu. Click "Ok" in the message box that appears. The info you entered will now be saved for all the files. 5. Select the first file from the selected files list and fill out the missing info (Title, Track #, etc.). 6. When you're done, use ALT+'n' to proceed through the files and fill out the missing stuff for all of them. Tagging whole albums - The "Keep info" approach The other way to easily tag whole albums is by using the "Keep info" function: 1. Open the settings window (by selecting "Settings..." from the "Files" menu) and turn to the "Keep info" page. 2. Activate (if not already activated) "Keep (some) tag info when switching files". In the "Keep ..." group activate "Artist", "Album", "Year" and possibly "Genre" and "Comment" too. If you want to save the Track # for each file, activate "Increase/decrease track number". Deactivate all other buttons on the page (if some of them are activated). 3. Close the settings by using the "Ok" button. 4. Load all the MP3 files belonging to the album into the selected files list. If you keep them together in one directory, you can use the auto-open function. (Make sure that these are the only files in the list, if necessary by using "Delete all" before!) 5. Enter the Title, Artist, Album, Year (and possibly Genre) info for the first file in the appropriate fields of the tag info display. 6. If you want stuff like playtime, etc. in the comment for each song, use the appropriate macros in the comment field. 7. If you want to save the Track # for each file, set Track # to 1. 8. Use ALT+'n' (or "Save & next" from the "Tag" menu) to switch to the next file in the list. Fill out the missing fields. Use ALT+'n' to proceed through all the files and fill out the missing stuff for all of them. A useful feature, that can be used in the second approach, is to activate "Use filename as Title if file has none" on the "Misc" page of the settings window. If your files already have filenames, that resembles the Title of the song very much (e.g. like "I_WISH_YOU_WERE_A_BEER.MP3"), all you have to do then is modifying the Title for each file. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5. Past, present & future ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This section provides info about the history of Minta, some info about (bugs in) the current release and things that may be added or changed in the future. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5.1. 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'n'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. Version 2.00 Due to the infinite creativity of the beta testers, suggestions from users and wishes of my own, Minta now includes the following new features: As I already promised for the previous version, Minta now loads the genres from a user-selectable and -editable file. Minta accepts its own format for the file or can load WarpAMP's "genres.txt". See "The genres file" for more information about this. If a file has no entry for the "Title" field, Minta now can automatically use the filename as the Title. Minta can now take a filename (or directory) as a commandline argument, allowing you to specify the file to be loaded or the directory to be searched for files on the command line as well as associating MP3 files with Minta on the WPS. Minta now supports other languages (well, english and german by now). You may now drag'n'drop files or directories on the Minta window and Minta will add the files to the selected files list/search the directories for MP3 files and add them to the list. You can now easily launch an MP3 player of your choice with the currently selected file from Minta. When switching files, you can now specify that certain information from the file's tag will be kept for the file being switched to (handy e.g. for tagging whole albums). When a file is read-only, Minta now can make the tag info fields just read-only instead of disabled ("greyed out"), sometimes they were a little bit hard to read then. You can now choose between three different "styles" for the notification windows. You can now disable the "Invalid MP3 file" warning. Auto-renaming now may limit the names to 31 characters max. (useful when creating CDROMs that only support 31 characters in filenames). Improved and extended online help/documentation. Fixed some bugs (current file not being closed when "Delete all" used, small bug in the "Select directory ..." dialog, Minta crashing when listing files with invalid genres, ...) ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5.2. Known bugs ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ No "real" bugs are known at the moment, the following are more or less only inconveniences: 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. When using "Keep info" and reaching a file that is read-only or has info for a field and "Only keep if not already present" is enabled, Minta will not keep the info of the "original" file but use the info of this file from now on. Notification windows sometimes do not "inherit" the color and font from the main window. Drag'n'drop does only work if you move the object(s) to a space on the main window, that is not occupied by a child window (button, entry field, etc.). "Play file" requires a CMD file to start the MP3 player. The playlist of WarpAMP sometimes does not show various taginfo fields. But as other programs (PM123 to mention one) do show everything right and I really have no idea what eventually could be wrong with the tags, I'll just blame it on WarpAMP ;-) ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5.3. 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). 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. Auto-tagging function. Add an MP3 database to Minta, that will allow you to to easily keep trace of all your MP3 files, together with their info, search for files, print lists of selected groups, export lists to other formats, and more. 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 ... Remove the before mentioned "bugs". ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6. Files ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This section informs you about some of the files that are supplied with Minta ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6.1. The genres file ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ In this file, the names for the various genres are stored. Normally this file is called "genres.txt" but you can give any file you like using the entryfield on the Misc page in the settings window. You may edit this file with any common texteditor, but before you do this, please think about the following: If you change the name of an "old" genre, all files with this genre will now have the new name to. A second drawback of this is, that probably you are the only one who uses this new genre definition. If anyone else gets an MP3 file set to this genre, he/she will see the "old" genre name. Which may not be what you wanted. If you invent new genres (i.e. add some to the list) as well nobody else will know about them. If anyone else gets an MP3 file set to one of this genres this may result in an error or at least some confusion. The default format for the genres file is Minta's own format: # Minta genres file # This and the line above are comments Blues Classic Rock Country Dance ... The file is interpreted line by line. Comments (lines starting with '#') and empty lines are ignored. Other lines are taken to be the name for a genre. The genres are numbered in the order they are found (i.e. in the above example Blues would be 1, Classic Rock 2 and so on). Lines (and genre names) may be up to 255 characters long. Minta does also understand the format of WarpAMP's "genres.txt" (where every line consists of "nn name" with "nn" being the number and "name" the name for that genre). Actually you even can mix the two format and Minta will still try to get the right things out of it, but this is not recommended! ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6.2. The player CMD-files ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ This files are used to start an MP3 player of your choice directly out of Minta using the current MP3 file. For some technical reason, Minta has to start the player by using a CMD file, directly starting the EXE file may not work. I hope this will change in some future release. You can give the name of the CMD file to use on the Misc page of the settings window. Please modify the file for the player of your choice to suit your needs (basically this just means adjust installation drive and path). The following files are included: gowamp.cmd - for WarpAMP gopm123.cmd - for PM123 gompg123.cmd - for mpg123 If you use some other player you should be able to easily modify one of the files (actually they are all pretty much the same ;-) to use it with your player. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7. 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 8. 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.ipcon.de or http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/CIP/thielen/teamos2), the makers of the "Team Trier Collection"-CDROM. 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 9. Help wanted! ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Now that Minta supports other languages, I of course want to include as many as possible. The problem is that I only speak english and german well enough to do a translation :-) So if anybody out there wants to translate Minta to a new language you are gladly welcome to do so! I have included the source for the helpfile and program ressources in a seperate ZIP archive ('language.zip'). Just take the *.rc and *.hlp file of your choice and go to work! :-) If you have any questions, feel free to ask me! ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 10. 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). This program uses a few small pieces of code from Richard Papo's excellent "MemSize" system resources monitor (You can find out more about MemSize at http://www.msen.com/~rpapo). Thanks also go to all the users who notified me of bugs, made suggestions or just wrote me a mail about Minta! ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 11. "Registering" ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ You can become a registered user for Minta (2.00) just by sending an e-mail (or postcard or whatever) to me. Actually this is required, if you use Minta (more than once a year or so ;-). Just write something like "Hi, I use your program Minta!" and I'm satisfied. If you do not want to be included in the mailing list for news and infos about Minta do not forget to tell me! But I guess there are a lot of people out there who have seen Minta, worked with it for a while but just don't want to register by writing me a mail. Well, for you I've assembled this list of ... The Top 10 reasons why not to register Minta In my opinion, Minta is a pretty bad program. I don't like the color or font of the windows (and far less I like the idea of being able to change them!), I don't speak any of the languages it supports and I heard that there once really was found a bug! Not to mention the crappy support; writing an e-mail to get help is far to complicated. I'm totally satisfied with anything that Minta 1.67 offers. I'll find my own workarounds for this bugs that might be discovered! I'm never going to use this drag'n'drop, this auto-tagging capabillities or this database stuff! And ID3 v2.x is far beyond my needs anyway. So spare me by your updates ... Who cares for info on new releases? Why should I get on yet another of these mailing-lists? My mailbox is overflowing on a regular base and I'm daily checking the "incoming" directory of Hobbes anyway! I just can't spare the time to write a mail to you! See, I've got a job, a wife, 10 kids or so, a girlfriend, a car, a house, a swimming pool and thousands of MP3 files that still need to be tagged, so I'm really busy night and day! I really don't want to think of what I would miss in this lost five minutes ... Why should I make you feel that it's a good thing to develop software for OS/2? There are far to many programs for OS/2 already, we don't want to get the market oversupplied, do we? There are lot's of other programs out there, that do the thing! Well ok, maybe they don't have that nice PM interface, might be that they are lacking a lot of the functionallity that Minta offers and maybe actually there are only one or two of them, but at least I don't have to spend hours and hours writing longish mails to their authors! I don't find supporting the mailware concept of any use. Developers giving away fully working programs and then hoping that someone actually will write a mail when using them, when (s)he can get away without, are an all too trustfull bunch of fools! Why should I try to support OS/2 software? OS/2 is dead, believe me! "I'm Bill Gates of MicroBorg. This OS will be assimilated. Development is futile." I've done a translation to another language and already sent a mail together with the translated files :-) I can't write! I don't know how to send e-mail!! I don't even have an account!!! And I'm using Windows!!!! ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 12. Dedication ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ Minta is dedicated to "Hackers", probably the worst film about computers, information technology and hackerdom that was ever made. A really great comedy though, I nearly laughed my *ss off half the time (well, actually only when I wasn't crying). BTW, I bet "da Vinci" would have brought down every system just by its need for ressources ... BTW 2: Perhaps they should have called the film "The Plague"? No, of course that is not the real dedication ... This release of Minta is dedicated to Godzilla. 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".