MP3Ext is an extension for the explorer. It adds a new page to the properties-menu of MP3-files. It shows all info about the mp3-file, e.g. the playlength, bitrate, sample-frequency, and the ID3-Tag if the file has got one. You can even edit the ID3-Tag, and scan complete directories.
It installs an Icon-handler dor displaying different icons for different bitrates
A tooltip-handler is installed, which displays tooltips for MP3s where the system supports tooltips
MP3ext is distributed under the GNU Plublic License, which is included in the original distribution of mp3ext.
Further, you use mp3ext at your own risk. I am not responsible for any damages done by mp3ext.
MP3ext can handle ID3v1.0, ID3v1.1, ID3v2.2, ID3v2.3 tags. It cannot handle ID3v2.4 tags. when writing the tag, an ID3v1.1 and ID3v2.3 tag is written.
ID3V2-notes:New Themes: just create a file in the Themes directory woth the extension .mp3theme. The format of a theme-file is quite easy, just look at the norman.mp3theme as an example.
Since V2.1 multiple files are supported. Therefore there are some things,
which need to be explained: You are given the total time, and the average
time of all MP3 files. The number of read files is given too (including the
number of files which actually have an ID3-Tag). If the MP3-files have different
properties, i.e. you have selected a file with a bitrate of 128000 and 56000
the bitrate field displays "128k, 56k". The same applies to the other fields
too (Mode, Layer, Freq, Version). Since this multi-info-feature uses much
space, I am using abbreviations, such as 128k for 128000 or 44k1 instead
of 44100. The mode field has the following abbreviations:
JS=Joint-Stereo, S=Stereo, DC=Dual-Channel, SC=Single-Channel
Editing multiple files:
The first file, which is being scanned is displayed. In fact it's the file
which is the selected one (the one you right-clicked on). You can click
through the files by using the '>' and '<' buttons.
On the left side of the edit-fields you have a check-mark. If this is checked,
the associated field will be copied to the next MP3 you are going to edit.
This way you can set defaults for the rest of the files.
The next feature is the drop-down list, which contains the strings of all
scanned files which have a valid string in this field.
If you select a bunch of MP3s (e.g. recursive on a whole Harddisk), and you want to know where a special file is, you can search in the list MP3ext curently has got: simply hold down the shift-key while selecting something in the drop-down list of the fields. The next file with this field will get the current one.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MM\MP3ext\TemplatesDefaultFrames". It consists of a comma
seperated list of the 4-char ID3v2 Tag identifiers, which you want to
set values for. e.g. to set the comment and the encoder you would add
set the value to "COMM,TENC". The order is irrelevant.
The next step is to set the value. Therefore add a value for each Tag
with the name "default<TAGNAME>", and its content is the actual string
that will be set. e.g. "defaultCOMM" with a content of
"default Comment from the registry". Do the same for the TENC-tag.
Now your finished with the configuration. Now the Encoder and Comment
fields will be set after the filename has been scanned.
Now you can finally add your favourite pictures to MP3s. You can add a picture for a specific type, when you click on the checkmark. Then you will get a requesterm where you can select a file to load.
Note: MP3ext does *not* perform any checks of the validity of the file you
load. The mime-type is taken from the extension of the file. You can,
e.g. load a text-file, e.g. pic.txt, which would be loaded, and set to
a mime-type of "image/txt"...
Clicking again on the checkmark, will remove the picture from the tag. The action-buttons (view, save) work on the image seleted with the radio buttons.
A note to the view-button. Since I don't want to compile support for all the different picture-types, The following procedure is done: The file ist saved Temporarily to a file with the endling of the mime-type. e.g. if the mime-type is "image/jpeg" then the created file is mp3extpicture.jpeg. Then ShellExecute("open") is called on the created file, thus calling your installed viewer for this filetype.
When a new ID3v2-Tag is saved, then there is always a TSIZ-frame saved. This frames stores the length of the MP3-file without the ID3v2 header. If this frame exists, then the stored one will be used. It is never changed! Now, what is it for? Some people asked me to add a feature to recognize incomplete MP3 files. So here you are. In the new Size-field of the MP3-page, you see when the TSIZ-info doesn't match the actual size. a negative number means, there is data missing; a positive value means, there is too much data. Although the latter case shouldn't happen.
To use this in the Tooltips, I created a new action-element called $(diffwarn). This tag creates a warning text, if the diffsize is 0. Additionally there is the new keyword $(diffsize), which is the difference as shown in the Size-field.
Note: If you see a Size-Tag in the framelisting, (e.g. the tooltips), then the size displayed there is not the actual size of the file, but the size of the MP3-data!
The Icon will be stored inside the MP3-file, as a "APIC"-frame, Type 0x02,
and mime-type "image/ico".
if the handler doesn't find an icon in the file, some internal icons are shown:
submitting new Icon-themes:
If you made a new Icon-theme and you want me me to put it on my page
be sure you have the following included:
.mp3theme file<theme> 16.(gif|png)"<theme> 32.(gif|png)"<theme> S.(gif|png)"<theme> B.(gif|png)"If you send me themes with some of the files missing, I will not add them to my page!
The actions are used for exporting the MP3-data you can see into a file or a clipboard. If you specify a file, the file will be executed, after it has been generated, just like a double-click on the explorer. Therefore you can even treat them as a kind of macro. You can for example make your own renaming of the MP3s by creating a batch-file, or create a html-file which will be shown immediately, or simply copy an album to the clipboard. The clipboard has the advantage of being able to use the data directly in another program such as a word-processor of graphic program. It helps a lot when you create covers for CDs...
The action-button changes ist name each time you select a different action.
If you left-click on the button the last action will be executed on the current file.
If you hold down the shift-key, all files will be used.
When pressing the right button over the action-button, you get a list of all
available actions, and the selected one will be executed. The trick with the
shift-key works here too, which executes the action on all loaded MP3 files
The first thing about them is, they are pure ascii-files, which can be edited with any text-editor, such as notepad. They are stored in a directory which can be set on the config page. The directory is scanned when you get the action-menu the first time (and after clicking OK, on the config-page). On the config page you can load and save them. When you click on the load button you automatically get a requester pointing to the current ActionPath. The same is done for the saving too. When clicking OK, the current edited is not set automatically; you have to select a new one with the right button.
The Actions of MP3ext have the extension ".mp3a"
An action consists of four entries:
The syntax is the same for all three entries. Keywords are entered as
"$(keyword)" and if you want a "$" you have to
enter "$$". In addition I added some special characters too
for more flexibility:
\a: Bell\b: Backspace\f: Formfeed\n: New line\r: Carriage return\t: Horizontal tab\v: Vertical Tab\\: single '\'Some information, you can use is specific to an MP3. In order to have some useful
values in the header and footer, this info is taken from the first selected MP3. This
way you can for example make a list for a complete album if you use the following
template, when you select all the files from the album:
ClipHeaderFormat: "Artist: "$(artist)" Album: "$(album)" Total Time: $(tottime)"
When the Filenames are sorted in the order of the tracks, and you right-clicked
on the first one, you get a quite useful listing of a complete album.
e.g. the files: love1.mp3, love2.mp3, love3.mp3, love4.mp3, love5.mp3
would result in:
ClipFileFormat: "$(number): $(time) - $(title)"
ClipFooterFormat: ""
Artist: "Dire Straits" Album: "Love over gold" Total Time: 40:54 1: 14:13 - Telegraph road 2: 06:43 - Private investigations 3: 05:48 - Industrial disease 4: 06:15 - Love over gold 5: 07:55 - It never rainsNow the list of keywords: (some entries can be retrieved in two types: abbreviated and normal. The abbreviated version returns a short version of the info. i.e. 128k instead of 128000.)
| keyword | description |
|---|---|
album | album from ID3 |
artist | artist from ID3 |
avgtime | average time |
bitrate | bitrate |
br | bitrate abbrev |
comment | comment from ID3 |
count | # files |
curdate | current date with the format mm/dd/yy |
curtime | current time with the format hh:mm:ss |
file | file with path (the same as $(path)\$(filename) ) |
filename | filename without path |
filesize | size of the file in bytes |
filesizek | size of the file in kilobytes |
filesizeM | size of the file in megabytes |
genre | genre-string from ID3 |
layer | layer-string |
mod | mode abbrev |
mode | mode |
mpegver | MPEG version |
number | current number of the file |
path | path without filename |
samplefrequency | sample frequency |
secavgtime | average time in seconds |
sectime | length in seconds |
sectottime | total length in seconds |
sfreq | sample frequency abbrev |
time | length of mp3 |
title | title from ID3 |
tottime | total time |
track | track number from ID3 |
track2 | track number from ID3 formatted with 2 digits, and leading zero if necessary |
volume | Name of the Partition, the MP3 is located; Volume-name of the disk |
year | year from ID3 |
For those, who want to create the files on their own, can do so with any text-editor, such as notepad. The files is constructed as follows:
[ActionFilename] <file> [ActionHeaderFormat] <format> [ActionFileFormat] <format> [ActionFooterFormat] <format>
The Keywords must start at the beginning on a line; and the format can be several lines. The beginning of the file can contain anything; I start reading when I have found the first keyword.
Go to the config-page and select the Templates-Tab. There you can configure the filename-analyzer. Now you can specify your own templates based on regular expressions. The analyzer tries all the templates on the filename (incl. path), and if it matches, it applies the substrings to the according fields in the ID3-Tag, if they are empty. If more than one template matches, then this procedure is done more than once. So put the more complex templates at the top, and the general templates at the bottom of the list.
The template:
They are simple regular expressions. If you want to match a specific field,
e.g. the track, then you must put the 4-char id3v2-identifier followed by a ':'
in the first part of a subexpression: (TRCK:[0-9]*). This would be converted
to the subexpression ([0-9]*), and if it matches, the part that matched
will be written to the track. For more information about Regular expressions
see the documentation to the rx.lib I am using, or in more detail check out
various documenation on UNIX-regex, or PERL-documentation.
Note:
In order to be platform-independent with the filename,
all backslashes are converted to normal slashes.
i.e. c:\temp\xx.mp3 -> c:/temp/xx.mp3
The following fields are currently recognized:
Now some examples:
.*/(TIT2:.*)\.mp3..*/(TPE1:.*)-(TIT2:.*)\.mp3.*(TRCK:[0-9]*).*mp3.*(TRCK:[0-9][0-9]).*mp3.*(0(TRCK:[0-9])|(TRCK:[1-9][0-9])).*mp3.*(0?(TRCK:[0-9])|(TRCK:[1-9][0-9])).*mp3Since I am quite busy, and I now stop development of mp3ext, there will be no big support in the future. The only exception is if you find a serious bug (like memory leak). In this case, send an email to michael@mutschler.de, including the OS you are using, and the MP3ext Version installed. Otherwise I will simply ignore the mail (or reply with RTFM, which means the answer is in this document).