Stronger ties between tracks and Album Art

MoDementia · Post by **MoDementia** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 12:46 am

I have just started to organise/clean up my Album art.
I converted from WMP to MM so I have the "Folder.jpg" in the album folder with the tracks.
Until I understood exactly how the art was linked I made a number of errors.

I have noted in another post that there are no options for "folder.jpg" to be the default setting but even with the current option of filename and my pictures etc the links are not strong enough.

Examples.

Partially auto organise album.
The link gets updated to the old location but the format of <Album Name>\art.jpg is distorted.
Same with drag and drop onto album art panel.
Almost made the mistake of deleting the tempoary art folders after creating the connections

If it is possible I would like the art.jpg to always be, at least copied if not moved so that the default mask is consistent e.g. <Album Name>\art.jpg

So if I decide to split a multi CD album into "album name CD 1" and "album name CD 2" both directories will end up with their own copy of the art.jpg instead of one keeping the original and the other linked back to the other directory.

Same for the My Pictures scenario, don't just keep the same path, move the art.pic to My Pictures\<New album name>art.jpg

Post by **Lowlander** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 9:12 am

Album art should either be kept in the directory of the album or in the tags. When you start with storing album art in other directories you are setting yourself up for problems. I believe that this is the common convention nowadays.
In my opinion storing in the tags is the best solution as this way the link is never lost. It doesn't matter which application/device gets it's hands on the songs, they will be there.
I thought that auto-organize would move the album art with the songs. Anyway you already have a mistake in the logic by having the same album art for two different albums (CD1 & CD2). It's best to have them as one album and use the track number to identify disc (2.6 might support disc number, I think I have read that somewhere).

Question, what's your use for storing album art in My Pictures in Album folders?

MoDementia · Post by **MoDementia** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 5:43 pm

Lowlander wrote:Album art should either be kept in the directory of the album or in the tags. When you start with storing album art in other directories you are setting yourself up for problems.

MM supports other directories = no problem

Lowlander wrote:...storing in the tags is the best solution...Anyway you already have a mistake in the logic by having the same album art for two different albums (CD1 & CD2)

So instead of 2 copies of album art I should have 40-50 copies?
WMPs version of "auto tag from amazon" only supported multi CDs
I have seen front and back covers differ based on Live/studio studio/acustic etc

Lowlander wrote:(2.6 might support disc number, I think I have read that somewhere)

Even if it does, amazon doesn't. i.e. the second disc will be numbered 26, 27, 28...

Lowlander wrote: I thought that auto-organize would move the album art with the songs.

It does only if you move the whole album/directory not if you split it as in my example.

Lowlander wrote:Question, what's your use for storing album art in My Pictures in Album folders?

I don't use this method but it is an option in MM. I think it has some merits; don't have to sift through mp3s to find art, can use a image organising program, adding removing songs don't have to do do an auto tag from amazon, backup separately etc.

Post by **Lowlander** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:05 pm

It certainly supports saving album art to other folders, but I think it's a best practice to keep the images in the tags or in the album folder.

Multi-CD support wouldn't really affect Auto-Tag from Amazon unless you tag the track Titles (as that is together with the track#), but this could also be addressed if said feature is added.

I never said you need 40-50 copies. If you store in tags it would be as many copies as tracks, that is correct. But this method seems to work best in a multi-application/device environment. In case you choose to go with external album art you would only need one copy per album. As you add disc number to the album you will need as many copies as discs. To make things easier I suggested to not include the disc number info in the album name, thus having all songs on the same album. For now you will need to use the track# field or a custom instead, but maybe 2.6 might feature a disc# field which would solve said problem.

I would find it more logical to keep art and song together as the art belongs to the song metadata. Even for backup solutions that would make more sense to me. That doesn't mean that your method is wrong, but in your case I think you're better of storing album art with the songs or in the tags. I'm afraid that you will always run into situations where the links proved to not be strong enough, even if MediaMonkey supports it better (which I'm not against of course).

MoDementia · Post by **MoDementia** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:30 pm

By default WMP doesn't store the art in the tags (I'm not sure it even supports it) it uses the image in the directory "Folder.jpg" so for multi-application/device environment with WMP in the list of applications storing in the tag isn't an option?

Post by **Lowlander** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 7:19 pm

I don't know if WMP supports writing album art to tag, but it does support reading album art in tags. Actually many applications support the reading of the tag as it's part of the specifications.

Of course not all file format support storing of album art in tags, which is a limitation if you want to use the same album art method on all files and you have files that don't support storing in tags.

MoDementia · Post by **MoDementia** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 8:52 pm

Even something like this would help (The path of external artwork)

Post by **Lowlander** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:32 am

Hover with the mouse over the individual art and the tooltip will show the path or stored in tags and also the size of the file.

MoDementia · Post by **MoDementia** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:40 pm

Cool, thanks that helps but it doesn't stay long enough to read it properly.
Can I adust how long the tooltip stays?

Post by **Lowlander** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:56 pm

Probably not unless it's a Windows setting. Anyway your suggestion should be considered. The tooltip was just a suggestion for now.

MoDementia · Post by **MoDementia** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:13 pm

I have finally found one of the reasons for my album art management issues.

WMP auto auto organises so I have ended up with some albums like:

<Album Artists>\Very Best\<Title>
<Album Artists>\Very Best (1994)\<Title>

<Album Artists>\Very Best [EMI]\<Title>
<Album Artists>\Very Best (EMI)\<Title>
etc
and often with slightly different album art.

When I started using MM I started to correct the album titles and tried to consolidate album art. (The album art was still as <Album Artists>\Very Best\Folder.jpg)

I corrected the album name then selected the track that had the best album art and apply it to the whole album.

Even though the album name was now the same the fact that some tracks were in different folders (pre auto organise) MM just wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. (some with "null" art others with 2-3 copies from trying it a couple of times)

Bit late now but the correct procedure needs to be:
1. correct the album name
2. auto organise (all in the same album folder)
3. apply album art to all tracks.