Piping in to add my request that you ADD BACK THE ABILITY TO REMEMBER LAST OPENED ART FOLDER. Please please please reconsider this; make it a tick mark to check if you feel that having it as default will mess up the arrangement for those who link their art.

Give those of us who embed their art the choice; this was one of the features I LOVED about MM as opposed to WMP (the program that assumes that all of its users are idiots and cannot have the ability to decide key issues about their media management...)

PLEASE add it back...

lorie

nynaevelan said it pretty well - I embed the art in the track files, so do not need to have a copy of the art work in the album folder with the track files. Rescanning the track files with MM3 will restore the database since the album art is detected as part of the MM3 scan.

I started embedding the art because 2.5 was very unpredictable about maintaining art file relationships when I reorganized my library after moving to larger hard drives.

Having to repeatedly navigate from the track folders to a single art folder gets to be a real PITA when adding the art to several albums. Also, as I mentioned before, my image editing software gets really cranky and slow when the art files are mixed with the track files.

The current defaults are fine for those who choose to organize their library in a particular manner, but those of us who chose a different organization should not be losing the functionality we had in 2.5.

I understand the philosophy why you made the necessary change in MM3 and I appreciate you taking the time to explain it to us. However, when I have the art linked, whether the art is in a central location or in the folder with the tracks, the sync to my Zen ends up with album art linked to the wrong tracks. The only way I have been able to successly have the correct art during the sync is when it is embedded in the file. I also prefer my art in a central location because it helps during adjustments which I need to make to the art as well as keeping my files organized according to their types. In the future can you PLEASE add back the option for users to store their art in a central location as well as MM remembering the last location and name of the art file which was last tagged. The process of having to continuously navigate back to the art folder is tedious and not user friendly.

Nyn

Album Art in a central folder can still be used via the Link to function. But I suppose the problem is that the Auto-tag from web doesn't save to this central folder, which is the problem??

To give some background about why we made this change: one of the MM philosophies is that it should be possible to delete the DB without serious loss of metadata. This is possible by saving metadata to tags and to locations from which the metadata is easily scanned and associated with the tracks. When tracks are associated with Album Art stored to a central location, this isn't easy to do.

We won't be adding back this functionality for the 3.0 release this late in the game, but if you think we goofed please pipe in and explain why so that we can make adjustments for future releases.

-Rusty

I agree which is why I do not use MM3 to tag any album art. I would like to have this feature changed to where the user decides where album art should be saved.

Nyn

Waded through the change lists and found that change # 3650 made the track folder the default folder for album art.

While this may be nice for someone just starting, I have used 2.5 to save all the art to tags with the archive copy of the art in a single art folder. RC3 does not offer me a default compatible with this arrangement and I'd have to completely reprocess my entire library to convert to the now-preferred scheme.

My work process - do all the cleanup in a single work folder, then move to a second work folder while looking for album art.

Find album art and put in album art library.

Use image editor to clean up and enhance album art - a real PITA if there are music tracks in the album art folder since the image editor takes forever to wade through the folder

Once album art is found and cleaned up, use MM album art properties tab to access art library and attach to the track tags.

Once the cleanup and art actions are done, use the auto-organize function to move the tracks to the music library.

The album art stays in the album art library and is never found as a separate file in any of the music folders.

MM 2.5 works just fine with this setup - why is there no option to have the default art folder behave the same as the current MM version - where the default is the last folder used to add album art to a track?

Apparently RC3 expects me to keep the album art in the same folder as the music tracks.

I embed the art in the tags and keep the originals in a separate art folder. I like the way it works in 2.5, hate the way it works in RC3 because I keep all the album art in a single folder, not in the music folders. At least add an option to keep all the art in a separate art folder (all the current options assume it goes in the music folder).

Still looking for the big reason to upgrade from 2.5 to 3, so far I haven't found anything about RC3 that makes me "gotta have it." Where are the big advantages of 3 over 2.5 listed???

Using RC3 - When adding album art using the Album Art tab on the Properties form, the add function does not update the default folder for subsequent art lookups.

After navigating to the art folder and adding art to an album, I move to the next album and have to repeat the navigation all over again because the default folder has not updated. MM 2.5 updates the default folder when art is added to the first album and uses the updated default for subsequent lookups (it's smart enough to expect that I want to start at the final folder in the previous lookup).

Environment - XP SP2