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I would like to have the ability to view album liner notes or booklets if they are available. Most of the booklets I have are individual PDFs. I would be nice if the prefix of the file name could be set by the user, and then the rest of the booklet name could be the album name. So for example, Diana Krall - Turn Up The Quiet, could be 0-Liner Notes - Turn Up The Quiet.pdf. I normally place the PDF file in the same directory as the song files. That is the reason that I choose the "0-Liner Notes" prefix as it will sort to the top of the directory.
There are many other options for file naming and file types. I know there are restrictions on what can be used with a web based interface like moOde.
I would suggest that a small booklet icon show on the playback tab if there is a booklet available to display.
Cheers, Bryce.
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11-19-2018, 10:05 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-19-2018, 10:06 PM by Tim Curtis.
Edit Reason: eta
)
Interesting.
Is there some sort of standard or common way that these files are named or used?
- displayed in separate window?
- displayed in place of album cover?
Where do they come from?
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Maybe an artwork directory under the album directory.
This directory structure is common but sometimes it contains PDF files and sometimes some pictures (jpg, gif, png files)
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The following is based on my personal experience.
There are two sources for these type of files.
The first is from downloading music from a company such as HDTracks. They sometimes include a booklet with the music. I believe that Apple used to offer something similar with their "album" purchase option, but I have never seen one of those and I don't believe they are available any more. Apple did provide and SDK for creating booklets for iTunes albums. These booklets typically come in one of two styles, either just an electronic copy of the booklet included with the original CD, so two booklet pages per PDF page, or a booklet that seems to be produced specifically for electronic download. The later are normally one booklet page per PDF page. I have not run across any site that has these available for download like you get with album covers.
The second way to get these is to scan the booklet and then either assemble that booklet into a PDF or just place all of the .jpg images in the same folder.
I have one music player that just looks for .jpg files in the song directory and displays something that looks like the moOde Albums by Artist page when the booklet display is selected. The other player will only display specifically named booklets.
As far as the naming of the files I have not found much consistency. Most include the album name. I started using the 0-Liner Notes prefix as that is what HDtrack used initially. If I remember correctly that prefix would be followed by the product number or something else that was not very user friendly. HDtracks has now changed to a different format. I personally use 0-Liner Notes and 0-Album Cover prefix followed by the Album Name. There would be a question as to what album name to use, the one that is found in the Album tag, or the name of the directory. The Album cover is nothing more than two pages, one with the front artwork, the second with the back artwork. There have been a number of "album CDs" produced that have a reproduction of the original album artwork, so that back of the album has a lot text sometimes. It would be hard to manage the booklets if they were all just named 0-Booklet.pdf.
As far as displaying the information I have always seen it done as a separate window that pops up and allows you to scroll through the booklet without disturbing the player. One player I have doesn't display booklets, but it pops up a CD case that has 3 or 4 tabs, one of which is the artists picture and bio, so a very similar concept.
I think this is something that should only display when the user requests it. The indication that there is a booklet to display should be an icon on the Playback screen, or perhaps on the CoverView screen as well.
Cheers, Bryce.
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I think the lack of a standard or tag for these types of "extras" is a problem.
I recall one other request for something along the lines of an image/pdf browser that would display the images in the album dir and allow < > controls to move each image into view.
If there are more requests for something like this I'll add to the TODO list.
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I think pdf would be the most logical choice as it’s a container that can aggregate disparate image files and would greatly simplify the discoverability, and also allows for full-res text instead of just bitmap.
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There's prolly several ways to view PDF's but I'd really like to see some screen shots of how other players display these extras.
