Request-ATF in iPod song Title
 

Is it possible to apply some type of naming format into the displayed title on the iPod. In other words, can the iPod database be written by ml_ipod to take more than just the 'Title' ID3 field as the actual Title displayed for the song on the iPod? If not written to the iPod database by ml_ipod, could the database itself be modified to call upon more than one ID3 field when displaying a Title?

This is an example of its use. Many times, I browse through my songs on the iPod and am usually always curious as to what rating each song has (its an obvious guideline to what I should play). Currently, the only way to view ratings on the iPod is by selecting to play the song and clicking through to the rating view.

If it were possible to have the title of the song displayed by the iPod like this:

The Trial *****
('Title' 'Rating')

A person could easily know the ratings of their songs before they even play them. Furthermore, if this option were just completely formattable, there could be many uses for this.

Another example
The Trial 42
('Title' 'Playcount')

As shown above, this example would display the Title of the song and the playcount for those who would want to know the playcount of their song (something that is impossible to know with just the iPod).

Can something of this kind be possible to implement? Does anyone else see a good use in this feature?

Re: Request-ATF in iPod song Title
 

I'm up for this as well! I'd love to have my iPod display "Artist - title" instead of only "title"

Good idea but I think it's not possible..

I just don't see why ml_ipod can't just call from multiple Id3 fields and write the result into the Corresponding database entry for for the title. I could imagine these formatted titles would not be live updated. I dunno, I'm no programmer. Does the ipod LITERALLY read the 'Title' ID3 field on each mp3 to produce its song title....or does it compile some list written by iTunes/ml_ipod in a database and draw from that? If the latter is true to some degree, I would imagine it possible to apply a fromatting to the title, or frankly any other field.

Either way, I'm sure Abu will be able to give this idea the Thumbs up or Thumbs down. I've still been trying to create really neat, unique ideas for ml_ipod that would take it above a iTunes replacement but still be within the programmable realm (from what little I know). Abu wrote a little bit about programming limitations based upon the ipod firmware. That kind of geared my thoughts to the more realistic ideas--hopefully this is one of them

That's an interesting idea, Stupifier.

Yes, basically it is possible. There is one limitation, though: When reading back the database, I must know what the REAL title was, not the one with additional information added. I can imagine several ways to do that, but all have their drawbacks. Especially if the iPod happens to be updated by another tool (iTunes...) in between.

That makes it hard to implement a very open solution. But just to give a sneak preview of what could be possible, I created 2.04p14. If you set "titleFormat=1" in the iPod inifile, you will get the rating appended to the title.
"The Zoo" --> "The Zoo [4]" = 4 stars

So, for the iPod, it will think that "The Zoo [4]" is the song title. That means, if you use the search function and search for "4", it will find this song. This is what limits the functionality on the ipod. It doesn't make too much sense putting any arbitrary data in the title string. So maybe two or three special formatting options would be enough, not a freely configurable ATF choice?

The patch site seems to be down at the moment, I'll upload it later. Then you can give it a try, and we can discuss further possibilities later.

Agreeed. As long as: "Artist - title" is one of those options. I always thought it was stupid that the iPod only shows the title.. i'd rather have it show the Artist as well without having to actually play the song first.

"Artist - title" is one of the not so good ideas. I think it must be "Title - Artist", because if you see a list of titles, usually you want to have it sorted by title, right?

Until the download site is back up: here is the installer
http://stashbox.org/19004/iPod_Support_v2_04p14.exe

EDIT: The usual download site is back to life!

Well, "Title - Artist" is fine as well. As long as there's an indication of the Artist viewable. That's basically the whole idea; would be really great tbh.

(PS: all my files on harddisc are named according to the following strict scheme (including correct use of case): "## - Artist - title.mp3" -- yes, i'm a freak ;-)

I'll try this patch when i'm at home later today.

Well I know, at least for myself, I almost always look for the artist first, then the title. Keeps things organized in my head. ;)

Same for me. But if you look for a specific artist, you use the "Artists" menu, right?
And as far as I understood, this is about the "Tracks" menu. Or did I misunderstand you, Yawg1? If you use the Artists menu, you don't need the artist name in the title display, because you selected an artist already ;)

Exactly. Say for example you've got a playlist called: "ZOMG Party Classix Fun" which contains 1000 tracks. If you browse this playlist you only see the titles.. that's kinda a pity. That's why I'm down with this feature request.

Oh yes, I didn't even think of the playlists. But that's correct, I was annoyed more than once by this! Definitely worth to do something about it. The only problem is thelimited width of the display. And it doesn't scroll horizontally while browsing a playlist, does it?

The one thing that is not very nice with "Title - Artist":

On the "Now playling" page, you will have the artist doubled then:
Title - Artist
Artist
Album
:(
It's not possible to tell the iPod to show different strings in the playlist and as the title on the now playing page...

Firstly, Abu, I tried 2.04p14. It did not work. Below is the procedure I took after installing 2.04p14:

1. Added 'titleFormat=1' into a new line of text to ml_ipod.ini file. I began by adding this line into the actual ipod's ml_ipod.ini file. After this did not work, I tried adding the line of text into the winamp/plug-ins/ml_ipod/ml_ipod.ini file to see if thats what you were referring to. This did not work either.

2. Sync iPod

3. Eject iPod and manually check for the change

No changes were seen across all of my titles on the iPod. I plugged the iPod back in my computer and opened the iPod's ml_ipod.ini file and noticed something. The line of text I added ('titleformat=1') is not there. In short, ml_ipod seems to delete 'titleformat=1' from the .ini file after ejecting the ipod. After just synching, the ml_ipod.ini file still shows 'titleformat=1'. Only after ejecting and than re-plugging in the iPod is the 'titleformat=1' missing from the iPod's ml_ipod.ini.


-------------------------------------------------------
@Abu
I figured any changes to the 'Title' would be reflected in the 'Now Playing' page.....personally, I don't care and consider it a sacrifice to delivering information to the user in a MUCH faster manner. I hate having to actually PLAY a song in order to find out little bits of information about it (such as the rating, playcount, ect.)

Stupifier, Winamp must be closed (exited) completely before you add the line. The file on the iPod is the right one.

Sorry if that wasn't clear, refer to http://www.joerobot.com/mlipodwiki/i...idden_settings

Thankyou for clearing that up Abu....much appreciated. It works fine. Titles are now Displayed as the following:

The Trial [4]

Now we could talk about options for more customization. I'm really glad this idea could be implemented into ml_ipod. Now we have a heads up on iTunes instead of just a replacement

Fine. So, as I said, the main issue is that I need the possibility to extract the real title upon reading the database (on connect). This is very important, otherwise Sync won't work, it will create doubles on the ipod.

At firts thought, I have 3 option (hope it doesn't get too technical):
1) putting extra info into the iTunesDB
2) creating an extra file for that info
3) having a special marker inside the title string that breaks it into pieces

Pros and Cons:
1) + easiest to implement, + very robust, - might be destroyed by iTunes
2) - more implementation work, - possible inconsistency if someone deletes this file, or copies over a wrng one, + won't be touched by iTunes
3) - hard to implement without possible bugs (for very special titles), + will survive iTunes, + no extra file needed, -will need special marker characters in the string (like the square bracket we have now).

Current implementation uses 3)
I tend to use 2), because it is safe against iTunes. What do you think? 1) would be most fun to implement, but it wouldn't be too nice if all your titles are lost just because you ran iTunes once.

Abu, not too technical at all. I've actually begun to dive my head into a little programming (albeit, different from your programming) for my Engineering courses. My personal opinion on the issue is too biased as I flat-out DO NOT use iTunes (therefore, pro option 1)--that aside, I'll attempt to comment in a more objective, impartial manner.

Firstly, a question for Abu. As the programmer and primary question-answerer for ml_ipod, I could imagine you have the best grasp on the consensus of ml_ipod use. Do people hook their iPod's into iTunes? Is it useful, necessary, ect?

If not, fuck it....go option 1. Robust is always good . It might be time to make a decision about iTunes if it has not already been made.

If iTunes compatability is an important feature, option 2 looks to be the best of both worlds.

option 3 does not sound good at all, aesthetically and from a programmer's view. Possible bugs and the need for 'special marker characters' is not appealing.

On a sidenote:
A little off topic...but I feel like a leech when I use programs. All I really do here is make Abu (and programmers for other programs) do more work and reap the benefits. All I can really do is thank them and throw a few bucks (and thats even optional).

I'd say Option 1 is the option to take. Why should people still want to use iTunes then?

Do we need iTunes for anything? Basically we only "need" iTunes when we want to upload photos to our video iPod. But even that might be changed in the future so it works with mlipod as well (and if I'm not mistaken someone posted a free tool on this forum which can upload photos without the use of iPod).

The only thing that pops my mind is "upgrade firmware". I think that might be the only reason to use iTunes once again in the future?

For the moment I've uninstalled iTunes on my computer and I only use Winamp + mlipod and it works like a charm. So I'd go with Option 1.

my two cents

Ok, I have a new version to play with, which follows 1). I discovered a DB entry that seems to be untouched by iTunes if present, so it might even be robust with iTunes used.

As this is only to play with, I used IDs above 100 now (this will cahnge later):
titleFormat=101: title [rating]
titleFormat=102: title [artist] rating
titleFormat=103: artist - title
titleFormat=104: artist - title [rating]

My site is down again:( So use it from here:
http://stashbox.org/19076/iPod_Support_v2_04p15.exe

Which other formats would you like?
Does it work as expected?

It does not work as I expected so I stopped synching to ask questions. I tried using Titleformat=101. I synched and it basically said it was going to Remove and replace all my songs with the newly formatted title ones. This is not a desireable process and I do not think it was intended either so I stopped.

About other formats:
I think playcount is something to implement into the formatting.

On a sidenote:
I was just thinking about what affect this would have on another ml_ipod feature. What does this do to the 'Copy songs to hardrive not in ML' feature? Would it consider "The Trial" on the ML different from "The Trial [5]" on the iPod? Personally, I would enjoy and use this feature much more frequently than the 'Copy songs to....' feature. I am only curious.

Correct, that shouldn't happen. I think it's an artifact of our first try. Please set titleFormat to 1 (!) again, then start Winamp. You iPod should show up with the correct titles displayed in Winamp (no ratings). Then eject it and quit Winamp. Reattach iPod. Now change to 101 or 102 or whatever, restart Winamp.
Now it should work.

Which format would you like? Title - artist [playcount]?


Should work without problems.

Just a couple of thoughts. If iTunes can clobber this feature, what would the results be? If it doesn't do any damage, than simply re-syncing on the next use of mlIpod would correct the problem, right?

Also, any feature that would would be affected by using iTunes, should remain a hidden feature to prevent any use be the casual user. That is unless you want the forum be barraged with angry posts.

I tested this with iTunes 7.1, and it worked. But there is a chance that older iTunes versions might remove the hidden data that I put into the database. If that happens, the original title is lost. The only way to recover it is to use an archive that is taken before iTunes has touched the database - which in turn will overwrite any changes since then, of course. Resyncing would help, but take a long time, because it would replace all songs (dleting everything, then retransfer everything). This is only an fallback if nothing else helps.

I thought so, too. But then, it could become a very handy feature. The least thing we could do is to provide a very bold warning on the prefs page..

ml_iPod really is meant to be an iTunes replacement, not a supplement. Granted, it's a nice bonus if iTunes doesn't mess with ml_iPod's changes, but I don't see that iTunes compatibility is a top priority.

I second this. But at least as long as iTunes has capabilities that ml_iPod hasn't (firmware update, photos, calendar sync...) there will always be people who want to use both together. It's quite a pain, though. For such a specialized feature like this, I think it would be ok to tell people "either use this feature or iTines, but never both". It is not an essential feature. Main thing is to tell people that it might be dangerous to use iTunes with it. I think of something like the "yes, I want to replace my database" checkbox in the restore dialog...

@Stupifier: I added a new format 105 which is "title [artist] rating playcount"
See
http://stashbox.org/19114/iPod_Support_v2_04p16.exe

Abu, amazing work! It works like a charm.

Personally I'd love to use the following format:

Artist - title [playcount]

It would be great if you could add that one. (I don't use ratings in the 'normal' way, I use ratings for filtering purposes and that's why I don't need it listed but playcount is nice)

And eventually would it be possible (in the settings) to choose our own ATF by means of some variables; for example:

%a - %t [%p] would give Artist - title [playcount]

just a suggestion :-)

Abu, I just ended up re-loading all my songs onto the iPod. Your suggestion did not work either. No worries, everything is fine now. I'm happy with this addition to ml_ipod. THANKYOU!

New Format 106. And 107 has "title [artist] playcount"

http://stashbox.org/19175/iPod_Support_v2_04p17.exe

But be aware that the playcount in this ATF isn't updated when you play a song on the iPod. Only after hooking up toWinamp...

LOL. I was just gonna ask you about the format you've made 107. I was thinking about it on the bus ride towards work because we already have the Artist field on the second line (when playing a song) so it's better to have the title first on the first line and then the artist.. great Abu.. thanks!

I'll use this new patch with format 107 when i am at home ;-)

(pity about the play count thing but perfectly understandable)

But esthetically speaking, I think I prefer: "title - artist [playcount]" (in stead of brackets for the artist and with a hyphen between title and artist)

Anyways, I'm really liking this new addition. Great!

You'll get it ;)

And I think we can eliminate all the formats that don't have the title first: They completely mess up the sorting if you choose the Music->Songs list. Not very nice, and not very useful either.

Thanks!

I second this. It's better to have Title first, for many reasons! ;-)

My iPod just got a little bit better once again. So nice! :-)

I changed format 106 to be what you want, Yawg81. Same version number, but different file:
http://stashbox.org/19187/iPod_Support_v2_04p17.exe

Thanks! Will try this in a couple of yours when I'm at home.

/cheers

Where do you live? Europe, I guess, as you're working right now?

Indeed. Belgium. We're neighbors! ;-) ETA 50 minutes and work's done. I'll be home at approximately 18h.

Quick question.....I assume Ratings are also not LIVE updated by the iPod like playcounts. Example--If I rate "The Trial [0]" to 5 stars...the title will not all the sudden change on my iPod to "The Trial [5]". I figured this would be the case I just wanted confirmation.

Correct. The title is a static string that gets constructed when the database is written by ml_ipod. No live updating :( (That would have been REALLY cool!)

With p18, I added some more formats and removed others:
// Format 101: "The Trial [5]"
// Format 102: "The Trial [Pink Floyd] 5"
// Format 103: "The Trial - Pink Floyd"
// Format 104: "The Trial [Pink Floyd] *****"
// Format 105: "The Trial [Pink Floyd] 5* 27" (27 is playcount)
// Format 106: "The Trial - Pink Floyd [27]" (27 is playcount)
// Format 107: "The Trial [Pink Floyd] 27" (27 is playcount)
// Format 108: "The Trial - Pink Floyd [5]" (5 is rating)
// Format 109: "The Trial [Pink Floyd] ***** 27" (27 is playcount)
// Format 110: "The Trial - Pink Floyd *****"

Well, I think the ones with the stars don't work yet ;(

EDIT: fixed in p19 ;)