"get album art" removed?

[seyss]

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??

[DrO]

because it was as is explained already in http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=346151 (google is such a helpful thing).

-daz

[seyss]

if google is such a helpful thing, why don't you script a "get album art" option that gets the first image result from searching "%artist% %album% cover" in google?

[ChrisLenga]

I think there may be copyright issues with that method. Its not always the first image either. I've done some searches with that and come up with other images (due to popularity) of band members and or concert images before the album itself.

[ravermeister]

...would appreciate this too,
also you could fetch the first 10 images (configurable...),
give a preview window and let the user choose the right one.
would create it by my own, but I am only familiar with Java....

if there are really copyright issues, isn't there an Image Database out there, which
doesn't have this problem?

would be realy nice to see this feature again...

[DrO]

it was removed and that's all that can be said on the matter (i've probably said more about it than i should have done).

if people want it so much, there is more than enough of the system to allow someone to code their own plug-in and handle the API which was put in place for other plug-ins to query and get artwork from _whatever_ source people want to get it from.

moaning about it is not going to help anyone or get any closer to a solution. if people need it that much then someone needs to get coding and do it (not me). why else do we have a plug-in system to be able to extend the core features?? otherwise there is an indefinite wait for when it will return (if at all, hence my use of "indefinite wait" ).

-daz

[Aminifu]

Since the default Winamp skin highlights album art, I understand the desire/need for it. DrO mostly runs Winamp minimised or in the background, so maybe he doesn't 'feel the need'. But, the previous service provided thru WA never worked very well for me and many others (according to past posts). Many times no cover or the wrong cover was offered and if you got a good one, it only let you copy the image to a folder. I'm surprised so many are asking for this feature back when 3rd party apps are so much better in providing cover art for embedding and/or copying to a folder.

For embedding, I suggest trying "Creevity Mp3 Cover Downloader" for mp3 files (link below). It does a fairly good job of providing up to 6 images at a time for a selected file, then you can select the one you like best. Sometimes the images are different and/or are various sizes of the same image. Also, most of the popular file taggers (like mp3tag and tagscanner) can supply cover art from various online sources for embedding in mp3 and other file formats that support embedding.

http://www.creevity.com/

If you only place cover art in folders, it is very simple to use your web browser to rename and copy an image from a free access online database (like albumart.org) to a folder. Just right click on the image and chose the command that lets you rename and copy the image to a local folder.

[DrO]

and to play devil's advocate... but that's not acceptable, people DEMAND it has to be done all within the same software (Winamp) and it must do it right!! even when from what i saw, a lot of the existing system's issues came from badly tagged files - not all before i'm mis-quoted, but a decent amount.

-daz

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by DrO

and to play devil's advocate... but that's not acceptable, people DEMAND it has to be done all within the same software (Winamp) and it must do it right!! even when from what i saw, a lot of the existing system's issues came from badly tagged files - not all before i'm mis-quoted, but a decent amount.

-daz

Yes, people are a lazy and demanding lot (1 ring to rule them all). Not all people, but many.

[peter.ward]

WHAT?! A music player without the ability to semi-automatically download album art. That's a major fail!

I've been a happy winamp user for many years - not so much any more :-(

Hope this gets resolved with a replacement soon. Although the old solution wasn't perfect, it still worked most of the time...

[seyss]

Originally Posted by peter.ward

WHAT?! A music player without the ability to semi-automatically download album art. That's a major fail!

I've been a happy winamp user for many years - not so much any more :-(

Hope this gets resolved with a replacement soon. Although the old solution wasn't perfect, it still worked most of the time...

WOW DRAMA.. it is a loss but WA is still great.

anyways something should be done.

if you are afraid of using google images as I suggested, why dont you make a very simple browser extension (or WA plugin) that adds a right-click menu option to images in Chrome/etc to save this image as the album art of the song current playing in WA

[fechhelm]

How is it that album washer does such a good job of getting artwork for the mobile version? Seems like there should be a way for syncing the downloaded artwork from mobile to desktop.

[Aminifu]

Hi fechhelm,

That is a good question. Is this "album washer" part of WA mobile?

Any moderator care to respond? It seems people are not letting go of this issue easily.

[DrO]

well they're going to have to let it go (and i actually regret ever having attempted to answer questions about this removed feature - is just not worth the grief i'm getting about it) as album washer is only used by the Android version (and is done completely differently from how Winamp itself is coded and works so it wouldn't be just a copy + paste).

i don't know the exact details of album washer other than it's a paid extra for the Android version. how well it works i don't know as i don't have a modern phone to try it.

-daz

[fechhelm]

Originally Posted by Aminifu

Hi fechhelm,

That is a good question. Is this "album washer" part of WA mobile?

Any moderator care to respond? It seems people are not letting go of this issue easily.

"album washer" is an added pay feature in the winamp for android. I used it and so far it was able to get artwork for all but one album cover, and I currently have 497 albums. The app is a little slow in that you have to get artwork one album at a time (as far as I can tell)

[peter.ward]

Originally Posted by seyss

WOW DRAMA.. it is a loss but WA is still great.

anyways something should be done.

if you are afraid of using google images as I suggested, why dont you make a very simple browser extension (or WA plugin) that adds a right-click menu option to images in Chrome/etc to save this image as the album art of the song current playing in WA

I totally agree. It's a loss but WA is still great.

However, the fact that I now have to go into iTunes (horrible piece of software on a PC) to download the album art I use in Winamp, is pretty poor. In fact it has me looking for an alternative to WA, which I'd really rather keep using.

I'll add to the feature request section.

Thanks,

Pete

[DrO]

there's no point in adding anything to the wishlist as management know about the lack of the feature as they're the ones who instructed it to be removed from the player. i don't know what will ever replace it but as i've said a number of times now, there is _nothing_ stopping someone doing a 3rd party option which is more likely to cater for people's needs than the limited option which Winamp provided anyway (as 3rd party options can do). and with that, i'm forgetting about this thread.

-daz

[MrSinatra]

not to annoy anyone, but...

the android ver of winamp has a free ver, and a paid one, and the paid one has a separate in app purchase avail for "album washer" which gets art, fixes tags, etc...

seems to me that art *** DONE RIGHT *** (not the way it used to be) would be a good reason to buy the windows winamp "pro" ver. would this not make sense?

[pjn123]

Had an idea to add this via a skin but looks like Winamp's developers has plugged the holes

PHP Code:

extern System.downloadMedia(String url, String destinationPath, boolean wantAddToML, boolean notifyDownloadsList); // Requires 5.54
deprecated extern System.downloadURL(String url, String destination_filename, String progress_dialog_title); //Requires 5.5 // destination_filename is just a dummy parameter as well as progress_dialog_title - use download() instead 


If the "System.downloadURL" function was reintroduced it can work like this:
- When you click Get Album Art a frame pops up with a dropdown list of cover providers and the website of the selected provider underneath it.
- You then navigate until the url of the browser frame ends in .jpg (full resolution of the image).
- A button shows at the button of the frame with a download as cover.

Well I know the download function might be a security risk but the developers can ask for confirmation with a popup box.

Or maybe add a function in maki so that we can have a shortcut to "Paste Artwork". Popup box for security again. Then I can just click copy to clipboard on the site and save a few clicks.

Or just fix the original one hehe. But the best way to get a proper cover is manually looking at the image and having a list of providers will probably work best.