Anders Hesselboms teknikblogg

Filename is the sorce in the jukebox

2009-05-23

There is one oddity in the WinAmpJukebox that I am planning on leaving in. That is the code for determining the artist name and the song name. For this, I do not use the meta data in the MP3/WMA-file, I use the filename, consequently. I use a program called Mp3tag to manage my songs, and I am actually quite indulgent on managing the meta data, but very picky on managing the file name. So this oddity works for me, wild protests might make reconsider.

I use CDEx to copy my CD:s to to the hard drive, and it lets me specify how I want the file to be named. I prefer this setup: %1\%2\%7. %1 – %4

Meaning: A folder with the name of the artist (as registered in CDDB), a subfolder with the name of the album, and the song is named after the tracknumber, the artist name and the song name. For example:

..\My Music\MP3\Queen\A Night at the Opera\01. Queen – Death on two legs.wma

This is how it is I currently extract the information from the full path to display it in the jukebox:

1. Remove the file ending.
2. Remove any starting number. I use a Regex to detect these two variants:

“07-In the Neighborhood”
“07. In the Neighborhood”

3. If the filename contains a minus separated by two spaces, assume that the artist name and the song name is found, otherwise I assume that the containing folder has the same name as the performing artist.

This rimes quite well with what you would expect from a jukebox. A disk with a bunch of artist directories, with a few songs in each of them, or possible some genre directories at the root level. But again, protests might make me change this, but for now, I like it a lot.

Categories: General