AutoTagX v3.00 tips, thoughts, etc.

This post is stuff that I think everyone should know, and that may eventually make in to documentation someday. I post them as I think of them.

• It's important to know that many internet databases require you to throttle access, i.e. you are not allowed to hit their site rapid-fire with a program. I've been cut off from allmusic.com before because of this (they're under new ownership now, so I guess they reset their blacklist). Because of this, AutoTagX will never hit the same data provider (allmusic.com, google.com, etc) more often than every 2.5 seconds (I may scale this back to 2.0 or 2.1 -- we'll see). This is why AutoTagX can get quite slow if you've dragged a lot of files/folders to it. :-(
  
• I really don't use AutoTagX much for single files. If you have any suggestions to make that better, more useful, etc. I really want to hear from you.
  

AutoTagX v3.00 bugs/updates

The following bugs/features have been identified and/or are being worked on:

• Sometimes when you're tagging a folder that has a lot of files in it, the files that are not visible (i.e., below the bottom of the window) do not get numbered correctly -- their track numbers get set to 1.
  
• If you tag about, oh, I don't know -- 100 albums? Your system may get low on memory. I haven't wrung out all the memory leaks.
  

The following changes will be present in the next release:

• Crash problem when you do not have write access to AAC file has been fixed.
  

AutoTagX v3.00 released

Download it here

Or, visit my web store

No, it's not a typo! I've finally gotten it all together and put together a version that works!

Thanks to everyone who has hung in there with the expiring demos and offered feedback and comments. There's still some work to do, but I've been using this version with very few problems.

If you are a current AutoTagX user, your old registration key may not work with this version. If it doesn't, just email me (include your old key, if you can) and I'll send you a new key.

FWIW, I'm mulling over support options for the actual release version, so it's possible that this blog may be replaced by something else. The AutoTagX home page will always point to whatever blog/forum/whatever is current for AutoTagX, so select that menu item from within the AutoTagX program occasionally to get news.

Enjoy!

AutoTagX 3.0 release imminent

Folks, I have a new version that I'm about to release. What I'd like to do before (or concurrently with) that is to send a registration key to everyone who has posted on this blog. BlogSpot doesn't let me see your email address so I figure I'll just trust you -- send an email with your BlogSpot ID and your email address to me at support@mmalson.com (yes I get TONS of spam so put "AutoTagX Registration Key" in the title). Thanks...

AutoTagX 3.00 beta 4

Download it here

AutoTagX v3.00 beta 4 was released today. The main fix is the crash/hang problem when searching the internet databases.

Folks, thanks for your patience with beta 3. Even though I didn't get around to publishing all the crash/burn comments, I do read them as they come in. FWIW, I've been through some very time-consuming projects since the last release -- most notably heading up moving my company into our own brand spanking new office. You wouldn't believe all the bases that need to be covered with something like that... Obviously that doesn't help any of you with AutoTagX, but you might as well know.

This beta is operative until July 12. Please feel free to provide constructive feedback to this blog.

AutoTagX 3.00 beta 3

Download it here

AutoTagX v3.00 beta 3 was released today. It contains some fixes and enhancements, mainly improvement of single-file tagging.

Release notes:

• Made single-file tagging not crash and burn. Gnudb and Freedb are really really bad when it comes to single-file searching, so I don't even try anymore.


• A lot of stuff under the hood got changed.


• Worked a lot on registration keys, etc., which won't affect beta versions. Made sure that pre-v3 registration keys work OK with version 3.


• Moved the legend to a drawer.


• Fixed the option key in i386. Now if you hold down Option while dragging a file/folder on to the window, it will just clean up tags for you without searching the internet.


• Changed Source Codes to icons.

This beta is operative for until May 22. Please feel free to provide constructive feedback to this blog.

Internet database issues

This post is a spot to post comments about Internet databases.

I have investigated using freedb (as opposed to gnudb) and I've found freedb's search utility to be a little lacking. I might be able to work around it, but it could potentially dramatically increase bandwidth usage over a better search utility. I've started a dialog with freedb about making their search feature a little more friendly. In return, I'm going to try to implement a "correct titles" feature so that if you find errors in a freedb entry, there will be a way to submit it back to freedb.

AutoTagX 3.00 beta 2

Download it here

AutoTagX v3.00 beta 2 was released today. The main difference is that AutoTagX now supports gnudb, one of the projects that arose from the ashes of FreeDB.


Release notes:

• Changed the way All Music Guide entries are searched. Should get better results.


• Added support for gnudb.org, a new incarnation of FreeDB. Source Code U.


• Always back up .m4p files, whether you asked for backups or not.


• Changed some score weightings so to make better entries bubble up to the top better.

This beta is operative for until February 26. Please feel free to provide constructive feedback to this blog.