Explorer intergation and more

After a long while, MP3 Diags finally got some new features. They all revolve around using command-line arguments.

First, Michael Elsdörfer sent me some code that allowed song information to be displayed in the console, without entering the GUI mode. Then I added options to create new, GUI sessions based on parameters passed to the program. Then I used these to add the possibility to integrate MP3 Diags with the file browser (only Windows Explorer works currently, though), so now you can right-click on a folder and have it open in MP3 Diags.

These are in the unstable, 1.1 branch and are documented in the Shell integration and Advanced features pages. Download links are here. If you don't really need these features I'd suggest to continue using the stable, 1.0 branch. I'd also suggest to packagers to stick with 1.0 or at least wait for a while (or perhaps provide both - the way I package the program, the stable and unstable versions are considered unrelated applications, which can be installed in parallel without interacting). I intend to fix any bugs that are discovered in the unstable version in a timely manner, provided that I get enough information to proceed.

I haven't decided what to do next but implementing the shell integration on Linux would make sense. I could use some help in this area - links to some documentation or examples would be great, as currently I'm quite clueless about how to achieve this programmatically.

I don't know if anybody noticed but there was a 1.1.05.058 version, which didn't correctly detect if it could actually configure the explorer integration. If you downloaded it early, you should replace it with 1.1.06.059, which at least works OK for me (I said "early" because after some 10 hours I posted a fix, without changing the version number).

If you have any opinions about these features, it would be a good idea to post them to this forum page.

Version 1.1 finally got started

It took me a lot longer than what I would have liked, but I managed to start working on the next version. Branching the program needed quite a bit of work, as there were many changes in the tools that do the building and packaging. Well, here's how it's supposed to work:

The new, "development" branch is called "unstable" and it gets its own place at the SourceForge download page, which mirrors the directory structure of the "stable", 1.0 release. The files' names contain "unstable", though. Version names will be 1.1.01, 1.1.02, ... until a new stable release will be created (probably 1.2)

In Subversion this new development takes place in trunk, while there is a new "1.0" branch created for the stable release. (Even though it's technically incorrect from Subversion's point of view, I will call the "1.1.x" release the "unstable branch", to emphasize that most people should keep using 1.0, which is for now the main, stable release.)

There is a separate on-line help system for the unstable branch. For now it's just a copy of 1.0, but that will change.

The Linux and Windows unstable binaries that I provide at SourceForge and OBS can be installed alongside the "stable" ones. Getting this to work wasn't very easy, but it seemed important. The "stable" and "unstable" versions are not aware of one another and normally they should use different sessions (they can be made to share sessions, but this is best avoided - making a copy would be preferred). Notification for new versions being available is also separate for the stable and unstable branches.

In 1.1.01 there is nothing new over 1.0.08 from a functional point of view. The changes mainly deal with the idea that the program knows that it's "unstable". Well, for the Windows build I switched to the latest Qt/MinGW, and this might have some impact, although I didn't notice anything. (I also plan to look at Visual Studio Express to see if it can make the program smaller.)

So basically 1.1.01 is for those curious to see if there is any negative impact from these changes, in which case I hope I will get notified. (I also noticed that the Linux binaries don't work as well as they did in the past, but this is an issue for 1.0 as well as 1.1)

For the casual users, it's better to stick to 1.0 until a new stable version gets released or there seems to be some really important feature in 1.1. While 1.1.x releases will get tested, 1.0 was tested more thoroughly. Also, I won't try very hard to keep setting or data compatibility in the unstable release, but I don't expect this to be a big issue.

MP3 Diags 1.0.08 available

Nothing very exiting for this release - its main purpose is to add a half-fix for a crash before splitting the code to start working on version 1.1. There were some crashes reported when trying to save changes, which didn't make much sense, but investigating them led me to discover a related bug that is fixed now (although the original bug probably remains unfixed). Well, even if the change just managed to make that bug invisible, it seems to have solved the problem for the user, so I guess it's better to publish the fix now rather than wait for a full understanding of what was going on.

If you didn't experience crashes at startup or when saving, there's no point in upgrading.

There are also some script changes, in the tools that prepare the packages, not in the program's code. These are also related to the 1.1 split. I hope I didn't break anything; at any rate, I tested them and they seemed OK.

Correction: no portable MP3 Diags

Upon closer inspection it turned out that the link at Softpedia pointed to my ZIP at SourceForge, which contains the EXE and some DLLs. So there's no portable version of MP3 Diags after all. OTOH perhaps it's a good idea to do it, but I don't have the time to look at this. Any volunteers?

Portable version available

I received a notification from Softpedia that they created a portable MP3 Diags. It can be found here.

FIxed crash in folder filter

There was a crash that could occur with some particular folder names when trying to use the folder filter. Mario Schwalbe figured out what was wrong and implemented a solution, which is included in version 1.0.07.052.

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Now it's possible to build the project on Fedora 13 and 14, thanks to a change indicated by Edward Sheldrake two months ago in a forum post.

I'm not so sure about Fedora 12, though. For some reason the servers at openSUSE Build Service get stuck while trying to compile a file. So I changed the version that I was using at OBS to 13, which would cause those upgrading from my Fedora repository at OBS to have the files rescanned. I'm not sure about it, but I expect Fedora 12 to be unable to use the repository. If that's the case, the solution is to either build from sources (assuming it works) or use one of my precompiled binaries.

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Due to some changes at my ISP, I'm unable to log on currently, so I moved the alternative download place to Dropbox. This is mainly of interest to packagers, as that's the only place that contains the source + documentation bundle.

Crash in invalid Lyrics tag fixed in 1.0.06

I've been very busy these past few months, and I still am, so I don't know when I'll be able to start working on 1.1. However, crashes still get fixed for 1.0, provided that they are reported and the reporter helps me identify what's wrong.

So it's time for 2 crash fixes, based on reports from one user. One crash was caused by invalid Lyrics tags, while the other occurred sometimes when trying to use the "folder filter" in Windows (and I guess OS/2 as well.)

Another small change is in the documentation. There is now an "uninstall" section, at the end of the "download" page