ID3TagEd Manual: Iconbar menu

icon.gif - 1314 bytes

The iconbar icon menu

ibarmenu.gif - 5KbThe options available are:

Info

Sliding right off this option opens the standard application information window. Further information may be obtained by using the !Help application. The 'Info' display includes a button to allow quick access to the Web site for obtaining upgrades to the application.

Help...

Opens the HTML manual (which you are currently reading) in a browser. Function key F1 is a short cut.

Choices...

ch1.gif - 10KbSelecting this option opens the application choices dialogue. This is now arranged with the choices governing different aspects of the program collected together in separate panes. Running vertically down the right hand side of the Choices... dialogue are a series of buttons. At the bottom are four action buttons. These are as follows.
  • Cancel will simply close the dialogue, and any alterations made since last setting or saving the choices will be ignored.
  • Reload will restore all the preferences to those pertaining when they were last saved.
  • Save will apply the choices with immediate effect, and will also save the settings so they will be reloaded when ID3TagEd is run on another occasion.
  • Set will apply the choices with immediate effect. Any changes made will last only until ID3TagEd is quit.

At the upper right is a series of 'radio' buttons which are used to change the section of the choices being viewed by a simple click with the mouse.

The current sections available are

  • Rename
  • V2 tag
  • Other

The current range of settings that can be changed in this dialogue are as follows.

Rename options

The file can be renamed using the contents of various tag frames. Note that either of the v1 or v2 tag data will be used, depending upon which tag is showing in the main tag display.

This block of settings controls how the file is renamed. There are two ways of setting up the renaming.

Simple rename format
ch5.gif - 14Kb
This uses the set of popup menu buttons to choose the contents of each rename field. The filename consists of up to 4 fields and 4 separators. Each field can contain any of
  • Artist
  • Title
  • Album
  • Year, as 2005 or (2005)
  • Track, as 12 or [12]
The separator may be a (hard) space, space-hyphen-space, or underscore, or nothing. Any fields/separators not used should be set to None.

If the option Add /mp3 extension is selected, then this is added to the end of the filename.

Advanced rename format (using a format descriptor)
ch4.gif - 5Kb

A special format descriptor is used to describe the rule to be used for the rename. This can be entered into the writable field, or the popup menu button can be used to select a predefined format descriptor. The user can enter and edit their own predefined format descriptors (see below).

The tag frames to be included in the new filename are inserted in the format descriptor using identifier keywords. A frame identifier keyword uses the % character, followed by a character that identifies the particular frame to be used. Frames currently allowed are as follows:

  • %# - inserts the track number
  • %## - inserts the track number with a leading zero if less than 10
  • %1 - inserts the track title
  • %a - inserts the artist name
  • %e - inserts the file extension, i.e. /mp3
  • %g - inserts the genre
  • %t - inserts the CD/album title
  • %y - inserts the year
The insertion will only occur if the corresponding frame in the tag contains data.

In addition to these identifier keywords, all other alphanumerics (characters or numbers) can be used in the format descriptor, and they will be included as is. Most other non-alphanumerics, for example hyphens, parentheses, spaces, etc. can also be included. Excluded are those with special significance to the filer, e.g. ':' or '$' (but see below for '.' and '^'). To illustrate this, including in the format descriptor %y would insert the year, e.g. 1997, (%y) would result in the year being enclosed in round brackets as (1997), while [%y] would result in square brackets around the year as [1997]. Spaces would be converted to 'hard spaces' or underscore, depending on the setting of the Hard spaces option (see below).

It is also possible to include the . (point) character, which will assume its normal meaning under RISC OS filing systems, i.e. it will denote a directory separator. Thus you can rename the files into subdirectories, with ID3TagEd automatically creating them if they do not already exist.

The format descriptor %a - %1 %e would result in the track being renamed to (e.g.) Frank Sinatra - All The Way /mp3
Note the inclusion of the spaces around the hyphen and before the extension.

The format descriptor %a.%t.%#-%1%e would result in a track renamed as (e.g.) Frank Sinatra.His Greatest Hits.5-All The Way/mp3, with the directory Frank Sinatra being created within the original directory, and the subdirectory His Greatest Hits being created within the Frank Sinatra directory.

Important - the directory structure is created within the directory the file was originally in - you cannot specify complete paths. However, you can include the ^ character, which under RISC OS means go up a directory. Thus you could specify the format descriptor as ^.%a.%t.%#-%1%e, which would create the directory Frank Sinatra one level up from your working directory.

In addition, ID3TagEd does do some rudimentary checking of the current path for the existence of the directory structure it is being asked to create. For example, if the advanced rename rules would create the directory structure artist.album.newfilename, and the original file is already in a path ending .artist.album, then it will be renamed in situ. If the oldfile is in a directory artist, then only the album directory will be created.

Hard spaces
If Hard spaces is selected, then spaces in the new filename are converted to the hard space character (&A0). Otherwise, the spaces are converted to the underscore character (_). This setting applies to both methods of setting the rename rules.

ch6.gif - 7Kb
Strip leading 'The'
When selected, the rename action will attempt to strip the leading 'The ' from the artist name. This is useful if you prefer not to have the leading The in a group name. Thus The Rolling Stones will become simply Rolling Stones. Note that this action applies only to the rename process - the tag content is unchanged. (If you wish to carry out this action for the tag itself, use the Edit option in the tag window menu). All combinations of case for the characters the are recognised.

When the file is renamed, the filename display in the tag display will change to reflect this.

V2 Tag

ch7.gif - 9Kb
There are only three settings in this section, and they all relate to the padding bytes that can be incorporated into the version 2 tag. When a V2 tag is created it is usual to add some padding bytes to the end of the tag. The reason for this is as follows. The V2 tag is placed at the start of the mp3 file. If the tag is edited at some later stage, and its total length becomes longer than the original, it is then necessary to write a complete new mp3 file, otherwise the edited tag would overwrite the start of the audio data. If redundant padding bytes are added when the tag is first created, then if the edited tag grows in length it can expand into these padding bytes without overwriting any audio data.

Whenever it creates a tag (or has to rewrite the complete file due to the tag expanding beyond the available padding area), ID3TagEd will insert padding bytes amounting to a percentage of the total tag length, determined by the setting of the Pad bytes (% of tag). The calculated amount is rounded up to the next higher multiple of 128 bytes.

If you feel that this might still lead to insufficient padding with small tags, it is possible to specify the minimum amount of padding to add into a new (or rewritten) tag. With large tags, the number of padding bytes can become excessive. It is therefore possible to specify the maximum amount of padding that would ever be added into a new (or rewritten) tag.

Other

In this section are collected together any other preferences. The current list is as follows:
Image of Other choices

Try to load any filetype

If this is not selected, then any file type other than AMPEG will be ignored. If this is selected, then ID3TagEd will inspect the start and end of the file, looking for either a v1 or v2 tag. If a tag is found then the tags will be loaded whatever the actual filetype of the file.

Note that this will only work if the MP3 file does contain an ID3 tag. If it is untagged, then it will not be recognised.

The above notwithstanding, having this option set, and dragging selections of files containing files that are not AMPEG may lead to unpredictable results if ID3TagEd mistakenly thinks such a file does contain a v2 tag. Therefore use this option with care.

Retype file to AMPEG

I find that many binary files from the internet have the incorrect filetype when extracted from the mail reader (e.g. Pluto), often DATA. If this option is set, and ID3TagEd has decided it is indeed an AMPEG file, then the file will be typed as AMPEG automatically.

Note that this will only work if the MP3 file does contain an ID3 tag. If it is untagged, then it will not be recognised (but see below).

Ctrl-drag forces retyping

When ticked, dragging a file to ID3TagEd with the control key held down will force the file to be retyped to AMPEG whatever the file is. This is used when an mp3 file is incorrectly typed (e.g. Data) and contains no tags. ID3TagEd will force the retyping, and then open the tag window ready to enter tag details. Use with care!

Recurse into directories

If this is ticked, then when a selection of files/directories is loaded, ID3TagEd will make a list of the directories and then look inside any directories for other directories, continuing until every directory and subdirectory has been searched. If unticked, then ID3TagEd will only load files within the actual dragged directories, subdirectories being ignored. This latter action was the only action available for versions of ID3TagEd up to version 0.13.

Restore access after forced write

If the ampeg file you are making changes to happens to be locked or read only, ID3TagEd will ask whether you want to force a write. If you do, then ID3TagEd will set the file access attributes to unprotected in order to complete the write. If this option is ticked, then the original file access attributes will be restored after the write operation. If it is untickd, then ID3TagEd will leave the access setting at unprotected.

Verbose warnings

If this is selected, then a warning dialogue box will open if the text contents of a v2 text frame exceeds the length that can be accommodated in the writable icon in the main window. If not selected, then the writable icon will be faded. The excess text is not lost, but cannot be edited in the main window. This more often applies to the COMMent frames than the other. I have found some AMPEG files from the internet sometimes contain quite extensive biographies of the artist in COMM frames.

Allow Next/Prev to wrap around

When a selection of files is being processed, the Next and Prev buttons in the tag window allow progression through the files. If this option is ticked, then when the last file has been reached, pressing the Next button will move to the first file. Similarly, the Prev button will allow progression directly from first to last file. If not ticked, then the Next and Prev buttons will become faded when the last or first files are reached, as appropriate.

Allow internal cut/copy/paste

At times it is useful to be able to copy/cut/paste between the various writable icon fields in the tag windows. If you are running Select, or are using one of the third party utilities that implement a clipboard for writable icons, then you do not want ID3TagEd to do it as well, since you will end up with two copies being pasted. Thus this option allows you to turn on the internal cut/copy/paste only if required. See Keyboard short cuts for a summary of the internal cut/copy/paste actions. Note that ID3TagEd does not implement the global clipboard at the moment.

Always process filename on Ctrl-Shift-End

If this is ticked, then when Ctrl-Shift-End is used to copy the leafname into a field, the leafname will be processed by
  • Changing _ and hard spaces to normal spaces
  • Upper case first character of each word, lower case the rest
  • Strip trailing /mp3 extension
  • Strip leading and trailing spaces
When unticked the leafname is copied as is.

Genre - 'Psychedelic' for pedants

In the original id3 specification, the genre 67 was misspelled as 'Psychadelic', and is still listed as such, and so strictly, that is what should be used. However, if this misspelling offends your sensitivities, then ticking this option will result in the spelling being corrected.

Clear data on main window close

If this item is unticked then ID3TagEd will retain the tag data when the main tag window is closed. Clicking on the iconbar icon will reopen the window with the previous data still present.

If this option is ticked then closing the main window will clear all the tag data and free the allocated memory. If there are unsaved changes, then a warning will be issued.

Rename formats

This leads to a submenu, offering the choices Add, Edit and Remove.
renformat.gif - 2678 bytes
Add...
This leads to a dialogue box as shown below.
renformadd.gif - 15Kb
The new format descriptor can be entered into the writable field. If it is to be a modified version of a descriptor already present, then the popup button allows you to enter this directly for editing. Clicking Add will enter the new descriptor into the list. It will be automatically saved, and will be immediately available from the format descriptor popup menu buttons in other dialogues.
Edit
This leads to a submenu containing a list of all the current format descriptors. Selecting one will open a dialogue, similar to that shown above for Add, with the descriptor already entered in the writable field. After editing, clicking on OK will make the change permanent.
Remove
This will lead to a submenu listing of the current descriptors, and clicking on one will remove it from the listing. Use with care, since the action is immediate and permanent!

Quit

This closes the application, removing the application icon from the iconbar.

Larr.gif - 145 bytes Introduction  |   Index  |   Main tag edit window Rarr.gif - 141 bytes
ID3TagEd is © Chris Johnson, 2005-2007
Page last modified at 13:01 pm on 26th January 2008
Email:chris@chris-johnson.org.uk