ID3 Tag Editor Plugin

[DrewVosburg]

It would be nice to be able to change basic ID3 tags on the player.  The keyboard is not really meant for mass text entry, but if I have a mistake in the ID3 tag, i'd rather just be able to quickly edit it straight out of the context menu.

[gbl08ma]

I like this idea... I wonder if it can be coded in LUA instead of C. No real point on coding it in LUA, other than having another example of a working complex plugin in LUA (boomshine doesn't really give an example on how to use menus, files, etc. API at all).

These days I have been busy, but when I have time I'll try to investigate a bit further on how ID3 tags work and see if I can code something that reads a file, displays its ID3 tags (something Rockbox already does), allows tags to be edited through virtual keyboard, and the the file saved with the new tags... if someone wants to help me, don't hesitate on contacting me

Other idea for implementing this is adding it to the current "View ID3 tags" feature on the WPS menu, so the tag viewer would also allow basic editing of the tags.

In my opinion, this has not been implemented yet because the less Rockbox writes on the filesystem, less are the chances that something is damaged (the changed file or the whole filesystem). However, as Rockbox's FAT driver has been used for so many times with no critical problems (AFAIK), I think we can trust it to change the music files... obviously, you do that at your own risk and without warranties, as happens with the rest of Rockbox.

[Chronon]

In my opinion, this has not been implemented yet because the less Rockbox writes on the filesystem, less are the chances that something is damaged (the changed file or the whole filesystem). However, as Rockbox's FAT driver has been used for so many times with no critical problems (AFAIK), I think we can trust it to change the music files... obviously, you do that at your own risk and without warranties, as happens with the rest of Rockbox.

Rockbox has had recording capability as well as cut/paste in the file browser for years now.

[bluebrother]

See the tracker:

http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/1008
http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/5927

[gbl08ma]

Unfortunately these two seem very old, probably they won't compile with the actual trunk.

I'm now going to see if I create a new plugin (using the actual Rockbox API) and if I reuse some of the routines. I could also try to fix the ID33v2 patch to make it work, but I have a feeling that would give more work than writing from scratch.

The code of the plugin could then be integrated into the tag viewer on the WPS, and optionally the plugin removed.

In my idea, tags are edited when people open the music file with the editor plugin, so I'm gonna try to code a viewer...

EDIT: As I thought, the ID3v2 patch is pretty old (from when there was a CVS repo!) and not even the main file of the plugin (edit_id3.c) can be used with little modifications. It happens that the code on that file is expecting some functions on the RB API that would be added by the patch (not a good coding practice in my opinion), and it was coded when the RB API was pretty different from what is now.
Not even the main functions (for replacing, adding, editing, removing, etc. tags) seem to be fully usable without modifications. But, even if these functions can be used (for sure they can), the main interface of the plugin would have to be re-written (from what I've understood from the code, the one that comes with the patch is not a menu-based UI, but a text-based one with keymaps that vary from player to player and other things that would make it difficult to operate the plugin on touchscreen targets).

[sorinake]

Can this plug-in support ogg tags as well ?

[gbl08ma]

Can this plug-in support ogg tags as well ?

If you work on it then yes.

Now I'm focusing on having support of *some* tag as there is no kind of tag editor yet in Rockbox

[saratoga]

Now I'm focusing on having support of *some* tag as there is no kind of tag editor yet in Rockbox

Getting some kind of basic tag editing and GUI would be nice.  Then later someone can add something like this:

http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/taglib.html

for vorbis, flac, etc.

[gbl08ma]

I'll start by developing the menu structure and basic tag displaying before trying to use the editing functions from the other patch.

Getting some kind of basic tag editing and GUI would be nice.  Then later someone can add something like this:

http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/taglib.html

for vorbis, flac, etc.

Do you mean this library as a suggestion of what can be ported, or to indicate an example of what would be implemented? Because if it's the first, then I don't think it'll be easy, as TagLib is licensed under LGPL and MPL (and not GPL), and coded in C++, not C.

[yelped]

Any update?

[Chronon]

Please don't ask for updates.  When someone submits some work, I'm sure they will announce it. 

[gbl08ma]

In fact I don't have much work done... I have been focusing on my contacts plugin witten in LUA, and I also spent some time trying to implement a encrypt/decrypt file plugin (I have got nothing on this too).

So, the tag editor project is stopped until I find time and mood to work on it again... unless someone works on it before me - which is very unlikely.

[doubi]

Do you mean this library as a suggestion of what can be ported, or to indicate an example of what would be implemented? Because if it's the first, then I don't think it'll be easy, as TagLib is licensed under LGPL and MPL (and not GPL), and coded in C++, not C.

I can see how C++ is a problem, but is there a real problem using code from more permissive licenses (LGPL, MPL) with less permissive? (GPL)

If so, this project includes a "libid3tag" which is GPL licensed:
http://www.underbit.com/products/mad/

If not, this might be usable (BSD license):
http://mplib.sourceforge.net/

And just for completeness, if C++ was usable:
http://id3lib.sourceforge.net/ (LGPL)

[gbl08ma]

Oh well. I lost interest in coding this plugin, as all the existing code doesn't work with current Rockbox, it is uncommented and I don't have sufficient knowledge to write one from scratch.

I won't mind, however, helping someone complete his/her implementation of a tag writer. At the very least, I can still do beta testing.

[doubi]

Pity! I'd like to... right after my exams, plus work I want to do on Perl, LibreOffice, Zotero...

Maybe sometime later in the Summer.