Windows Media Player

One of the background task I’ve been doing now that I’ve started a new job (2 months already, so not really new any more) is update all my MP3’s because the meta data is not stored in the actually MP3’s because I used to use WinAmp, and hated ID3v1 tags. So cleared all the tags out, and just name the files.

So any way, I’ve been editing the Meta data, which sometime is seems to get written to file (via the Advanced Tag Editor), but when I alter the title/artist it doesn’t. This is all in WMP 10.

I did install WMP11 Beta here at work, but then my PC started to crash with RAM error check, so the IS guys rolled the machine back, and removed WMP11 and it’s been sweet since then. But when I was using WMP11beta, I found the Advanced Tag Editor was really bad. If I moved the window (to see the track information from the file name) the window would go go over full screen. It would appear 4-8 times bigger than my display, and refuse to be shrunk, so I could press any buttons that where off the screen.

So anyway, in my editing, I’ve discovered so things I never knew before, and if I didn’t know them, then maybe some else doesn’t.

  • After editing fields white-space is trimmed of the ends.
  • When editing Ctrl+LeftArrow or Ctrl+RightArrow move you to the next non white space. But even better is Ctrl+Shift+Arrow, as you can then do word based selection.
So a line that looks like:

`05 Tokyo Ghetto Pussy - I Kiss Your Lips`

after getting edit the field into edit mode, only takes:

`Home`, `Ctrl+Shift+RightArrow`, `Delete`, `Ctrl+Shift+RightArrow` x3, `Ctrl+x`, `Tab`, `Ctrl+v`, `RightArrow`, `Delete`

and you have

`"I Kiss Your Lips" "Tokyo Ghetto Pussy"` all nice and clean. The funniest thing is that I got so used to doing this, that I can just look at line and think "select" "trim" "move" "fix" "next" and all the correct buttons are getting pressed. I can usually only handle about <10 track at a time because its so hand intensive, and oh, not what I getting paid to-do. But I usually only do it when I'm listen to a favourite track, and notice it's not "correct".
  • I spend most of my time in Library mode, as I like it playing files from random mode, from the complete list, thus in WDP11 where you cannot see a list of all the song (without the sickly summary bar thing that outlook also has, that I hate in both apps). Anyway WMP10 is how I like it, but it often painful to find the track currently playing so you can edit it. See above. Recently I found that if you click the “Now Playing” tab and then back to the “Library” tab, the current song is in the middle of the screen. With 3000+ track, this is much faster than panning the list looking for the highlight bar, which is what I used to-do. *shakes head in shame*