Topic: PLS/M3U titles not enforced?

[jyoun]

Is there a way to force the playlist to show a custom title provided within the PLS/M3U file's "title" assignments? It seems a bit hit-and-miss depending on the file type and if tags are used or not. Not sure if this is a bug or not, or if there is a setting somewhere I'm not understanding. I'm working with a variety of file types including emulated games, old mod-trackers and such...

[Ian @ un4seen]

By default, XMPlay will get the title and length info from the audio files (overriding what the playlist says). But you can tell it not to do that by adding a "NoScanList=x" line to your XMPLAY.INI file (under the "[XMPlay]" line), where "x" is one of these values:

1 = disable info scanning for playlist entries that include length info
2 = disable info scanning for all playlist entries
3 = disable info scanning for all files (from a playlist or otherwise)

[jyoun]

That INI setting doesn't seem to make any difference. Shouldn't the "Update title from cues" option result in PLS/M3U titles to always override whatever tags are associated with a track?

[Ian @ un4seen]

Check that the files aren't already in XMPlay's playlist or library. If they are, the previously scanned info will be kept. You will also need to restart XMPlay after removing the files, to clear the cached info. Note the info will be read from the file when it's played. If you don't want that to happen then you will need to right click on the playlist entries, go to "Track info" and click the "Override" box (you can do that for multiple files at once).

The "Update title from cues" option applies when using CUE files, ie. the title display is updated at the track positions in the CUE file (if it contains titles).

[jyoun]

OK, so the "title" assignments in PLS/M3U files are simply not always enforced, correct? OK, good to know...

[jyoun]

So, just curious, even after enabling "Track Info > Override" and setting the correct Title/Artist, all that info will be gone the next time I start XMPlay. What is the point of that then? Seems I can't set any track info, it all gets reset the next time I run XMPlay. I also tried to have my playlists saved in the library, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

Not a big deal if this is just how it is, I can live with it...

[Ian @ un4seen]

OK, so the "title" assignments in PLS/M3U files are simply not always enforced, correct?

The file's tags do have higher priority, so the playlist title info will only really be used if there are no tags.

So, just curious, even after enabling "Track Info > Override" and setting the correct Title/Artist, all that info will be gone the next time I start XMPlay. What is the point of that then? Seems I can't set any track info, it all gets reset the next time I run XMPlay. I also tried to have my playlists saved in the library, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

The overridden track info is stored in the library (xmplay.library file), so it should persist as long as the tracks are in the library. The current playlist contents are also stored there, so their info should also be retained as long as they stay in the playlist. Is that not happening?

[jyoun]

Yea, storing the individual songs in the library, overriding them and removing all tags, then using a PLS/M3U file to define the title does work.

I was trying to only store playlist files in the library though, in which case the individual tracks wouldn't retain any info.

At the same time as all of this, I'm trying to make my music library portable, so I want everything to use relative paths, but it seems library entries are always absolute paths? That means I can't even import all the tracks and override things, because running off a portable drive there's no guarantee those paths will be correct.

I'm much closer than I was before, so I really appreciate it I may just end up trying some kinda workaround using a batch file process to "fix" the absolute path issue - I can edit the library file and replace all absolute paths with relative ones, they just get reverted back to absolute paths when the program starts so I could place it in read-only mode, I'd just have to kinda "reset" them each time I wanna make a change or move my portable drive around.

[Ian @ un4seen]

If you enable the "Check other drives for missing files" option in the Playlist > Dead options page then XMPlay should find the tracks whenever the drive letter changes.

[jyoun]

Thanks Ian.
I think I'm almost 100% there figuring this out. Another question, perhaps the last one (lol) about CUE files. They seem to only be updating the window title bar, not what's shown in the playlist/queue area. Is there a way to have the QUE file override the titles in both places?

I have an STRM file titled "Dragon Quest IV - Overture.strm", then a cue file named "Dragon Quest IV - Overture.cue", which contains:
TITLE "Dragon Quest IV"
FILE "" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Overture"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00

I simply want it to show "Dragon Quest IV - Overture" as the title. I know I can simply use %0 as a formatting option, but I'm unable to find a way to get that working with file with subtracks (like NSF, GBS, HES, etc...). I don't mind creating a QUE file for every track like STRMs

My title formatting is like this, which is actually simplified from other attempts:
%?3{%?2{%2 (%3)|%3} - %1|%?1{%1|%0}}

[Ian @ un4seen]

Are you using a separate playlist entry for each track in the CUE file, ie. via the right-click menu's "Separate subsongs" option? If not, please try that.

[jyoun]

How does the "Seperate Subsongs" feature work? It is grayed out when I try it on all the NSF, GBS, HES, file types I'm dealing with.

I know I can create a separate playlist file for each subtrack. I've tried associating a CUE file with a PLS file, but can't seem to figure out how to make it override an artist/title tag. Is that ever possible? I can only get CUE files to override normal single-track files, like MP3, STRM, ADP, GENH, etc... so I assumed that was the limit for CUE files.

Part of the problem, if it wasn't clear, is that some of these more unusual filetypes have the filename embedded as a title tag, I assume due to the plugin's behavior. The "ignore file extension" title formatting doesn't apply to title tags though. I've dug into the ripping software used to extract these files, to see if there's a way there to change titles. In some cases opening these up in foobar allows changing tags, but it's a bit hit-and-miss, I can change the tags for things like SPC and MINI2SF types, some types like GYM it allows changing of tags but those don't seem to show up in XMPlay, and others like ADP foobar says updating the tags is not supported.

[Ian @ un4seen]

The "Separate subsongs" feature can be used when XMPlay (or native plugin) detects multiple subsongs in an audio file (or a CUE file for it) - a separate playlist entry is created for each subsong, which can have its own title. It won't work with Winamp plugins that have their own subsong system (eg. via special filename suffixes), as XMPlay doesn't know about that.