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[Pike84]

Will this plugin have tag editing feature at any point? Those who like to have that option, don't have much point in using this instead of the Winamp plugin, and having to have both plugins in use isn't too sensible either.

[Tsorovan]

Indeed.

If I may be so annoying as to suggest not implementing this in the actual playing plugin so as to "force" a more general-styled tag editing function to be implemented in XMPlay. Because as you say, it's very much nonsensical to have two plugins installed, using only part of one of them.

[Sebastian_Mares]

Will this plugin have tag editing feature at any point? Those who like to have that option, don't have much point in using this instead of the Winamp plugin, and having to have both plugins in use isn't too sensible either.

I am afraid not. I also don't really like the idea of a player having tag editing support. You might want to change your tags using MP3Tag instead.

[Pike84]

I don't really understand this kind of attitude towards such a simple and useful feature. It would clearly benefit many people, but what's unclear to me, is of what harm it could be to anyone . Well, I for one will have to continue using the old Winamp plugin (which isn't too bad, though).

[Guest]

Well, Sebastian Mares is quite correct on that point. XMPlay is a media player, not a tag editor.

[Brian]

We seem to be in a tradeoff situation with input plugins generally at the moment, as some of the new native ones don't have all the functions the old Winamp ones do, nor are the developers keen on them having all those functions. I guess it's going to be a question of how long reliance on third-party plugins can continue in these circumstances.

[Tsorovan]

<mental breakdown>

[Sebastian_Mares]

Since tag reading is handled by XMPlay internally, tag editing should be, too (if you really need tag editing in a media player).

[Torkell]

Since tag reading is handled by XMPlay internally, tag editing should be, too (if you really need tag editing in a media player).

I think my answer to this last time was "tag editing is good, bulk tag editing is bad".

I now use mp3tag, but it is useful to be able to fix the occassional typo without having to start mp3tag up. Come to think of it, tag editing makes more sense now we've got the media library.

The best solution would probably be to extend the plugin spec to add a setTag() function as well as getTag() (or whatever the functions are actually called).

[Tsorovan]

Sebastian Mares: very true. Input plugins should have nothing to do with editing tags.

[Pike84]

Since tag reading is handled by XMPlay internally, tag editing should be, too (if you really need tag editing in a media player).

It sort of makes sense, but you can see how it makes things easier for the player developers, when they don't have to worry about all the different tag types' support, since the plugins can handle it themselves. I suppose there are quite a few players around supporting these Winamp plugins too. Also, once again, I don't see any disadvantage in this (oo, the plugin's size is a few kBs bigger ). Could you Sebastian, or Tsorovan please tell me why it is so bad to have the plugins handle the tag editing?

[Sebastian_Mares]

Well, if I understood Sebastian Andersson correctly, he cannot even implement APEv2 since the XMPlay SDK doesn't offer any functions for storing or obtaining tags. It's meant to be simple.
In my opinion, a program should do what it designed for - a player should play, a tagger should tag, an e-mail client should send and receive e-mails... I don't like these things which are meant to do everything, but nothing well, so you end up in using "specialized" software anyways.

[Pike84]

In my opinion, a program should do what it designed for - a player should play, a tagger should tag, an e-mail client should send and receive e-mails... I don't like these things which are meant to do everything, but nothing well, so you end up in using "specialized" software anyways.

I can understand that, but tags an important part of a music file for many people, and it's only convenient to be able to edit them "on-the-fly". I have always done so myself, and I think that specialized tagger programs are only needed if you're processing a lot of files at once (or for some other, not so common purposes).

So, as you see, I actually think of tag editing in a player as a  "default" -  if it's not possible, something seems to be wrong. And I'm not the only one thinking like this. There have been people coming to the forum to ask if they're missing something, when they  haven't been able to edit some ID tags (after which they have been directed to get the input plugin).

[Tsorovan]

Yeah, we've already had this debate before but... it's completely retarded having to pause and unload the file you're listening to that might have faulty info in the tag or just a typo (or a tag at all, in my case — I do directory-wide tag removal, but sometimes a few songs slip through the cracks), and then start your tagging program of your choice, find the file and then do the thing, close the program and then start playing the file again.

Really. It's retarded. Very.

But it's also retarded having the input plugins handle tags. XMPlay should do it, just as it nowadays handles tag format/display and considering how a little trivial tagging support is soooooooooo bad, it could even be made a plugin (some people will, for some reason, still complain about that but fuck them).

[Pike84]

Yeah, we've already had this debate before but... it's completely retarded having to pause and unload the file you're listening to that might have faulty info in the tag or just a typo (or a tag at all, in my case — I do directory-wide tag removal, but sometimes a few songs slip through the cracks), and then start your tagging program of your choice, find the file and then do the thing, close the program and then start playing the file again.

Really. It's retarded. Very.

But it's also retarded having the input plugins handle tags. XMPlay should do it, just as it nowadays handles tag format/display and considering how a little trivial tagging support is soooooooooo bad, it could even be made a plugin (some people will, for some reason, still complain about that but fuck them).

I agree for the most part. I'm not sure if it's so retarded to have plugins handle the tags, but I certainly have nothing against XMPlay itself doing that either .

[Ian @ un4seen]

Built-in tag editting may well happen in a future release, but it can't be just built-in. It will also require some mechanism for plugins to edit tags, to support formats that XMPlay has no built-in knowledge of, like WMA. To keep the plugin system as simple as possible in it's first incarnation, I decided to save it for later (ie. not in 3.2).

[Tsorovan]

Good news indeed!

[Sebastian_Mares]

Built-in tag editting may well happen in a future release, but it can't be just built-in. It will also require some mechanism for plugins to edit tags, to support formats that XMPlay has no built-in knowledge of, like WMA. To keep the plugin system as simple as possible in it's first incarnation, I decided to save it for later (ie. not in 3.2).

Could you add ID3v1, ID3v2, APEv2 and Vorbis tag editing? The plugins should also export a flag which tell XMPlay which tag type(s) the format support, including a custom flag where all tag handling is done by the plugin itself.

[Irrational86]

Since Ian wants to keep the plugin system simple, why not keep it simple and simply add a plugin just for tag editing. It will not make the non-tagging people complain because they can simply remove it, and for the rest, they have their tagging support...What do you all think?

[Dotpitch]

Since Ian wants to keep the plugin system simple, why not keep it simple and simply add a plugin just for tag editing.

that's a nice solution, but is it also simple? every format has it's own way of tagging, so the tag-plugin should be able to tag all formats (not just the ones you use) or the input-plugin should have some info for the tag-plugin (which makes using winamp-plugins useless for tagging and people who just want the input-plugin furious )
...unless Ian has a revolutionary tag-editor