▲

[Barna]

I tried it with these two JPEG files you hosted on tinypic and both displayed just fine.
Can you upload the original images somewhere? Maybe ZIP them first.
Also make sure you didn't use the 'non-image-resizing' scale mode and had the window at a too small size.

[Sam_Zen]

Before using any own server space, I DL'd these tinypic bitmaps and used them in the playlist again.
Same result. Although a bit smaller, the first one ok, the second one just shows this :

Still only the left side.
The common factor of these two is the fact that I added an area to the right of the original square cover with a black background and text.
I checked different skins, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

[Barna]

Here's how the same cover image file looks here:

Works fine in all scale modes and skins as far as I can tell.

[Dotpitch]

Strange thing is, the first one is shown correctly by XMP while running a song or the playlist, while the second one only shows the left half of the bitmap.

Before using any own server space, I DL'd these tinypic bitmaps and used them in the playlist again.
Same result. Although a bit smaller, the first one ok, the second one just shows this :

Are you sure it's not showing the original cover, the one without the extra information?

[Sam_Zen]

I'm sure, because it's the only bitmap in the album-directory. The original square cover is at a different location.
This is the actual representation :


But I noticed in the screenshot of Barna things that are different, never seen before :


Very useful dialogs about album art, but I just don't have them, can't find a shortcut or whatever.

[Barna]

The menu can be opened by clicking the window with the middle mouse button.
If you don't have a middle mouse button, you cannot open it (except by attaching a mouse with 3 or more buttons to a USB port). See the end of the second and the top of third page of this topic for more discussion about it.

[Dotpitch]

I'm sure, because it's the only bitmap in the album-directory. The original square cover is at a different location.

Do the audio files themselves perhaps contain album art?

[raina]

You need to middle click the vis display.

[Sam_Zen]

v

Do the audio files themselves perhaps contain album art?

I don't think so. Plain common MP3 ones.

Strange. I used the middle mouse click, advised by Barna and raina.
First, the square front moved to the left of the area, but with still an empty right part :


(Comment on this : isn't there a kb shortcut alternative for this middle mouseclick function ?
I noticed, that if the click is unintentionally done with some move, the next of the visuals in the list is called.
Quite a clumsy control I must say.)

So after a second middle click I get the menu:

Select Cover (2) ? Why ? There's only 1 cover 'inner_mounting_flame.jpg'.
But 'Cover (front) (ID3)' seems to be default.
So maybe Dotpitch is right, that the plugin first scans for album art among the ID3 tags.
But if there isn't any embedded art among the Mp3 files, why pick a square of an existing bitmap ?

So I checked the second option with the filename, and then it was ok.
The right part with the text was shown as well, as intended. So the bitmap as it should be.

To re-check things, I did the first album 'Spectrum' again using the middle mouse-click in the frame:

No 'Select Cover (2)' there, just the name of the present bitmap 'spectrum_front'.
So maybe it seems to be caused by a specific MP3 detection script, because the files of 'Spectrum' are OGGs.

In order to check this behaviour further, I converted the Mahavishnu files from MP3 to OGG in the same dir with the cover bitmap, and made a new playlist.
All went well. Even when playing a single file, the wide cover art was correctly displayed.

[Dotpitch]

First, the square front moved to the left of the area, but with still an empty right part.

That sound like 'Album Art alignment/stretch'.

Comment on this : isn't there a kb shortcut alternative for this middle mouseclick function ?

No, but a few message up in this thread Ian says he's not sure about this button. A shortcut might be helpful in the future.

I noticed, that if the click is unintentionally done with some move, the next of the visuals in the list is called.

That means you're moving the scroll wheel, rather than just pressing it.

But if there isn't any embedded art among the Mp3 files, why pick a square of an existing bitmap ?

There is album art embedded in the mp3 files, that's why the plugin is showing it. Embedded album art is always the plugins first choice, it does not use the external bitmap in this case.

Hey, wait... 1000th post .

[saga]

Hey, wait... 1000th post .

Congratulations!

[dypsis]

I am playing an album that has only a front album art.
I have it set to cycle covers every 10 seconds.

But it cycles to AlbumArtSmall and Folder.

AlbumArtSmall displays a blurry image of the cover, as does Folder.
How do I stop this without disabling cover cycle? I want to keep cover cycle as I usually have more than one cover.
I have not noticed it scroll to AlbumArtSmall and Folder before. Maybe this was in the latest update. 

[Barna]

The 'Cycle covers' mode always switched between all covers that were found and were shown under the 'Select Cover' submenu.
The only thing that changed in the last two updates was support for images included in MP4 images. So if you're not playing MP4 files, the new version should not be a reason for different behavior.

[dypsis]

Hmmm.
So why is it now showing AlbumArtSmall and Folder in the cycle? I don't wish it to happen.

I don't even understand AlbumArtSmall. Both AlbumArtSmall and Folder are a distorted image.

[raina]

Why not delete them then? Windows can use at least folder.jpg/gif to display the album cover in Thumbnails explorer view in folder icons. And the reason they are small (=distorted?) is that it'll take less time to scan a ton of subfolders for the cover art. AlbumArtSmall (and all the variations) sound like Windows Media Player's doing, don't really know what the point in that is.

[dypsis]

I do have some covers in a sub folder, but they are not small (they are large), and never caused a problem previously.

Regarding AlbumArtSmall. I cannot find that anywhere.

[Barna]

It's probably embedded in the file itself.
Use a tagging tool like http://mp3tag.de to edit or remove them.

[dypsis]

It's probably embedded in the file itself.
Use a tagging tool like http://mp3tag.de to edit or remove them.

I completely removed the tag using mp3tag, then retagged.

And it is still there.

[jwbodnar]

Was thrilled to find this plug-in today when coming to the forum to search for help on something else.

One request for a future update, if possible, would be to have the plug-in properly handle PNG art work with transparency.  Like in the attached cover file.

I tag a MP3 with a 320x320 image, which is the native size of cover art on the iPod Classic.

CDs with eco-pack covers (card board with attached plastic holder) have rectangular cover art, though.  Rather than let iTunes mess with these, I keep the images sized to 320x320 and save them as PNG files with a transparent bar at the top and bottom.

The plug-in seems to render transparent pixels as white, so images with them look a little funny against the black background of the Neutron skin.

Hardly much to complain about considering how nice it otherwise is to have XMPlay show covert art 

[Dotpitch]

Regarding AlbumArtSmall. I cannot find that anywhere.

Have you switched on 'Show hidden files' in Explorer?