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WMP 12 - Where is the Advanced Tag Editor?
WMP 12 - Where is the Advanced Tag Editor?
- hi, i was relying heavily on WMP 11 Advanced Tag Editor option. i can not seem to find it anywhere in WMP12. was it moved? or removed and replaced by something else? thank you.
Answers
- Drag and drop the art on the track. :)
- Marked As Answer byMark L. FergusonMVP, ModeratorFriday, February 20, 2009 12:49 PM
- You can edit the tags in the Library view in the player. Right-click Edit, for example, should work.
- Marked As Answer byMark L. FergusonMVP, ModeratorSunday, May 10, 2009 5:15 PM
All Replies
- Advanced Tag Editor isn't included in this version of Windows Media Player. By editing media attributes in the Details pane, you can still accomplish most of the tasks you might have formerly performed in Advanced Tag Editor.Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
- thank you for the answer. not really what i wanted to hear. what about adding your own cover art for an individual track? that was done through Advanced Tag Editor, or with the copy/paste feature in the album cover. not really sure how to accomplish this now. thanks,
- Drag and drop the art on the track. :)
- Marked As Answer byMark L. FergusonMVP, ModeratorFriday, February 20, 2009 12:49 PM
- Bad, bad, BAD, B-A-D, TERRIBLE, T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E move.
Advanced tag editor allowed the addition of lyrics, lyrics in different languages (e.g.: transliterations or translations), original artists/albums, cover art, mood, and several other interesting meta-tags.
Sounds like a deliberate shot at WMP's feet to me.
- More like its heart.
- I agree. If this isn't put back in, I won't be using WMP anymore that is for sure.
- It seems like a solution will be the previous version of Windows Media Player installed in Virtual PC "Windows XP Mode".
- I agree this is a huge shortcoming for Media Player. How do I set a different album artist to artist, for use with things like compilation CD's? Older versions of Media Player made sorting music so easy.
- You can edit the tags in the Library view in the player. Right-click Edit, for example, should work.
- Marked As Answer byMark L. FergusonMVP, ModeratorSunday, May 10, 2009 5:15 PM
- I hope they include this again
- The main reason I used WMP was that I could add lyrics and translations (for non-English songs) with Advanced Tag Editor. Does anyone know of any alternative/external tag editors that have the same function as the Advance Tag Editor? Is there anyway to view "Recently added" files like WMP11 or was that browse function completely removed?
- Proposed As Answer byRanumao Sunday, May 17, 2009 2:35 PM
- There's a program called Mp3tag which pretty much just offers what you can already do with regular tag editing in WMP (or tag editing with Vista/Win7 Explorer). As far as I can find, there's nothing else out there that'll help with lyrics and translations, except maybe the id3lib programs (if you're up for installing Cygwin) -- even then, you need to know what tags to set and how to set them with id3v2, a command line tool.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk - Create a new Auto-playlist and set "Date added To library is after (7 or 30) days" for recently added files.
I agree. If this isn't put back in, I won't be using WMP anymore that is for sure.
Yeah, It is way too bad, terrible to remove the advanced tag editor out of WMP 12.
I was trying to install WMP 11 to get back the feature and I would not even open WMP. Luckily I did a backup.- If this doesn't make it into the final version of WMP12, I am definitely switching music players (Probably not to iTunes though).
- i kind of miss advancetag editor because of the picture thing but as long as i can drag and drop then i'm good to go, i will try this when i get home.
You can edit the tags in the Library view in the player. Right-click Edit, for example, should work.
Zachd, we know that. What we are all saying here is that this is simply NOT ENOUGH. The Advanced Tag editor is in fact what got me into WMP the first place. I used to be a Winamp user.
I want to be able to do things to my audio and video files, which I can't in the Library view. Unless Microsoft add all the functionality of the Advanced Tag Editor into Windows 7 library, this is a disgrace.
I will be either using something else, or having to rely in some sort of WMP plug-in that hopefully someone as distraught as all of us in this forum, will develop.
Honestly, this is the kind of thing that makes me ask: Excuse me Microsoft, but with all due respect... What were you thinking?- OK. THIS is neat!! But how can we say if this is the album cover, or the back cover, or a band picture, etc?
Honestly, this is the kind of thing that makes me ask: Excuse me Microsoft, but with all due respect... What were you thinking?
Well if these Windows 7 forums have any purpose and Microsoft are really using the feedback then I think the message is crystal clear: people liked WMP11 and you have ruined it.
I can't think of a single change from WMP11 to WMP12 that has been considered an improvement by the users in this forum: from the taskbar to the advanced editor, from the process to add media to the library to the menu layout.
I wish the WMP product manager had the guts to acknowledge this simple reality.
- @pmdci: What specific A.T.E. functionality are you dying for?
You can drag and drop the album covers onto the track in the player.
I believe if you wanted to do back covers / band pictures at this point you'd need to run custom code (a different editor of whatever sort). @pmdci: What specific A.T.E. functionality are you dying for?
You can drag and drop the album covers onto the track in the player.
I believe if you wanted to do back covers / band pictures at this point you'd need to run custom code (a different editor of whatever sort).
Say you drop the wrong picture, how do you "undo" your mistake?
Rather than listing workarounds to a problem that didn't exist in the first place, can you please put the A.T.E. back?- There's never been 'undo' in the library, sorry. If you drop the wrong picture, do it again with the right picture this time. You could drop the wrong art in the advanced tag editor as well, except there you'd more likely have contention/timing issues, which is one of the reasons the excellent *idea* of the advanced tag editor was providing an inferior experience.
I'm here as a friend and don't make those kinds of calls. I'd be interested in what specific advanced tag editor functionality you're interested in, but that's about it. The people on those teams had other things of more general benefit to more users than this, sorry. <3 There's never been 'undo' in the library, sorry. If you drop the wrong picture, do it again with the right picture this time. You could drop the wrong art in the advanced tag editor as well, except there you'd more likely have contention/timing issues, which is one of the reasons the excellent *idea* of the advanced tag editor was providing an inferior experience.
I'm here as a friend and don't make those kinds of calls. I'd be interested in what specific advanced tag editor functionality you're interested in, but that's about it. The people on those teams had other things of more general benefit to more users than this, sorry. <3
There's never been "undo" in the library but with the advanced tag editor you could always remove the picture (or even put more than one). That's one of the specific functionalities we are interested in; someone mentioned putting lyrics in songs. Or dropping a picture in the library for the album and having it copied in each song (which doesn't happen now).
I think you can make the assumption that we are interested in any functionalty that has been removed from WMP12 in comparison with the previous versions (otherwise we would have used other media players in the past rather than WMP11!).
And can you please mention the "other things of more general benefit to more users"??? I haven't found a single benefit of WMP12 compared to WMP11; I hope you don't mean things like streaming your media files over the internet which you must have noticed no-one has even made any comments about trying it out....
Saying that the advanced tag editor was "providing an inferior experience" is incredibly hypocriical when this forum has pointed out in plain words that it's WMP12 that is providing an inferior experience.
- Thanks for the tip. That's what I will be doing if WMP12 is not dramatically improved in the GA version.
I thought Microsoft could really change attitude after the Vista disaster but the beta and RC "openness" is just a gimmick. They are just unable to listen.
I am considering the possibility of scrapping the whole Windows 7 idea and staying with XP for another couple of years.
- Wath!
Other thing than u can do, is to disable Media Player from the Control Panel, and then, install the WMP 11 (The exe from the above link)- Proposed As Answer byDale At Work Thursday, August 20, 2009 12:47 AM
I'm merely pointing out that it's an excellent idea that you'd want to reimplement, and am making no attempt to be adversarial or undermine your excellent suggestions. My interest is in understanding the specifics of your interest so that I too can act as an advocate for your concerns where beneficial.
If you're not seeing the dropped picture added to each song, that's a bug in the RC - it should be the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service contention issue I've been referring to. Should be fixed for the RTM version. I believe for now you can (temporarily if needed) stop the sharing service to avoid that contention.
Lyrics in songs in the Advanced Tag Editor worked really poorly in a variety of scenarios. Likewise album art deletion. If those worked great for you, I'm very glad - but that's part of a large set of implementation issues which needed overhaul to make it up the quality bar. Those are indeed valuable and interesting scenarios! - but at the same time there were some fundamental problems in the old implementation.
This time around the focus was on adding new format support, simplifying key normal user tasks, and improving speed and stability. The Advanced Tag Editor was a great power user feature: we'll see what happens in this space in the future. :)- In fairness, there probably should be a delineation between"willing to listen" and "openness" vs "able to set their own priorities and making painful choices". The old Advanced Tag Editor, beautiful as it was, had some serious implementation issues that would have required it to be generally fully rewritten. Getting the things it needed to succeed properly implemented, laying the correct groundwork for it be rewritten as more than a hack, was probably the right call of the most benefit as opposed to keeping it limping along in various ways that were near unfixably broken.
There was definitely a list of things that could be done in the time available and a list of things that could not be done in the time available. Each and every item on the latter list was sad and painful.
And remember: the player isn't meant to be the be all and end all. There's a variety of awesome players out there that have different focuses and add different value. If you're a multimedia fan, it can be fun to play around with them. :) - "I'd be interested in what specific advanced tag editor functionality you're interested in"
ADD LYRICS, so that we don't have to switch to karaoke to sing along. The old Advanced Tag Editor, beautiful as it was, had some serious implementation issues that would have required it to be generally fully rewritten.
Then rewrite it!! Sorry if this seems a little rude but, DUH. Any one who were to read this thread would come to the following conclusion: people like the Advanced Tag Editor and don't like that it has been removed, therefore it should be put back, even if it involves rewriting it.
Can someone explain to me why Microsoft comes up with good ideas and then decides to play with them and only ends up screwing them up even though they claim to have made it "better"?The old Advanced Tag Editor, beautiful as it was, had some serious implementation issues that would have required it to be generally fully rewritten.
lol
So, you cant fix something and you simply put it out?? What a professionalism- I honestly haven't worked with WMP much, so I'm not sure what the advanced tag editor was capable of in 11. I do know that I've been disappointed with the tag editors in Winamp and iTunes, and have depended on seperate programs to edit tags. You might want to take a look at mp3tag:
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ I honestly haven't worked with WMP much, so I'm not sure what the advanced tag editor was capable of in 11.
Well, lets see, you can edit the Title, Genre, Mood, Track Number, Beats per minute, the Key, the Album, the Original Album, Set, Subgenre, Language, the Artist, Lyricist, Album Artist, Original Lyricist, Conductor, Composer, Original Artist, add a link to thier web site, add/remove Lyrics, add/remove Pictures and specify them as Front Cover, Back Cover, etc, and add/remove comments in a variety of languages. Yeah, maybe it wasn't perfect, but in my opinion it was spectacular, far better than the alternatives presented by the other media players.
So Bring It Back!!!There's never been "undo" in the library but with the advanced tag editor you could always remove the picture (or even put more than one).
You needed to, because dropping a new picture always created a second picture entry in addition to the first (it was not a replace operation, it was always an append operation).The old Advanced Tag Editor, beautiful as it was, had some serious implementation issues that would have required it to be generally fully rewritten.
Well, yes, it was as buggy as ____ (and obviously written by a visiting student intern rather than a professional programmer?), it spontaneously deleted as much data as was added at times (track numbers and artists keep vanishing when other tags were modified), and it had tiny little panes too small to allow you to read the data it contained, but some of us were using it extensively.
The concern here, is that the upgrade to Windows 7 forces people to throw away valuable data that took a great deal of time and effort to enter. This should never be.
Someone point me to the required standards to implement this feature as an add-in (tagging standards for various formats plus plug-in how-to's), and I'll write one. The only reason why I haven't started already is that I don't want to waste the time (and money) if you are going to put it back in by the RTM or SP1.- LOL! A bleep function!? That will stop people using terms like "DLL ____" (DLL h-e-l-l)!
When RMBing a file and selecting "Properties" WMP displays its own properties Window - one that doesn't allow editing - and I think this has always been the case. Zachd, is there any chance you can shine some light on why it doesn't use the one from Explorer? Especially in Windows 7 where the tag editor is absent.
- Hmm... I would say that Windows 7 has everything a high end gamer like me would need.
I love windows 7.. and no wmp toolbar is just something different from the previous os versions.. It does have the toolbar when u open the media player..
Adding such a toolbar would add just another startup item. As you know, the more the startup items are, the more your system takes long to restart / reboot and perform slow during the usage.
its better to use the windows media player when needed. Theres no pain at all!
theres no pain to doubleclick the application and get it working.
windows 7 rules.. its the best os ever !!!
MICROSOFT, I request you not to make any changes to the media player toolbar etc. Windows 7 is great!.. no changes required..
-------------------------╬---------------------- - Agreed, Atlantisbase. I can't imagine what would have made MS decide this was worthy of removal. If it's not there I can't see any compelling reason not to switch to another player. That was the killer app for me.
- +1. The removal of the Advanced Tag Editor from WMP12 is a disappointment. Now there's no built-in way I can find at all for adding lyrics to a wma/mp3. I didn't know that the Tag Editor was buggy???!!! It always worked fine for me. I hope they put it back.
- Proposed As Answer byctrlmd Wednesday, July 22, 2009 12:51 AM
- This is sad i was trying to post a question about advanced tag editor but i found this question posted before
i really really hoping they will return this feature to windows media player 12 because it was more than great there should be an enhancement for these kind of features
not a removal for it
i hope my voice reach somewhere please return it back :( - I join to the above proposals. Please, return the Advanced Tag Editor!
Does this forum have "polls", if it does, I propose we start one to see just how many people want the Advanced Tag Editor back; like a petiton only with out signatures. This is a democratic society itsn't it?
- No use. The release candidate was already at the stage called 'feature complete'. If the editor comes back, it will be in Win 8. Find a third party alternative. Complaining here would not help.Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
No use. The release candidate was already at the stage called 'feature complete'. If the editor comes back, it will be in Win 8. Find a third party alternative. Complaining here would not help.
Why wait for Windows 8? We will have a SP1 :-)- "No New Features In Service Packs"Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
"No New Features In Service Packs"
Hmm..., funny, I seem to recall a certain firewall system which was overhauled in a service pack to the point that it was essentially a new feature. And, I'm sure we could come up with a list of new features that have been added to XP through service packs. But no, Microsoft only releases service packs to fix its screw ups, adding features is UNHEARD OF, heaven forbid that our users should get some new feature without PAYING FOR IT. So what if the Windows 7 release has to wait a few more months so that a highly desired feature gets added back, I think that we can all wait. Let us also not forget that Vista had so many of its problems because Microsoft got jumpy committed itself to releasing it before it was really ready. Our saving grace may be that, like IE, WMP can be updated separately; can you say WMP 13.
I have to admit, in some ways it almost feels like Microsoft is becoming a bit like Mac. By this I mean that I always sort of got the feeling that Macs gave you less control over your PC; it always felt like too much was being done for you and that you were limited in what you could alter; mind you I don't know if this is true, it's just the feeling I get. It feels like in a way Windows is becoming like Mac, worrying more about the looks and less about the guts, limiting your control. Of course they will claim that they are just answering the demands of the masses, which, unfortunately, don't care about the guts of their PC, they just want it to work and be nice to look at. Microsoft should go back to worrying less about how flashy or bubbly (yes I also get the impression that Windows is getting bubbly in its looks and I can't say that I like that entirely either) Windows is and more about how much control the user has. If people want their PC experience simplified they can go to Macs. Windows users stay with it for one of two reasons: either they have to because 90% of software is for Windows, or they, like me, believe that despite its buggy nature, Windows is still the more powerful and capable OS.
The bottom line here, Microsoft, is that you should not give in to the ignorant, lazy masses who only want their computing experience to be "easier" or "simpler". Do NOT get rid of the plethora of sophisticated, useful, and excellent features that gave Windows its success. You claim to want to listen to your users, well then listen; listen not just to the common user, but listen to the experienced user, the advanced user; listen to the users who know what is good; listen to the shout from this thread alone: it screams, "ADD BACK THE ADVANCED TAG EDITOR". Listen, and answer us as we wish you would, for as long as you refuse to answer us, we will continue to scream, no matter how many road blocks you throw up. No matter how hopeless it seems.No use. The release candidate was already at the stage called 'feature complete'. If the editor comes back, it will be in Win 8. Find a third party alternative. Complaining here would not help.
Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
WMP is a standalone product and may be updated without upgrading the OS. Anyway, how about writing an ATE plugin for wmp12? :)Wath!
Other thing than u can do, is to disable Media Player from the Control Panel, and then, install the WMP 11 (The exe from the above link)
Yah please bring it back i hear you on the drag and drop but untill you can show us how to do the other things this fine picture of a editor will do then we will feel way less of WMP12 . You must understand most of us feel the our music files are our prized files and if we have a pet name for the song or even just want to add the beat or the key it's played in that is something we expect from WMP . heck maybe even we thought maybe it would have been improved but never did any of us dreamed it would be taken away .
Well Microsoft you want our input well we are trying to help you make Windows 7 even better .. I have a question since i found a bit of a bug in WMP 12 and here is why the Editor rocks alot of my music files have showed up as 0 bit and right now i have no way to add any info to the file . BUT if i had Advanced Editor i could at least go into my music and see the file was 2.8 MB and under subtitle put 2.8 MB that way i would have some kind of clue how big the file really is .- Sam,
You don't want to use Windows Media Player to manage album art. In fact, as of WMP 12, you don't want to use Media Player for much of anything as far as I can tell. It appears as though the Windows Media Player product team has succeeded in closing all loopholes to using your own custom album art. Any custom art you apply will be, as far as I have been able to determine as of yet, be either destroyed or ignored in WMP 12.
http://dalepreston.com/Blog/2009/08/laughable-album-art-craziness-in.html
If custom album art is important to you, it's time to start looking at alternative players.
HTH,
Dale - Nice quote from WMP help. Thanks.
- pmdci,
Here's a tool I wrote that you can use to embed your album art with standard options into MP3 files - hopefully you're using MP3 and not WMA.
http://dalepreston.com/Blog/2009/07/id3-album-art-fixer.html
Unfortunately, though, WMP 12 appears not to use embedded album art in its Album Art visualization the way all versions previous to WMP 12 have done. I'm still working on a way to get around this but, since the WMP team seems to have as a goal eliminating any option for you to use custom album art, I am not sure if I will be successful this time.
Dale - I had these same thoughts when WMP 10 was released and again when WMP 11 was released. The only thing I have seen come from my efforts to overcome the problems with each succeeding version of WMP was for the WMP team to identify and close more "loopholes".
It's just my opinion but I think that the WMP team doesn't see you, as a purchaser of Windows, as their customer. I think that they view content providers as their customer and it appears to me that their motivation in adding, removing, or changing features in WMP is to restrict your ability to have full access to high quality content - even if that content is of your own making - in order to protect the intellectual property interests of those whom Microsoft views as their partners.
Dale - Advanced tag editor has been around for a long time. It's never, as far as I have seen, been a big point of contention in regards to its functionality or reliability. It is mature code and didn't need rewritten to be included in WMP 12. That's not to say it wouldn't benefit from a rewrite; most code would benefit from applying all the lessons learned during the initial writing but few development projects get that luxury.
There are no timing issues as zach seems to imply. Where there might be perceived timing issues would be in the way WMP caches changes in the database and saves the write to files for when it is accessing the files anyway. This is a little confusing sometimes but it is definitely not a a timing issue in Advanced Tag Editor.
Editing in the lists in WMP 12 is a very unsatisfactory experience.
http://dalepreston.com/Blog/2009/08/what-happened-to-advanced-tag-editor.html
I guess I just missed the consumer outcry where Microsoft's customers demanded the removal of Advanced Tag Editor.
Dlae - I long hoped, begged, screamed, shouted, and everything else I could think of to get the WMP team to fix WMP 11. I predicted that the public outcry would result in WMP 11.5 to fix the things they had removed or crippled from WMP 10 or that there would be a WMP 12 that fixed it. Well, there never was a WMP 11 point anything and WMP 12 wasn't created in response to public outcry but was, instead, created to further whatever Microsoft's own goals are. In fact, WMP 12 only served to close the loopholes that the WMP 11 team missed when it was trying to close loopholes in WMP 10.
I don't know what the goals of the WMP team are. I don't know the numbers of how many millions of Windows users in the world actually think the changes in WMP 12 are great. But one thing I think is clear is that whatever goals the WMP team has, it didn't align with those of us who have posted in this thread. Oh well. It could just be that we're really, really in the minority of Windows or WMP users.
*whispering* sort of like FireFox being such a minority of browser users that Microsoft doesn't have to worry about that either.
http://www.signtific.org/en/node/52945
Dale - Paul,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bb190309.aspx
http://www.id3.org
It's not a trivial task; be prepared for a lot of work and a lot of trial and error.
Regards,
Dale - This is ridiculous!!! Why Why WHY does Microsoft always have to ruin a good thing AND then proceed to ignore their source of INCOME when it is more than clear that they are disappointed. If Microsoft claims to be interested in listening to their users and improving the quality of Windows, then I say they are a bunch of lying B******S from H**L; they only thing they have "improved" is the surface (or so it would seem).
Yes, fine, maybe the whole thing wasn't perfect, I'll admit I had more than one occasion when WMP's info storage system went on the fritz. BUT, that is no reason for making WMP commit seppuku (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku). When will these morons learn that every time they go and make drastic, stupid, unnecessary changes to things, which don't improve squat, that they only enrage and alienate their users, especially after the Vista fiasco.
I have always been a die hard Windows user and I am now greatly disappointed with Microsoft, which deserves a good spanking right about now. Please, just for once, will you stop worrying about how flashy it is and try to actually program something USEFUL again (*cough* WMP tag editor *cough*, *cough* IE spell checker *cough*). Unfortunately, it would seem that power is inversely related to appearance. "No New Features In Service Packs"
Like Atlantisbase said. Back in the NT4 days, what you said was the policy at Microsoft. Not so now for a long long time. Not only are there new features in service packs, they remove existing features via service packs!
Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVPWMP is a standalone product and may be updated without upgrading the OS. Anyway, how about writing an ATE plugin for wmp12? :)
WMP is a feature of Windows. Your only legitimate expectation to support for WMP is based on your expectation of support for Windows.Oh!, but didn't you know Dave, removing features is all in the interests of making Windows a safer, more pleasant tool for the ignorant masses. Safer and more pleasant my a**; instead of calling them Service Packs they should be called "Feature Sealing Screwup Patches".
Microsoft is turning into a bunch of control-freak hypocrites who wouldn't know functionality if it strip teased for them. I don't care if Microsoft/Windows has a monopolic iron grip on the computer industry. Just don't turn into a bunch of totalitarian Feature Nazis just because you CAN.
This is just as bad as health care reform. (Haha. In 50 years someone will find this burried on some ancient server and have no idea what that is about or why it applies.)- What the h ell, I just moved from Vista to Windows 7
and the WMP Tag Editor is gone? WHY??
Dumbest decision ever! Shame on the one who is
responsible for that! - Why you ask. It's because the people currently developing WMP are a bunch of small- and close-minded twerps who like to tear things out rather than improve and fix the problems they create. Their pedantic, up-tight attitude is going to only force people away. I am most disappointed in Microsoft, which appears to be increasingly attracted to money and less attracted to the satisfaction of their users. It think it is stupid, pathetic, and unbecoming. IF I ever move to Windows 7, I am definitely downgrading WMP to version 11. The WMP team is currently in the dog house, no even worse, the pound, and hear you me, it is going to take a lot, and I do mean A LOT, before they are let out in my book.
For now, either down grade or use iTunes or some 3rd party editor (I say use iTunes; it becomes a symbolic slap in the face: "If I can use Microsoft I'll go to Mac. Hrumph") - hey men i agree with you, wm12 turns down with this release, the tag editor is a basic function in a decent media player. in my case i use the tag editor to put the cover art by selecting cover front and by this way i can see the cover in my nokia e71 otherwise not.
i hope that the tag editor comes back in an update.
for now i can use itunes...
Luis Why you ask. It's because the people currently developing WMP are a bunch of small- and close-minded twerps who like to tear things out rather than improve and fix the problems they create. Their pedantic, up-tight attitude is going to only force people away. I am most disappointed in Microsoft, which appears to be increasingly attracted to money and less attracted to the satisfaction of their users. It think it is stupid, pathetic, and unbecoming. IF I ever move to Windows 7, I am definitely downgrading WMP to version 11. The WMP team is currently in the dog house, no even worse, the pound, and hear you me, it is going to take a lot, and I do mean A LOT, before they are let out in my book.
I wouldn't go so far as to say bad things about those developing WMP. Developers in a large organization such as Microsoft don't get to decide what to develop; they simply follow orders. The problem here is not the developer team, they're probably as unhappy with some aspects of the product as we are. The problem is the product team. The product team would be headed by marketing and business folks, not by technical and development folks.
For now, either down grade or use iTunes or some 3rd party editor (I say use iTunes; it becomes a symbolic slap in the face: "If I can use Microsoft I'll go to Mac. Hrumph")
Luis_diaz2, just use my album art fixer program at http://dalepreston.com/Blog/2009/07/id3-album-art-fixer.html for embedding your art into MP3 files. If you're using WMA, this won't work. My suggestion then is to quit using WMA, switch everything to MP3, and then use my tool.
Dale
- Forgive me, the product team is then as afore described, in my opinion. Maybe then those marketing and business stiffs should have a gander at this forum, because it would certainly seem like they haven't. Of course maybe those lowely, victomized developers should stand up and say, "Hey, why are we being forced to kill a good thing?" Blindly following orders is how things get to be in a sorry state; just my opinion.
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- WinAmp still has that silly pretend-to-be-home-stereo button look. I just don't get it when a media player tries to simulate being my home stereo or, even worse, those that try to look like my car stereo. I have a PC. It has a great big monitor. That monitor supports about 17 million colors. Why can't any media player get this stuff right?
This is a good example of the real problem. Because Windows Media Player is included with Windows, virtually every PC user in the world has a media player already. There's just no financial incentive for anyone to create a truly robust alternative. WinAmp users are no more of a threat to Microsoft's market share than are Linux users.
In fact, Windows Media Player comes closer to being a good player than any other product on the market. It is just soooooo close to being great but then falls completely flat in the areas such as album art and doing things like dropping ATE. This is why I am so passionate about the problems with WMP. I am a big fan of Microsoft products. I've used them since Microsoft basic in 1978 on S100 computers. I got really excited about MCE and, it too, came so close to being great yet fell short in such big ways. I'm passionate about WMP because I want to use WMP.
I'm not passionate, for example, about the problems in IE (though I was a big fan of IE when it first came out and wrote web apps for IE since IE 1.0); I've just moved on to FireFox.
We're a lot closer to a great player with WMP than we will ever be with WinAmp; I just wish the WMP team would listen more. If they don't, perhaps WMP12 will be the version that finally pushes a FireFox class media player (as in a media player of high quality that finally begins to have serious impact on Microsoft's market share). Personally, I think that IE is a lost cause (see FireFox), any search from Microsoft is a lost cause (see Google), but there just really isn't yet a better alternative for media - or hasn't been previous to WMP 12.
- Great post. It really matches my feelings perfectly. I suppose Microsoft's problem is that it used to attract talented people. Now the talented people want to work for other companies therefore Microsoft is left with "second division" product ideas and poor product management.
As you say in a way such a poor WMP12 could revive the media player market which is good for us; not so from a Microsoft perspective; IE dropped the ball years ago, WMP is in the process of doing it.... what's next? Office (already threatened by online alternatives) and eventually the OS itself... - I'm not a big fan of Winamp either, it's ugly and the interface is confusing... You can surely get a nice theme for it but still I think that WMP interface is much better. Even when it comes to Zune I still prefer WMP over that... but microsoft is not giving us any other choice! Look at the screen shot I've attached, aren't those the features that people here were asking for?
- I'm kind of pining for the days when Microsoft would just buy another company with useful software rather than trying to develop on its own.
Maybe they should go after TagScanner. I've been using this program instead of WMP11's ATE. It's a superior product and much easier to use. Especially the latest revision.
http://download.cnet.com/TagScanner/3000-2141_4-10056506.html
It supports all tags and formats as well as lyrics and album art and will imbed to the mp3 rather than store in a separate db. It will also allow you to choose the source for updating data like freedb, discogs, etc. (and you can export lists to html or excel)
There were a number of functionalities that were dropped from WMP10 that were never recovered in WMP11. As well as some outside developed tools like exporting the library to excel wee no longer supported. When you have over 20,000 tracks in your library that's a huge necessity. Yet I still found WMP11 easier to use and more friendly than iTunes.
So I guess I'm going to to wait on the WMP12 to see what will be coming later. Also I understand that the player is also not supporting the latest MP3 tag standard either.
The problem that the decision makers seem to have is that they think consumers are more worried about form over funtionality. Who really cares about skins and all that flashy garbage if the product itself doesn't work for [insert expletive here].
As usual I'll stick to my mantra, "Never install an MS product in the first year of release". - On the open source side, there is kid3 for tag editing. I tend to use opensource before free/shareware.
I haven't used 7 for a while, never noticed the ate got removed. - Buying other companies is how Microsoft got Media Player in the first place. The problems come from what Microsoft has done with it since then.
I am wholly and speaking for myself only. In no capacity could anything I say be fairly or accurately related as being any part of any opinion on the part of anyone or any entity other than myself. I am extremely interested in active and interesting conversations with fellow users where we discuss the flaws and possibilities of software, and think about what specifically could be done to achieve betterness. Please don't poison the process by making me having to filter my words carefully. Few people know what I do: I used to be a junior member of the player team waaaaaaaay back in the day, but have had a minimum of involvement since that point. Again, I speak for myself only. Evidently I can't stress this enough. I love to listen to you and your input: please don't poison the communication process. Imagine that well tailored feedback might make it to the right people: it behooves you to speak for yourself with your own words as much as possible. People know how I feel: it's much more interesting to hear the specifics of how you the user feel. =)
There was a question raised as to the functionality of the Advanced Tag Editor: it was indeed broken in many fashions that have previously been commented upon online - progress over time left it using an older architecture - , and would have had to be nearly completely reimplemented. I believe some people here have understood this, and others don't. No worries. One of the points with Windows 7 was to get rid of code that "kinda sorta" worked and ensure that it either Worked(TM) or that ... it wasn't there. You see what happened here. =\
There was a question as regards the reimplementation of the Advanced Tag Editor: it seems evident at this point that other Windows 7 features were priorities to get right, especially given that there's a great third party tag management solutions available.
So let's skip back to the most interesting issues on hand:
What <b>specifically</b> about the Advanced Tag Editor do you miss?
So far I've heard people mention lyrics editing, slightly better(?) album art editing, and editing Album Artist more 'cleanly'.- Integration with WMP. There might be alternative tag editors but it's much more convenient when playing something in WMP and spotting a tag that you want to add or change that you can do this on the spot rather than stopping playback, closing WMP to allow access to the file, launching another program, editing and finally re-opening WMP to resume playback.
Ok, here are the fields I would like to be able to edit in the ATE and in turn be able to have the included in WMP12 as functionality. Again this is coming from my perspective as someone with a large amount of music files who also suffers from short term memory loss, so having a good database is essential in being able to recall music at the appropriate time.
Track#, Disc#, TrackTitle, SubTitle, Track Artist, Album, Album Artist, Year, Genre, Grouping or SubGenre, Composer, Original Artist, Remixed by, Conductor,
Track Rating should be numeric and incorporated as part of the tags.Comment (should be active to the player which ticked me off about WMP11, Windows displays comments but the player didn't and weren't searchable even though other players like Realtek or iTunes could. Comment can be used for listing similar artists or similar tracks to give the player that Pandora-like capability. I use a mixing program that gives me this capability for quickly throwing together playlists based on comments, BPM, Genre and Sub Genre )
BPM (this one is big especially when putting together play lists for jukebox functionality and want to keep similarly tempo'd tracks together) Publisher (label), Copyright, URL and Encoded by are also useful.
Album art should be embedded to the file (no saving as a separate file database).Lyrics (functionality should be searchable too. Sometimes you can't remember or in my case quickly recall a title or even artist but being able to search by a phrase is a huge help)
All of the above mentioned items can be tagged. There is still the ability for additional custom tags that could be incorporated as well like mood.
Okay that fulfills my whining quotient for the day.
As UtenteAnonimo stated, integration with WMP is a key issue. Also, it's not just the editing Album Artist more 'cleanly'. It is the non-standard or unclear connection between fields in WMP and specific ID3 frames. The issue is that tagged MP3 files are used in more than WMP. They're usually used in multiple cars, portable CD players, home stereos, MP3 players, and even in other Windows based media players. In order to get the expected results from an ID3 tag in each of those players, users need to understand how to set certain fields when editing a tag. I suppose that's why it is called "advanced" tag editor.I am wholly and speaking for myself only. In no capacity could anything I say be fairly or accurately related as being any part of any opinion on the part of anyone or any entity other than myself. I am extremely interested in active and interesting conversations with fellow users where we discuss the flaws and possibilities of software, and think about what specifically could be done to achieve betterness. Please don't poison the process by making me having to filter my words carefully. Few people know what I do: I used to be a junior member of the player team waaaaaaaay back in the day, but have had a minimum of involvement since that point. Again, I speak for myself only. Evidently I can't stress this enough. I love to listen to you and your input: please don't poison the communication process. Imagine that well tailored feedback might make it to the right people: it behooves you to speak for yourself with your own words as much as possible. People know how I feel: it's much more interesting to hear the specifics of how you the user feel. =)
There was a question raised as to the functionality of the Advanced Tag Editor: it was indeed broken in many fashions that have previously been commented upon online - progress over time left it using an older architecture - , and would have had to be nearly completely reimplemented. I believe some people here have understood this, and others don't. No worries. One of the points with Windows 7 was to get rid of code that "kinda sorta" worked and ensure that it either Worked(TM) or that ... it wasn't there. You see what happened here. =\
There was a question as regards the reimplementation of the Advanced Tag Editor: it seems evident at this point that other Windows 7 features were priorities to get right, especially given that there's a great third party tag management solutions available.
So let's skip back to the most interesting issues on hand:
What <b>specifically</b> about the Advanced Tag Editor do you miss?
So far I've heard people mention lyrics editing, slightly better(?) album art editing, and editing Album Artist more 'cleanly'.
I understand if the WMP team dropped the editor because it was incompatible with framework changes in WMP12 - though I think that makes WMP12 an incomplete product - but it is not because the tag editor was broken. It seems more like it was a decision based on budget, time, or other resource priorities that prevented the rewrite. Hopefully, they'll see that it was used more than they perhaps thought and will put it back.
I see quite a few changes in Windows 7 that restore or replace removed or broken functionality in Vista - functionality that had existed before Vista. In other words, the Windows product team conceded that mistakes were made in some decisions about the Vista UI. And I've been a big Vista fan from the beginning so this isn't a complaint; it's simply pointing out that mistakes can be made. And Microsoft has listened in Windows 7. I hope the WMP team will do the same.
- Microsoft is totally brain-dead on this one. The goal with any software development project is to add more features, not remove them. It's obvious that Microsoft wants the majority of users using WMP, however this move goes against the prospect of that ever happening.
On the bigger scale, your making the regular everday user want to switch to Linux with your pricing strategy and other annoyances like WGA, which only affects paying users, not the intended pirates who with 7Loader, can crack Windows in under two minutes. Microsoft seriously needs to look again at what their true goal is in this market because their direction is confusing at times and contradicts logic. A quick solution to this problem could be through Windows Update and a 12.5 update of sorts adding back the Tag Editor. Unfortunately, this is where it's headed, unless Microsoft wants to destroy WMP and get users over to other players. If this is the case, let us know so we can abandon WMP quickly so you can phase it out of existance.
Christopher Tenzycki,
MCITP: Enterprise Administrator, Server Administrator
MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring; Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring; Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Configuring; Deploying and Maintaining Windows Vista Client and 2007 Microsoft Office System Desktops; Windows Vista, Configuring
MCSE: Windows 2000
MCDBA: SQL Server 2000
MCP, A+, Network+ - The goal with any software development project is to add more features, not remove them.
That's called Feature Creep. Simplicity is an overlooked factor in software design: removing features, especially broken features that are not fully functional, is an important element in that. You may have a different opinion on software design, but it seems historically evident that the player team got feedback that the player was overwhelming to new users and took steps, bad or good, to make things simpler. They may have completely failed for you, but: removing (broken) features isn't unprecedented.
If you're going to do something, do it right.
It's obvious that Microsoft wants the majority of users using WMP
I would step back from that and suggest that "Microsoft wants the majority of users to have their content to play smoothly and cleanly without hassle." That seems a better reflection of the changes in multimedia in Windows 7 in my eyes. A lot more content Just Works. :)
What specific aspects of the Tag Editor are you missing? That's probably more interesting than adding back in a broken tool.
From Dale: ... it is not because the tag editor was broken ...
This would come as a surprise to me. :) Have you looked into lyrics editing with ATE? That's simply the most evident problem of something that would have to be nearly completely rearchitected to be Great. Hence why it's of more interest to know What Specifically people liked as opposed to simply "bring back ATE". In theory you could resurrect the UI with new guts, but -- is that the be-all end-all UI? What specifically is of interest to only accomplish via ATE?
It's not any great secret that the Advanced Tag Editor had some serious flaws. I'm happy if people got by without ever noticing those, but -- go play with lyrics at some point or read up on some of the issues people had in this area. :) The goal with any software development project is to add more features, not remove them.
Well isn't that the inherent problem with all MS rollouts? And not to fingerpoint strictly at MS, but all software?
That's called Feature Creep. Simplicity is an overlooked factor in software design: removing features, especially broken features that are not fully functional, is an important element in that. You may have a different opinion on software design, but it seems historically evident that the player team got feedback that the player was overwhelming to new users and took steps, bad or good, to make things simpler. They may have completely failed for you, but: removing (broken) features isn't unprecedented.
If you're going to do something, do it right.
It's obvious that Microsoft wants the majority of users using WMP
I would step back from that and suggest that "Microsoft wants the majority of users to have their content to play smoothly and cleanly without hassle." That seems a better reflection of the changes in multimedia in Windows 7 in my eyes. A lot more content Just Works. :)
What specific aspects of the Tag Editor are you missing? That's probably more interesting than adding back in a broken tool.
From Dale: ... it is not because the tag editor was broken ...
This would come as a surprise to me. :) Have you looked into lyrics editing with ATE? That's simply the most evident problem of something that would have to be nearly completely rearchitected to be Great. Hence why it's of more interest to know What Specifically people liked as opposed to simply "bring back ATE". In theory you could resurrect the UI with new guts, but -- is that the be-all end-all UI? What specifically is of interest to only accomplish via ATE?
It's not any great secret that the Advanced Tag Editor had some serious flaws. I'm happy if people got by without ever noticing those, but -- go play with lyrics at some point or read up on some of the issues people had in this area. :)
No single application fits all users needs. At least not at the default display level. After all isn't that why it's called the Advanced Tag Editor?
The default is the basic application for the average schmoe. (The non-adventureous non-techno-geek.)
For the rest there is a toolbar option called advanced. And it should work. Otherwise you have have a product that is only sufficient for mouth breathers.
But enough about the philosophy of marketing and software...- I completely agree this was an idiotic move to eliminate the Advanced File Editor in WMP12. My personal favorite version was 10 which had a great left hand side navigation / file list which looked a lot like Windows Explorer in XP.
I am sure there were people on the Media Player Team who fought to ensure their product didn't become WORSE and cheers to them. Unfortunatly to the project managers who let this go through - you made a crappier product and regressed innovation.
It is fine to have a cleaner simpler product out of the box... but then let users go into an options menu and select the advanced features which they want.
If someone offered me the ability to get WMPlayer 10 in 64bit for Win7 I would gladdly take it up.
It's obvious that Microsoft wants the majority of users using WMP
Now that is a good goal. If that is Microsoft's goal and if they accomplished that in WMP 12, then good for them.
I would step back from that and suggest that "Microsoft wants the majority of users to have their content to play smoothly and cleanly without hassle." That seems a better reflection of the changes in multimedia in Windows 7 in my eyes. A lot more content Just Works. :)
DaleWhat specifically is of interest to only accomplish via ATE?
well i would love for the "set" filed to be available in the interface and be a feature that is part of the default sort, since most other tag editors use this as "disc number". also, since now there is no ATE, how would you maintian this field while waiting for WMP to add the other additional functionality to be able to sort on this field.- Edited bykoawmfot Tuesday, October 13, 2009 4:48 PMtypo
What specifically is of interest to only accomplish via ATE?
well i would love for the "set" filed to be available in the interface and be a feature that is part of the default sort, since most other tag editors use this as "disc number". also, since now there is no ATE, how would you maintian this field while waiting for WMP to add the other additional functionality to be able to sort on this field.
The problem with the interesting "Set" field is that it collides with sort-by-folder and general disc storage. It would be easy enough within WMP as a potentially-set-savvy application, but then it breaks down in non-set-aware mediums, from the file system to other apps to non-set-aware devices. Like ID3v2.4, it's quite interesting, but the backwards compatibility hiccups really make it a non-ideal experience as far as it's currently perceived.
But yeah, Set, BPM, and the whole lyrics realm are more towards my own short list. But Set sadly probably doesn't have a large amount of value. =\The goal with any software development project is to add more features, not remove them.
This is severely becoming a thing-of the-day for MS and its products, even those specifically intended for the advanced users (such as dev tools).
That's called Feature Creep. Simplicity is an overlooked factor in software design: removing features, especially broken features that are not fully functional, is an important element in that. You may have a different opinion on software design, but it seems historically evident that the player team got feedback that the player was overwhelming to new users and took steps, bad or good, to make things simpler. They may have completely failed for you, but: removing (broken) features isn't unprecedented.
If you're going to do something, do it right.
First off, ATE is not a feature creep, maybe at a time it was but now it is the feature that was already there and in use, so if you're gonna spin it do it properly, the way its spelled now looks like a lame excuse ranking with "the dog ate my homework". Comprehensive maintenance of the meta data is an important factor for a lot of people (and there is no such thing as too much metadata) and while shortage of manpower/time/money to make it properly vs the % of users using it is understandable, spinning it lamely is not.
Secondly, dumbing down the software to cater for the lowest common denominator is and should be done two stage, such approach is not uncommon