MP3-Info Extension V3.3b19

Advertisement (Why?)

I saw this posted over on XP-erience a few days ago (been on vacation, showing my family the sights of Boston...), and decided to give it a whirl at the weekend, and found it to be an excellent extension to my Windows Explorer file browsing, so I thought other users of Neowin may enjoy this nice piece of software from Michael Mutschler.

MP3Ext is an extension for the Windows Explorer. It enhances it, so you can get information on MP3 files in many ways:

A PropertyPage is installed, where you can fully edit the ID3-Tag
An icon-handler for individual icons is included too (along with the ability to have themes for the icons...)
Tooltips, when you simply leave the mouse over the MP3-file (only with IE4.0 Active Desktop), this feature is fully customizable...

editing of multiple files
ID3v2 support: this includes unlimited strings, classic support, ...
automatic generation of the ID3-tag from the filename
exporting the information in a file or clipboard

And best of all it's Giftware.

News source: Michael Mutschler's MP3-Info Extension

Download: MP3-Info Extension V3.3b19 (HTML page, as per authors request, file is 880kb)

Property Page details

The property page is an additional page in the properties of a MP3-file. It is not limited to only one MP3-file, but you can select multiple MP3-files, or even scan whole directories.

If you select a playlist-file (with the extension .pls or .m3u) then the information about the files in the playlist is displayed.

The upper part of the propertypage displays some general information about the MP3-File. In fact it is the information about the MP3-bitstream.

The lower part is for viewing/editing the ID3-tag:

You can edit all the data shown here. Additionally you can copy a field to all the other files you have selected, so you don't have to enter the same data multiple times. (the '<>'-buttons).

Another feature is the searching for MP3-files, when you shift-click on items in the drop-down lists of the specific field. They hold all the different information about all the MP3-files selected.

The Clipalbum-button is more than a simply button: it displays the last action executed. You get a list of actions, when you right-click on this button. Actions are simple scripts, which generate text-output into a file or the clipboard. If you generate the output in a file, then the file is executed as if you did a double-click on it. I.e. if you make a ".bat" file, you can for example make a rename of the files. Or you can generate data-files with the information seperated by a TAB. You can easily import this kind of file in a spreadsheet-application.

The scan-button analyzes the filename, and adds the values to the ID3-Tag, if the corresponding fields are empty. Useful for updating some empty info-fields. It depends on regular expressions, so you can generate your own template for scanning the data.

Icon Handler Detail

The Icon-Handler makes new icons for MP3-files. Based on their bitrate, you can see different icons. This is very useful, as you can see directly in the explorer-view, which MP3s have good quality, and which not. Below you can see two screenshots, with the default icon-set. You can design your own icons, and even make themes, so you can easily switch between different icons.

Screenshot (big icons):

Screenshot (small icons - detail view):

ToolTips Detail

The Tooltips-Handler adds a nice feature to the explorer: when you keep your mouse over a MP3-file, then a ToolTip with information about the file is displayed. The advantage is, there is a complete list of used tags shown!

Please Note: For this feature, you need the Active Desktop of Internet Explorer 4 installed.

#1 creamhackered on 15 Jul 2002 - 16:26

wow this looks sweet gonna try this

(1 reply) #2 fizik3 on 15 Jul 2002 - 18:08

very true, creamhackered... some cool shit (dBPowerAMP does this as well but not in such detail)

#2.1 creamhackered on 16 Jul 2002 - 11:44

Yeh i used to have that but when it uninstalled it sorta fucked some stuff up

#3 joao on 15 Jul 2002 - 18:40

Good thinking, this nifty little util is very cool. Just one flaw, the icons are not very nice (XP icon maniac myself

) I should shut my mouth. It even supports icon themes

Last edited by 4327 on 15 Jul 2002 - 18:46

#4 teka on 15 Jul 2002 - 18:52

sweet proggie... But it needs new icons

#5 Young Hova on 15 Jul 2002 - 19:02

dis program izz sssswwwwwwweeeeeeetttt

#6 BlueStar on 15 Jul 2002 - 23:18

This seems to be really a good addition to the MP3 and XP Shell. Gonna try it

#7 Tai on 16 Jul 2002 - 00:17

cool app !!

anyone have or makin a good set of icons to use for this ?

#8 NeoMoose on 16 Jul 2002 - 00:24

Bah. If only it could look up information to fill in the blank spaces and complete the tag if you provided a song name or some other search criteria.

#9 Jasco on 16 Jul 2002 - 10:42

pointless.

#10 creamhackered on 16 Jul 2002 - 11:44

If i install this and uninstall it will it fuck up tooltips and stuff like that? Anyone know?

#11 LordLOC on 17 Jul 2002 - 01:31

Well it uses icky icons as the media file default, and there is no uninstall, but I did find one in the folder itself, which did not remove the icons or the tooltips. Anyone know how to remove those?

#12 semifamous on 17 Jul 2002 - 05:11

I've been using this for a while. It'll be great now that the neowin community knows about it. Hopefully we can expect some new themes to show up for this awesome program... =)

#13 creamhackered on 17 Jul 2002 - 08:55

yeh i wont install till there are some good themes

#14 pluggz on 17 Jul 2002 - 14:47

nice prog

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Neowin.net