My guide to making foobar pretty (usable).

[warrior05]

i wonder if QuickTime Alternative (google "quicktime alternative") would help? it's what i use and i've never had a problem with it. it also helps keep any apple software off of my pc.

 

[okay_player]

I followed HiFire's guide and got things looking pretty respectable (read; the same as his), but one thing I don't like is the Comment field. I have a fair number of mp3's with either random jibberish, hex code, or insults written into the comments. Instead of going through all my tags, can I just choose not to display them?
Here's a screenshot if you're not sure what I'm talking about...

I maintain I am not a sucker.

 

[nelamvr6]

Many thanks for the guide!

I too would love to simply choose not to display comments. I looked into the "Album Mode" settings in the "Playlist View" options menu, since the comments are displayed in that column, but I can't find any mention of "comments".

Is there a simple solution?

Thanks.

 

[Bones13]

You should find reference to the comment in one of the strings in "Title Formatting" (Preferences - Display - Title Formatting)

I tend to try different command strings as I run across them, not actually editing them myself, so I can not be much help specifically.

 

[nelamvr6]

OK, I found it.

It's under Preferences > Display > Columns UI > Playlist View

You have to select the "Columns" tab, then select "Album-Mode" in the list of columns. Then select the "Display" tab. Scroll down in the dialog box about half way and you'll find a "Comments" section.

Start remming things out by adding a double slash (//) to the beginning of each line. As you add the slashes, the text will be moved over, so be careful to start at the beginning and do one line at a time.

Just be careful, at the very end there is a single close parentheses that you can't rem out. If you do you will not only get rid of the comments, but also the Album info.

 

[Distroyed]

Nice job updating this to 0.9. So many things changed and were broken, I have yet to upgrade since I have things just right in 0.8.

I would make one recommendation - avoid using the foobar library and just use a good file explorer to open music (e.g., directory opus). It's much more efficient and will make foobar load 10x faster and use less resources.

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distroyed Nice job updating this to 0.9. So many things changed and were broken, I have yet to upgrade since I have things just right in 0.8. I would make one recommendation - avoid using the foobar library and just use a good file explorer to open music (e.g., directory opus). It's much more efficient and will make foobar load 10x faster and use less resources.

That would work well for playing one track at a time, but how would I use this to play multiple files?.

Right now I just open Fb2k, select "Shuffle (Tracks)", mash play and I have hours of music. Is there a way to make Directory Opus do that?

 

[HiFiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distroyed I would make one recommendation - avoid using the foobar library and just use a good file explorer to open music (e.g., directory opus). It's much more efficient and will make foobar load 10x faster and use less resources.

If you use a file browser instead of the foobar library, foobar has to read tags from songs (from the disk) everytime songs are added to a playlist which is much slower than reading tags from a database (from memory). This can take minutes with a large number of files and is an annoyance with a small number of files.

 

[Distroyed]

I suppose I should modify my recommendation.

For those who have very large and structurally organized collections, avoid the foobar library. One can very easily right click on an entire folder structure and load everything in foobar, which one can then use the "shuffle" feature if desired. In part it could also depend on the persons playing style as well. I do a lot of jumping around which really does require a full-blown browser. If one is the type that loads a bunch of songs one can safely assume one will be in the mood for and can then forget about their music, maybe the library feature will work sufficiently well. Those with constantly changing collections will probably find the library a nuisance to maintain as well.

 

[m8o]

Quote:

RE: My guide to making foobar pretty (usable).

YEA! Thank You Got me past my one hurdle. How do I unpack that file with the "7" in the extension.

 

[nysulli]

hit the link for that file again, they supply a link to the program needed to uncompress the file

 

[m8o]

I got it now. Kick'n with all the folder add-ins and it's great. Configurability is exceptional. Figured out where to resample to get ASIO to work, so kick'n that too now (what's better anyway, ASIO or Kernel drivers?).

Where's this program been all my life...?!

 

[HiFiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by m8o I got it now. Kick'n with all the folder add-ins and it's great. Configurability is exceptional. Figured out where to resample to get ASIO to work, so kick'n that too now (what's better anyway, ASIO or Kernel drivers?). Where's this program been all my life...?!

ASIO vs Kernel Streaming vs DirectSound is a subject of heated subjective debate. Use whatever sounds better to you.

 

[HiFiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distroyed Those with constantly changing collections will probably find the library a nuisance to maintain as well.

Here are a couple things I wish I had known earlier about the library.

1. You don't have to rescan the whole library every time you add music to your library. If you add tracks to a playlist in foobar, and those tracks are in a folder the foobar library monitors but not in the foobar library, they are automatically added to the foobar library. I think I explained this somewhere else in the thread, but it's probably burried now. What I like to do when I have new music is put those files in a playlist, fix any tags if needed, then use the move/rename feature in foobar to move the files into my library. If you move the files to a folder the foobar library monitors, they are added to the foobar library.

2. If you want to remove files that you deleted from the library, put those files into a foobar playlist then click the edit menu->remove dead items. This removes missing files from the library.

 

[aaroncort]

I'm having trouble figuring out how to make my music library in the same window as my playlist. As it is now my library only appears as a pop up seperate window which i find to be anoying. In the picture on the first page of this post his album library is to the left of his playlist in the same window. How do i set this up? Thanks, Aaron.