[Spidworthy]

  I know it's not the point of your post, but that seems like a really easy job in Mp3tag: Select all files, Convert > Tag - Filename, format string $num(%track%,2) %title%, done.

Wow! Wish I'd asked you a month ago when I started manually renumbering the tracks in my 300+ albums manually and VERY tediously whenever I had a spare few moments -- thanx x1,000!
 
One supplementary question: your string works perfectly to renumber the filenames in an album. But is there then also a string which would renumber the track titles (under Title in MP3Tag)? Then my OCD life would be complete  

 

[Zweistein]

Change the title itself? You can do Convert > Tag - Tag, and set field TITLE to format string $num(%track%,2) %title%. But I wonder why you would want that.
 
I also wondered if this can easily be reverted, and it can: convert it again with format string $cutLeft(%title%, 3) - assuming that you apply it only to files that had their title prefixed earlier with 2 digits and 1 space, otherwise this conversion would irreversibly eat away from the original title.

 

[Spidworthy]

  Change the title itself? You can do Convert > Tag - Tag, and set field TITLE to format string $num(%track%,2) %title%. But I wonder why you would want that.
 
I also wondered if this can easily be reverted, and it can: convert it again with format string $cutLeft(%title%, 3) - assuming that you apply it only to files that had their title prefixed earlier with 2 digits and 1 space, otherwise this conversion would irreversibly eat away from the original title.

Brilliant, thanks. I did try experimenting with MP3Tag's scripting options myself despite being a code dunce, but I ended up with complete spaghetti. This works....
 
The bonus 'revert' tip is also useful, given that physically numbering the tracks is unnecessary in most other audio players, which do recognise the track order when playing from individual Albums, unlike the FiiO. Best of both worlds now!

 

[Zweistein]

In my experience, the FiiO does respect track order when browsing by album or artist. When browsing in folder mode, alphanumerical filename order is the king, so that's why many of us prefix the filenames. In both cases, the alphanumerical order amongst titles is irrelevant (except probably if track numbers would be messed up). For browsing by genre, which I never do, it seems filenames rule again; but even if titles detemined order there, surely you wouldn't want the items in a genre ordered by track number, but by album and/or artist?

 

[Spidworthy]

YMMV, but to me the easiest way to find what I want to listen to is by Folder, because I load my collection onto the device in predefined folders, e.g. Classical has xxx number of subfolders, one for each album, Jazz the same, Rock the same etc. I wasn't actually sure whether the X3ii was ordering the track titles in this view by filename or title numbering (rather than alphabetically before you waved your magic wand by providing the MP3Tag scripting formulas), which is why I wanted to renumber both the filename and the title, just to be sure...
 
Indeed though if I then switch to selecting by Genre (which I never do), now having also numbered the Titles would create an unholy mess I suppose. So obviously anyone who selects this way shouldn't do that!
 
Incidentally, I also tried to get around the album art display limitations on the X3ii by using a photo program to superimpose the album cover onto a much larger black background, but with the cover shifted to the very top of this new and larger square (i.e. the album cover now had two large new black sides and a bottom)  and then saving the whole thing as a new jpg. But it seems the X3ii is too clever for that and it outsmarted me -- it STILL displayed the actual cover at full width and cut off at the bottom, with no sign of the surrounding black square!!

 

[Zweistein]

  get around the album art display limitations on the X3ii

 
One of my wishes too... I couldn't believe what you wrote, then I witnessed the same, but in the end I must correct you: it works fine, if you do it right. I initially made several mistakes:

1. Just replacing the cover in Mp3tag is not enough, the file needs to be saved
2. The X3II caches the image of the file it's playing. If you upload a changed file and then start playing the same filename again, X3II holds on to its old copy of the image. Skip to the next file, skip back, and it reads the current image.
3. You have to work to get the right aspect ratio. I'm experimenting with a 800x800 album picture (I think album art is always square). The X3II displays this image with the correct aspect ratio (but as we know, chopping off part of the top and a lot of the lower half). Add black border and shrink to say 240x240, then the X3II stretches the image horizontally. I guess our best bet is to go for 320x320, the width of the screen so FiiO respects aspect ratio, and square so that other software won't be confused by a rectangular image. In that 320x320 image, you need to have a black border of at least 23 pixels on top and at least 128 pixels on the bottom. Well, at least with my customized firmware. It may be a little different with the stock graphics.

 

[x RELIC x]

The screen resolution is not square, it's 320x240. So start with that resolution as a black image and then scale and layer the the album art over top to fit the 240 pixel vertical resolution. You'll have black bars on the sides but that's what it takes to see the whole album art on this screen. Anything with a larger resolution larger is just a waste of storage space and memory for the X3ii.

All FiiO needs to do is automatically justify the incoming album art to the vertical resolution, but they seem unable to do that using the FW they are currently using.

 

[Mustainized]

I will order a Fiio X3-II in 2-3 days. It's a beast dedicated DAP for its price and I think it's significant upgrade over HTC 10 since it's made for only music and have way more power and better DAC. Ideas? Money is not a problem at all.

 

[JWolf]

  I will order a Fiio X3-II in 2-3 days. It's a beast dedicated DAP for its price and I think it's significant upgrade over HTC 10 since it's made for only music and have way more power and better DAC. Ideas? Money is not a problem at all.

 
You should wait on that order and check out the new X5III.

 

[Mustainized]

You should wait on that order and check out the new X5III.

Money is not a problem was like "if it is better than HTC 10, even slightly, I will buy X3II" to me.
I cant afford even X5II. I think I couldnt express myself.

 

[Dobrescu George]

   
You should wait on that order and check out the new X5III.

 
Maybe there will be an X3-3 soon too! 

 

[Zweistein]

320x240. So start with that resolution

The vertical resolution is in fact irrelevant for the X3II. You can do 320x320 with a 128 pixel bottom margin, or cut off the bottom margin and obtain 320x192, or anything between. The extra file size for an all black bottom margin is very small, but my point that 320x320 ensures that other software always displays the correct aspect ratio is quite moot too. It's still only a thumbnail buried between fat, asymmetrical borders. Perhaps the best is equally sized top and bottom margins: it looks the least contrived outside of the player, and the waste is negligible.
 
Talking of waste, the typical album art I have is hundreds of kB big, while a sensible file for the player's resolution is 6kB. I have one track with an image over 1MB , but I don't notice the X3II struggling any more than with small artwork.

 

[x RELIC x]

The vertical resolution is in fact irrelevant for the X3II. You can do 320x320 with a 128 pixel bottom margin, or cut off the bottom margin and obtain 320x192, or anything between. The extra file size for an all black bottom margin is very small, but my point that 320x320 ensures that other software always displays the correct aspect ratio is quite moot too. It's still only a thumbnail buried between fat, asymmetrical borders. Perhaps the best is equally sized top and bottom margins: it looks the least contrived outside of the player, and the waste is negligible.

Talking of waste, the typical album art I have is hundreds of kB big, while a sensible file for the player's resolution is 6kB. I have one track with an image over 1MB , but I don't notice the X3II struggling any more than with small artwork.

More accurately, the image ratio (4:3 vs 1:1) is crucial to see the full album art. Because they justify the image horizontally on a non-square screen the DAP crops the image vertically resulting in not seeing the entire album art.

To fool the wheel based FiiO DAPs you need to create new artwork with with a 4:3 ratio with black bars on the side of the square album art. It's the only way around it with the wheel based FiiO DAPs to show the full album art, which obviously isn't ideal. I've done many custom themes for the X5 And X5ii (same FW base as the X3ii), this is just the way they have done it and it looks like they aren't changing it anytime soon.

As far as waste is concerned, when having thousands of album art images embedded it adds up (obviously not every one will notice), this has been an issue for many users in the past causing slow performance which was solved by reducing album art size from over 1K pixels to something more reasonable. These DAPs have limited resources. There is no easy way around this full album art display on the wheel based FiiO DAPs and the solution won't be ideal for other players or computer applications. Of course your experience may not be the same as others with regard to file size tolerance and performance.

The short story is, to get full album art on the wheel based FiiO DAPs you'll need different artwork for the player alone which has a ratio of 4:3 with black bars on the side of the square album art image. IMO it's not worth the hassle. If one wants to go through the hassle my recommendation for keeping it small was in consideration for re-doing all the artwork (which I doubt anyone wants to do) so might as well keep it to the screen resolution as a larger resolution is simply re-sized to the screen resolution.

 

[Mr Trev]

More accurately, the image ratio (4:3 vs 1:1) is crucial to see the full album art. Because they justify the image horizontally on a non-square screen the DAP crops the image vertically resulting in not seeing the entire album art.

To fool the wheel based FiiO DAPs you need to create new artwork with with a 4:3 ratio with black bars on the side of the square album art. It's the only way around it with the wheel based FiiO DAPs to show the full album art, which obviously isn't ideal. I've done many custom themes for the X5 And X5ii (same FW base as the X3ii), this is just the way they have done it and it looks like they aren't changing it anytime soon.

As far as waste is concerned, when having thousands of album art images embedded it adds up (obviously not every one will notice), this has been an issue for many users in the past causing slow performance which was solved by reducing album art size from over 1K pixels to something more reasonable. These DAPs have limited resources. There is no easy way around this full album art display on the wheel based FiiO DAPs and the solution won't be ideal for other players or computer applications. Of course your experience may not be the same as others with regard to file size tolerance and performance.

The short story is, to get full album art on the wheel based FiiO DAPs you'll need different artwork for the player alone which has a ratio of 4:3 with black bars on the side of the square album art image. IMO it's not worth the hassle. If one wants to go through the hassle my recommendation for keeping it small was in consideration for re-doing all the artwork (which I doubt anyone wants to do) so might as well keep it to the screen resolution as a larger resolution is simply re-sized to the screen resolution.

Good summary, but I should point out that if you really want to "fix" the artwork, it's not that hard. Just use a gfx program with a batch processing function. I used Irfanview to take all my gfx which started at a 240x resolution and simply changed the canvas size to 296x (avoids being cut off at the progress bar) keeping the image aligned top center. Let the program do its magic. Granted, this is for the 1st gen (2nd gen users would need to rotate resolution 90º) and I only bothered with the tunes stored internally since they never change.
 
<edit> it's also simpler when you just use a single folder.jpg

 

[x RELIC x]

Good summary, but I should point out that if you really want to "fix" the artwork, it's not that hard. Just use a gfx program with a batch processing function. I used Irfanview to take all my gfx which started at a 240x resolution and simply changed the canvas size to 296x (avoids being cut off at the progress bar) keeping the image aligned top center. Let the program do its magic. Granted, this is for the 1st gen (2nd gen users would need to rotate resolution 90º) and I only bothered with the tunes stored internally since they never change.

it's also simpler when you just use a single folder.jpg

Good points. Agreed on the folder.jpg / cover.jpg