Audiophilia - The shntool frontend, v0.0.1 released, alpha testers needed

Just used it to install shntool and create a shn md5. Worked perfectly. Thanks!

[RainDawg]

Originally Posted by dorrcoq

well, it works fine for shntool and fingerprints. I'm really looking for the SBE check/fix part

It'll be there. The hardest part was getting the first section...now it's a lot of copy/paste kind of coding, with slight alterations to the batch file it generates. I'll do the "len" (SBE check) and "fix" (SBE fix) stuff over the weekend.....that part is VERY easy.

[U2Lynne]

Someday the story will come out on just *why* Stephen took on the task of building this app.

Good job, Stephen!

[RainDawg]

It's only just beginning Lynne....I have so many ideas for this tool...from shell integration to md5 checks that are independant of possible name changes.

But, the reason I started this project has been solved....people can now install the program and get shntool md5s. Those were the major hurdles, as I recall .

[diggrd]

Worked for me on win 2k I still prefer the command line just the old school in me I guess

[dorrcoq]

this may be a dumb question, but just so I get this straight - with an MD5 made with mkwACT, it has it's own verification built in. With a shntool MD5, is the idea to create my own file and compare it to the one that the seeder (hopefully) provided?

[RainDawg]

With shntool md5, the idea is that you, as a downloader, can convert to FLAC, add file tags, change the format, or even burn to CDR and reextract with EAC and offset correction...as long as the audio is the same, the shntool md5 is the same. When you trade, you can say "this is identical to the version seeded at TTD" and provide a link to the original seed with the shntool md5s. No more having to worry about screwing up the md5 checks by converting from SHN > FLAC .

Much needed, as you know. Great for you to work on this.

A couple initial thoughts:

Originally Posted by RainDawg

I'll do the "len" (SBE check) and "fix" (SBE fix) stuff over the weekend.....that part is VERY easy.

I'd suggest getting the len part out first, if that's easier - checking to see if there are SBEs is the big issue and lots more people will check if it's easy. If they know they're there, they are more likely to do something about it.

Also, I'd STRONGLY suggest enabling and encouraging the use of the fix preview option - make the preview option prominent. Preview has two huge advantages:
- it makes it less of a black box - you can see exactly what it's doing to the files, always essential for good seeding. Always good to avoid using anything that doesn't tell you what it's doing to your files.
- you can see whether it's sorting the files in the right order - running an SBE fix if the filenames don't sort in order is worse than doing nothing at all, as it will move the bits around the wrong way

BTW, if you haven't seen this etree thread on batch files for shntool and shorten, have a look. Some of the discussion there may be useful to give you ideas on what features are useful:
http://forums.etree.org/viewtopic.php?p=11134

Nice installer, by the way - great that is has customization of the files installed and the location, always much appreciated. If it's not too hard, you might want to let people know that the uninstaller doesn't uninstall the codecs from the Windows directory. I can see why you did that, but it might be worth mentioning.

FWIW, Monkey's already has a pretty nice Windows GUI, I'm not sure there's so much need for that. It's shntool and shorten that are the GUI orphans, really.

QuickPar has a nice whole file md5 checker.

As for old school - hey, I used to teach at the old school. And the "old school" approach sucks big time in real life, as you can see from all the shows with SBEs and/or no seek tables.

[RainDawg]

Thanks for your comments, let me reply to some of them.....

Originally Posted by buzzy

A couple initial thoughts:I'd suggest getting the len part out first, if that's easier - checking to see if there are SBEs is the big issue and lots more people will check if it's easy. If they know they're there, they are more likely to do something about it.

Noted....the check part is pretty easy, and I'll add that next. I can add the preview function in...pretty much anything shntool can do I can add as option buttons in the interface.

Originally Posted by buzzy

BTW, if you haven't seen this etree thread on batch files for shntool and shorten, have a look. Some of the discussion there may be useful to give you ideas on what features are useful:
http://forums.etree.org/viewtopic.php?p=11134

Yeah, I've been using different batch files for years. It's just a matter of designing the interface to allow people to select certain options, and then customizing the text of those batch files. Again, the first few were the hardest, it should get easier and easier from here on out.

Originally Posted by buzzy

Nice installer, by the way - great that is has customization of the files installed and the location, always much appreciated. If it's not too hard, you might want to let people know that the uninstaller doesn't uninstall the codecs from the Windows directory. I can see why you did that, but it might be worth mentioning.

Yeah, I should. I'm not going to remove those files as it'll screw up people other programs if I do. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I'll try to work a note in somewhere saying that uninstalling does not delete the codecs.

Originally Posted by buzzy

FWIW, Monkey's already has a pretty nice Windows GUI, I'm not sure there's so much need for that. It's shntool and shorten that are the GUI orphans, really. QuickPar has a nice whole file md5 checker.....And the "old school" approach sucks big time in real life, as you can see from all the shows with SBEs and/or no seek tables.

Agreed, again. I use QuickPar because it checks so many different kinds of file verification. But....my initial goal here was just to get an shntool installer and shntool md5 creation out to the public, as it's my opinion that these are the things most lacking. But I'm also ultimately hoping to make this an even more comprehensive tool that can allow people to get rid having multiple programs like Monkey's Audio, FLAC Frontend, MKW, and others just to use their files. shntool does so many things, and if it can replace multiple programs, then I'm happy to do that.

[dorrcoq]

Originally Posted by RainDawg

With shntool md5, the idea is that you, as a downloader, can convert to FLAC, add file tags, change the format, or even burn to CDR and reextract with EAC and offset correction...as long as the audio is the same, the shntool md5 is the same. When you trade, you can say "this is identical to the version seeded at TTD" and provide a link to the original seed with the shntool md5s. No more having to worry about screwing up the md5 checks by converting from SHN > FLAC .

OK, that makes sense. I wondered about that after using Jamie's tutorial on foobar2000.

I also noticed that the "number" generated by shntool is the same as the FLAC fingerprint "number", so obvously it is working.

[jcrab66]

so any ideas as to why this isnt working on my xp pro machine?

[RainDawg]

Originally Posted by dorrcoq

I also noticed that the "number" generated by shntool is the same as the FLAC fingerprint "number", so obvously it is working.

Yup...that's the way it's supposed to be

[RainDawg]

Originally Posted by jcrab66

so any ideas as to why this isnt working on my xp pro machine?

No....I am on XP pro at home and at work, and it's fine on both machines. Am I right in assuming that the program fails when you try to start it up and not after trying to call a function? I am sure there's some kind of settings in Visual Basic that may not be set right, and the program isn't compiling properly. Confirm for me that the program is failing when you try to load it, and let me know exactly what the error message is, and I'll get it figured out this weekend.

Thanks for helping me test this initial release.

[jcrab66]

when i try to run it it never opens and all i get is the same as the earlier post...

[jcrab66]

wasnt sure if mkw was causing a problem with this so i went ahead and unistalled it with no change