Torben,
may I point yout at this thread over at the MP3Tag Forums?
Some mAirList user has problems accessing the mAirList ID3 tag to get at the XML and we found that apparently something is odd with mAirList’s tag writing.
Thanks!
Yes, we discovered this problem lately. The ID3v2 tags mAirList (or, more precisely, the 3rd party library it uses) writes seem to be somewhat broken in some cases. But it does not happen for all files - others seem to be fine.
I’m still investigating this issue. Monitor this forum for further information.
Meantime, if the user wants to ‘get at the XML,’ they should consider saving their tag info in MMD files, which are simply well-formed XML files, and perhaps as well as writing the tags into the MP3s. Personally I’ve never been keen on ‘proprietary’ info of any sort within an MP3, and MMDs are much easier to access later if as you say you want to ‘get at the XML’ for whatever reason.
I think (?) Charlie hereabouts has scripts which could automate the process of ‘copying’ the internal tag info to an MMD, or which could be readily amended to do so.
Hope that helps meantime?
BFN
CAD
If I had a script, I wouldn’t have this problem 
It’s me who started this, Cad - I’m after the Ramp+FadeOut (plus other optional fields) cue points so that I can export them to a CSV file for importing into a schedule/database. MP3Tag can read other tags (such as those I created in AudioEnhanceDPS) and I’m told that it’s possible to read the mAirList XML tags that are part of the MP3 file header - but so far, no luck.
Failing that, as I have all my MMD files with the correct info - a way of dumping the fields into Access/Excel would be handy.
PS: I know I’ve been quiet of late, there’s a good reason for that and I’ve been in touch with Torben privately. Hopefully I’ll be back as a regular soon ish.
Having spent half of the weekend debugging ID3 tags with a hex editor, I eventually found a bug in the ID3 library I use (JvId3v2 from JVCL). It writes wrong flags to the ID3v2 header sometimes, causing software like Mp3Tag and Winamp to ignore the tags complete (as suggested in the official ID3v2 reference). The bug has been fixed now, and I have prepare a snapshot (Build 540) which is available from here: http://www.mairlist.com/download/mAirList/v2.2/snapshot/
Can everybody who suffered from this problem please try the snapshot and give me some feedback?
However, I still don’t see why JvID3v2 would write double tags, as reported in the Mp3Tag forum. Can the user named “mAirListUser” from that forum please send me the original version of the audio file (before mAirList added the extra tag) to info@mAirList.com? Thanks.
Torben
… then expect a Very Nice Surprise very soon. Your comment spurred me into writing something during the past few days that I should really have written a year ago or more because it’s MUCH too useful not to have it. I just need to add the stuff to handle an entire directory-worth of MMDs and their subdirectories (instead of just a single MMD file), and it will be ready to post here.
Perhaps Torben might consider posting it as an ‘official’ mAirList utility program when it’s ready? But I digress …
Watch this thread! 
BFN
CAD
Cad,
I’m not sure how nice a surprise you are planning but if it went both ways (populating MMDs from Excel/Access) allowing bulk changes to be made would be an even nicer surprise.
Ron.
Ron: One Giant Leap at a time! 
I probably COULD make it write info. back to the MMDs; but I’m not presently storing the MMD file name in the sheet, just the audio file name. That can of course be changed quite easily. Another thing needed for ‘writing back’ would be a ‘tick’ column to specify which files (of the 27,843 MMD files stored in in your sheet) you wish to write to.
BUT … I’d much prefer to get the main ‘MMD importer’ working first; and think about the ‘reverse’ program later on.
Fair enuffski?
BFN
CAD
Cad
Fair enuffski - just thought I would mention it at this early stage in case it affected the structure but fully support the ‘one step at a time’ approach.
Ron
No worries, Ron: and a good thought! It has prompted me to add an Export? tickbox column to my prototype Excel template. I can’t see any other necessary changes.
However, the code to do an export will be radically different from the import code. The latter calls Excel’s LoadXMLFile command to ‘import’ each MMD and parse that into cells in a Big List; the former will read down the aforementioned ‘cells in a Big List’ and glue text around them to write out MMD files.
(So much for the ‘surprise’ element in all this, then? ::))
BFN
CAD
To Ron: Further testing has shown that MMD content is enormously ‘variable.’ I’m not planning to store everything in the MMD file in the resulting spreadsheet (I don’t use Comments nor Pictures/Icons, for example: do you?); hence if I were to ‘write back’ what I’ve stored as an MMD file, info would be lost as a result. Not a Good Thing. Hence I’m abandoning the Export idea for the moment.
To Charlie: Will three Alternative cue points per cue point (i.e. CueIn plus three Alternatives) be enough, or should I cater for four, five, six…? Apart from Title, Artist, and all cue points, would you need or want Other Stuff stored? I’m thinking about Comments, the Picture tag, and Attributes like Album and Year which appear in MMDs if present in the original MP3 tags. At present, I’m ignoring those but could incorporate them if you wish/need.
To Torben: If you have any kind of XSD or similar ‘layout’ file for MMDs, that would be a very helpful thing for me to have to make further progress with this project. Feel free to e-mail/pm me about this. Also, is the current standard NOT to put the entry into an MMD? Finally, I have found some older MMDs here contain a tag but no opening nor any data (!): I presume this is again a factor of being an MMD of a specific age?
Thanks in advance to all concerned for further comments/info/guidance!
Progress Report: I have got the ‘basics’ working, optional recursion of directories etc. and ability to read most tags in an MMD. There are still some unexpected ‘gotchas’ that I found in a few of my own MMDs, plus a few genuine bugs to correct, but generally it’s looking pretty good for the Import side.
BFN
CAD
To prevent hijacking this thread any further :-[, those here who are interested in an MMD importer for Excel should instead go to this new thread:
http://forum.mairlist.com/index.php/topic,3265.0.html
BFN
CAD