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MP3-Info CMM 1.4By Norbert M. Doerner |
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What is MP3-Info CMM?
MP3-Info CMM is a Contextual Menu Module designed for Mac OS X (version 10.2
or newer, PowerPC- & Intel-Mac). That is essentially an extension to the Finder.
It displays information about MP3, AAC (iTunes), AIFF, and even WAV files, such
as their duration, the bitrate, and also the MP3-Tags, such as the artist, the
title of the song, and some more, all directly inside the Finder, without the
need to open any application to get this information! That can save you a lot
of time when you often have to manage MP3 files .
Download MP3-Info CMM 1.4
Requires Mac OS X v. 10.2 or later.
What does MP3-Info CMM cost?
Well, it's free!! Just use it and enjoy. This is only possible because MP3-Info CMM uses the MP3 code that I have already written for CDFinder. CDFinder is a very powerful disk cataloger application for Mac OS (9 or newer, and also Mac OS X, of course!) that can not only read the MP3 file details, but a lot of other information as well, such as the contents of several archive types (StuffIt, Compact Pro, ZIP, Apple Installer). To find out more about CDFinder, just visit https://www.cdfinder.de and download the test version.
Can MP3-Info CMM edit the MP3-Tags?
No, MP3-Info CMM can only display MP3- and AAC-Tags. To edit all
MP3-Tags of a file, you should use the powerful Shareware application ID3X.
MP3-Info CMM will even directly open ID3X for you and tell it
which file to edit.
How to install MP3-Info CMM
Just run the enclosed Installer. That's it. Or you can manually install the CMM: Just copy the file "MP3-Info CMM.plugin" into the folder "Contextual Menu Items" inside the "Library" folder in your home directory. If such a folder doesn't exist, you can just create it. If an older version of MP3-Info CMM exists already, it has to be deleted first, and then the Finder restarted (or log off and back in again...). As MP3-Info CMM requires Mac OS X 10.2, it will not work in Mac OS 9.x or earlier.
How to deactivate MP3-Info CMM
Just drag the file "MP3-Info CMM.plugin" from the "Contextual Menu Items" folder to the Trash. That's it. The MP3-Info CMM will go away after the next launch of the Finder.
How to update to a newer version
Just delete the old file "MP3-Info CMM.plugin" from inside the "Contextual Menu Items" folder, and place the new one there. It requires the Finder to be quit and launched again to activate the new version, though.
What information does MP3-Info CMM display?
If you select exactly a single MP3/AAC file in the Finder (or even in Sherlock), and you activate the context menu for this file (Hold the Control key!), a new menu entry will appear in the context menu. Depending of the type and content of the audio file, it will look similar like this:
The first information says that the file is a valid MP3 file (MP3-Info CMM even also supports AAC, AIFF and WAV file formats!). The second info is the duration of the song in minutes and seconds, then the bitrate of the encoding (128 kbps in this sample). Eventually, if the song is encoded using Variable Bit Rate, the text "VBR" will appear here as well. The last information is the sampling rate of the song, in this case 44.1 kHz.
As a lot of MP3/AAC files contain a lot of additional information, the Tags,
MP3-Info CMM will append a sub-menu to the context menu. This sub-menu will
look like this sample:
The menu items have this meaning:
"Edit MP3-Tags in ID3X"
As MP3-Info CMM can only display MP3-Tags, but cannot change them,
this is a shortcut for you to use the ID3X tool to edit the tags. ID3X is Shareware and can be
found at: https://www.three-2-one.de/ID3X/.
ID3X can not only edit the tags that MP3-Info CMM displays, but it has
a lot of other useful possibilities when it comes to dealing with MP3
files. This menu item will only appear for MP3 files.
"Tag Version:"
As the meta information about artist, album, and so on is stored inside the so called MP3-Tags, and there are several versions of them, this entry will show you which version the tags displayed actually have.
"Artist", "Compose", "Album", "Songtitle", "Comment", "Encoded by", "Year", and "Track"
These contain the actual tag information, as it appears in the MP3/AAC file. Please note that any of these tags may not be enclosed in the menu if they do not appear in the MP3/AAC file. If you select any of these tags, MP3-Info CMM will copy the contet of the tag to the clipboard, so you can use the text for other things.
"Rename to:"
As a whole lot of MP3/AAC files have really wrong names, especially if they are downloaded from the Internet on a system that uses shorter file names (Mac OS 9.x, or DOS), these three menu commands allow you to swiftly rename the file appropriately. If the song title, the album, and the artist appear in the tags, the first menu command will rename the MP3/AAC file to a useful combination of the three values. If only the song title and the artist are available, the second option will appear. If a track info and a song title is available, the third command will appear. As you see, the third command always uses a two digit number representation to allow for better sorting.
"Change Creator to iTunes"
As a lot of files have a weird or wrong combination of the essential Filetype/Creator codes, this command will change these so they fit iTunes, CDFinder, and the MP3-Info CMM better.
"MP3-Info CMM Version 1.4"
This menu entry shows you the version of the currently active MP3-Info CMM. If you select this command, it will cause your default internet browser to display the MP3-Info CMM home page at https://www.cdfinder.de/mp3info/index.html.
"Powered by CDFinder! (www.cdfinder.de)"
This is just a friendly reminder that MP3-Info CMM was only possible by using the powerful MP3/AAC tag reader, and AIFF, WAVE reader code from inside CDFinder. This menu command will point your browser to the CDFinder home page at https://www.cdfinder.de.
What information does MP3-Info CMM display for AIFF and WAV files?
The MP3-Info CMM can now also display information about AIFF and WAVE files. That code again comes from CDFinder! As these files have no tags, only the duration and encoding of these types is displayed.
What is new in MP3-Info CMM version 1.4?
- The CMM is now Universal, which means it works in both Intel- and PowerPC Macs! That will of course mean that CDFinder will soon be Universal, too, as the CMM uses four important modules of CDFinder.
- The AAC reader now handles certain year formats in the date field better
What is new in MP3-Info CMM version 1.3.2?
- The MP3 reader will now handle tags with certain umlauts better, and it will also read certain files that previous versions did not.
- The AAC reader now supports .m4b Audiobook files!
- The package finally has an Installer...
What is new in MP3-Info CMM version 1.3.1?
- The number of channels of MP3 files are shown (Mono/Stereo, etc)
- The MP3 reader will now handle files with large "PIC" tags (for album covers and such) much better.
- The AAC reader will now handle certain files from allofmp3 and such better.
What is new in MP3-Info CMM version 1.3?
- The Bitrate of AAC files is shown.
- Conversion of certain umlauts of MP3 and AAC tags is now better. Please notice that MP3-Info CMM still does not support Unicode.
- The version of the MP3 tag of a file is now shown, too.
What is new in MP3-Info CMM version 1.2?
- AAC files created by iTunes 4 are fully supported now. The MP3-Info CMM will display the duration of any such file, and all tags enclosed.
- Multiple selection of files is supported! MP3-Info CMM will display the total duration of the selected audio files, and the number of selected files of every recognized type (AAC, MP3, AIFF, WAV) .
What is new in MP3-Info CMM version 1.1.1?
- Fixed an issue that caused MP3-Info CMM not to load in Mac OS X 10.1.5 and earlier.
- Corrected the wrong version resource information.
What is new in MP3-Info CMM version 1.1?
- The new MP3-Tag "Composer" introduced in iTunes 3 is supported.
- The track number of MP3 files will be displayed and can be used to rename the file.
- AIFF and WAVE files are now also supported. As they have no tags, only their duration and compression is displayed, though.
- MP3 genre detection now works better.
- ID3V2.3 Tags will now work better even if they contain ASCII(0) characters at the end.
- any file with filetype "MP3 ", and "MPG3" will now be detected as a potential MP3 file.
- MP3-Info CMM can now change the filetype of any MP3 file to suit iTunes better.
What is CDFinder?
- catalogs any CD-ROM, DVD, hard disk, floppy, ZIP, Audio-CD, and almost everything that spins
- reads MP3 and AAC tags, as well as AIFF and WAV file data!
- also reads photo meta data, such as EXIF, IPTC, and more!
- very fast and easy to use
- powerful search functions, and browse catalog files offline
- export or print catalog data
- handles large amounts of data
- In a network, multiple users can share the same catalogs
- cross-platform: with CDWinder for Windows!
- import existing DiskWizard, FindIt, Disk Recall, Disk Tracker, and CatFinder catalog files
- can read StuffIt (versions 3, 4, 5, and even 6.5!), Compact Pro, ZIP, TAR, and Apple Installer (Tome) archive files
- contains seven languages in one application: English, German, French, Italian, Swedish, Spanish
- $30 for a single license, multiple user licenses are available
Macintosh System requirements for CDFinder
Mac OS X 10.2 or newer
Return to the CDFinder Homepage
Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Last updated: February 27, 2006 Email: Doerner@kagi.com