Don't Grab & Display Unrelated Album Art for Tracks Without Embedded Album Art

[hairycactus]

Current Behaviour:

1. Import a folder (or a folder with subfolders) as playlist. The source folder & its subfolders contain at least 1 track without embedded album art, & at least 1 image file that may not be related to any of the tracks.

2. Play any track that has no embedded album art.

Outcome: Winyl grabs the first-listed (by alphabetical order) image file in the main folder & displays this image as album art for all tracks without any embedded album art. This happens even when the grabbed image has a filename that is totally different from the filenames of the cover-less tracks.

Besides being visually misleading, this behaviour is not ideal because it is possible that the user has deliberately not embedded any album art within certain tracks, but still wish to keep some totally unrelated images as placeholder/ reminder in the main folder.

(Note: The above behaviour does not occur, if the unrelated image is instead kept in any of the subfolders that were imported as playlist.)

Affected Versions: v3.3 (02 Mar 2018) & previous versions

Expected/ Preferred Behaviour:

1. Winyl should not by default display any image for tracks without embedded album art.

2. For users who keep album art as separate images, Winyl can have a menu option to allow user to decide if Winyl should use any image present in the imported main folder or subfolders for tracks without embedded album art.

3. More importantly, if the above option is enabled, Winyl should by right only use the image that has the same filename as the cover-less track's name (either filename or album name) -- instead of simply grabbing the first-listed image with a totally unrelated filename.

Thanks !

[alexkx]

Actually, this behaviour was different in earlier versions. But many users reported that Winyl doesn't show the cover art, because they have the cover art in png/jpeg file with some random name. So the behaviour changed.

Winyl should not by default display any image for tracks without embedded album art.

It's impossible, many users use external cover art. It must be by default.

Also Winyl doesn't grab just the first image file. It uses the following algorithm:

1. Search for jpeg/png file with name that contains "Front" or "Cover"
2. Read the cover art from tags
3. Search for jpeg/png file with name "Folder"

If all steps fail then use 1st jpeg/png file.

[hairycactus]

Thanks for explaining the logic of how Winyl selects images for display as album art. It would be good to include such info in a wiki section somewhere. I don't see such a wiki section here at Github, the Winyl website, or its forum.

But many users reported that Winyl doesn't show the cover art, because they have the cover art in png/jpeg file with some random name. So the behaviour changed.

The issue about the current logic is that it makes Winyl's behaviour appear strange & even haphazard to:

1. Users who are meticulous about naming standalone image files (if any) to precisely match the album's or track's filename;

2. Users who have named standalone image files by another standardized name (eg. AlbumArt, AlbumCover, CoverArt, Art, etc.).

Winyl should not by default display any image for tracks without embedded album art.

It's impossible, many users use external cover art. It must be by default.

There are also users who deliberately do not wish to use any embedded or external album art for certain tracks. Examples of such tracks could be ambient sounds or lecture recordings. It isn't meaningful to use any album art for such tracks.

And the default of forcing an unrelated image to be used as album art for cover-lesss tracks is visually misleading, making users do a double-take & wonder if the correct track has been selected for playback.

Perhaps the below suggestions might cater to a broader range of user preferences ?

1. Provide users with an option whether to use standalone image files as album art for tracks without embedded covers.

2. Allow users to optionally choose their preferred standardized name for standalone image files to be used as album art, other than Winyl's current defaults of Front or Cover.

3. Allow users (especially those who use random filenames for standalone images) to optionally tell Winyl where to look for standalone image files, such as inside one or all of the following folders:

   • Audio track's folder
   • Parent folder
   • Subfolder -- user is to specify subfolder name, eg. AlbumArt (besides Winyl's current generic default of Folder).

Thanks !

[alexkx]

Users who have named standalone image files by another standardized name (eg. AlbumArt, AlbumCover, CoverArt, Art, etc.).

This is exactly the reason, there isn't any standardized name for a cover art. Many people just download a cover art from the Internet drop it into the folder and that is all, the name can be random.

There are also users who deliberately do not wish to use any embedded or external album art for certain tracks. Examples of such tracks could be ambient sounds or lecture recordings. It isn't meaningful to use any album art for such tracks.

Then why there are random image files in this folder? And I don't see a problem just to add a neutral cover.jpg file to the folder in this case.

Allow users (especially those who use random filenames for standalone images) to optionally tell Winyl where to look for standalone image files, such as inside one or all of the following folders:

This option will be used by a couple of users only, believe me.

If someone wants to implement it, feel free.