ah yes ... i have a similar setup and seem to recall on more than one occassion having had 2 instances of XXHE running.

Peter .. would it be possible to put in a check that only one instance of XXHE can run, and perhaps something to cover Johan's issue of cross version control ?

Thanks,

Russ

OK ... I fixed the issue with the folder art not appearing until just before the second track started. The clue was the icons appearing on the desktop also.

When I clicked on the 'hide icon' button in XXHE I was presented with a system alert message titled 'Open File - Security Warning', that stated 'The publisher could not be verified. Are you sure you want to run this software?'. It was for HDI.exe. I unticked the 'Always ask before opening this file' and clicked the 'Run' button. ( I'm pretty sure this alert was similar to what I alluded to in my earlier post today for ChangeWP ).

The icons disappeared as expected and I then stopped and shutdown XXHE. Subsequent restarts of XXHE saw the folder art appearing as expected , and NO icons this time. Seems it just needed the icons toggling manually for things to fall into line .. go figure ! The automatic toggling ( from within XXHE ) didn't bring up the alert message and hense CHangeWP got itself in a tizzy.

Yet another annoyance of Vista and it's Orwellian way of doing things!

Cheers,

Russ

A quick bit of feedback between SQ from 0.9v-6a and 0.9v-7 ....

... if there is any difference between them it is far too subtle for my 'ol brain to discern 

Cheers,

Russ

hey there Pierre,

in my case I now always chose "NO" to the question about restoring old settings. I recall having a few problems a while ago with some not sticking ( can't remember exactly which version but it was a good half dozen or so back ) so I now simply set things up afresh with each new version. I find this process also reinforces what settings I have made and helps awareness of how XXHE is set up. Simply copying the settings across led to me forgetting some of the settings I had been experimenting with between versions ( more the priority settings ). There aren't many settings really I need to change from default anyway and it's only a 30 second exercise to re-establish everything.

The ChangeWP ( for me ) has been very stable in the 'W' series and I can't recall a problem. Interestingly enough, I re-established a 0.9v-7 folder today ( to re-evaluate its SQ ), and ChangeWP for that version malfunctioned consistently. At the start of playing a list nothing would appear on the desktop, but the second track would generate the folder art, and, all desktop icons still showed. Closing 0.9v-7 down shut off the wallpaper as expected. I tried this several times and each time it took until the second played track to bring up the wallpaper, and again, all icons showed. A look at Task Manager showed multiple entries for ChangeWP, even after XXHE had been shut down. I think it may be a quirk of 0.9v-7 that this is occurring for, as 0.9v-6a behaves itself, as do any of the 'W' series. It might be something to do with access rights though, as a system message appeared once initially complaining about something and I absent mindedly unticked the box to "do this" each time and and I told it to go away and just do its thing. Sorry I can't recall the exact message context but i think it was about legitimacy to run or something along those lines. I should add that I've disabled UAC from the control panel options.

I should also add that the way I set up each new version is to create a new folder under c:\ and dump the contents from the zip into that. I then copy the activation code across from one of the other predefined folders. I create a shortcut to XXHighEnd.exe onto my desktop and copy that into my Quick Launch bar. I normally start XXHE from the Quick Launch bar.

I don't use .cue files so I cant help with the third question.

Cheers,

Russ

Well now, this is an eye-opener!

Since the start of the 'W' series of XXHE I have been enjoying the benefits of the much quicker startup and general functionality improvements, and have actually been spending a lot of time just sitting and listening to album after album for hours on end. My enjoyment has been good, not having to worry about XXHE stalling or having any occassional glitch.

When I read the start of this thread yesterday I wondered whether the sound quality really had taken a different path so this morning I plonked on 09v-6a again and fired up some 24/96 tracks of Diana Krall. I played "When I Look In Your Eyes" under 0.9w-3 firstly and everything seemed OK .... usual silky smooth tones and I was able to easily discern the tongue "clicks' in between breaths and phrases. I then played the same track under 0.9v-6a, and it was like a veil had been lifted! Soundstage had been tightened up markedly and everything had a more precise feel about it.

I tried different tracks and different albums ( all Diana Krall in 24/96 ), swapping back and forth between versions and the results were the same in my mind. 0.9v-6a simply sounded better .. no doubt about it.

So .. a lesson to be learned here. Changes in sound quality may gradually alter between versions and may not be readily apparent between one version to the next, but can be accumulative in nature. Being eager to install the latest version before having the previous versions SQ firmly embedded in the brain may not necessarily be the best way to tackle upgrades.

Hopefully Peter can revert back to the SQ of 0.9v-6a while maintaining the glitch free and ergonomics that 0.9w-3 brings.

Thanks go to LydMekk for having the patience to stick with 0.9v-6a for so long before trying the latest. The SQ derailment may have gone unnoticed if not for that.

I guess I'll be sticking with 0.9v-6a again for a while ( and will revisit 0.9v-7 )

Cheers all,

Russ

G'day joerg,

may I suggest you look at Tag&Rename ( http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm ).

That has the capability to read the IDTAG data embedded in FLAC's and rename the file according to the tag contents. I have been using it for years and is very quick and easy to use.

It will overcome your current issues of naming conventions.

Cheers

Russ

What a difference a day makes ( .. and a new version .. hehe )

I was tearing my hair our yesterday trying to figure out why I was getting multiple instances of ChangeWP appearing in task manager and every track only played for exactly 10 seconds then went silent, with the progress bar continuing.

Happy to report though that 0.9w-1a is behaving as intended as I really like the almost instant start of the first track in unattended mode now 

One small glitch I have noticed ( and I'm still trying to see if there is a pattern ) , is that occassionally I get the wrong jpeg appearing in the left panel. When the wallpaper is produced everything is as expected, so I'll continue to monitor. It may well be the folder structure of my galleries.

Thanks for this new version Peter 

Russ

Thank you for the addition of the "Favourites" library paths in 0.9v-7 Peter ... much appreciated.

The amendments to the "date picker" code in 0.9v-7 have also allowed me to identify new albums in a way I wanted .. great job there. Just one small quirk with the "data picker" though ... if I want to select ONE specific day, say the 20th September, I can't have the 'from' date and 'to' date set the same. There currently needs to be at least one day difference between the two date ranges. In the example above, if both dates are set to 20th Sep, then no results are forthcoming. If I try again from 20th Sep TO 21st Sep, then I get the results for the 20th as I wanted. ( It might also pick up results for the 21st also, but as I don't have any for that date I have no way of telling at the moment). If it is possible to amend your code so that both dates on the picker could be the same, it might help someone in the future from falling into the same trap as I did, and not being able to get the results expected.

Thanks again   

Russ

Bewdy ... wonderful start to the week here in OZ. I have a whole day in front of me to explore the new version ... bwahahahaha 

Cheers,

Russ

Try doing a "print screen" function and dump the resultant buffered image into a program such as PhotoShop and cull around what you want, then save as a jpeg. I've used this technique to good effect on PC's I don't have a full Adobe Acrobat editor installed. To get a bigger image you could try zooming in a little initially with Acrobat reader, but you're ultimately limited by the original size of the pdf file containing your folder art.

Good luck and let us know how you go.

Cheers,

Russ

That's always a good sign 

Cheers,

Russ

Not a problem Peter. If It's not easy to do without having to re-invent the wheel I understand.


bewdy .. this one I had been thinking about for a while to ask for.

Thanks again Peter for your willingness to listen to all our ideas and suggestions.

Cheers,

Russ

ah yes .. that would explain it all, and good morning, I notice you are up early!

While you have your coding hat on, may I suggest a couple of functionality additions?

-  make the appendage of (WAV), (FLAC), (MP3) in the library listing a 'tickable' option in the settings panel. I find that the text colour coding for the file types sufficient to identify each type, and that the suffix of file types simply adds to the 'clutter' on that panel. When using the "TestUnder" display ( which I normally use ), I had also thought of asking for the artist to be identified ABOVE the folder art and the title BELOW, but not sure how easy that would be to achieve. I'm thinking it might help with the word wrapping that occurs now with albums that are quite lengthy in total. Please consider.

- keep a history ( perhaps the last 10 entries ) , of the paths shown in the entry just to the right of the Date Picker button. These previous paths could be selected via a little down arrow. As I have music spread over several systems this would be a handy feature to have, as i could simply use the mouse on most occassions rather than typing each time a change of path is desired.

Thanks again

Russ

Not a problem. I got a message indicating there was a new message just prior to my last entry but I transmitted anyway as I wanted to illustrate how I do things currently, in case there is a better method. I suspect I will change procedures for gallery creation and updates when a newer version arrives.

Cheers,

Russ

Wonderful. It's great when I'm on the same page as the programmer. Makes it so much easier to get my ideas across


Well this hasn't been intentional on my part. Ever since I saw them they have had lots of parenthesis's (sp? ) in the name and I assumed that was by your design.

What I have been doing up till now ( and will continue until the new version comes out with the amended sort routines ) is to rebuild my galleries from scratch each time I have added a fresh batch of albums. My galleries are pretty simple affairs, basically reflecting the folder names they reside in. I haven't got around to the time consuming chore of creating additional galleries based upon genre's etc, but may do so in the future. Although I do like your idea of having a gallery called 'nice music'. I might end up having a lot of stuff in that one .. hehe. As a precursor to rebuilding the galleries I simply deleted all references to those x-reference files before doing the rebuild. Oh, and the existing gallery data itself of course.

Ha ha .. I can just see you shaking your head now thinking "users ... they always find a way!"

It doesn't take all that long to do and turned out to be easier that trying to individually find the latest additions from my increasing list of albums.

Perhaps I need to read 'creating galleries 101' to see how it should be done more effectively.

Cheers,

Russ