Tagger

I’ve created a new site, Elementary Productions, to host all future developments regarding this app, as well as others. I will no longer be updating this page, so please change your bookmarks.

While my GUI program certainly works, I simply do not have enough time to work on it these days. Therefore, I’m curious to know if there are any Java programmers out there who would be interested in my MPEG4 Library to implement an officially sanctioned graphical interface to Tagger’s backend.

I’ve finished work on my tag parser, but have to update the GUI to reflect these changes. Unfortunately I’m extremely busy right now, but I hope to get a new version of Tagger out in the next few weeks.

I’m making a ton of progress on my own MPEG-4 parser, and am able to read and set all tags as of now. I hope to include this new code in the next alpha build in the next few days.

That’s right, working cross-platform support will soon be coming to Tagger, as I’ve decided to forsake AtomicParsley and build my own MPEG-4 parser. In addition to Mac OS X and Linux support, files should load faster and the program should be less memory-intensive and occupy less space on your hard drive. I’ll also be able to update the code myself, so any new iTunes features or bugs in Tagger will be easy to address. Stay tuned.

I’d like to begin work on Tagger 4, but I’m in need of feature requests. I know there are a few outstanding bugs as well, but most are due to AtomicParsley, and unfortunately, that project hasn’t been updated in a few months.

In response to this post, I just would like to say that as of right not there is very little need for documentation for Tagger. The functions should be self-describing, I check the blog daily and will answer any questions promptly and resolve any problems within the software. Also on that note, people do tend to forget that Tagger is capable of batch editing by copying a field’s contents to all other open files. This is done by pressing Ctrl+Click on the field’s label, and has been supported since the earliest builds.

I’m currently aware of a few bugs within the current build, but I am hesitant to release it until I have some Mac OS X testers. Features planned for the next build include:

• German and Spanish language support (the former courtesy of a user named Chris, the latter of myself [I studied Spanish in school])
• Ability to add cast members, directors, and producers, though it appears that this only works on OS X as iTunes doesn’t support the tag on Windows (this is the primary reason why I need Mac testers)
• Close Tabs on Save option
• Multiple bug fixes as reported by users

Thanks to a new addition to Java 6, Tagger will soon be supporting plugins via a JavaScript interface. Want to add your own functionality to the program? An API will soon be available for a forthcoming release of Tagger [Java 6] so that you can write your own scripts. For instance, you may want to dump a file’s tags to a .txt file, or maybe you want to interact with iTunes.

Stay tuned for more information about this in the coming week.

Update: I’ve worked out a large portion of this functionality already, and have made a simple script to show as an example of how easy it is to write your own. I will also be writing some documentation on all the functions available.

The following snippet would cause tabs to close after they have been saved:

var CloseOnSave = {
	tabSaved : function(tab) {
		tab.close();
	}
};

Tagger.addSaveListener(new TSaveListener(CloseOnSave));