I agree with dj doo! and I\'d like to see Amarok display the different versions of tags and allow us to manage them separately.
It would be so helpful to be able to know which encoding(s) is(are) used too.

Is it under the hood ?

I \'d like also to ask a question to the friends out there and mostly to the Amarok team, What version of tag do we have in the Amarok tag editor? :huh: And also are there different types of ID3 v2 tags? Because I\'m very confused with all these things lately and I think I\'m not the only one!!::S If we say we remove the old encodings options because they cause serious problems in the database and force tags to ID3 v1 type, we must be specific in how to manage our song collections and not to guess ways to overcome the problem!! So I say to make an extra chapter in the documentation and explain to the users with simple words how to deal with the tags and not to sit and write them again!! or downgrade to version 1.3, cause I think v1.4 of amarok is the best ever and far better from 1.3!! We must take advantage of our free program and use the suggestions of all friends out there because no company has the advantage of so many different ideas and opinions as we do with free software!! B)

Hey! Encoding is not a problem. Simply use easytag. With easytag you can convert idv1 to idv2 with 2 clicks

Oh Really?? Can you explain me HOW the HELL do you convert a v1 tag to v2 with 2 clicks with this mess you call easytag!! :evil: I wonder why the called that program easytag!!!!:evil: I passed many many hours in front of my pc screen to find a solution with this easytag, there is no help and also you don\'t know if the track has an v2 tag, v1 or even if it does have a tag or not and furthermore what encoding does the tag have!!!:angry: And you tell me that encoding is not a problem??!!!:evil: Half of my library collapsed with those encodings ****!!!:angry: Only with Winamp\'s tagging system I found a solution! As I said yesterday the same mess takes place in Amarok\'s tag editor, no technical info at all!! But if I missed something with easytag tell me! WE HAVE SERIOUS PROBLEMS WITH GREEK!! DO SOMETHING!! :woohoo: PLEASE TO AUTHORS OF AMAROK THINK OF OUR SUGGESTIONS AND PROVIDE SOME HELP FOR THE TAGS!! IT\'S THE POINT THAT PROGRAM REALLY SUFFERS!!!:ohmy:

I fully agree with dj doo\'s opinion. Easytag isn\'t so easy indeed, IMHO it worth not trying (tried to accomplish this simple task of adding the id3v2 unicode tag like i did years ago with winamp and... failed). I faced the same problem with id3v1 non-unicode encodings troubles (i am russian), and as i am simply excited with this new shiny 1.4 beta3 and wouldn\'t like to downgrade, i looked for some simple solution and i found kid3 (http://kid3.sf.net) and maybe cantus (http://www.debain.org/software/cantus/) to be much more useful Hope it\'ll solve such a bad problem for somebody.

i\'m downgrading. don\'t want to retag 200GB

I tried easytag just now, it does take some intuition to guess what some features actually do (e.g. I did not guess \'Fill tag\' was filling tags from filename pattern matching until I looked around withing the fill-tag dialog)

But it\'s not too cryptic either. most of its complexity is just the result of the inherent complexity of the whole ID3 tag rules.

From my fast glance, it looks like you need to :
0. make a backup copy of the music directory you\'re gonna modify
1. open Settings/preferences/ID3Tag and check the following options :
. write id3v2 tags => ENABLED (default)
. Automatically convert old ID3v2 tags => ENABLED (default)
. Character set for ID3 tags : => Try to save ... then use UNICODE (default)
Optionnally, if you want to prevent eaytag from stripping id3v1 tags after it\'s converted to id3v2 :
. write id3v1 tags => ENABLED (but then you\'ll be confronted with the problem of choosing a non-standard encoding for *writing* those new id3v1 tags... I\'d pick UTF-8 if I were you)


2. identify the encoding your file is currently using, and select it in the ID3tag preferences dialog for reading ID3 tags.

3. select the files you want processed (put them in one directory beforehand, I guess)

4. \'Save File(s)\'

I didn\'t actually try that, since my files are mostly flac or properly unicode-tagged mp3s, but this should point you in the right direction.

[ sorry, double-post ]

Post edited by: SamK, at: 2006/04/23 10:02

So amaroK doesn\'t allow us to choose which charset to encode the tags in anymore? What charset will be used then? UTF-8? And does that apply to both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags? (And by the way, does amaroK use ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4 tags?).

I have some news from the front... I tried the 2 programs friend Anton suggested and I found them much more useful than easytag!! Especially kid3 is really easy and lets say light enough! You have all the tech info you need about the tag versions and the fields in both of versions, but both of them lack a basic feature which I haven\'t found in all programs I used to arrange tags!! NONE of them showed me WHAT ENCODING WAS USED IN THE NON ENGLISH TAGS!!!!:evil: Which is the **** real PROBLEM!!!:angry: I also discovered that Amarok\'s tag editor does NOT write ID3 v2 tags through a test I made with a Greek file. I wrote its v2 tag with kid3 opened it in Winamp, I discovered that kid3 and cantus writes greek characters unkown in the **** MS operational:evil: then I opened it with Amarok and rewrote the singer\'s field, I opened it again in cantus and kid3 and winamp and discovered that V2 TAG WAS DESTROYED FROM AMAROK\'S EDITOR AND ONLY A V1 TAG WAS THERE with the modification I made!!!:evil: I became MAD!!!:evil:

A COMPLETE MESS!!!!!!:evil:

OH! I forgot to tell you that with those 2 programs kid3 and cantus I also discovered that Winamp writes V2 tags in CP1253 greek (MS codepage) charset because all the tags I corrected with Winamp showed wrong characters in Kid3 and cantus in the fields I modified even in a V2.3 tag!! All wrong in Amarok too!!! Easytag says that ID3 v2.3 tags only supports charsets iso-8859-1 and UTF16! NON OF THEM GREEK!!:evil: That\'s why I can\'t write Greek with kid3 and cantus in an v2.3 tag!!! I think winamp writes v2.1 version of V2 tags:huh: because it can write greek characters! Now I see that Amarok can write v2 tags but only in ENGLISH!!!:evil: So I am brought to a result: Amarok supports V1.1 and V2.3 tags!! I can use Greek only in V1.1 tags because V2.3 does NOT support Greek only english!!!:evil: So I face the same problem with no solution!!! When I write a V1.1 tag in Linux is wrong in Windows and the opposite!!:angry: Converting the tags to V2 can\'t solve the problem cause it is V2.3 and does not support GREEK!! I seriously think to Downgrade to 1.3!!:(

I am very Sad with all these...

Post edited by: dj doo!, at: 2006/04/23 18:26

Furthermore I cannot understand this unicode stuff!!! I read that V2.3 (and V2.4)tags can be written in all languages with unicode, then why Amarok when I write a Greek tag removes the V2 and creates a V1 tag with the new information??:huh: It could have written the V2 tag with Greek Unicode characters!! Also why easytag, kid3 and cantus cannot write greek in V2 tags!?? I installed my Mandriva 2006 not with Unicode by default enabled because when I tried this in the past I faced problems when mounting a Windows partition with files in Greek all were wrong! So I have a new suggestion bring the encodings options back but with the ability to choose which files or folders we want not to be encoded as Latin-1 but with another charset!!;) Or we will be All forced to downgrade to 1.3!!:(