MuvEnum Blog

MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth v1.6.5.0 is now available for download.

This version adds support for integration with the ‘soon-to-be-released’ MuvAudio v3, support for some new Windows 7 features as well as my personal favorite in this release, a ‘Send To’ MuvUnder Cover Windows Explorer extension that lets me quickly load files into MuvUnder Cover from Windows Explorer (Right-click -> Send To -> MuvUnder Cover).

Version History:

• Added a Windows Explorer ‘Send To’ shell extension for MuvUnder Cover. You can now select multiple files and folders from within Windows Explorer, right-click and choose ‘Send To’ and then select ‘MuvUnder Cover’ and the MuvUnder Cover will load all supported files.
• Added integration for MuvAudio v3.
• Added support for loading files from Windows 7 libraries.
• Added taskbar progress bar support on Windows 7. The MuvUnder Cover taskbar entry will fill with the progress of tasks.
• Added indeterminate state to progressbar when searching for files so users know graphically that something is being done (it’s looke for files).
• Modified progress bar cancel button to be a “stop” button to follow UX guidelines and match MuvAudio v3.
• Modified “Choose Folders” to “Choose Files” to signify that you can now select individual files in addition to folders. This feature matches MuvAudio v3 functionality.
• Modified “Shortcuts for all users” option in the installer to be checked by default but only create start menu shortcuts (reduces duplicate icons on desktop and quicklaunch for the installing user).
• Modified MessageBox icons.
• Fixed random crash on loading when users didn’t have the needed permissions to a registry key.
• Fixed drag to top on Windows 7 causing the application to display over the Windows Start Menu Taskbar.
• Fixed incorrectly sized “search” tab in the options dialog.

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.

For the latest version of MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth, please visit our downloads section.

-The MuvEnum Development Team

MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth v1.6.1.0 is now available for download.

This version fixes some graphical issues caused by nVidia GeForce/ION drivers v185.85 and higher.  We also added an additional artwork source.

Version History:

• Added an additional artwork source.
• Fixed graphical issues; missing buttons/images, randomly appearing images and buttons on mouseover, and other anomalies caused by using the hardware rendered dropshadow effects with nVidia GeForce/ION drivers v185.85 and greater.
• Fixed closing of application unnecessarily if trying to download and install an update when the downloaded file is unable to be opened.

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.

For the latest version of MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth, please visit our downloads section.

-The MuvEnum Development Team

MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth v1.6.0.0 is now available for download.

This version updates some of the artwork sources in preparation forthcoming changes from their respective APIs (the changes are coming 8/15/2009 so please update to this version before then otherwise this source will stop working). It also adds an additional artwork source, JunoDownload to improve the dance music artwork search results. As usual, the full “treat” list can be read below.

Version History:

• Added support for adding album artwork to AAC, AIFF, AIF, OGG, OGA, and OGV file formats.
• Added Juno Download (dance music) as an album artwork source to help improve the dance music artwork result percentage.
• Added “‘Artist Name’.jpg”, “Coverart.jpg”, and “‘Filename’.jpg” as options for saving the artwork in the album folder.
• Added selected album artwork information button for Amazon album artwork search results to take you to the artwork product details page to meet API requirement. Trial version is limited to showing information for 50 covers.
• Added double-click support for navigating to a checked folder location in the “Choose Folder(s)” window checked folder list.
• Added browse for album artwork button and contextmenu item (Ctrl+B) to make it easier to add artwork from local files (previous methods you can use are drag-n-drop and copy-n-paste).
• Added support for showing image dimensions from artwork file if source doesn’t give it.
• Added “Remove Selected” button to the “Choose Folder(s)” window.
• Updated iTunesLib reference to the latest version of iTunes (8.2.0.10). If artwork is not updating in iTunes, please make sure you are running the latest version of iTunes.
• Updated the folder browser controls on the “Choose Folder(s)” window to the latest versions.
• Modified the “Save artwork in album folder as “Folder.jpg” to be enabled by default on new installations (not upgrades) due to the way Windows Explorer shows the album artwork folder overlay from the folder.jpg file even if an audio file has embedded artwork. The embedded file and folder.jpg combination provide the best compatibility for all operating systems and players.
• Modified Amazon search to use their new API.
• Modified Amazon search to only return 1 page of results (decreases bandwidth usage) with ItemAttributes for future sidebar product reference.
• Modified Amazon search to now have the first search encode the artist and albums instead of removing diacritics for a better chance of results.
• Modified the registered version of the software to allow copying of album artwork displayed in the search results to the clipboard and/or external programs as either an image object or a file location depending on the source.
• Modified some of the wording on the contextmenu for clarity.
• Modified some tooltip placements so that the mouse cursor does not cover the beginning of them.
• Modified animation framerate from default of 60 to 30 to help decrease cpu usage while maintaining quality animations.
• Modified hottracking to be disabled in “Choose Folder(s)” window folder listing.
• Modified “save checkbox” to be collapsed when album artwork saved status is true as it isn’t applicable to the view.
• Modified context menu “search for artwork” to be enabled when album artwork has been saved (useful if you want decide you want to change it after saving).
• Modified license creation so one registration works for all users on the computer. If currently activated, a registered user will need to run the software once and it will push out the license to all users on the computer.
• Modified installer to install the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 silently (without separate installer prompts) after asking the user if they would like to install it, since it is required.
• Fixed album artwork source searches causing an extremely long pause of the searching process when the artwork source is unavailable.
• Fixed licensing expiring the trial prematurely if a system date change greater than a few hours is detected (we only care about the number of albums saved, not the days of usage).
• Fixed transparency of open file location submenu items (submenu item still goes transparent on mouseover).
• Fixed Discogs artwork source trying to hit the source unnecessarily when the max number of requests have been made for the day.

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.

For the latest version of MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth, please visit our downloads section.

-The MuvEnum Development Team

MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth v1.5.5.0 is now available for download.

This version mainly fixes the album artwork sources that were no longer working in v1.5.2.0 due to changes at the artwork source (Google Image Search, Discogs). There are a few other nice treats that make it a little easier to use which you can read about below.

Version History:

• Fixed album artwork sources that were modified at the sources end and they should now be working (Google Image Search, Discogs).
• Fixed selecting multiple items in “Choose Folders” and hitting space to actually check/uncheck all of the items selected based on their checked/unchecked status.
• Fixed checking for updates causing the program to crash if the xml update file wasn’t downloaded correctly.
• Modified secondary source search to include Google Image Search results after the main secondary source results.
• Modified copying album artwork within MuvUnder Cover.
• Modified reading of current embedded image dimensions by not validating stream when reading for improved performance.
• Added ability to extend trial for an additional 25 covers where users used the initial 25 but didn’t have the “Save artwork in album folder” option checked and would like to test it (double-click on empty space in the trial screen progress bar).

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.

For the latest version of MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth, please visit our downloads section.

-The MuvEnum Development Team

MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth v1.5.2.0 is now available for download.

This version fixes adds a status icon for telling when an album that already has artwork was searched without results as well as fixes a crash we’ve been seeing in exception reports related to removing albums while albums are being added.  Look out below for the rest of the changes in this new version.

Version History:

• Added a link to “View Version History” to the update window.
• Modified updating of information for files in iTunes to search by album title and by album artist to avoid missing files that are actually in iTunes; improved speed of updating file information; added iTunes file update information to support logs.
• Modified update window to set the “Yes” button as the default button.
• Modified to show a red status icon with tooltip above the album when there are no search results; now can tell when an album that already contains artwork has been searched but did not have any results.
• Modified noalbumcover-completedwithoutresults image to use red x instead of yellow triangle to match status icon.
• Modified status icon and search status to update correctly when a firewall is blocking internet access.
• Modified removal of saved albums to make it faster and provide removal status information.
• Modified album context menu to disable most of the options while adding, searching, or saving to avoid crashes caused by modifying the album list while other work was being performed that may also be modifying the album list.
• Removed the ability to remove albums while albums were being added which could cause the program to crash.
• Fixed only the first file of an album being added when the album files didn’t contain an album artist.
• Fixed “No supported files found…” message so it doesn’t show when you click “OK” from the “Choose Folder(s)…” window without selecting any folders.
• Fixed album title and album artist text displays bleeding over the saved album artwork highlight border.
• Optimized user interface graphics which helped improve scrolling performance.
• Updated removal of temporary files on version upgrades to only remove the serialized search results and not the images. Binary serialized search results in a strong-named assembly break between versions so they must be deleted between versions; Bug Report on Microsoft Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=119402

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.

For the latest version of MuvUnder Cover: The Album Art Sleuth, please visit our downloads section.

-The MuvEnum Development Team