Elementary, My Dear Watson

The first alpha release of Elementary, my from-scratch Java-based MPEG-4 parser and iTunes metadata editor, is now available. This is extremely volatile software, so please be cautious as you use it (e.g., make copies of any files you plan to edit with it beforehand). This is not an end-user product; it is an API for use in other programs. Limited documentation is included; however, it is incomplete.

Click here to download Elementary b20080114.

I’ll have some examples of use up in a few days.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

~ by Andrew on January 16, 2008.

Posted in Releases

32 Responses to “Elementary, My Dear Watson”

  1. It’s not working. When I Extract it and press on Elementary: “Could not find the main class. Program will exit”

    Matic said this on January 17, 2008 at 8:58 am

  2. As I said, this is not a program. It is not meant to be “run,” but rather to be included in other programs which will provide a user interface.

    Andrew said this on January 17, 2008 at 3:56 pm

  3. Andrew,

    Just a few feature suggestion for future versions of Tagger/Elementary:
    – I’d love to be able to select multiple files for changes much like in iTunes (but iTunes sucks and is slow compared to Tagger). Like changing Artwork, many of the Video Tags, Artist, Album, etc.
    – If not the above suggestion, could you add shortcut keys to some of the functions, like the items in the Artwork Menu. It would be great to be able to hit CTR-I and the browsing window for Artwork pops up. Or also being able to hit CTR-SHIFT-S to Sava All.

    Anyway … I love the program and I love the simple look of the new website and I can’t wait to see more.

    Thanks!

    Aaron said this on January 17, 2008 at 4:28 pm

  4. And will you also provide a GUI later on?

    Smith said this on January 17, 2008 at 5:51 pm

  5. And will you also provide a GUI later on?

    It is not my intention at the present time to release my own GUI. Hopefully other programmers will use Elementary as the basis for their own GUIs.

    Andrew,

    Just a few feature suggestion for future versions of Tagger/Elementary:
    - I’d love to be able to select multiple files for changes much like in iTunes (but iTunes sucks and is slow compared to Tagger). Like changing Artwork, many of the Video Tags, Artist, Album, etc.
    - If not the above suggestion, could you add shortcut keys to some of the functions, like the items in the Artwork Menu. It would be great to be able to hit CTR-I and the browsing window for Artwork pops up. Or also being able to hit CTR-SHIFT-S to Sava All.

    Similarly, I do not plan to update Tagger. Your suggestions could be incorporated into a program written by someone else using Elementary as the backend. As an aside, it is currently possible in Tagger to batch edit files: simply Ctrl+Click the label of the field you wish to apply to all open files.

    Andrew said this on January 17, 2008 at 6:04 pm

  6. For tagger, how exactly do you do the release date?

    Zachary said this on January 17, 2008 at 10:51 pm

  7. can you than please tell one program for changing itunes .mp4

    Matic said this on January 18, 2008 at 1:17 am

  8. Zachary,
    I have Tagger Build 3.2b00270429 for Java 6. It’s the latest version available, I believe. I’m not all that sure that the earlier versions allowed you to enter release dates. Maybe you couldn’t?

    But there is a box “Release Date” between “Album” and “Purchase Date”. If you didn’t already know this, Tagger uses AtomicParsley for some of it’s functions, which is great because AtomicParsley doesn’t have a GUI for Windows as yet, other than Tagger. Anyway, AtomicParsley’s format for entering release dates is “YYYY-MM-DD”, but for some wierd reason, to get the correct DAY, you have to add 1 to all DAYS, so really it is “YYYY-MM-(DD+1)”. For instance, January 1, 2004 would be entered as “2004-01-02″. It’s really screwy when you are entering a release date for something that came out at the end of a month. Not many things are released on December 32nd!?

    But it does work when you enter the dates in that format.

    Andrew,
    Sorry to hear you’re not going to be updating Tagger anymore! Is there any way I can get you to change your mind!? I probably mention your program on Apple’s Support Discussions once a week with a link over to http://tvtagger.wordpress.com/. It would be great if you did decide to continue to work on it.

    If you do change your mind, I noticed a small bug today when adding artwork (posters) to some movies. If I drag and drop the artwork, it appears in the window, but doesn’t encode it when I save. However, if I go to the menu and import it, it does. A bit odd. And too bad too, I thought my woes about the shortcut key for importing artwork were over. :)

    Aaron said this on January 19, 2008 at 3:13 am

  9. Why would Atominc Parsley stop working?

    Michelle said this on February 2, 2008 at 10:31 pm

  10. hello, i’m trying to use tagger to batch edit the tags for my video files. How do I do this? It says that you can, but I can’t figure it out.

    thanks

    Heder said this on February 11, 2008 at 2:33 pm

  11. Howdy,
    I’m interested in developing a Java gui for elementary, really need to have examples of how to use it though.
    For instance how can you save the changes (are they automatically saved back to the file on change or is there some other command to do so)?
    Once you release some more information on the detail and structure of your code I’ll be happy to put in some gui development.

    thanks,

    Lowkay

    Lowkay said this on February 19, 2008 at 1:44 pm

  12. Hi
    I have your Tagger 4.0b20070913 and its GREAT but unlike your older one this one doesn’t have the artwork capabilities. If it does and there is something you need to do please let me know or if there is another program that does the artwork too let me know. if the new tagger doesn’t have artwork capabilities like your old Tagger the Tagger 3……….. please send me the old taker so i can have artwork capabilities.
    Thanks for your time

    Greg Fishman said this on February 19, 2008 at 8:51 pm

  13. Howdy,
    I’m interested in developing a Java gui for elementary, really need to have examples of how to use it though.
    For instance how can you save the changes (are they automatically saved back to the file on change or is there some other command to do so)?
    Once you release some more information on the detail and structure of your code I’ll be happy to put in some gui development.

    thanks,

    Lowkay

    No, changes are not automatically written. The included API docs should help you out a bit, but I admit that documentation is sparse. There is a saveAs() method in MPEG4File that will create a new file with any changes to its atom structure. For the time being, it is not advisable to overwrite.

    Andrew said this on February 20, 2008 at 4:14 pm

  14. Hi
    I have your Tagger 4.0b20070913 and its GREAT but unlike your older one this one doesn’t have the artwork capabilities. If it does and there is something you need to do please let me know or if there is another program that does the artwork too let me know. if the new tagger doesn’t have artwork capabilities like your old Tagger the Tagger 3……….. please send me the old tagger so i can have artwork capabilities.
    Thanks for your time

    Greg Fishman said this on February 22, 2008 at 5:32 pm

  15. Hi, I was using Tagger 3 and it was working great, Ctrl+Click worked like a charm and I was really happy with it. I just downloaded Tagger 4.0 and now I can’t get the multiple file select function to work =( Have you changed the shortcut? Is there anywhere I can find Tagger 3.0 so that I can revert back to it? Thanks for your help!

    Cucu said this on March 4, 2008 at 4:02 pm

  16. Is anyone else currently working on a gui? I may consider it, but I’d hate to duplicate effort.

    Bai Shen said this on March 15, 2008 at 10:58 pm

  17. If anyone undertakes GUI implementation, let me know; I’d like to help out with design and functionality feedback. Ultimately I want to particularly stress that batch editing capabilities are what’s desperately needed for iTunes video files on PC.

    mister beefy Gee Male DOT Com (sound it out)

    MrBeefy said this on March 25, 2008 at 7:43 pm

  18. I was using you tagger program and noticed that when I go to edit in the description it only allows me to type up to 255 characters. I noticed that some of the descriptions in iTunes are longer than 255. How can I increase the edit space? Or is there a section where i can copy/paste in text longer then 255. Thanks for your help.

    Travis Buckingham said this on March 27, 2008 at 12:35 am

  19. I have a question about the Tagger, is it possible to edit audio files?

    suss2it said this on April 16, 2008 at 7:11 pm

  20. I downloaded your library, but there is no source code and there is no license explaining conditions of use, without the two its not really possible to use your library as a backend, will you be making the source code available.

    Fred Johnson said this on April 24, 2008 at 3:32 am

  21. can someone send me a copy of tagger 3, that would be really helpful because I lost my version of Tagger 3 and now am stuck with Tagger 4 which cannot tag multiple files. I used to love Tagger 3 and have used it dozens of times for hundreds of video files, if anyone has a copy of it or knows where I can get it please let me know. Thanks in advance. Email: kurtsietz@yahoo.com

    kurt said this on April 24, 2008 at 7:07 pm

  22. Andrew,

    I’m having the same problem as Cucu.

    Any chance you could relink the last stable tvtagger3 either here or on your wordpress site?

    That’d be great.

    Thanks, Dan

    dan said this on May 1, 2008 at 9:37 am

  23. I’m having the same problem as dan.

    Any chance you could relink the last stable tvtagger3 either here or on your wordpress site?

    helpful said this on May 11, 2008 at 7:41 am

  24. Hey Andrew,
    I’m a huge noob when it comes to this sort of stuff. How do I run the latest version of Tagger? I can’t seem to see a .exe file or anything in the zip. I have Java 6 Runtime Environment. Help appreciated ^^
    Thanks, Matt

    Matt said this on May 20, 2008 at 2:54 am

  25. I just found Tagger and Elementary… They look very good and useful. Do you plan on releasing the source sometime and do you have it released under an open license e.g. gnu et al? It’s useful to have the source as a backup since it’s hard to use it in a project if there is a chance at some point we can’t get problems fixed. i.e. your interests go on to a new interesting project or whatever. If the source is available then we have a fallback. Anyways, great work ! Also, do you plan to support the m4vp container? AtomicParsley has an update in a newer revision in the source library but I haven’t seen any windows binaries available anywhere. I’d need to find the time to try to get it compiled. This is an example of a recent problem to our project that the source is a fallback since I get m4vp from Techsmith camtasia 5.1 iPhone mp4s that are generated with SmartFocus . I need to add artwork and other metadata and can’t find a tool that will read/write the artwork… in a batch commandline (for automation) or even a gui tool (yet).
    Thanks again ! Great work! Bill

    Bill said this on May 27, 2008 at 11:52 am

  26. Hi. I’ve downloaded Tagger 6 & latest version of JRE for Vista however when I try to run Tagger I get this:

    Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: H:\Tagger\Tagger/jar

    I’m after a way to set Release Date in iTunes which I gather your code can do. Don’t have time to investigate Java & your API just now so would love it if you could find time to re-post the earlier stable builds of the Tagger app.

    turingtest2 said this on June 2, 2008 at 3:05 pm

  27. Please can we have a link for Tagger 3?

    eon said this on June 25, 2008 at 5:29 am

  28. Is it possible to get Tagger version 3.2 as version 4 does not allow you to add artwork.

    Many thanks. Ian

    Ian said this on June 26, 2008 at 4:00 pm

  29. Like most other people, I’m wondering if you could open up the source for Elementary under GPL. Since your last post is from January of this year, it looks like this project is no longer a priority for you. Thats understandable as priorities do change. However, I would like to continue development and have already used your Elementary class to add artwork to the movies i create for my AppleTV.

    Rob said this on August 4, 2008 at 6:35 pm

  30. Since Andrew is MIA, here is a copy of Tagger 3.2. I found it through another forum. I wish someone were to pick it up and continue to develop it though:
    http://rs216.rapidshare.com/files/72482238/TaggerJava6.rar

    Tuxster said this on August 25, 2008 at 12:39 pm

  31. Just wondering, if you can recommend another program or Java that does the same things as Tagger? You mentioned that Tagger has quirks is there a program or Java that has surpassed what you have started?

    Matt said this on September 21, 2008 at 11:10 am

  32. Here is a link to Tagger 3.2
    http://www.videoseed.com/forum/download/file.php?id=47

    Rob said this on September 21, 2008 at 10:11 pm

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