[advocacy] A HOW-TO for adapting ID3/MP3 softwares?

[Moritz Grimm]

Jim Hogan wrote:
> My issue:  I use a very neat ID3 tag editor.  As I began reencoding 500+
> CDs to .ogg, I asked the developer if he had any plans for Ogg support.
> He didn't know much about it, but said he'd look at it.  I even
> volunteered to investigate.
> 
> My conclusion?: While the open-endedness of the comment format may indeed
> prove to be a wonderful advantage, the loose nature of the specification
> (WRT to actual possible comments and relationship to tags) doesn't give
> you much to go on if what you want to do is add Ogg support to an existing
> program such as this tag editor.
> 
> Especially with respect to comment/tags, is there any sort of a HOW-TO or
> overview that I have perhaps missed?

There's always the documentation of Ogg Vorbis. You're obviously
interested in the comment header specs:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

Under "Field names", you get a proposed list of standard tags.
TRACKNUMBER, TITLE, ARTIST, ALBUM, DATE and GENRE cover ID3v1. The
ARTIST/PERFORMER combination, COPYRIGHT and CONTACT, and the ability to
create own tags cover ID3v2.

The proposed tags, combined with custom tags and virtually no limits
concerning amounts and content length, however, are a lot more powerful
than any ID3v* tagging. Using the same GUI to tag both MP3 and Ogg files
is obviously pointless, as it would restrict the user unnecessarily (and
shed some bad light on Ogg, creating false impressions of limitations).
So either the authors of ID3 editors make a bold step forward and offer
an alternative GUI for .ogg files (I doubt (m)any designed their GUI for
MP3 files with that amount of flexibility in mind), or you as the user
simply switch to one of the dedicated .ogg taggers. Different purpose,
different tool ... that'd make sense.

<p>Moritz
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