Artist Picture Filenames With Illegal Characters

[JBeebs528491]

I am manually adding Artist Pictures because I don't like the ones that are pulled from the Internet. So far, I have not run into any issues, that is, until I came to AC/DC. The slash in the band's name is considered to be an illegal character and thus can not be contained in the filename of my selected Artist Picture. What character do I put in place of the slash? I have tried "AC_DC.jpg," "AC DC.jpg," "AC-DC.jpg," "AC.DC.jpg," and "ACDC.jpg" and MusicBee doesn't recognize any of them.

[frankz]

The thumbnail MB put in my thumbnails folder automatically is AC DC.png if that helps.

[Tybot]

You don't have to manually rename and move the pictures to their location. Using the "Artist Picture"-view, you can right-click any artist and select "Paste artist picture" and MB does all that for you and you won't have to worry about correct filenames.

[JBeebs528491]

This isn't for the artist thumbnails. It is for the pictures that appear in the 'Now Playing' tab and in some of the Theater Mode options. They are usually images that are downloaded from an online source and cycle on a random rotation, but I don't like their selection as many of them are portrait, not landscape. I also have some artists that aren't found on that artist database and want to add images for them manually.

[frankz]

What I'm saying is that MB understands "AC DC.png" as a thumbnail and "AC DC.similar.dat" as a data file, so it stands to reason that the correct format is to have a space in between.  

What Tybot is saying is that you don't even need to know, just find a picture and paste it in Artist Picture view.

[Tybot]

This isn't for the artist thumbnails. It is for the pictures that appear in the 'Now Playing' tab and in some of the Theater Mode options. They are usually images that are downloaded from an online source and cycle on a random rotation, but I don't like their selection as many of them are portrait, not landscape. I also have some artists that aren't found on that artist database and want to add images for them manually.

Ok, now I see what you're saying. I can only verify what frankz pointed out, every AC/DC file on my disk that's handled by MB is formatted as "AC DC" (separated by a space), whether it be .jpg, .png or .dat. And that pattern is consistent through other artists. Musicbee replaces illegal characters in file names with a space which means that the example you provided "AC DC.jpg" should've worked.

In which folder are you placing the jpg's and how are the file names formatted when you have multiple pictures of the same artist? You said you didn't run into any issues until AC/DC, have you verified that the artist pictures you've added manually up to AC/DC are being displayed in theater mode?

[JBeebs528491]

OK, so I handle illegal characters by replacing them with spaces.

I do not currently have multiple images of the same artist as of yet. They are currently saved to the MusicBee folder in my music library "C:\Users\[User Profile]\Music\MusicBee\Artist Pictures." All of the other images show up correctly because their respective artists do not have illegal characters in their names.

Where is this "Artist Picture" view? Are you referring to the artist thumbnails (Tools -> Artwork -> Downloader...)?

[JBeebs528491]

Ok, now I see what you're saying. I can only verify what frankz pointed out, every AC/DC file on my disk that's handled by MB is formatted as "AC DC" (separated by a space), whether it be .jpg, .png or .dat. And that pattern is consistent through other artists. Musicbee replaces illegal characters in file names with a space which means that the example you provided "AC DC.jpg" should've worked.

In which folder are you placing the jpg's and how are the file names formatted when you have multiple pictures of the same artist? You said you didn't run into any issues until AC/DC, have you verified that the artist pictures you've added manually up to AC/DC are being displayed in theater mode?

OK, I got the Artist Pictures to work with artists with illegal characters by replacing them with spaces. If I were to have multiple images of one artist, how would I format the filename of those images?

[Tybot]

Ok, now I see what you're saying. I can only verify what frankz pointed out, every AC/DC file on my disk that's handled by MB is formatted as "AC DC" (separated by a space), whether it be .jpg, .png or .dat. And that pattern is consistent through other artists. Musicbee replaces illegal characters in file names with a space which means that the example you provided "AC DC.jpg" should've worked.

In which folder are you placing the jpg's and how are the file names formatted when you have multiple pictures of the same artist? You said you didn't run into any issues until AC/DC, have you verified that the artist pictures you've added manually up to AC/DC are being displayed in theater mode?

OK, I got the Artist Pictures to work with artists with illegal characters by replacing them with spaces. If I were to have multiple images of one artist, how would I format the filename of those images?

If I recall correctly, the file names should be formatted like this "Artist_1.jpg", but the first picture of a set has to have only the name of the artist. Say you have 3 pictures of Adele, they would be formatted like this:

Adele.jpg
Adele_1.jpg
Adele_2.jpg

User redwing made a post about this a while back regarding the naming of these pictures but of course I can't find that post again... But I believe the above formatting is correct so you should definitely start there.

[JBeebs528491]

Ok, now I see what you're saying. I can only verify what frankz pointed out, every AC/DC file on my disk that's handled by MB is formatted as "AC DC" (separated by a space), whether it be .jpg, .png or .dat. And that pattern is consistent through other artists. Musicbee replaces illegal characters in file names with a space which means that the example you provided "AC DC.jpg" should've worked.

In which folder are you placing the jpg's and how are the file names formatted when you have multiple pictures of the same artist? You said you didn't run into any issues until AC/DC, have you verified that the artist pictures you've added manually up to AC/DC are being displayed in theater mode?

OK, I got the Artist Pictures to work with artists with illegal characters by replacing them with spaces. If I were to have multiple images of one artist, how would I format the filename of those images?

If I recall correctly, the file names should be formatted like this "Artist_1.jpg", but the first picture of a set has to have only the name of the artist. Say you have 3 pictures of Adele, they would be formatted like this:

Adele.jpg
Adele_1.jpg
Adele_2.jpg

User redwing made a post about this a while back regarding the naming of these pictures but of course I can't find that post again... But I believe the above formatting is correct so you should definitely start there.

Yes, it works! Awesome! Thanks!

[redwing]

The separator can be any character as long as it's neither an alphabet nor a number.
One thing to note is if there's only Adele_2.jpg without Adele.jpg then MB still retrieves one web picture even when that option's disabled (Artist picture view in now playing panel> retrieve web picture option) and then show either of the two. If it's just Adele.jpg, then it only shows it without downloading a new one.

[JBeebs528491]

The separator can be any character as long as it's neither an alphabet nor a number.
One thing to note is if there's only Adele_2.jpg without Adele.jpg then MB still retrieves one web picture even when that option's disabled (Artist picture view in now playing panel> retrieve web picture option) and then show either of the two. If it's just Adele.jpg, then it only shows it without downloading a new one.

OK. That is helpful to know. Thanks!