• Intro
• Requirments
• Screenshots
• Download
• Installation
• Config File
• Users Guide
• Error Codes
• Testing Framework
• Bugs
• Version History
• Future Stuff
• Contact

MP3Cattle depends on a relational database.

MySQL

Currently MP3Cattle only supports MySQL. I was using v3.22.27 and v3.22.32 of MySQL during testing and development, which is a bit old but I don't think newer versions should give users any trouble. You can dowload MySQL here.

MP3Cattle uses the packages below. These packages are now bundled as part of the MP3Cattle .jar file and do NOT need to be downloaded and installed. They are listed here to show support for other Open Source projects.

JDBC MySQL Driver

MP3Cattle uses JDBC to communicate with MySQL. It uses the MM.MySQL JDBC driver located here. I've tested MP3Cattle using 1.2b, 2.0pre5, 2.0.2 and 2.0.4.

MP3Info Java Package

MP3Info is a set of classes that gives access to ID3 v1.x information. MP3Cattle was tested using v1.5 of MP3Info which can be downloaded here.

LOG4J

LOG4J is a flexible logging mechanism that MP3Cattle uses to log information to a file and/or a file. You can download the latest version here. MP3Cattle was tested with v1.1.1.

Database Setup

MP3Cattle uses MySQL as its backend database and currently is the only database supported.

In v1.2.0 of MP3Cattle there should be a setup directory. In this directory you will find two scripts setup_db.sh or setup_db.bat. These scripts will setup the mysql database for you, use the .bat for Windows and the .sh for unix/linux. If you are on a Windows system try running setup_db.bat from the command line so that you can see any errors that are reported. One thing to check if you do have errors is that MySQL is currently running.

Once you have the database setup you are ready to setup the configuration file.

Config File

MP3Cattle gets information from the mp3cat.cfg file, that resides in the directory where MP3Cattle.class resides. This file has the standard config format of:

VAR=VALUE

The supported variables are as follows:

Variable	Meaning	Introduced
ADDROOT	Directory to find mp3 files that need to be added to the database	1.00
MP3ROOT	Root directory where all mp3 files will be stored	1.00
DEFAULTUSER	The default user that MP3Cattle will start with	1.00
MP3PLAYLISTPATH	Path to where you want to save your mp3 play lists	1.01
ADD_UNSORTED_ON_LOAD	Set to true if files in the unsorted directory should be added when MP3Cattle first starts to load. If set to false the unsorted directory is initially ignored. However the Refresh Tree button would take into account any files listed in the unsorted directory.	v1.10
DEFAULTID3INFO	If this value is set to true, the Artist,Album,Title and Track ID3 fields, if these fields don't contain any values, will be defaulted to MP3Cattle's values for these fields automatically when the Song Propterties dialog is brought up.	v1.10
PLAYER	This variable is the command that is used to launch a play list. The value should include a %LIST% reference which is replaced by the tmp name of the playlist. Example: /xmms/path/xmms -p %LIST% &. On linux and unix platforms make sure to include the & to run the player in the background. For windows machines you don't need to worry about this.	v1.10
UNSORTEDPATH	This variable should be set to a path where you will be mp3 files that will be added to MP3Cattle using the mp3 file's ID3 tags. You will also be able to edit the file's ID3 tags from within MP3Cattle.	v1.10
DBHOST	This variable should be set to the host that is running the database. Set this to localhost if MP3Cattle is running on the same machine as the database.	v1.10
LOGCONFIG	This variable is set to the log4j config file. The default logging.cfg is probably all you need.	v1.20
Depreciated Variables
MP3PATH	Path that will be appended onto files when saved as a playlist. MP3PATH was removed in v1.1 since it was used exactly as MP3ROOT.	NOT USED as of v1.1
MP3NETWORKPATH	Path that will be appened onto files when saved as a networked playlist. REMOVED in v1.1. v1.1 allows you to specify an alternative path in the save play list dialog	NOT USED as of v1.1

Once you have setup your mp3cat.cfg file you are ready to compile the MP3Cattle source. Compile all of the java files in the mp3cat and mp3cat/mp3cat directory, javac *java mp3cat/*java from the mp3cat directory. Once you successfully compile MP3Cattle you are ready to start using MP3Cattle. See the User's Guide for the details.

In v1.10 and later versions the error codes give more details of the problem. I'm hoping in most cases the errors will be enough information to give you a good idea of what the problem is.

Error Code	Reason / Fix	Version Added
MP3Cattle.ConfigFileFailure	Could not find the mp3cat.cfg file. Currently MP3Cattle looks in the directory where the MP3Cattle class is found. Place a valid mp3cat.cfg file in this directory	v1.01
MP3Cattle.ConfigReadError	Had problems reading your config file. This is a java.IO exception. Cause???	v1.01
MP3Cattle.MP3ManagerSQLError	Problem creating your database connection. Somethings to check: database is running you have the mm.mysql driver installed and in your CLASSPATH environmnet variable You have the correct user and password setup, user: mp3 with password: mp3	v1.01
MP3Manager.SongFormatError	The song naming format is incorrect. The correct format is artist/album/track_songname.mp3	v1.01
MP3Manager.VariousArtistSongFormatError	The song naming format, for a Various Artist, is incorrect. The correct format is: artist/album/track_artist - songname.mp3	v1.01

To help determine what the problem might be you can turn on logging by setting all categories in the logging.cfg file to DEBUG and then running MP3Cattle to try and reproduce the bug. If you do this please include this with any bug report or email.

• MP3ItemProperties Dialog boxes now remeber where they were where there is more than 1.
• You can now double click items in the play list table
• Some internal changes to make code more robust
• MP3CatDBI interface was created
• Database code cleanup
• Added better support for Album/Aritst merges

• It takes a long time to get the correct play length of an mp3. Right now the 3rd party package I'm using is not looking at the VBR time tag so every frame must be counted to get the correct time. I've talked with the maintainer of the package and a fix should be coming. Once this is fixed the time constraint functionality should work much better.
• Items from the unsorted directory will not be created if the artist/album/song contain escape characters.
• Fixed issue where Alternative path was not working
• Fixed ranking bug where an item that was added would not receive the proper ranking.
• Fixed bug where file handles were not being closed
• Fixed a bug where a name change could result in misordering if there were only two items involved.
• Added the DBCheck feature that will verify that the file system and the database are in sync. Any items found on the file system that are not in the database are added and any items not found on the file system are removed from that database.
• Removed buttons in the status panel and replaced them with right click menus.
• Moved the building of the MP3Tree into its own thread to help performance.
• Added support for sorting columns in the query result table
• Added .jar file with release.
• Added ability to limit queries. Currently the limit is shown by different colored cells in the playlist table.
• Added ability to move rows around in the Play List table. Holding down the control key and using the up/down arrows it is possible to move single rows around the table.

• Added an unsorted directory option. This allows you to have a directory where unsorted mp3s are stored. You can then edit these mp3's ID3 tag and then refresh the tree to add these mp3 files into MP3Cattle.
• Added ID3v1 support. Thanks to the mp3info java package.
• Added ability to change rankings for multiple items. If you double click on a group of items, you will cycle through all selected items.
• Added MVC pattern for genres/labels/artist/album lists. (BUG: 225036 and BUG: 225038)
• Added delete key functionality to Tree and query result table
• Added some command line arguments: -c conf file to use a different config file, --useTestDB to use mp3_test instead of mp3 and --help or -h for usage.
• Added Launch PlayList button, which launches a mp3 player with the playlist that is currently listed in the query result table. The user can set their player in the config dialog.
• Added Clear List button, to clear the current playlist.
• Added ability to specify the database host in the config dialog.
• Added ability to specify a different MP3Path for saving play lists. This is useful for networked machines.
• Added keyboard functionality to: add items to play list, launch the play list, save play list, clear play list, refresh the tree.
• Added ability to store a play list with an alternative MP3Root. This would be useful in the case of network mappings.
• Added ability to change the track number that is stored in MP3Cattle's database.
• Fixed bug in init_db.sql script that had columns as BINARY type.
• Fixed bug that didn't delete all user information when a user was deleted (BUG: 226947 )
• Fixed bug that casued multiple user rankings to conflict with one another (BUG: 405879 )
• Fixed a problem if two songs had the same name in an album. Now if there is a name conflict a number is added to the end of the song name and this continues until a unique song name is found. ie song.mp3, song 1.mp3, song 2.mp3 (BUG: 407480)
• Fixed problem where an artist or album could conflict with an aritst or album of the same name, but with a different case. (BUG: 407482)
• Fixed multi user ranking issue, where rankings of one user would not allow another user to rank a song by means of an artist or album. (BUG: 407483)

• Fixed album ranking bug. If an album doesn't have a ranking it will by default use the artist ranking (BUG: 127154)
• Fixed problem when moving mp3 files around (BUG: 127152)
• Fixed bug when merging two albums together not all tracks appear (BUG: 127145)
• Added more tests to the testing framework. Inlcuding tests that test all fixed bugs.

• Changed main class from Test.java to MP3Cattle.java
• Throws an exception if the Add directory doesn't exist (BUG: 125035)
• Determines if the database connection is closed, and reopens it if needed, before communicating with the database.
• Added initial Testing framework.
• Started to add better error codes.
• Added more variables to config file.
• Added a init_users.sql script to setup the mp3 user with mp3 as the password and the mp3 and mp3_test databases.
• Fixed bug that would throw an exception when the file name was incorrect.
• Aded the mp3scrubber perl script

• ID3v2 info/editor
• Nomad Jukebox/MP3 Player support. Taking a playlist and copy the files to another directory so that they can be downloaded easily into a player.
• Better support for various artists from ID3 information.
• Add a MP3Item interface to help clean up some code
• Database layer cleanup.
• Drag and Drop to playlist
• Genre/Label database table merge
• Ability to retain rankings,genres,labels between items and to set these values easily for a group of items.
• Use DeleteOnExit for tmp files
• Backup helper (So you can keep track of where mp3s are on CDRs)
• A better or advanced query interface
• More information in the playlist panel
• Integration into the AMS system. See freshmeat for AMS info.