What is it?/Why?
----------------

MP3 Automagic CD Cover Creator (MACCC) creates printable CD covers for MP3 CDs. I wrote this because I have an in-dash MP3 CD player in my car and since most of my CDs have over 100 songs on them, I needed a way to see a listing of all the songs WITH TRACK NUMBERS so I could type in the song number on my MP3 CD player and go straight to the song I wanted.

Every other CD Cover maker I found would not do what I wanted:
--print front and back covers
--number the tracks
--number the directories
--look good

The closest thing I found was CDRLabel (and the new 7.0 version is even closer) but it still didn't meet my needs exactly. Then I found CDInsert and that made realy nice covers but there was no way to scan a CD. MACCC will output a .txt file with the tracks (use it with any printing program you want), a CDRLabel-compatible file (load it in CDRLabel and print), and a CDInsert file (submit it to the CDInsert site and then print out the PDF). These produce NICE covers that meet all of my needs. I especially like the CDInsert format - that is now my cover format of choice.

HOW TO USE:
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Run the program by either typing java -jar maccc.jar on a command line or run the runme.bat file (or create a similar one for your OS).

The first thing you will see is a file chooser. Choose your CD drive iwth an MP3 CD in it (or choose a directory on your HD with MP3s). The program will scan for MP3s and present you with the main window. The column on the left is what will be output. The other columns are data/info about the directories and MP3 fils - these are not changeable. Select files or directories on the left and choose the format from the options on the right and you'll see the Display Name text change. You can edit individual names by double-clicking on the Display Name and editing it.

If an MP3 file does not have an ID3 tag it will be marked with 3 red ???s. If the format you choose is using ID3 tags, the Display Text will show 3 red ???s. the easiest thing to do is select all of the files with ???s and then choose "Use Filename" and the Display Name will use the filename. If the filename isn't what you want to use, you'll have to edit them by hand.

If you have accurate ID3 tags on all of your MP3 files, you can make covers REALLY quick since you won't have to edit anything by hand.

Once you get the names the way you want them, hit the "Write Covers" button in the lower right. That will output the file(s) you selected i nthe options. You can use the .txt file anyway you want, the .clb file can be loaded into CDRLabel, and the -cdinsert.txt file is perfect for using with CDInsert. Play around with CDInsert and/or CDRLabel to get the output exactly like you want it.


Future/Contact
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This program is much closer to being done - there are a few features I want to add, and a few bugs I need to fix, but it works fine as-is. You can email me with feature requests, bug reports, etc. at maccc@filenabber.com Please don't bother emailing me telling me what DOESN'T work. I know. :)

Links
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CDInsert					http://www.aczone.com/tools/cdinsert/form.html
CDRLabel					http://www.cdrlabel.com
Download Java 					http://java.sun.com
JoeShmoe (Java MP3 library used by MACCC)	http://www.joeshmoe.com/mpegjava


Brian Pipa
creator of MACCC

