xACT 1.

71
by Scott Brown <xactdeveloper@gmail.com>
For the latest version or news, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xACT-users ----What is xACT? xACT stands for X Audio Compression Toolkit. It is a GUI based front end (written in AppleScript Studio) for the unix applications Shorten (3.6.0), shntool (3.0.3), monkey's audio compressor (3.99),flac (1.2.0), wavpack (4.2), TTA (3.2 build 20041018) and cdda2wav 2.01a32(with paranoia support). It also uses a modified md5sum (modified from 2.1 textutils) sox (12.17.8 for ppc, 12.17.8 for Intel), LME and AtomicParsley 0.9.2 (for AAC tagging). It does the basic commands of these applications and adds a few features to speed up productivity in creation of etree.org standard filesets. How do I install it? Copy the xACT application to your hard drive. How do I use it? I'm sorry that this might not make the most sense. I'll make it more detailed sometime in the future :) Encode tab: drag files onto the darker grey box on the left or add files using the "Add" button. Choose output format to decode to and click "Decode." You can decode to the directory of the source files, and can choose to delete the original files after decoding. Encode tab: drag files onto the darker grey box on the left or add files using the "Add" button. Choose the output format and format options if applicable. checksum tab: For md5 files, xACT will verify the md5 hash file. For SHN files, an md5 hash file will be created. For flac files, xACT will either verify the internal checksum of the flac file, or create a flac fingerprint of all the flac files (user will be prompted for choice). For a flac fingerprint file, the fingerprints will be compared to the fingerprints in each flac file. For APE files, the files will be verified. shntool tab: For len, the user can either call the standard shnlen function, or show the length info parsed by disc or parsed as 1 fileset. The parsed output can be output with track names by clicking the "names" button and putting in the track names. Info is the standard shninfo output. Join offers 4 output formats for the originally based on MacFlac by Dan Greuel <dan@danrules.com>

joined file. Split offers 4 output formats and will prompt the user for an input file containing split points (for more info on split points, see the tutorial for shntool). Note that for split, if multiple files are in the file list at the left of the tab, only the first is used. Cmp will call the standard cmp function to compare 2 wav files. Note that for cmp, the first 2 files in the file list will be used. Cue was introduced in shntool version 2. It creates a CUE sheet for the files given. fix tab: Since fixing sector boundary errors is probably the most popular function of shntool, I thought that it deserved its own tab. There are 4 output options for the fixed files. When outputting to SHN, the user can choose to create 1 md5 or an md5 per disc, provided the files are named accordingly (ending with disc and track notation, like FOOBARd1t01). Note that the shntool I provided with xACT does not rename the fixed files with a -fixed suffix. I removed the -fixed suffix to avoid the user having to change the filename to remove the suffix later. util tab: xACT can do very basic batch file renaming. If the user feeds the util tab a list of files, it will sort them alphanumerically. When the execute button is clicked, the user will be prompted for a prefix. This prefix will be used for all the files, and a number (starting with 01 and incremented by 1 each time) will be appended after the prefix. If the files initially have an extension, the user will be asked whether to keep or ignore the extension. This feature can be useful when the user has a bunch of files that need to be renamed and ordered with a common prefix. The util tab can also do cd extraction via cd paranoia. For PC Users, this is kind of equivalent to EAC on a PC. It will do bit perfect extractions. FLAC tags tab: You can write FLAC metadata tags for individual files one at a time, or for a group of files at once. To select a file (or files), load the files into the list on the left, then click a file (or files) in the list. After selecting a file, enter tag info in the fields on the right. Clicking the "Write Tags" button will write the tags to the FLAC file. If multiple files have been selected at once, the tags will be written to all the files. Note that if you select more than 1 file at a time, you will not be able to put in a TITLE or TRACKNUMBER tags, since these are specific to an individual file. ----xACT is freeware; see the "stuff" dir for info on FLAC, shntool, sox, mac, and shorten. ----Where the Wild Things Are character by Maurice Sendak. CDs/Music portion of icon extracted from another icon by Wati Larke, wati@royzemi.com. http://gandalf.umds.ac.jp/watiworks ----known issues: -wavpack support -dealing with japanese kanji characters -dealing with aifc compressed files. xACT should be able to do aifc to shn and aifc to flac, but not aifc to ape -the Mac OS X binary for monkey's audio currently does not deal with corrupt files

well. If you're attempting to encode a file to .ape and that file is corrupt, it will hang (instead of throwing an error). I'm going to see if I can fix this in a future version -Converting from 24 bit aiff directly to ape, wavpack or tta does not work. The same goes for converting from 24 bit ape, wv, or tta to aiff. Sox can't handle 24 bit correctly. If you want to convert 24 bit files to ape, they must be in wav format before converting. If you want to convert 24 bit ape, wv, or tta files, you must convert them to wav. -xACT may have issues dealing with a pathname that contains the forward slash ("/"). -cdda2wav may not support all drives -Mac OS X 10.6 seems to have an issue with CDs. If you add files using the "Add" button, the "Choose file" window in xACT may not see a CD in the cd drive unless it was already in when xACT was launched. To get around this issue, just drag tracks from a cd to the file window instead of using the "Add" button. ----Version History 1.71 -"Checksum" tab opens automatically when .st5 files dropped on the dock/app icon 1.70 -compiled under XCode 3.2 in Snow Leopard -when verifying a flac fingerprint file, xACT will now also verify the flac files -lines beginning with ";" are ignored when checking flac fingerprint files (Trader's Little Helper puts comments in fingerprint files beginning with a ";" 1.69 -updated AtomcParsley to 0.9.2 - compiled from source for intel and ppc to get around a bug with AtomicParsley's --overWrite flag -fixed bug - when using "Auto Name" for flac tags 1.68 -added AAC tagging (using AtomicParsley) when converting flac to AAC. Flac tags will be copied to the resulting AAC file 1.67 -fixed error message when on 10.4 and going to the lossy tab 1.66 or higher) 1.65 -added Apple Lossless encoding and decoding (requires Mac OS X 10.5 -xACT remembers settings on the fix tab

-added warning to "delete original files" -added option to encode or decode to source directory -xACT remembers the last format you encoded to -cd extraction output has been shortened to only show final percent (instead of 1 line per percent done) -added aac encoding for users with OS version 10.5 or higher 1.64 -compiled under Xcode 3.0 that ships with Mac OS 10.5 1.63 -flac tag tab can now autoname selected tracks based on a list of tracknames you input. Check "Auto-name," then enter in track names (one name per line). Then select the files and it'll name and number them in order 1.62 --upgraded flac to 1.1.2 1.61 --removed Growl support --upgraded shntool to 3.0.3 for intel, 3.0.2 for ppc --added shntool "trim" function --upgraded cdda2wav to 2.01.01a28 for both intel and ppc

1.60

--added basic support for LAME mp3 encoding (from flac, shn, wav, etc). both VBC and CBR are supported --upgrade flac to 1.1.4 --added basic Growl support (www.growl.info) 1.59 -added option to create standard md5s for flac files -upgraded flac to v1.1.3 -reverted to sox 12.17.8 for intel due to weird bug in 12.17.9 -added "ENCODING", "FIXING", "DECODING" dock icons during those

1.58 operations

-added dock notification (1 bounce) when operations are completed -added flac option --decode through errors, which will force xACT to keep decoding a flac file even if it encounters errors 1.57 -compiled Universal Binary versions of shntool (version 2.0.3), shorten (v3.5.1), flac(1.1.1 for ppc, 1.1.2 for intel), sox(17.17.8 for ppc, 12.17.9 for intel) -fixed bug when encoding to monkey's audio 1.56

-fixed bug when calling "shntool split" and outputting to flac -removed aiff option for cd extraction (cdda2wav made buggy aiff files) 1.55 -set the "join" function of shntool to never pad the joined file with zeros. note: this may leave a sector boundary error at the end of the joined files -added CFBundleIdentifier to the application, so the finder can set xACT as the default app for shn/flac/ape files better -removed "b" from the version name. xACT is always a work in progress, but I don't need to keep calling it "beta" 1.5b4 -fixed bug that made shorten freak out when doing shn > wav

1.5b3 -redid how xACT handles ALL filenames, paths, and directories. it should handle characters like etc 1.5b2 1.5b1 -added support for Wavpack and TTA formats. files cna be encoded to/from these formats. wavpack files can be verified against an internal checksum via the checksum tab 1.4b28 -fixed bug where fingerprint file containing files with spaces in the name wouldn't verify correctly -fixed bug where the output window would cause an error if closed and reopened -reverted back to aqua from brushed metal 1.4b27 -fixed bug introduced by v1.10 of applescript where "delete original files" didn't work 1.4b26 1.4b25 -fixed bug that crashed the application under OS 10.4 when closing the trackname window (shnlen) 1.4b24 -downgraded flac to 1.1.1 because or Mac OS 10.2.x incompatibility -changed default extension for shntool md5 to .st5 -i forget

1.4b23 -fixed bug where unicode handling broke handling of ffp files -upgraded flac to 1.1.2 1.4b22 -added a jaguar version of monkey's audio. xACT will now check the system version and call the panther version of monkey's audio for 10.3 and above. If the system is below 10.3, a different version will be called 1.4b21 1/27/2005 -added "Write empty tags option for flac tags tab. if selected, the tags that are empty will be written as empty tags, otherwise the empty tags will not be written 1.4b20 1/26/2005 -reversioned with "b" instead of "d" -added DISCNUMBER flac tag -changed tag handling to write tags even when value is "" (can be used to delete a tag) -added a "current file" marker for the flac tags tab 1.4d19 1/17/2005 1.4d18 1/16/2005

-fixed bug in shntool join mode when choosing flac as output file

-changed implementation of rename input window -removed flac libs from app

1.4d17 1/12/2005 -changed how files are moved to trash when "delete originals" is checked. files are now moved to the trash of the volume they were on -original files are also only deleted if encoding or decoding succeeded. if there's an error, nothing is moved to the trash 1.4d16 1/10/2005 1.4d15 1/9/2005

-modified how text is displayed in status panel

-packaged all required binaries/libraries WITHIN xACT. no more installation to usr/local/bin or /usr/local/lib. everything is IN the application. -changed all references to String and text objects to Unicode text

-fixed bug when deleting original files after converting to flac -included compiled sox 12.17.7, compiled without dependencies to ogg vorbis and lame. libvorbis and liblame removed from libraries included with xACT 1.4d14 12/31/2004 extracted 1.4d13 1.4d12 cdda2wav testing this) 1.4d11 -changed the way xACT deals with ALL files. it should be able to handle a forward slash ("/") in filenames now, though i won't guarantee it yet. hopefully i didn't break other things with this change -added an option to extract files from CD to 1 file instead of separate files. note that the files will only go into 1 file if they are in order. ex: tracks 1 and 2 will go into 1 file. But if you want to extract tracks 1,2 and 4, they'll go into 1 file containing 1 and 2, and another file containing 4. -bundled flac and metaflac 1.1.1 binaries -changed the metaflac calls for flac tag writing to be consistent with flac 1.1.1 -fixed bug where fingerprints of filenames with special characters are handled correctly now 1.4d10 -added code to find the cd burner based on the output of the "ioreg" call for cd extraction -added fading in/out of main window 1.4d9 -added support for cd extraction using cdda2wav and cd paranoia. very primitive 1.4d8 -reverted back to default flac level within the shntool flac module. xACT now uses the custom format module to allow the user to choose the flac level when fixing sector boundary errors -the user can also choose the flac level when encoding from shn to flac directly -changed the way xACT finds the IOProviderClass for extracting via -new installler needs root access (might go back to admin access. -added renaming based on cddb names of extracted tracks from cds

-fixed bug in renaming of extracted tracks when more than 10 were

--added support for creating and checking the shntool md5 1.4d7 -started new Xcode project from scratch using existing code. Added drag and drop support for all of the file lists. 1.4d6 -fixed bug with pc formatted ffp files. xACT should be able to check them correctly now -fixed bug with fingerprint file checking and filenames that contained special characters -xACT will now output ffp files with extension .ffp.txt and will recognize the .ffp.txt extension as fingerprint files -xACT will now output fingerprint files with filename:fingerprint (no space after the colon) -initial version with util tab and simple batch file renaming. see notes above -if the user adds SHN files to the Encode window and chooses to encode to flac, xACT will convert the SHN files to flac at flac level 8. the flac level slider will not matter here. the slider will still decide the level when encoding aiff or wav to flac -shntool binary included with xACT is now modified so if the user chooses to fix and output to flac format, it defaults to level 8. as i said above, the slider will still decide the level when encoding aiff or wav to flac 1.4d5

-upgraded code and functionality for shntool 2.0 -added CUE option for shntool tab -if the user chooses to fix files and output to the same format as input, xACT will not allow the user to overwrite original files. a different output directory must be chosen. note that this is only in the case where input and output formats are the same -changed the fix command to never overwrite existing files -back to brushed metal 1.4d4 1.4d3 -upgraded monkey's audio to v3.99 -removed brushed metal texture to test out -made the "names" button hidden on the shnlen option tab. it is only visible when the "len by disc" option is selected -changed the track names input window 1.4d2 -fixed a bug on "shnfix" where the flac option was never called -fixed weird interface bug relating to the "names" button

correctly 1.4d1 -added track name support to 2 shntool len options. Clicking the "names" button will allow you to enter in track names. If you choose either "len for fileset" or "len by disc," xACT will combine the tracknames and times together for output. When displayed in a fixed width font, these times will line up. -yes, I know the button and track name windows are *really* ugly. That will change. 1.3 -added support for reading and writing FLAC metadata tags. You should be able to tab to each field and even to the filelist. tags supported: TITLE (I usually put the song name) ARTIST ALBUM (for a live show, I usually put in the venue and date) DATE COMMENT (for a live show, I usually put in the source info) TRACKNUMBER GENRE COMPOSER (useful for classical music) -fixed bug where a filename with multiple periods would be truncated when converting to flac -fixed bug when doing "len by disc" with no disc 1 files -new, separate installer package for binaries -changed the way shns are decoded. shn > aiff is now *much* faster (due to the calling of shorten directly). shn > aiff creates a temporary wav which will be deleted automatically. -better error messages on shorten decode -added document icons for flac, ape, shn, md5, and ffp. -fixed a bug where a fingerprint file would not show up on the fileList if it was dropped on the unopened application. -added support for encoding aifc files to either shn or flac. aifc to ape does not work at this time -the ENTER key should click the main buttons on each tab 1.2

--added .ape encoding. xACT will convert aiff files to wav before encoding to .ape. After the .ape file is created, the temp .wav file will be deleted. --added .ape verification. -upgraded sox to 12.17.4 -fixed a bug in encode so invalid file formats are now caught correctly -added support for checking multiple md5 files or multiple flac fingerprint files at one time. note: checking a flac fingerprint file and md5 file at the same time doesn't work yet. -changed so encode, decode and checksum lists are now sorted

-fixed a bug I was having on 10.3.1 and 10.3.2 where the app would unexpectedly quit when files were dropped onto the dock with certain tabs open. -added support for a blank user password (on installation) -24 bit ape to aiff and 24 bit aiff to ape attempts are caught and stopped correctly. -changed the way ape decode is handled. I now call monkey's audio directly instead of telling shntool to convert to wav or aiff. if converting .ape to aiff, it will extract to a temporary wav first, then convert to aiff. -added monkey's audio error codes. -the main window can no longer be closed -changed the layout of the encode tab to be less cluttered with the addition of .ape encoding -parsed the output from both .flac and .ape verification to give a shorter, more concise message. xACT also parses the .ape error messages. Hopefully I didn't screw any messages up :) 1.12 -replaced md5sum binary with modified md5sum that can deal with DOS formatted digests. removed dos2unix since that was just a temp fix anyway. 1.11

-discovered a bug within v2.1 of md5sum (GNU texutils 2.1). DOS formatted md5 files would not check correctly with md5sum -c. Instead of changing md5sum, i just changed my code and submitted the bug to bugcoreutils@gnu.org -xACT now bundles dos2unix to convert text files from DOS to unix 1.1

-improved error handling across the board -added error log to display a summary of all errors (if any) when processing multiple files at one time -added output for all fix calls -added support for decoding of .ape Monkey's Audio files -added shntool functions split, join, cmp -added code to hide options that are not relevant to currently selected function -apple+w now closes windows -made the file lists larger and added scroll bars. changed other tabs to accomodate larger size of file lists -removed "cancel" from all error dialog boxes, added timeout of 20 seconds -added icons to all dialog boxes 1.01

it got lost between 0.97 and 1.0. it's back now 1.0

-I am an idiot and forgot to include the sox binary with 1.0. somehow

-removed a dialog box from the checksum tab

0.97

- changed how md5's are made when created from encode or fix tab -new icon

0.96 -fixed bug where hitting the "add" button and then cancel didn't cancel -fixed bug where encoding multiple times didn't clear the previous file list -Added option to delete original files after an encode, decode, or fix. To be safe, the files aren't actually deleted, they are just moved to the trash. 0.95 (i don't want to call it 1.0 yet) -added "show len for fileset" option to show just the times and total for a given fileset -Modified the way the shntool calls were made so that files could be in different directories when calling "show len by fileset" and "show len by disc." -Added padded zeros to "show len by fileset" and "show len by disc" output when necessary. 0.9

-added "show len by disc" option to create a skeleton info file for each disc. Filenames must denote disc. The app parses on the last 'd' in a file name, (so if a file has a 'd1' somewhere towards the end, it'll see that it's disc 1). This is the same string parsing as the "md5 by disc" option in the fixSBE tab. -fixed bug in default actions 0.8

-Added default actions for .md5 and .ffp files -Added FLAC fingerprint file verification. -Added error checking to verification routines. -more little fixes

0.7: -When the program is launched by dropping files on the icon, the following default actions are now implemented:

-If file is flac or shn, Decode Tab opened and files added -If other (wav, aiff, aif, no file extension), Encode tab is opened and files added. 0.6: -"Add" button added to each tab. Multiple files can be selected -MD5 verification -FLAC verification/testing -the Shntool "len" and "info" options now output only the filename, and not the entire path. -fixed many bugs dealing with md5 creation, naming of output files, the app hanging on certain operations, etc. 0.5 -Few bug fixes 0.4 -Update for Panther compatibility (including updated binaries) -Added Brushed Metal to interface -More bug fixes -Output window now has a fixed width font -"Clear" button added to each tab