Players and Long Filenames (was: dragData["files"] problem)

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, Garrett Hylltun wrote:

> Much appreciate all the information and efforts on this from everyone.
> 
> It does explain the problems I've been having making an MP3 Player for
> myself.
> 
> I believe that this isn't just a dragData issue either, as I've had
> problems with trying to load files into the "player" with long file
> names on OS X.
> 
> Well nix the MP3 player for me.

Garrett:

Maybe hope is not completely lost.  Using long file names with players has
been an issue for some time.  If you look in the archives, there are some
mentions of techniques for addressing the problems:

1) Mark Waddingham provided the workaround syntax of using the "file" format
for the file path:

set fileName of player 1 to \
  "file:///volumes/users/joe/really_long_filename_here.mp3"

2) Replace spaces with "%20" in file paths.

3) If there is any chance of diacritical characters appearing in the file
path, Thierry Arbellot posted a sample stack that contains a script to
address most of these characters with a "lookup table":

  http://www.digital-salade.com/toki/download/player.rev

IMO, another big issue for a creating player is being able to read ID3 tags
in music files.  Mark Smith has created a first pass at this with his ID3
library on RevOnline:
Category: Utilities
Name: id3lib
User: Mark Smith

Last I checked, this does not work on MP4/M4P/M4A but it's a welcome start.

It's a great testament to the community where the contributions of various
folks come together to create solutions.  We may not have a complete
solution yet, but still, nice job guys. :-)

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
-----
E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com