New Fetch Art 1.4 Compatible with iTunes 7.5 and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

I just completed work on fixes for the latest Mac OS X 10.5 and iTunes 7.5.

Download the latest version from VersionTracker here.

FetchArt incompatible with iTunes 7.5

Ok, I've been getting some comments and email asking when the new version of Fetch Art will be out that is Leopard compatible.

I did spend some time over the past weeks debugging the issue. It all comes down to a simple line of AppleScript that as far as I can tell based on the Leopard developer documentation, should work just fine.

The is the line that should work:

     set data of front artwork of trk to imageData

To test this, we can try this tiny AppleScript I wrote below. If you want, you can just copy and paste this into a new script file in the AppleScript Editor (don't even need to use Xcode.) This small code sample was modified from an example provided by Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes.

You need to do two things to run this script. Start up iTunes and select a track, any track. If it doesn't have any album art already, that is probably better. You'll also need a .pict format picture file. Not sure if you have one? Here, grab this file.

Then when it asks you to pick a file select your .pict format file.

try
 set ourImage to read (choose file) as picture -- must be a pict file
 try
  tell application "iTunes"
   set ourTrack to item 1 of selection -- need a track selected in iTunes before running this
   tell ourTrack
    set data of artwork 1 to ourImage
   end tell
   display alert "it worked"
  end tell
 on error
  display alert "Error copying artwork to iTunes." as warning
 end try
on error
 display alert "Error reading file." as warning
end try

You can also just download that script from my server here.

I foolishly updated all of my computers up to iTunes 7.5 (even the two that I did NOT install Leopard on) and this script will NOT run correctly on any of them. So it appears to be more of an issue with iTunes 7.5 then Leopard.

If anyone who still has an iTunes prior to 7.5 can test this script and let me know that it actually works, I'd love to get that feedback. It's possible I've introduced an error in this script, since I cannot test it myself.

If any developers know why this line of code has stopped working, I'd love to hear that as well.

For now I'll be doing more testing, and posting to the developer forums, etc. to try and resolve this. I may even submit this as a bug to Apple.

Fetch Art Not Yet Compatible with Mac OS X Leopard 10.5

Just to follow up. I finally got Leopard installed on all of my Macs, including my only Intel one generously purchased through donations. And I can say that Fetch Art does not work with Leopard.

It will take me about a week (with Thanksgiving coming up, maybe a bit longer) to debug and release a new version.

Keep watching this space for updates.

BTW for those of you like me who hadn't updated Adobe Phototshop since version 7, well it doesn't appear to work under Leopard either, so I guess all of us holdouts will be buying that Photoshop 10 (CS 3) upgrade.

Fetch Art Not Yet Tested with Mac OS X Leopard 10.5

Just a quick heads up to all my users, I have the new Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on order from Amazon, however, I haven’t received it yet.

Because I don’t have it yet, I cannot verify if Leopard breaks anything with Fetch Art. I’ve gotten a few emails from users who have had trouble running Fetch Art after upgrading to Leopard.

So… until I can test it out, I cannot say if Fetch Art is compatible with Leopard yet.

Please feel free to leave comments on this blog reporting success or failures with leopard and as soon as I receive my copy of Leopard I will post here with my findings as well.

Want to beta test?

With my last release, version 1.3.11, almost all users have reported that Fetch Art is working for them.

A few people, however, are still reporting errors. If you are interested in beta testing the next version AND you currently have a problem running the 1.3.11 version, then you can try downloading my new 1.3.12 beta version.

If you are able to run 1.3.11 fine, then do NOT try this beta version. It may contain new bugs, and it may download inaccurate art.

If you install this and get an error message, please try to email me a screenshot of the error. I really would like to see the name of the track it was attempting to download as well as the error message, so try to move the error dialog up or to the side so I can read both dialogs if they overlap.

If you see the unicode error (i.e. tracks that have special characters or accents) on the 1.3.11 version, please try this new beta version and if you still see the error, send me a screenshot that includes the track name. One of my goals with the next release is to fully support all characters and accents supported by iTunes.

Thanks!

Beta download

New Version 1.3.11 Fixes PowerPC Issue

It took me a lot longer than I thought it would but I finally got the Universal Binary version to work on both Intel Macs and PowerPC Macs.

You can get it here: Fetch Art 1.3.11

Thanks to those who beta tested the intermediate versions.

Error on Unicode/Extended Characters and Accents

There is a known bug right now dealing with accents and unicode characters in song files.

If the artist or album contains a UNICODE character you will see the following AppleScript error:
Can't make alias "..." into type string. (-1700)

and

NSContainerSpecifierError (2)

I've had a hard time getting this bug fixed. The work around, is to only select songs for download that don't contain these errors.

So if you see an AppleScript error, check the song it was on and see if it contains any extended characters.

Strange Things...

In order to make a Universal Binary, after several failed attempts, I decided to completely rebuild from scratch the XCode development project.

Now, if I take my project directory and build it on my Intel Mac, the application works fine on Intel Macs but crashes on PowerPC Macs.

If I copy that same project directory to my G4 PowerPC Mac, and compile it, the app works fine on both Intel and PowerPC Macs. Very strange.

Expect a new version in the next couple of days to improve functionality on PowerPC Macs and keep the compatibility with Intel Macs. The 1.3.0 version works on both my PowerPC and Intel, however, some reports I've gotten say it does not work correctly on all PowerPC Macs.

I'll keep you posted.

Version 1.3.0 Fixes a PowerPC/Intel Issue

This Intel compatible version also works with PowerPC Macs. I'm not sure why yet, but the installer builder for 1.3.1 did not build my installer correctly. I'm making the 1.3.0 version available for download right now. Report back if you have any problems with it.



Here it is, version 1.3.0.

New Beta Version Compatible with Intel Macs!

Well, here it is. The first version that brings compatibility to Intel based Macs.

This is the 1.3.1 release. I'm releasing it as a public beta. You can download it here.

PowerPC and Intel users, please report back to me successes or problems.

Thanks again to all who donated to make this happen!

Good Progress Being Made

I'm making good progress. I've found some (possibly all) of the problems and am investigating multiple ways to fix them.

I should have an Intel Mac compatible beta version out in about a week. In the past, I've always had private beta tests (where only selected users would be able to get the download through email) however, this time I plan on holding a public beta test.

I'll post a download link on this blog, once I've got a beta installer going. I'll need PowerPC testers too to make sure I didn't break anything that used to work.

Thanks again for all the support, and check back here in about a week from now for the beta download!

Working on an Intel Mac version of Fetch Art

Well I've been super busy with work and even did some traveling but I've found some time to work on an Intel Mac version of Fetch Art.

Currently I just finished getting Perl updated and installed with all the dependent libraries I need from CPAN. One struggle I had was that they broke the Perl Packager (PP) out of the PAR distribution, and I didn't realize I now needed PAR::Packer as well, which I didn't need the last time I setup my dev. environment.

So now development is proceeding. I'll keep posting progress as I make it.

Fetch Art Uninstallation Instructions

So let's say you've installed Fetch Art and now you want to uninstall it.

It's really quite simple. You will find files installed in two locations.

The application itself should be installed at:
[your hard drive]/Applications

The script that appears in the iTunes menu bar is at:
[your hard drive]/Library/iTunes/Scripts/

If it was the only iTunes script you had, you can delete the Scripts directory and the script menu in iTunes should disappear.

Alternately you could go in the Finder, go to File->Find... and search on Fetch Art to find the locations of the files and simply delete them from the Find results window.

Fetch Art Manual Installation Instructions

The most common support email request I get is with help installing Fetch Art. I'm not sure why, but for some users the installer does not successfully put the files on the user's hard drive. This may be a permissions issue, or possibly a bug in the Apple Installer (the Fetch Art installer, is actually just an installation script that is used by the Apple Installer application).

Installing Fetch Art manually is very simple, and solves most reported problems except for Intel Mac users. Fetch Art doesn't work yet on Intel Macs. I'm working on it (See donation page.)

To install Fetch Art yourself, without the installer:

1) Place the Fetch Art application in your Applications directory:
[your hard drive]/Applications
You can get the Fetch Art application here.

2) Place the Fetch Art iTunes script in your iTunes script directory:
[your hard drive]/Library/iTunes/Scripts/
Note that if you haven't installed any iTunes scripts before, you may not have a Scripts directory. That shouldn't be a problem, just create one and put the Fetch Art script in it.
You can get the Fetch Art iTunes script here.

Donation Target Made, new Intel Mac Purchased.

Here's the Mac mini that Love bought.

Thanks to all who donated! Didn't know you could donate? The page is here: Donations Page

Anyway, we met the goal and I purchased a new Intel Mac mini (refurbished) from the Apple Store. I'll be installing the developer tools, moving my Fetch Art development files over and starting on development of an Intel compatible version of Fetch Art ASAP.

Thanks again for your generous donations. I put in a little over $130 of my own money too to get a slightly upgraded Mac mini. If you wish to donate, additional funds I receive will go to upgrading the RAM and CPU.

I've unpacked the new computer (as the picture shows) and am currently running software update to get the latest updates from Apple.

www.aric.org offline temporarily

My primary server is being moved (for more storage and bandwidth). However, that means www.aric.org will be offline.

I see GoDaddy has put up a generic "parked" page temporarily.

Anyway, have no fear that once the DNS and server settings are all completed, Fetch Art will be available for download again, and I'll be releasing more news about updates!

UPDATE: 4/23/2007 aric.org and Fetch Art have been moved to my new servers and are back online.

Initial Post

Updates coming soon. This will only be here until I've got my files moved to my new server...