Disc-Cover - create front and back covers for audio CDs
disc-cover [-2|second filename]
[-b|flaptext text] [-a|additional text] -allmusic
[-c|-casetype (jewel|slim|x-slim|tevion-slim|letter-slim)]
[-C|Configuration filename] [-D|Device device]
[-e|extended] [-f|file filename] [-h|help] [-H|Help] [-n|new]
[-o|output filename]
[-p filename|-pic filename] [-R|Remove]
[-S|Server] [-t|type txt|dvi|tex|ps|pdf|cddb|lbl|html] [-u|uppercase]
[-v|version] [-V|Verbose] [-va|-variousartists] -template_list
Disc-Cover creates front and back covers for audio CDs. The CD has
to be present in the CD-ROM drive, or alternatively a valid CDDB file can be
used. Disc-Cover searches the CDDB database for an entry corresponding to
the CD's CDDB ID. It starts by looking for a local CDDB entry in
~/.cddb (or another directory pointed to by your cddb installation).
If no local CDDB entry matches the CD, disc-cover continues to search the
online CDDB databases or CDINDEX databases as configured in the AudioCD
library. It then formats the entry to produce a Latex, Dvi, Postscript or
PDF file, which contains the front and back covers on a single page. Other
formats supported include a simple text output, a CDDB compatible format,
HTML and an output format that can be used with cdlabelgen
(http://www.red-bean.com/~bwf/software/cdlabelgen/), another cover
builder.
The easiest way of using Disc-Cover is to put an audio cd in your
cdrom drive and then run disc-cover without options. Disc-Cover will tell
you what it does and if it is able to create a set of covers it tells you
the name of the file it creates. Normally this is a PostScript file that is
ready for printing.
The front cover shows artist, album title and when available
extended disc info. Optionally a picture can be added to the front cover.
The back cover holds the title and artist in the same fashion. In addition
to those, the back cover lists the individual tracks, preceded by a track
number and followed by their running time. The total running time of the CD
is given at the bottom of the back cover. The sides of the back cover
contain the artist and CD title. Another flap hangs on the side of the right
of the back cover. When using fully transparent jewel cases this flap is
visible from the front. By default it holds the user's full name. Colour is
also supported.
- -2, -second filename
- When using this option disc-cover goes into double album mode, meaning it
will print the front cover using the first cddb entry, either reading the
cd in the drive or by using a file as described in "-f, -file
filename" option. Then it prints the back cover with two
halves, the upper half consists the title/artist and then the tracks of
the first cd, the lower half contains the tracks of the second cd.
- -a, -additional
text
- Add text to the bottom of the front cover. Default is to put extended disc
information here. You can use this to cancel the extended disc information
by doing '-a " "'.
- -allmusic
- Search on wwww.allmusic.com for the front cover of the album. This picture
will be put on the front cover, just like with -p and -pic.
These last options override this flag. This way you can enable -allmusic
by default in the config file and override it whenever you need to.
- -b, -flaptext
text
- Add text to the additional flap at the side of the back cover. This flap
is visible when used with a fully transparent jewel case. These are
becoming more common everyday. By default text from the password entry is
used. We take the string from the comments field up until the first comma.
Most times this should be the user's full name. Cancel this text by using
the configuration file or with '-b " "'.
- -c, -casetype
(jewel|slim|x-slim|tevion-slim|letter-slim)
- These options correspond with files in one of the
@config_template_dirs which are templates that
describe case types. You can also copy one of these files to your current
directory, change it and let disc-cover use your own template. The cases
described next are delivered together with Disc-Cover. Setting this to
slim will have Disc-Cover output covers in a format suitable for slim
cases. These are thinner cases often used for single cds or EPs. Use
x-slim if you want the side and flap exchanged. Even more slim are the
cases provided by Tevion (use: tevion-slim). For people using letter
format that have trouble with not getting the whole case fitted on paper,
please use letter-slim.
- -C, -Configuration
filename
- Output configuration to a file. The current flags and options set in
existing configuration files or given on the commandline are used to set
the values. To see the current settings do ;disc-cover -C -'. For example,
you can change the default output format to pdf as follows:
disc-cover -t pdf -C ~/.disc-coverrc
- -D, -Device
device
- Specify the CD-ROM device. Default is to use /dev/cdrom
- -e, -extended
- This flag enables extended track information, when available. This
extended information will be added below the track names. It is mostly
used in compilation cds for artist information. Sometimes this extended
track information has been used for lyrics, needles to say this will not
fit at the back of one cd cover and hence to prevent the destruction of
the layout only the first line will be used. That is why this is an option
instead of default behaviour.
- -f, -file
filename
- Use filename as input instead of searching the local and online CDDB
database. File should be a valid CDDB entry.
- -g, -genre
- Include the genre of the disc as the last line of the bottom text on the
front cover. The line looks like this: "genre: genre".
Default is off, as often the wrong genre is used or even just misc or data
has been chosen.
- -h, -help
- Print help message and exit.
- -H, -Help
- Show the manual page using pod2text, this should be installed and working
(you can check this by typing 'pod2text /path/to/disc-cover')
- -n, -new
- Creates a new cddb entry. This works with any format, but should be used
in conjunction with '-t cddb' to create a template for you to fill in. See
the "FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS" to create covers for your
custom cds or for cds that are not in the CDDB database yet.
- -o, -output
filename
- The -o switch allows to specify the name of the output file. By default
the filename will be Artist_Title.xxx, where xxx is txt, tex, dvi, ps, pdf
or html, depending on the file format. See -t option for supported file
formats. Using "-o -" will send the output to standard
output.
- -p filename
- Includes the picture filename on the front cover in a framed box
right aligned with the artist name. The format of the picture has to be
known to the program convert that comes with ImageMagick.
Also the graphicx package for LaTeX has to be available. The picture is
scaled to 200x200 and converted into Adobe Encapsulated PostScript
Interchange format. Remember that output in tex, dvi, txt, html and
labelgen are completely useless with pictures. In case of output in pdf
the picture is transformed into Encapsulated Portable Document Format
(EPDF).
- -pic
filename
- Include a graphics file on the front cover without converting it. This
only works when the format of the file is the same as the output format.
In case of PostScript (PS) output you can use Encapsulated PostScript
(EPS,EPSI) files. In case of Portable Document Format (PDF) you can use
Encapsulated Portable Document Format (EPDF). Note that this is
essentially the same option as in "-p filename"
but no scaling or converting is performed. More responsibility goes to the
user this way.
- -R, -Remove
- By default disc-cover deletes all temporary files it creates before it
exits. This behaviour can be overwritten by specifying the this option.
For debugging purposes only.
- -S, -Server
- Create a default configuration for the selection of CDDB server. This
configuration is used by other CDDB aware programs too, so be careful.
Note that Disc-Cover will not overwrite the configuration file.
- -t, -type
txt|tex|dvi|ps|pdf|cddb|lbl|html
- The -t switch allows to specify the output format. By default disc-cover
will create a Postscript file. Other formats supported include ASCII text
(txt), LaTeX (tex), DVI (dvi), PDF (pdf), cddb database format (cddb), a
cdlabelgen compatible format (lbl) and in Hypertext Markup Language
(html).
- -u, -uppercase
- Fixes those annoying entries that are written without capitals. It
capitalises every single word in titles and artists.
- -v, -version
- Print version and program information and exit.
- -V, -Verbose
- Enable verbose output of Disc-Cover, the libaudiocd library and all third
party software, such as LaTeX, dvips and convert. For debugging
purposes.
- -va,
-variousartists
- Some CDDB entries code every track in the 'artist / title' format. Mostly,
this is used for artists that contain various artists. By enabling this
option Disc-Cover will decode and use that information.
- -template_list
- Prints a list of output template types and their descriptions.
Disc-cover first checks the file /etc/disc-cover.conf for
system wide parameters and then looks at ~/.disc-coverrc. Following
are all the different variables that can be set. The file
~/.cdserverrc is used indirectly through the AudioCD library. This
file contains the CDDB and CDINDEX servers. Furthermore it can be used to
control certain other options of this library. See the appropriate
documentation.
You can generate a configuration file with the "-C,
-Configuration filename" option. Keep in mind that the
values in this file will be set by looking at the current settings. That is,
any existing configuration files or options on the commandline will be
used.
To make a clean configuration file, first remove the
~/.disc-coverrc file and then run Disc-Cover without any option but '-C':
disc-cover -C ~/.disc-coverrc
- $config_version_config
- This will be used in the future by new versions of Disc-Cover to check for
inconsistencies in changed, removed or added configuration options.
Default: '1.4.0';
- $config_tmp_dir
- This sets the directory that is used for temporary files.
Default: '/tmp';
- $config_output_format
- This is the default output format. Although you can choose any of the
types listed in 'disc-cover -h' option the most common would be 'ps' or
'pdf'.
Default: 'ps';
- $config_device
- The default cdrom drive that is used to scan a cd. See "-D,
-Device device"
Default: '/dev/cdrom';
- $config_cddb_cache_directory
- The path where cddb entries are stored in and retrieved from. This can be
shared with other programs that also use cddb.
Default: "$ENV{HOME}/.cddb";
- $flag_with_extended_track_info
- Setting this to one will force disc-cover to include extended track
information. See "-e, -extended" option. It is advised to
keep this 0 as there are lots of entries that contain ugly and meaningless
extended information. Most of the time it is only useful in case of
various artists cds.
Default: 0;
- $flag_various_artist_cd
- Setting this to one will force disc-cover to parse every track the same
way it parses the 'artist / title' label. This might be useful for various
artist cds where every track is formatted in the same way. It is adviced
to leave this option 0, as disc-cover will issue a warning whenever it
encounters such a disc. You can easily turn it on with "-va,
-variousartists"
Default: 0;
- $flag_double_disc_cdtitle
- Setting this flag during the processing of a double cd (using the
"-2, -second" option) enables a 'smart' algorithm that
attempts to find a nice title for the cd, using the titles of both cddb
entries. It will remove all characters unequal in both strings, and gets
rid of any characters surrounding uncommon parts. Last, it removes the
words 'disc' and 'disk', plus any whitespace at the beginning or end.,
-second>> option) enables a 'smart' algorithm that attempts to find
a nice title for the cd, using the titles of both cddb entries. It will
remove all characters unequal in both strings, and gets rid of any
characters surrounding uncommon parts. Last, it removes the words 'disc'
and 'disk', plus any whitespace at the beginning or end.
Default: 1;
- $flag_genre
- By setting this an additional line will be added to the bottom of the
bottom text on the front cover with the genre (taken from the database) of
the disc. See -g, -genre option.
Default: 0;
- $flag_picture_use_allmusic
- Setting this flag does the same as the -allmusic option. That is,
Disc-Cover will search for a cover picture on allmusic to be put on the
front cover.
Default: 0;
- $flag_uppercase_fix
- Setting this flag does the same as the -u,-uppercase option. That
is, Disc-Cover will capitalise every single word in titles and artists.
Default: 0;
- %config_latex_colors
- This is a list of colours that can be set to alter most of the different
items that appear on the covers. You can change the colour of the title,
artist, discinfo, track strings, track numbers and track times
independently. Use colours from the color.sty Latex file: black, white,
red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow.
Default: ( title => 'black',
artist => 'black',
discinfo => 'black',
track_number => 'black',
track_string => 'black',
track_time => 'black',
track_extended => 'black'
track_artist => 'black'
flaptext => 'black',
);
- $config_flaptext
- This takes the string from the comments field of the user's password
entry. We use only the text up until the first comma, which normally is
set to the user's full name. You can also put a simple string here or an
empty one to cancel the output. See also "-b, -flaptext
text" option.
Default: split ',', (getpwuid($<)))[6];
- $config_casetype
- This determines for which type of case output is generated. It searches
for a template file in all the
@config_template_dirs with the same name.
Default: "jewel";
- $latex_user_packages
- If you create a template that requires special LaTeX packages, they can be
added here. Generally not advised if you want to share your templates with
others as they need to own those LaTeX packages, and add them to
Disc-Cover's configuration file.
Default: "";
- $latex_language_encoding
- Whenever you create cds with languages not normally supported by LaTeX you
should add or change this. It calls
\usepackage[$latex_language_encoding]{inputenc}. Main encodings are,
latin1 for ISO Latin-1, ascii for pure ASCII, ansinew and cp1252 (they are
synonyms) for Windows 3.1 ANSI (an MS extension of ISO Latin-1) and
applemac for Apple MacIntosh.
Default: "latin1";
Here you might find an answer between the FAQs.
"Can't locate HTTP/Request.pm in @INC (@INC contains:
/usr/lib/perl5/5.00502/i586-linux /usr/lib/perl5/5.00502
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/i586-linux /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005 .)
at ./disc-cover line 811.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./disc-cover line 811."
A: Install the Perl modules called libwww-perl, HTML-Parser, URI,
and MIME-Base64, which can be found at www.cpan.org or at the 'more
stuff...' directory on the homepage of Disc-Cover. See the file INSTALL for
more details.
"Disc-Cover: running verbose version x.x.x (config y.y.y)
Disc-Cover: creating tmp dir (/tmp/disc-cover-4436)
Disc-Cover: calling Audio-CD library...
Trying CDDB server cddbp://:0/
Connection error: No such file or directory
Could not establish connection with any CDDB servers!
Disc-Cover: ...back from call to Audio-CD library.
Disc-Cover: Audio-CD library says success, let's continue"
A: You have no CDDB servers configured. Either use the wonderful
program cdcd to create such a configuration or run disc-cover with the
options -S.
A: Follow these steps.
1. Insert the homemade cd.
2. Run disc-cover like this:
disc-cover -n -t cddb -o myfile.cddb
3. Edit the myfile.cddb with some text editor, the tracks will all
be named
"Untitled". This should be very easy.
4. For printable output run disc-cover again:
disc-cover -f myfile.cddb
A: You have to install lbcdaudio first. Your distribution does not
contain it, or it does not install it with the standard setup.
A: Run the following commands (from a script, if you like)
cd ~/.cddb
ln -s . blues
ln -s . classical
ln -s . country
ln -s . data
ln -s . folk
ln -s . jazz
ln -s . newage
ln -s . reggae
ln -s . rock
ln -s . soundtrack
ln -s . misc
A: Unfortunately Mike's idea to invent new tags for the track
artist violates the freedb-conventions for handling samplers. There will be
no support for this.
A: This is my routine for jewel cases, just one way of doing it. I
start with the front cover. I cut it with two cuts along the width of the
paper. This results in a front cover with two pieces of paper along the
sides. These are folded backwards to help the cover keep in place when it is
inserted in the jewel case. The back cover is just cut with four cuts.
A: Hendrik Neumann <h-n@gmx.net>: The problem is the option
'Fit to page' that makes Acrobat Reader scale the page before printing. Turn
it off before attempting to print.
A: Adam Spiers <adam@spiers.net>: make sure that the correct
parameters are given to the perl Makefile.PL file as follows:
perl Makefile.PL LIBS="-L/nfs-home/adams/local/lib -lcdaudio" \
INC=-I/nfs-home/adams/software/libcdaudio-0.99.6/source PREFIX=~
A: Follow these steps:
1. insert the second disc
2. Run disc-cover:
disc-cover -t cddb -o disc2.cddb
3. replace the second disc with the first
4. Run disc-cover again:
disc-cover -2 disc2.cddb
A: The image is resized to 200x200 pixels, this is to make sure
that the size of the resulting eps or pdf picture is not too large. You can
work around this by converting your picture yourself, for example with
jpeg2ps, and then including this in your cover using the '-pic' option. This
options includes files as they are.
A: Send me an e-mail with your feature or better yet, implement it
yourself and send me a patch file. This does not guarantee that your feature
will be in any future version though. I would like to keep Disc-Cover as
simple to use as possible. But, sometimes I can't resist to put in something
new, or the number of e-mails on one feature grows large enough for me to
add it to Disc-Cover.
A: I don't know! If you e-mail the problem I can try to fix it.
When you mail some error please remember to state the problem as exact as
you can and to include the cddb entry (save it with 'disc-cover -t cddb').
Also, two debug options are included. Use "-V, -Verbose" to
get verbose output of what the program is doing. This helps me locate the
problem if you email me your problem. Use "-R, -Remove" to
prevent disc-cover from deleting temporary files. This enables you to
examine intermediate files (.tex, .div, pictures).
- /etc/disc-cover.conf
- System wide configuration file (for its format see
"CONFIGURATION")). All its items can be overridden in a user
configuration file.
- $HOME/.disc-coverrc
- User configuration file (for its format see
"CONFIGURATION").
- $HOME/.cdserverrc
- Configuration of the AudioCD library. Use this to select which servers are
to be used.
- 1.
- Whenever there is more than one file in the cddb cache directory
disc-cover will issue a warning and just use the first one it found.
- 2.
- Not possible to use CDINDEX files as input.
- 3.
- The layout of the tracks can be slightly deformed when special
international characters or any other tall characters appear in the
title.
disc-cover is written and maintained by J.I. van Hemert
<jvhemert@cwi.nl> You can find the latest version on
http://www.cwi.nl/~jvhemert/disc-cover.html The program is licensed under
the GNU Public License. More information about this license is in the source
package in the file COPYING or on
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html