Is it possible for Symfonium to default to show the first frame of an animated artwork (in folder as cover.webp) rather than the first embedded artwork available for a given album?
Just wanted to ask if this is even a feasible request to make before creating a full request… I may need to make a request to get an answer.
I also wanted to share my findings for any folks who have yet to tinker with animated artworks as they have been very fun to utilize in the app.
Definitions for this Document
Symfonium settings / Toggles
PAA • E = Prefer Animated Artwork • Enabled
PAA • D = Prefer Animated Artwork • Disabled
Acronyms
AA = Animated Artwork
NPS = Now Playing Screen
PG - Page
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
TEST 1 Embedded Cover + WEBP
•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•
PAA • E → NPS shows embedded cover | Album PG shows AA
TEST 2 No Embedded Cover + WEBP
•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•
PAA • E → NPS & Album PG show AA
PAA • D → NPS & Album PG show 1st (still) frame of AA
TEST 3 No Embedded Covers + Multiple WEBP & PNG in Subfolders
•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•
PAA • E → NPS & Album PG show AA specifically from the track that appears first in Album track-list
PAA • D → NPS & Album PG show 1st (still) frame of AA
TEST 4 No Embedded Cover / Embedded Cover + WEBP
•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•
PAA • E → NPS shows AA for tracks with NO embedded cover | Album PG shows AA
PAA • D → NPS shows embedded artwork specifically from the track that appears first in Album track-list
Extra Notes
• Outside of NPS & Album PG Symfonium does not display Animations, just still frames
• WEBP Images seem to hold higher quality animations & can often have smaller sizes than GIF
• WEBP animations do not have a thumbnail in Windows until you open them in photo viewer & refresh windows file explorer
• Embedding WEBP images to tracks via MP3TAG yields files with 0 visible thumbnail (everywhere). These files load much slower in Windows & often cause Symfonium to hang (pause) before track playback begins If WEBP exceeds ~25mb. This seems to be especially true for OPUS files specifically
•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•
Conclusions
•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•
1. For AA to show in NPS (When using a cover.webp in folder)
• Track has 0 embedded (static) artwork
• PAA • E in NPS settings (There's a separate toggle for the Compact, portrait & landscape NPS)
2. PAA • D → Symfonium does not default to a static image in a folder with a cover.webp & cover.png | One of two things happens
A) The 1st frame of AA will show in NPS
B) The embedded cover from the 1st track in album track-list will show in NPS
3. New folder structure is not required for symfonium. Currently only one AA can be utilized per album if the AA is NOT individually embedded in tracks
▰ | Files With Embedded Artwork
▱ | Files Without Embedded Artwork
▢ | cover.webp / cover.gif
— Folder Structure 1
Album Folder
|
|————————|
Subfolder 1 Subfolder 2
▢ ▰▰▱▱ ▢ ▰▰▱▱
• Even with different "cover.wepb" files in the subfolders only the AA associated with the track that comes first in the album track-list will appear in Symfonium.
• Other than grouping tracks that will utilize AA there is no NEED to create subfolders
— Folder Structure 2
Album Folder
|
▢ ▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱
• Folder structure 1 & 2 will yield the same results
All Tracks without embedded artwork will show the AA or the embedded artwork from the 1st Track in album track-list depending on the status of the PAA Toggle in NPS
4. UI Image of album / track is selected as such
If NO tracks in album have embedded Artwork → First Frame of AA is used
If any track(s) have embedded Artwork → Embedded artwork of 1st Track in Album Tracklist will show in UI
I have been able to find many animated album artworks using This Website I’ve also made quite a few of my own by simply converting some mp4 videos to webp via ffmpeg (i googled how to convert mp4 to webp & used the first or second reddit / github link)