What it is
=========
puddletag is a audio tag editor for GNU/Linux similar to Windows program Mp3tag (http://www.mp3tag.de). Unlike most taggers for GNU/Linux, it uses a spreadsheet-like layout so that all the tags you want to edit by hand are visible and easily editable.
The usual tag editor features are supported like extracting tag information from filenames, renaming files based on their tags by using patterns (that you define, not crappy, uneditable ones).
Then there're Functions, which can do things like replace text, trim, change the case of tags, etc. Actions can automate repetitive tasks. You can import your QuodLibet library, lookup tags using MusicBrainz, FreeDB or Amazon (though it's only good for cover art) and more, but I've reached my comma quota.
Supported formats: ID3v1, ID3v2 (mp3), MP4 (mp4, m4a, etc.), VorbisComments (ogg, flac), Musepack (mpc), Monkey's Audio (.ape) and WavPack (wv).
Why it is
=========
Keeping an XP partition just for Mp3tag just wasn't feasible anymore.
How it's different
==================
To Mp3tag, not that much. It has more or less the same UI and functionality. You'll feel right at home here for the most part. However, puddletag isn't a clone, so check the skim the docs section on the puddletag website (puddletag.sourceforge.net) for more details.
What you need
=============
At least Python 2.5 available from http://python.org
PyQt4 (4.5 or greater)(http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/intro) for the GUI.
PyParsing (≥1.5.1) (http://pyparsing.wikispaces.com) takes care of the parsing...
Mutagen (1.20 recommended, 1.14 required) (http://code.google.com/p/mutagen/) is used as the tagging lib and...
ConfigObj (http://code.google.com/p/configobj/) takes care of saving settings.
python-musicbrainz2 (http://musicbrainz.org/doc/python-musicbrainz2) is required for MusicBrainz support.
The following are recommended
QuodLibet must be installed in order to edit a QuodLibet library.
Downloading/Installing
======================
From source:
Install the dependencies listed above.
For Debian-based distros, run the following as root to install them aptitude install python-qt4 python-pyparsing python-mutagen python-configobj python-musicbrainz2 python-imaging
Download the source tarball from http://puddletag.sourceforge.net. (If this file came from that tarball, ignore everything on this line.)
Unzip it.
You can run puddletag from that directory by typing ./puddletag in your console.
Alternatively install it by running python setup.py install as root in the unzipped directory.
puddletag should appear in your Multimedia (or Sounds etc.) menu. If not run 'desktop-file-install puddletag.desktop' as root in the unzipped directory.
Installing from the Debian package.
This Debian package has been created on and for Ubuntu 10.04, but has been reported to work on Ubuntu 10.10, Sabayon and Debian Squeeze too.
Download the package from http://puddletag.sourceforge.net.
Install using your distros preferred method (usually double clicking should suffice). Or:
Run as root dpkg -i /path/to/puddletag-deb.
Install dependencies using your favourite tool.
Run puddletag from your Multimedia menu.
Development builds are available via svn (I'm not great about keeping it stable, so use at own risk):
svn co https://puddletag.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/puddletag puddletag
License
=======
puddletag licensed under the GPLv2, which you can find in its entirety at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Updates
=======
Release usually go out about once a month. Subscribe to the RSS feed at the website if you want to be updated.
Support
=======
Bugs go to the issue tracker at Google Code (http://code.google.com/p/puddletag/issues). Feature requests and things of general concern go on the forum (http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/puddletag). For anything else I can be contacted via email at concentricpuddle@gmail.com.
