Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 December 21

= December 21 =

Quantum GIS question
I'm trying to create a map for Virginia State Route 28. I've downloaded all the data I need, my map looks like the following:  My problem is with the colouring. How do I get, for example, the line representing 28 to become red, Interstate 66 to become blue, Virginia State Route 267 to become green, etc.? And how would I add the state border? Would I do all of this in Inkscape? Thanks in advance, a very confused Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 18:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * (it's good to know someone else uses Inkscape!) I assume you have it saved as an SVG. If you have the roads set to different objects, then you can change the colors easily by just selecting the object and clicking the color red on the color bar at the bottom. As for the state border - just use the bezier/straight line tool and draw it based on a real map. Or find an image of the state border (just a line), import it, and resize it to fit your map. flaminglawyerc 20:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * FWIW: I use Inkscape a LOT!SteveBaker (talk) 22:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That's what I thought I should do - except Quantum GIS' "Save As Image" function only saves as JPGs or PNGs. Any members of the maps task force around here? Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 20:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Then this is something you'll have to do in something like Photoshop or GIMP (the latter is a free download). GIMP and Photoshop are 'raster' editors - Inkscape is for 'vector' images.  You should tell your Quantum machine to save as PNG - NOT JPG.  The artifacts caused by saving as JPEG will make your recoloring task VASTLY harder. SteveBaker (talk) 22:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 22:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I disagree with Steve. You should look into how you can make the image an SVG. Many contributors are discouraging the use of raster images when the image can be best represented by a vector format (IMHO for good reason) and there's a good chance if you make a PNG it will be eventually replaced. In other words, rather then doing all this work for hothing, look at the way to do it properly even if it takes a little longer. From a quick search it looks to me like Quantum GIS should be able to export to SVG. You may want to look for an export option instead of "Save as image" since image often means a raster image in the context of many programs. Nil Einne (talk) 13:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Mass audio file data edit
I have many, many songs on my laptop. I now have 3 issues.

When I first uploaded them, I used the following file structure: Because I now also use an MP3 player, I would prefer the following file structure: I have already done this for my 'The Beatles' folder and my 'John Lennon' folder, but wondered if there is a quick and easy way to do it to all of them.
 * Artist
 * Album
 * Disc no (for double albums)
 * Song name
 * Artist
 * Album
 * Disc no (for double albums)
 * Artist - Song name

Secondly, I would like to edit the little pieces of info (what's it called - metadata or something?) like the song title, artist name, etc. Is there a quick way to do that?

Finally, some of my songs - seemingly at random - appear as 'Track 6' or something in Windows Media Player, despite the filename being different to that. Is there a way to fix that? Den dodge  Talk Contribs 21:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Uploaded? To what? Is this itunes, cd rips? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 21:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's just MP3 versions of music from CDs, which I imported using Roxio. Den dodge  Talk Contribs 22:31, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * ok, cause in itunes there should be an option to do what you want easily. For the "Track 6" problem you can use audacity to add a title to each track that will show in WMP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 22:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Audacity isn't needed at all. On Windows (and probably other OS's) all you need to do it right click → Properties → Summary → Advanced. And you can just click to edit right there. flaminglawyerc 22:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm on Vista, and that doesn't seem to work. There's an 'ID tag' tab, which I guess is similar, but apparently I need a PowerPack to edit it. Plus it sounds like a long way - isn't there a way to automatically fill it in using the filename? Den dodge  Talk Contribs 23:13, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * (outdent) For the metadata editing problem, there is an "Advanced Tag Editor" (on XP) option that allowed me to edit every single tag associated with the file - not just artist and title but composer, genre, album, track no., even beats per minute. You can get there by right-clicking on a track in the WMP library and clicking Advanced Tag Editor. As for the filling-in of the data automatically, you will probably have to do that manually. You could always search download.com, etc. but it seems unlikely that such a program exists. Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 23:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Try EasyTAG. It can fill in file metadata from filenames and rename files from their metadata. --wj32 t/c 01:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * foobar2000, whilst also being my absolute preferred audio player, has this feature as standard, and everything is done as simple tags (such as %album% %artist% %tracknumber%). &mdash; neuro(talk) 02:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC)