Contents

How to use output file name patterns in fre:ac?

How to add a new translation to fre:ac?

How to remove fre:ac from my computer?

How to use output file name patterns in fre:ac?

The output file name pattern can be configured on the Encoder page of the configuration dialog. You can use backslashes to specify directories and placeholders for referring to meta information. The following placeholders are available:

  • <artist> - The song artist
  • <title> - The song title
  • <album> - The album title
  • <track> - The song track number
  • <genre> - The song genre
  • <year> - The year the song was published

The above placeholders refer to song and album information. The following placeholder resolves to the type of the output file:

  • <filetype> - The type of the output file

A common use case for this placeholder is if you are regularly encoding to different formats (e.g. FLAC for archival and M4A for your mobile player) and would like to keep the encoded files in separate directory trees.

In addition to the above there are two placeholders that refer to the original file name of a file being encoded in fre:ac:

  • <filename> - The file name of the input file
  • <directory> - The directory the input file is found in

The <directory> pattern is special as you can modify its meaning using two numerical arguments. You can use it like <directory+n> or <directory+n(m)>. In these expressions, the n specifies the number of path components that should be stripped from the beginning. The m specifies the number of components to use from what is left. Omitting the (m) part will use all components left in the path after stripping n components from the beginning. <directory> without any arguments will resolve to the complete path.

So how to use this in practice? Assuming you have your music collection ordered like this:

C:\Music\[other criteria]\[artist]\[album]\[track] - [title]

You might have a file called C:\Music\Favorites\Starsailor\Silence is Easy\01 - Music was Saved.flac.

Now let's say you want to encode some music files for use on your portable player and put them in C:\Encoded\. In order to keep your [other criteria] field, you need to use the <directory> pattern. If your encoder output directory is set to C:\Encoded\, your complete filename pattern could look like this:

<directory+1(1)>\<artist> - <album>\<artist> - <album> - <track> - <title>

This would encode the beforementioned file to C:\Encoded\Favorites\Starsailor - Silence is Easy\Starsailor - Silence is Easy - 01 - Music was Saved.m4a.

How to add a new translation to fre:ac?

Please use the smooth Translator utility included in the fre:ac distribution and open an existing translation file (found in the freac/lang directory). Then change the language settings to reflect the translation you want to create and start translating the individual text strings. Save your translation as a new file matching the pattern freac_??.xml (replace ?? with your language code), restart fre:ac and try selecting the new translation in the configuration dialog.

Please submit your translation to translations@freac.org, so it can be included in the official distribution.

How to remove fre:ac from my computer?

Recent versions of fre:ac come with an uninstaller that you can execute from the Start menu.

In case you removed the Start menu group or are unable to find it, it is completely sufficient to delete the application directory to uninstall fre:ac. fre:ac does neither create any Windows registry entries nor store any active components outside its installation directory.