Batch Files for FLAC
Note that this was done on my WinXP machine, and may vary on Win95/98/ME boxes. The first thing I suggest doing is reading up about FLAC, as I don't have the knowledge of it that I do .shn and don't yet feel comfortable writing an FAQ about it. Here are a few of my top suggestions:
Flac Frontend Download Page (with mirror of FLAC Frontend FAQ, Im not sure if it was an Etree Wiki or a Mike Wren written FAQ first, whichever can feel free to contact me and I will gladly give proper credit. We're all just trying to help out eh?)
Now that you've read all of that....
The first thing you need is flac.exe and metaflac.exe installed on
your computer. I have them stored in c:\windows\flac. If you put them
somewhere else you'll need to alter these files to show that. If you
used Jeremy's method for shn files then you should already have a
directory called c:\util on your drive. If not, Id suggest creating it.
I would also suggest creating c:\burning if you havent already. This
will be the output folder for your .wav files so that you can burn them
to audio cdr.
Within c:\util make these .bat files. (If you dont know how to create
.bat files... well, just create a .txt file but name it .bat instead.)
@echo off
cls
for %%f in (*.wav) do c:\windows\flac\flac.exe -e %%f (*.wav)
pause
Name that file "makeflac.bat." Then create this .bat file:
@echo off
cls
for %%f in (*.flac) do c:\windows\flac\flac.exe -d -o
"c:\burning\%%f.wav" %%f
pause
Name this file "unflac.bat." Then create this file:
@echo off
cls
for %%f in (*.flac) do c:\windows\flac\flac.exe -t %%f
pause
Name that file "testflac.bat." Then make this file:
@echo off
cls
for %%f in (*.flac) do c:\windows\flac\metaflac.exe %%f --with-filename
--show-md5sum >>~nameme~.ffp.txt
pause
Name it "showfpf.bat" ("fpf" stands for "fingerprint file.")
Now you need to find your "folder options." In WinXP if you open a
Windows Explorer window you will see a button called "Tools." If you
click "Tools" you will then see "Folder Options." Within "Folder
Options" you will see 3 tabs. "General," "View," and "File Types." Go to
the "File Types" tab, and browse down to "Flac." If "Flac" isn't one of
your filetypes then select "New" and create it. Once you select flac as
your file type you will see the "Advanced" button below. Click that and
a new box will pop up, then select "New" to create a new action for
flac files. Call your first new action "Extract." Where it says
"Application used to perform action" put in "c:\windows\flac\flac.exe"
-d "%1" "%1.wav" WITH the quotes. (Note: if you didnt install flac.exe
to c:\windows\flac you will need to edit that to point to the location
of flac.exe.) After you've entered this you can click "OK." The box will
disappear and you'll be back in your "File types" tab, and "Extract"
should now be in the window that shows actions for flac files. I would
also set this to the default.
Now do the same, click "Advanced" and go to create another new action
for .flac files. Call this one "Extract All" and browse to your
"unflac.bat" for the application used to perform the action.
Create another new action for flac files, and call it "Show Fingerprint
File." Browse to your showfpf.bat file and select it for the application
used to perform the action. Click "OK" again, and it should take you
back out to your "File Types" tab.
Create another new action for flac files and call it "Test Flac."
Browse to your "testflac.bat" and select it for the application used to
perform the action.
Browse down to .wav file and create an action called "Compress to FLAC"
and enter "c:\windows\flac\flac.exe" -e "%1" WITH the quotes as the
application to perform the action.
Create another action called "Compress All To FLAC" and browse to your
"makeflac.bat" and select it as the application to perform the action.
Now that thats all finished heres what you should be able to do:
1. Right click on any FLAC file and select "Extract" and have a .wav
file be created in the same directory.
2. Right click on any FLAC file and select "Extract All" and have all
of the resulting .wav files end up in c:\burning (or wherever you
directed them to in your unflac.bat.
3. Right click on any FLAC file and select "Fingerprint File" and have
a txt file created in the directory with the flac md5s.
4. Right Click on any FLAC file and select "Test FLAC" and have it test
your flac file in a DOS window. This is handy to check that you burned
the files correctly to a disc or that they transferred to another
directory successfully.
5. Right click on any .wav file and select "Compress to FLAC" and have
a FLAC file for that .wav file end up in the same directory.
6. Right click on any .wav file and select "Compress All to FLAC" and
have all the .wav files be made to .flac and kept in that directory.
Now go download some FLAC filesets and check it out!
Special thanks to Josh Coalson; the creator of FLAC. Mike Wren; for
his pages about the flac frontend and for serving it out on his server.
wiki.etree.org; for their helpful FAQ about and the flac fingerprint
files, and flac FAQ in general. I also could not have figured this out
without first doing it for .shn files, so thanks again to Jeremy Clark.
Look for FLAC files soon on FurthurNET!