MP3 WWW field (WXXX frame) cannot be exposed in the file list

[kanda]

The %www% field in the file list shows
only WXXX frames whose description is empty.
WXXX frames with a non-empty description are not shown:

We were told that a WXXX frame with a non-empty description
can be shown using %www description% (above: %www wiki%)
(see [You can use %WWW DESCRIPTION%])

Technically this is true — but it is functionally pointless.
The description is arbitrary user-supplied data and is not a part of the tag/field/frame identity.

Users cannot enter %www description% in advance, because they cannot know which descriptions the file’s creator used, and there may be many different ones (see “SHAZAM TRACK” description above). Also there may be many abusive descriptions, like “1”, “2”, “3”, etc, given to URLs to workaround “single-valued WWW” ID3 v2.3, v2.4 restriction.

%www% should expose all WXXX frames, regardless of their descriptions.

Mp3tag version tested: v3.32c, Nov 19 2025 12:36:00 (64-bit)
This is a followup to the [Can’t add more than one WWW tag into WMA file]

[ohrenkino]

@kanda

Users cannot enter %www description% in advance, because they cannot know which descriptions the file’s creator used

That is why there is the extended tags dialogue.
BTW: the description is not part of

@kanda

arbitrary user-supplied data

but part of the field structure according to standard.
Similiar files that allow such a mechanism (for ID3V2.x tags) are COMM and TXXX - for such files you also would have to check which name the creator has chosen.

See also this thread about a similar problem with itunes comment fields:

Are these Tags important or can I delete these?

HI. I recently took the Time to organize and clean my MP3-Collection and I noticed there are a lot of Tags in some of them that I didn't put there. And now I'm wondering if I can delete these without destroying anything. These Tags are: AUDIOCHANNELS COMMENT ITUNES_CDDB_1 COMMENT ITUNES_CDDB_IDS COMMENT ITUNES_CDDB_TRACKNUMBER COMMENT ITUNNORM COMMENT ITUNPGAP COMMENT ITUNSMPB COMMENT MUSICMATCH_BIO COMMENT MUSICMATCH_MOOD COMMENT MUSICMATCH_TEMPO COMPATIBLE_BRANDS DESCRIPTION ENC…

[kanda]

@ohrenkino

That is why there is the extended tags dialogue

Good for you. I prefer to see the user-supplied URLs of any kind directly in File List.

@ohrenkino

BTW: the description is not part of arbitrary user-supplied data

Setting aside your interpretation of the ID3v2 spec. According to the documentation [Tag Field Mappings] the field %www% maps to WXXX frame, not “WXXX frame with empty description”. Let it be as documented.

@ohrenkino

See also this thread about a similar problem with itunes comment fields

I do not see similarities.

[ohrenkino]

@kanda

I do not see similarities.

The similarities are:

• There are further fields that allow an additional description (here: COMM and TXXX). As the thread is a little older, the www field was not commonly in use.
• User found it irritating that some of these fields did or did not appear in other applications, depending on whether the interpreted the description or not)
• All these fields and their attributes can be displayed in MP3tag.
• For each of these fields with an extra description a separate GUI element has to be defined.

[Florian]

@kanda

We were told that a WXXX frame with a non-empty description
can be shown using %www description% (above: %www wiki%)
(see [You can use %WWW DESCRIPTION%])

As I've explained before, this is how Mp3tag works wrt. to the WWW field for ID3v2. It's a tradeoff I made to support the description part of the field without adding format-specific UI.

I don't plan to change the behaviour and I'm moving this to Bug Reports > No Bugs