MP3Tag is a great tool and so far I use it mostly to add missing cover images. One thing that would be useful for this, when scrolling through the list of files in the main window, would be to show the cover image on the bottom left when one is present in the directory of the file one points at. I believe right now the cover art is only shown when it is attached to the file itself. A little icon could be used to show if the displayed cover is part of the file or in the directory.
On a similar note, when retrieving and saving a cover image only to a directory, the confirmation message says "Saved tag in 0 of 0 files." which is of course technically correct as no tag was changes but it is still misleading or at least incomplete as the 'save to directory' should be confirmed.
To distinguish whether a displayed image comes from the folder or from the file, you can open up a list view column to indicate which MIME type of image is known.
Column Setup
Name: Cover Filetype
Value: $replace(%_cover_mimetype%,'image/',)
Field:
Sort by:
Numerical:
The Option "Don't display first image ..." in dialog "Tools/Options/Tags" needs to be set off.
Or something like this ...
Column Setup
Name: ImgLoc
Value: $if(%_cover_mimetype%,'F','D')
Field:
Sort by:
Numerical:
... will show F for file resp. D for disk, which does not mean, that there exist a file in the folder really.
So better to use ...
Value: $if(%_cover_mimetype%,'F',)
"To distinguish whether a displayed image comes from the folder or from the file, you can open up a list view column to indicate which MIME type of image is known."
Ok, and how do I get the folder cover art to show automatically when I navigate to a file in that folder?
DetlevD already pointed into the directon:
Modify the setting in File>Options>Tags
so that the images in a folder are not shown as cover
(This is an option right below the dropdown list to determine the behaviour of the >> keys.)
If you set this option to off then you see the first image in that folder as album cover. You can then see that it is not embedded in the file as it is shown with the filename.