MP3 Hint 2.00
--------------
Copyright (c) 2003 Piotr Chodzinski


Description
============
MP3 Hint is an InfoTip Shell Extension. After installation, hovering the mouse cursor above any MP3 file icon will display a hint which will contain informations extracted from the TAG of this MP3 file. You'll see title, artist, album, year, comment, genre and track number. Also this hint will contain two additional handy informations extracted from the MP3 file: song's bitrate and duration. This extention can be very useful when you have a lots of files with meaningless names as e.g. Track23.mp3. With help of MP3 Hint you will fast recognize any MP3 file, without necessity of loading this file into a MP3 player. I'm sure you will appreciate advantages of this extension when you will be renaming your music files, copying choosen compositions for someone, or browsing someone's music collection in the local network - you don't need to download whole file anymore to see what song it is, just hover your mouse cursor over its icon.

Features
=========
MP3 Hint:
* handles TAGs in the ID3v1 and ID3v1.1 formats and also in the new ID3v2 format which is very popular right now because it doesn't have any limitation in the lenght of each field (like title, artist etc.),
* supports all constant bitrate standards and most of the variable standards (like Xing VBR and FhG VBR),
* doesn't leave any trash in RAM or System resources,
* supports English and Polish languages (wanna have support for your language ? - just write me),
* works in local network (Microsoft Network),
* shows not only information as a hint, but also as a text on the statusbar of opened Explorer window.

License
========
MP3 Hint is a Freeware program (shell extension). That means that you can use it for free for personal or even commercial purposes (e.g. in the office).
You can distribute this program without any special limitations, on condition that you won't change the original distribution form (ZIP archive containing all the following files: MP3Hint.dll,  MP3HintReg.reg, Pomoc.txt and Help.txt).
You musn't decompily, dissasemblay or take any actions aiming at program modification. 
This program was tested very carefuly, but I don't take any responsability for any possible damages in your computer, system, data or reputation. 
Before publishing this program on any website or magazine's CD you must contact the author - that's me (see Contact section for more details) for permisssion.
MP3 Hint copyright (c) 2003 Piotr Chodzinski. All rights reserved.

Installation
=============
Note that before installing new version of this program you must uninstall first any old version of this extension using methods shown in the next section.
In order to install this extension follow the operations below:
1. Extract the contents of the ZIP file to the system directory (in most cases it's C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM).
2. Choose Run command from the Start Menu and type the following text: regsvr32 MP3Hint.dll.
3. Run (by double-click) extracted file called MP3HintReg.reg and then delete it.
4. Well done. Have fun !

Unistallation
==============
To uninstall MP3 Hint do this operations in order:
1. Choose Run command from the Start Menu and type the following text: regsvr32 MP3Hint.dll /u.
2. Restart your computer.
3. Delete the MP3Hint.dll file.
4. That's all.

Extra informations
===================
MP3 Hint may not show bitrate correctly when it's very big (like 320 kb/s) or when there was used non-standard variable bitrate value. Also if the Comment contains non-typical charcters (like Cyrillic) it will be truncated.

Version history
================
* Version 2.00 (8th August 2003) - whole program was re-written, support for TAGs in version ID3v2, for bitrate (constant and variable) and duration, small bug-fixes.
* Version 1.00 (7th February 2003) - first version.

Thanks
=======
Special thanks for Jurgen Faul (jfaul@gmx.de) - the author of MPEGaudio unit used partially in this application.

Contact with author
====================
If you have any questions, you have found a bug, or just want to write me, you can send mails to the adress below. Want to have MP3 Hint in your native language ? Write me and I will send you all stuff needed for translation. Remember to write me only in English or Polish !!!

aionel@poczta.onet.pl

If you know Polish you can visit my homepage with other great programs & games made by me (sorry, only in Polish !):

http://www.republika.pl/programyaionela

You can also visit the official mini-webpage of MP3Hint, you will surely find latest version of this program there:

http://www.mp3hint.k7.pl



= Readme file completed on 8th August 2003 at 09:47:05 =