[Abcde-users] Abcde -W option

[josh]

G'day Scott and thanks for the thanks :)

On Wed, 4 Feb 2026 at 00:21, Scott Hodgson <ordersihavemade at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would you be able to tell me how to:
> 1. -W option works? Git says you can add disc number and number of discs total,but not sure how this works.

Firstly, I highly recommend the configuration file setting:

PADTRACKS=y # Makes tracks 01 02 not 1 2

It makes filenames predictable and I don't see any reason to ever
change it. 2-digit numbers are single discs, multi-disc sets will have
3-digit numbers, ie (disc number)(track number).

There is an example of how to use -W for sets in the GitHub README.md:
https://github.com/poddmo/abcde?tab=readme-ov-file#example-command-lines

Another example for a 3 disc set:
The first disc of the set would be: -W 1,3
2nd: -W 2,3
3rd disc: -W 3,3

I pick up boxes of discs from the classifieds and sometimes sets will
be missing a disc. You don't need to start with disc one. I've later
found the missing disc and it all just fits together nicely in my
music library.

Besides the track numbering, if the -W option is set then there will
be some metadata tags written, especially flac and mp3

> 2. When using -W imagemagick opens the cover art on screen but does little to nothing. Onultiple discs how do you embed album art post rippingulti cd album?

Cover art selection is primitive but still not too bad for a command
line script. Cover art and multi-disc sets do not have a complete
solution. I found that every cover downloaded is saved to cover.jpg
and overwrites any pre-existing cover. My workaround is to only try to
download cover art for one disc in the set. That also reduces the time
the other CDs in the set are in the drive as we skip the whole image
search and selection process.
As I've never used image embedding for my music collection, I'd never
considered it, but I can see the issue you point out for embedded
covers in multi-disc sets. A solution might be to look for a local
cover and offer to use it. Can you open a github issue for this
please?