This is the central hub from which most other operations within The Complete MP3 Manager occur. Generally, for most things you'll want to do in The Complete MP3 Manager, you will need to scan in the MP3's you want to work with in the MP3 Scanning Centre.
In the MP3 Scanning Centre window, you will be presented
with an Explorer-like folder tree view of your computer system in the
left pane. Below this pane is a Scan
button. Use the sign on the folder tree view to navigate
to a folder with some MP3's on your hard disk then press the Scan
button. The MP3's will be Scanned in and displayed as a list in the right
pane complete with information on each file's ID3 Tag information, MPEG
information and other details. Now that you have some files to work with,
you may select any of the other tools in The Complete MP3 Manager (via
the Tools menu or the
Integrator panel) to perform further operations on these files.
I want to:
Scan in subfolders of the folder I'm Scanning
Check Include subfolders check box below the folder explorer window on the main window.
Scan in files from multiple folders
Uncheck Clear Results before Scan in MP3 Scanning Centre Options. You may then Scan individual folders separately for MP3's and they will be displayed aggregately on the list in the right pane of the MP3 Scanning Centre window.
Scan in files other than just MP3's
Despite its name, the MP3 Scanning Centre can Scan in any type of file you want. However, the ID3 Tag and MPEG information is displayed for each file Scanned in and MP3 is the latest and most current audio file format that supports this information. To Scan in other types of file, just go to MP3 Scanning Centre Options and change the Scan Filter using standard wildcard (* and ?) format. The drop-down list includes all the major audio formats.
Only Scan in files that don't already have an ID3 Tag
MP3 Scanning Centre Options provides you with several options for restricting the files that are Scanned in and displayed relating to their ID3 Tags. There are two major versions of ID3 Tag available - ID3v1 and ID3v2. You can choose to Scan in files that are missing either or both of these or alternatively, only work with files that have either or both of these Tags.
Filter the files Scanned in based on text in their file names
Use the Scan Rules in MP3 Scanning Centre Options. You can restrict the files Scanned in to just those that contain a certain text in the file names, or even excludes all files with a certain text in the file names. You can even work with files on an alphabetic basis - say, just work with files where the file name is alphabetically lower than 'm' for instance.
Save my Scan Results and come back to them later
You can select Open and Save from the File menu to keep Scan Results on disk for retrieval later.
Note
When you open a Scan Results file, any Scan Results you already have displayed will be cleared before the Scan Results file is loaded.
Actions available in MP3 Scanning Centre: