A Visualizer for iTunes.

I ended support for iTunes visualizer development in 2017.
This page is for historical reference only.

The plug-in displays the album cover artwork of the currently playing audio track with different effects: as flapping flag, rotating cuboid, kaleidoscope, with Vertigo effect, or as a sliding pane.

Lyrics of the track are displayed on top of the album cover artwork.

Artist name and track title are displayed bottom-aligned.

Mac OS X		Windows

Animated album cover artwork effects
Flag		Cuboid		Kaleidoscope

System Requirements:

“Cover Version” is available for Mac OS X and Windows.

iTunes Version 12.6.1 (or greater) is required.

How to install:

Mac OS X: Put the file CoverVersion into the folder "Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins/" of your home directory. (Note that the Library folder in your home directory is hidden since Mac OS X Lion.)
Windows: Put the file CoverVersion.dll inside a directory called "Plug-Ins". This directory must be next to the iTunes.exe. If the directory does not exist, it might be necessary to create it.
If the visualizer menu does not appear in iTunes or a message says that the plug-in cannot be loaded in 64-bit mode, you also might need to install "Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013" on your Windows computer.

After launching iTunes again, the “Cover Version” visualizer can be activated with the “View” > “Visualizer” menu.

How to customize:

Options of the visualizer can be set by opening the configuration window at “View” > “Visualizer” > “Options...”.

Preferences:

Mac OS X: “Cover Version” stores its preferences in the file "de.imagomat.coverversion.plist". The file is located inside your preferences folder of your home directory ("~/Library/Preferences/").
Windows: “Cover Version” stores its preferences in the file "Preferences.txt". The file is located inside the "\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Imagomat\CoverVersion\" directory of your system volume. To see and access the file you may have to turn on “Show hidden files and folders” (View settings of “Windows Explorer”’s Folder Options).
If you have problems with “Cover Version”’s preferences you can always delete the preference file. “Cover Version” will use its default preferences if it does not find a preference file.

Notice:

“Cover Version” does not fetch any audio meta data over the internet. Neither album cover artwork is fetched nor lyrics are added automatically.
“Cover Version” displays artwork and lyrics as they are embedded within the iTunes audio track.
You can check to see if the current audio track has embedded album cover artwork by clicking the button with the symbol . Lyrics can be edited with the information of the audio track.

Techniques:

“Cover Version” uses OpenGL for rendering the image data of the album artwork. The image data is accessed by calling iTunes’ API for visual plug-ins. Due to a limitation of the API only one cover is accessible.
The track title is also rendered with OpenGL calls. The glyphs are Unicode-savvy. The font shape is generated with Windows and Mac OS system specific functions. The bitmap data is transferred into OpenGL texture memory.

License and Availability:

“Cover Version” is freeware.

Disclaimer:

This software is provided 'as-is', without any expressed or implied warranty. In no event will the author be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

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