Why was the character set override option removed?

[Hans Ecke]

Hi-

In old versions of Amarok, there used to be an option under "Collection" 
to specify the character set of id3v2 tags. I think that is because some 
older versions of id3v2 do not allow you to specify the character set.

This feature has always worked great for me. I just set "utf-8", 
rescaned the collection and everything "just worked".

This option was removed in some new version of Amarok and since I've had 
nothing but trouble. 

* The suggested solution (using mplib to upgrade the id3v2) does not 
work for me: mplib crashes on a lot of my files.

* Solution: I managed to upgrade the id3v2 tags using mutagen (a python 
tagging application)

* now xmms does not understand my MP3s anymore (it does not understand 
v2.4)

* additionally, amarok crashes because taglib (current stable 
version) does not understand my tags anymore either

* even today's SVN version of taglib crashes (I'm working on that with 
the maintainer)

So why was this change made? Yes, some UI complexity and code complexity 
was removed. But on the other hand, id3v2.4 seems to be very badly 
supported under Linux. I've heard similar reports for Windows. The 
change only makes things worse.

Sorry about this rant, but I've been fighting with amarok/taglib/mplib 
all day and all only because I upgraded to 1.4.4. I really love amarok 
and want to ditch xmms...

Thanks

Hans