Suggestion: Separate sound file previewer

[Harbinger]

I love being able to hear the samples before bringing them into a module, so...

Recently i decided to archive all my sound files and get them off my HD. I had to convert everything to WAV, rename them, and put them into appropriate folders to prepare them for burning. Alas, i had no way to preview the sound files with the same ease as you can preview an image file.
But then i realized that OpenMPT does! 

Since the methods exist, i think it would be great to use those parts of MPT's sample preview code to create a self-standing sound previewer, equivalent to Irfanview for images. I can't imagine the program would be bulky, and i can't imagine it would take a year to create such a thing. Believe me, if i could program, i would get right on it!
It would be great if previewing a sound could be put into Windows' shell, so you can choose to preview the sound file right from a Windows folder display without having to open any third-party applications...

If you were to open the imagined "Modplug Soundcheck" application, it would present you a tree view of the given folder (similar to but better than Modplug's tree view), you can click on the computer or MIDI keyboard, and it would preview the sound at that note. You'd be able to rename files, move them to different folders, and maybe do some batch conversions!

Does this sound like a good idea? 

[Saga Musix]

Does this sound like a good idea?

Frankly, it sounds like reinventing a wheel that already exists a hundred times. Any audio player with a playlist can already do this in a much more advanced fashion than OpenMPT's tree view ever will.
It is also possible to directly preview audio files in Explorer's "preview" pane, but it may depend on Windows Media Player being set to be the default application to open those files (I am not sure because I never use that feature).

Just for the record: Yes, this means that I am not going to strip out those parts from OpenMPT into a separate application.

[LDAsh]

Maybe I misunderstand the finer implications of the request, but I think it's already fairly easy to double-click or quickly right-click and press P to listen to any samples in a folder, and then click+drag that file in as a sample to view the waveform and use it.  The only thing that irks me is, for whatever reason, I can't copy+paste to and from other software with the samples in OpenMPT.  It's like it's not a valid (or is some custom) entry in the clipboard.  Is this just me or others have this issue, and can it be fixed?  (*sorry, don't mean to hijack thread)

[Saga Musix]

What Harbinger wants is to do this in an external application without having to launch OpenMPT (though I am not sure what the benefit of that would be), as far as I understand.

The only thing that irks me is, for whatever reason, I can't copy+paste to and from other software with the samples in OpenMPT.  It's like it's not a valid (or is some custom) entry in the clipboard.  Is this just me or others have this issue, and can it be fixed?  (*sorry, don't mean to hijack thread)

OpenMPT uses the standard wave clipboard format from Windows (CF_WAVE) - you will have to bug the other software developers to use that as well. Most sample editors I have tried do use their own proprietary clipboard format (Wavelab) or do not make use of the Windows clipboard at all (Audacity). Wavosaur on the other hand seems to use a combination of Windows clipboard and internal clipboard - if you copy something in Wavosaur, you can paste it into OpenMPT but not vice versa (pasting in Wavosaur seems to use an internal clipboard instead).
Edit: Using Ctrl+Shift+V instead of Ctrl+V in Wavosaur enables pasting from clipboard (and thus OpenMPT).

[Harbinger]

Yes, i searched the internet and learned how to get Windows Explorer to preview the sound from there, but it still opens a third-party appl (MPlayer) inside the Windows build, and i have to close that every time. What i was hoping for was a window with a tree-view outline so i could preview sounds like i can in OpenMPT, but have the editing and navigation features in Explorer.

Any suggestions for another app that does this — since there are "hundreds."

[Saga Musix]

Well, I personally would simply use XMPlay (or Winamp if you're into that, maybe even foobar2000) and just add the whole directory to the playlist there (in XMPlay, this can be done e.g. by Right-Clicking the "Add" button or integrating it into Explorer and then using the context menu of the folder to be previewed). It's pretty much what these audio players are made for. You will get a list of audio files and you can listen to them one by one or just automatically go through the whole playlist. You can even delete files directly from XMPlay if that's what you mean by Explorer's "editing" features.

[Harbinger]

I do use fooBar2000 as my music player of choice, but it doesn't do well as a sound file previewer. Editing file names is clunky, and that's an important part of archiving my WAV files.

I'm looking at XMPlay, trying to find perhaps a skin which will show sounds in a treeview, but i doubt i'd be able to drag-and-drop files from one folder to another as easily as with Explorer...

For now, in order to process all my sounds, i open my Sounds folder in Windows Explorer, make it half the width of the screen, and move it to the side. This is also the chosen Instruments folder in ModPlug's treeview, which i open without a song loaded.
I can make MPT's window thin and just show the treeview, open the sound folder and navigate thru each subfolder, pressing the C5 shortcut to play the sound at its given pitch. If i need to change the name of the sound file, i switch over to Explorer, edit the name, and slide the sound file to another folder if i need to. Then i go back to the MPT side, which has already updated the working folder (that's a good feature), and continue...
What slows me down, besides having to switch between programs, is that i can't do everything with keypresses only or mouse only. MPT doesn't automatically move its focus to the Treeview when i go back to it, and definitely not at my last sound i was previewing, and i can't devise a shortcut to do that. I'd also love to have a Rename option in the context menu of the Preview pane, and a Move to folder, which would help.

This is why i need another way to preview sounds and rename and drag-and-drop them as needed...

[Zorro]

just get a fastly starting player and use Q-Dir the quat explorer (http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir)
open four different folders and double click files
when you hear them in your player move them to one of the other three opened folders.