Future Improvements

This document tracks potential improvements and feature additions for taglib-wasm. These items represent opportunities to enhance the library based on user feedback and technological advances.

Test Suite Improvements

Recent Improvements (Completed)

The test suite has been significantly enhanced with:

  • Better Organization - Consistent naming, clear structure
  • Reduced Duplication - Shared utilities eliminate repeated code
  • Real-World Testing - Integration tests cover actual use cases
  • Performance Benchmarks - Measure and track performance
  • Multi-Runtime Support - Easy testing across environments
  • Developer Experience - Watch mode, coverage reports, focused tests

Test Coverage Status

  • Total Tests: 140 (130 passing, 4 failing, 10 ignored)
  • Coverage Areas:
    • ✅ Core API (100%)
    • ✅ Simple API (100%)
    • ✅ Picture API (100%)
    • ✅ Error handling (85%)
    • ✅ Memory management (100%)
    • ✅ Edge cases & Unicode (93%)
    • 🚧 Extended metadata (0% - not implemented)

Next Steps for Testing

  1. Fix Failing Tests (4 pre-existing failures):

    • Corrupted header handling
    • Format-specific error messages

  2. Implement Extended Metadata:

    • Enable the 10 ignored tests when features are added

  3. Add More Edge Cases:

    • Very large files (100MB+)
    • Unusual encodings
    • Malformed metadata

  4. CI/CD Integration:

    • GitHub Actions for automated testing
    • Coverage reporting to track regressions

High Priority Features

1. Fix Unicode String Handling

  • Issue: Writing non-ASCII Unicode characters corrupts files
  • Impact: Critical for international users
  • Tasks:
    • Investigate string encoding in C++ wrapper
    • Check UTF-8 handling in Emscripten
    • Test with different ID3 versions
    • Update edge case tests when fixed

2. Extended Metadata Support

  • MusicBrainz IDs - Track, album, artist, release group IDs
  • ReplayGain - Track/album gain and peak values
  • AcoustID - Audio fingerprint integration
  • Apple Sound Check - iTunes normalization data
  • Custom Fields - User-defined metadata fields

3. Streaming Support

  • Process large files without loading entirely into memory
  • Useful for server environments with limited memory
  • Enable processing of very large audio files (>100MB)

Medium Priority Enhancements

4. Additional Audio Formats

  • Opus - Modern codec with growing adoption
  • WavPack - Lossless compression format
  • APE - Monkey's Audio lossless format
  • TrueAudio - Free lossless audio codec
  • MusePack - High-quality lossy format

5. Advanced Picture Support

  • Multiple pictures with different types
  • Picture compression/optimization
  • Format conversion (JPEG ↔ PNG)
  • Extraction to files with proper naming
  • Batch picture operations

6. Performance Optimizations

  • WebAssembly SIMD support for faster processing
  • Parallel processing for batch operations
  • Lazy loading of metadata sections
  • Caching for repeated operations
  • Smaller WASM bundle size

Future Directions

7. Web Audio API Integration

  • Concept: Combine Web Audio API decoding with TagLib analysis
  • Benefits:
    • Use browser's native decoders
    • Smaller WASM size (no decoder bundling)
    • Hardware acceleration
    • Support for any browser-supported format
  • Use Cases:
    • Client-side ReplayGain calculation
    • Audio visualization with metadata
    • Real-time audio analysis

8. ReplayGain Analysis

  • Option A: Integrate with Web Audio API

    • Leverage browser decoders
    • Implement ITU-R BS.1770 in WASM
    • Calculate gain/peak values

  • Option B: Port rsgain to WebAssembly

    • Full ReplayGain 2.0 scanner
    • Self-contained solution
    • Works in any environment

9. Cloud Integration

  • Cloudflare R2 - Direct integration for large file processing
  • AWS S3 - Streaming from object storage
  • Vercel Blob - Edge function support
  • Deno KV - Metadata caching

10. Developer Tools

  • CLI Tool - Command-line interface for batch processing
  • VS Code Extension - View/edit metadata in editor
  • Online Playground - Try taglib-wasm in browser
  • Migration Tools - Convert from other metadata libraries

Platform-Specific Improvements

11. Deno Native Features

  • Replace Emscripten wrapper with native WASM loading
  • Use Deno's built-in test framework features
  • Leverage Deno Deploy for edge processing
  • Native TypeScript without compilation

12. Node.js Optimizations

  • Native Node.js addon for performance-critical paths
  • Worker threads for parallel processing
  • Stream support for large files
  • Better npm package structure

13. Browser Enhancements

  • Service Worker for offline processing
  • WebAssembly streaming compilation
  • Progressive Web App example
  • File System Access API integration

Documentation & Community

14. Enhanced Documentation

  • Video tutorials
  • Interactive examples
  • API playground
  • Migration guides from other libraries
  • Performance best practices

15. Community Building

  • Discord server for support
  • Example showcase
  • Plugin ecosystem
  • Regular release cycle
  • Public roadmap

Technical Debt

16. Code Quality

  • Increase test coverage to 95%+
  • Add mutation testing
  • Implement property-based testing
  • Static analysis tools
  • Performance regression tests

17. Build System

  • Faster WASM compilation
  • Incremental builds
  • Better error messages
  • Cross-platform build scripts
  • Automated releases

Contributing

Want to help implement these improvements? See our Contributing Guide for details on:

  • Setting up development environment
  • Submitting pull requests
  • Coding standards
  • Testing requirements

Priority items are marked in the BACKLOG.md file.