The very first step is to open Road Runner Config, and click on the "MUSIC" tab at the top. Then in the "Album Cover File" make sire it is set to *.jpg
For the images to show up in Road Runner, you will need to have a skin that supports it, as well as album art in EVERY folder of your music collection. If you have artists with multiple albums, you will need an image in the root of that folder as well. For instance:
If your library is organized in the following manner:
- Artist
--
[IMAGE]-----Album Folder # 1
---------
[IMAGE]---------Songs
-----Album Folder # 2
---------
[IMAGE]---------Songs
-----Album Folder # 3
---------
[IMAGE]---------Songs
You would have an album cover art file in each album forlder, BUT you would need one in the "Artist Root folder" as well, or you will not see the album art till you enter that artist, and highlight one of the albums in that folder. Personally, I place an artist image in that root folder, so when browsing, I see the artist as the cover art, then when entering that artists folder, then see the correct cover for each album.
Windows also has a habit of making the "folder.jpg" a hidden file. That can hinder the art showing up, or you even knowing, or being able to see if it is actually in the folder. (It will also prevent you from saving a newer version, as the file is hidden, and windows will not let most programs overwrite the file).
To fix this problem easily, open up a text editor, and place this line into it:
attrib -s -h -r
f:mp3*.jpg /s
(change the path above in red, to your MP3 Root folder)
Then, save it as UnhideFiles.bat or what ever you want to call it.
Now double click that file, and it will remove the hidden attribute from any of the JPG's in that directory, and all subdirectories as well. For me it takes around 30 seconds for it to to go through my mp3 folder that has a little over 900 Albums in it.
Now, you might think that finding the cover art is a matter of googling and saving the images, which is a VERY daunting task, even for a small music collection. LUCKILY there is a FREE program called
Album Cover Art Downloader that pretty much automates the process. It will scan your collection, locate what it thinks is the correct images, (you choose from a thumbnail list) and simply click "Set as cover" It will save the cover in a .png format, as well as a .jpg to the music folder. It goes a step further, and saves the image into the MP3 files themselves, using ID3 V2 tagging. (Although Road Runner does not get the images from the tags, many other programs do, and it's nice when taking the time to do all this, to make you music collection compatible with just about anything out there, including many portable players).
Q: What if we have a lot of one hit wonders, and then the mp3 has the image embedded in it? Do we have to make a copy of the image & make a jpg, then place it in a folder for each song?
A: Well then you have two choices: a) copy the jpgs for each song to the directory with that song in it and rename the jpg EXACTLY as the corresponding song, i.e., my song titled "Janet Jackson - Im Excited.mp3" has a jpg named "Janet Jackson - Im Excited.jpg" or b) get a winamp Plugin like Toaster that pops up the album cover from within the MP3 on song change. Personally, since 50% of my 6000+ music files is one offs, I use Toaster.
Alternatively, you can also look at
THIS plugin.