Wow, Matt, I respectivly disagree, in fact, applying changes to data is exactly when I, as a user, should make the decisions, not a third-party.
To address Nila's point about sometimes liking it to auto save (I do too...), a key modifier would work great, in other words...
1. Change artist to blah, blah, create sort field, update genre, add sub-genres, get image from internet, apply changes (either through telepathy or selecting an "Apply" button)...Wait a few seconds for all changes to be applied at once.
2. Make a change to Title, Ctrl Alt Tab to new field to Apply change or Ctrl Alt click to change focus and apply change, etc.
A useful exercise would be to load up MC with 15,000 files or so and begin to tag them very deliberalty with goals in mind (salaried people only please
). I think you'll find that a better solution needs to be forthcoming.
If you really are against users making desicions about when their data is changed, then at least in Tagging mode, saving data only if I change any value that isn't in the current pane, would be less of a pain.
For instance, for a view such as Genre/Sub-Genre/Artist
I'd select the files by an artist , check off all desired Sub-Genres and then if I selected another artist or any other pane, or the action window, etc., the changes would be saved.
I think it makes sense to save automatically if I'm in a part of the interface where I'm only able to perfom one change, right click mode, Tools menu, etc, but in the AW and in Tagging Mode, it is extremely tedious to use MC's extremely tremendous organizational tools.