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[Antoine.]

Hi,

Everything's in the title, I haven't figured out a way to sort files from a playlist by decreasing order of Date of their ratings being LAST modified.

Using just the "date file modified" criteria is way too broad and brings up random files I didn't want to see reappear.

I'm not sure it's possible...

Thanks,

Antoine

[swiv3d]

Don't think so.

[Antoine.]

Don't think so.

Thanks!

[RoderickGI]

Take a look in "Options > Library & Folders > Manage Library Fields" to see what fields are available, and to add new ones if you want to.

There is a [Date First Rated] and a [Last Played] date for example. Maybe you could build what you want with those, or some other fields. Those fields are automatically updated, so particularly handy. If you created your own [Date Last Rated] field you would need to maintain it yourself.

[swiv3d]

Funnily enough RoderickGI I did play around wiith Date First Rated before posting, I rated a number of previously unrated tracks and they didn't update from a fictitious Date First Rated which was already present, indeed is found in every track and corresponds to the date of my last major import of files into MC after a clean windows install. Well Halloween is fast approaching and the ghost in the machine might be getting frisky I suppose 

[RoderickGI]

Ah yes, now I look at it any CDs I have ripped with MC have a [Date First Rated] equal to the date and time I started the rip. Then the [Date Imported] is a time shortly after that.

However the [Date First Rated] is an editable field, and if I delete the value in it, then rate the Track, the [Date First Rated] field is updated to the current date and time. So as I thought, there is functionality built around that field.


BTW, to the OP, I think this brief thread says it all, in terms of having an existing [Date Last Rated] field: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,107397.0.html



Of course, that didn't stop me having a go at creating a [Date Last Rated] field, with a calculated value using an expression, based on comparing the current Rating in the Library, [Rating, 0], and the current Rating in the actual media file, Tag(Rating), relying on a slight timing difference between when the Library and the file were updated.

FormatDate(If(!isequal([Rating,0], Tag(Rating), 2), Now(),), DateTime, Not Rated)

Miserable failure. The expression gets updated every time the mouse moves over Rating stars, so while I could briefly get the [Date Last Rated] set to the current Date and Time, as soon as I moved the mouse it reverted to the value for the False Expression in the If() function, which in the simplified test above was blank, and hence the output was "Not Rated". I was using "Not Rated" as a simple indication of a failure of the If() function to detect a change in the rating.

I tried a few other expressions but didn't succeed. Just as well maybe, because if it worked it would mean MC would be reading the Rating tag from all files in a View, to see if the rating had changed. Processor and disk intensive!

Anyway, while MC programmatically detects when the rating is first set for a Track and sets an empty [Date First Rated] to the current date and time, I can't work out how to detect if the rating is changed using an expression. Someone else might like to chime in. Or this is a job for JRiver.

[wer]

Umm, I think this is easier than you all think.

If you have the rating field set to "Save in file tags" then every time you change the rating, the file itself will be updated, and the [Date Modified] field will also be updated.  So you can just sort by Date Modified.  I tested it; it works.

Admittedly, this would pick up all modifications, not just the rating, but once your files are imported and tagged, what are you going to be modifying besides the rating anyway?  So perhaps that won't be an issue for you.  Updating the file modification time could affect filesystem backups too, but that's always a consideration when you save metadata to the tags.

[swiv3d]

I think this all points to a need for a [date rated] field built into MC which picks up the date you actually rate a track or change it's rating. Having to clear date first rated to have it accept the real date you rate a track is not very elegant.

[wer]

It seems strange to me that one would change one's rating of a song so often that there would be a need to track the date of the most recent change.  My tracks get rated once, and rarely a second time, after a later listen/reevaluation.  Do other people's opinions of the same song really change so frequently?

And isn't Date Modified a workable solution for some, as posted above?

[swiv3d]

Date modified can change for a lot of reasons, date last opened, number of plays etc so it wouldn.t be reliable for the OP's needs is all I am saying - personally song rating is irrelevant. But to have date first rated as the import date when no stars have been awarded and then have to delete that date and then rate the song seems a very inelegant procedure.

[RoderickGI]

I try not to judge why people want to do certain stuff with MC. Everybody is different. This has been asked for before, as indicated by the thread I linked to.

I think this is a corner case though. Not many people would want to track when the Rating was last changed.

But the [Date Modified] isn't a solution at all, since as Swiv3d says, it gets changed for many reasons.

Deleting the [Date First Rated] as a workaround wouldn't be elegant for one-off track updates, but when that field already contains a date due to ripping a CD, but has no rating as mine didn't, then mass deleting the contents of [Date First Rated] before rating an Album makes a lot of sense.

Carry on.

[wer]

Well to each his own.  Date Modified works fine as a solution for me, as it is only updated on my system when the file (tags) gets modified, which usually doesn't happen.  Obviously you have to make sure that Last Played is NOT saved to tags.  Thus most of my flac files haven't been modified in years.  Good luck to the OP.