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[Noteworthy]

I am currently evaluating JRiver Media Center 24.

I note that when I populate author tags, a database is created to form part of a drop down list for recurrent use.

I have a full database of songwriters from my music collection. I would like to add my database to that of my MC library so that I do not have to type them all over again but simply pick from the drop down list.

Is there anyway I can import such lists to form part of my MC Library database?

It would save me an enormous amount of time...

Many thanks

[JimH]

You might be able to use copy and paste to paste into a tag.  The tag would have to be a "list type".  You can add custom tags.  The wiki has information on tagging.

[Noteworthy]

Many thanks Jim

I am talking about MC's Author tag which suits my purpose and I wouldn't need to add a custom tag.
The copy/paste to tag method would be relevant at single track level, I assume. This would be very time-consuming.

But please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm talking about importing data to the Author table. The naming convention is Last Name, First Name. Is such import possible?

Best regards

[4 jumping cats]

I don't think you can add information extracted from a database directly into the MC library databases. If the information already exists as tags in your music files then it is easy to add them. Otherwise I have seen some discussions of mass tagging using mp3tag which is free, but I have no experience of using it.

[JimH]

Mass tagging works in MC.

A feature that may help is that you can specific tags from one file to a set of selected files by using CTRL-Shift-V .

[4 jumping cats]

Think we are using mass tagging in different contexts JimH -I've seen posts by Spike1000 alluding to doing some complex tagging in mp3Tag is all I am saying.

[blgentry]

This is a little complex, but I'm going to try to condense it.

The Author field is a multi-value field, which means that you can have more than one Author per file.  Now, when you add an Author to this field, MC allows you to select that Author on any other file with the drop down list.  So, if you were to create a file that had, for example, 250 Authors for THAT ONE FILE, then all 250 authors would become available in the drop down list in any other file.  So the trick here is to get all of your Authors entered into one or more files in MC.  Than you can choose those authors for any file you have.

If that result would be good for you, then you just need to get one file's Author tag populated.  Probably the best way to do this is to create an MPL file.  That's an MC specific XML file format which can take many values for each file.  You would want to choose an existing file, and then "dump" all of your Author data into that one file as a place holder.  You would need to create an MPL file with all of these values.  I've messed with MPL some, but I'm not an expert and I can't give you direct guidance on creating this MPL file.  But it's not that hard.  Do a little research and an experiment or two.

Once you have created your MPL file, you need to import it with File > Import Playlist .  NOTE:  With MPL *sometimes* you need to import it TWICE before everything shows up.  Not 100% sure why, but I've experienced it for sure.

So that's one way to do it.  There are probably others.

Good luck.

Brian.

[4 jumping cats]

Personally I would create a library field songwriter of type list - select a file and carefully note it's original entry and then paste the whole semicolon separated list into it and then go through the files and select from the now immense drop down list for the various files and the go back to the original and select the correct entry.

[RoderickGI]

I'll take Jims's and Brian's idea, combine them and simplify.

Just create a single text line including all Authors, separated by a semi-colon. You would create this text line outside MC, perhaps in Notepad or similar, or directly from your external database into a single line text file. Then copy and paste the list into the Author field of one file.

Done...

... and beaten by 4 jumping cats.

[4 jumping cats]

So glad we agree (purrrrrr!)

[Spike1000]

Taking this a tiny bit further. .

Tag a 'dummy' file with the big list you've built up, set the genre for the 'dummy' file as say 'Test' and then modify your views 'Set rules for file display' to "Genre is not any" 'Test, Christmas songs, Comedy, Radio,  etc etc' to stop the dummy song appearing in your views as it's tagged with 'everything' 

Spike

[Noteworthy]

Thank you all  very much for your input. Much appreciated. Apologies for this delayed acknowledgement of thanks.
I have been puzzling over some other aspects of MC24 in the interim.

I realised that it is easy to cut and paste from a list to a tag field in a dummy file.

However I also realised  belatedly, that I would have to sit and individually tag thousands of tracks.
Therefore I will try to use a hybrid of the two options:
Pre-tag the Composer fields of my flac files using mp3tag and then simply import the flac collection of files;
I would, at the same time, cut and paste the list for future use if required.

Thanks once again