INTERACT FORUM

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Album Inventory Comments  (Read 742 times)

Zootsuit

  • World Citizen
  • ***
  • Posts: 139
  • too cool for school
Album Inventory Comments
« on: November 22, 2022, 04:23:42 pm »

I use the Album Inventory view to screen out duplicates amongst other things. In my library, I customarily use the Comment field in the Files menu to insert discographical information, viz. "Chronological Classics 5001" to identify the release number for the album. However, when I switch to the Album Inventory view, the Comment field is blank, which detracts from its usefulness. I poked around in the various discussions that led to the addition of Album Inventory view, but I can't find any mention of this issue. Am I missing something? (Entirely possible.) Is there a way to bring up the data I've added in the Files view?

Apologies if the answer is staring me in the face.
Logged

markf2748

  • Regular Member
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 825
Re: Album Inventory Comments
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2022, 01:10:57 am »

In my library, I customarily use the Comment field in the Files menu to insert discographical information, viz. "Chronological Classics 5001" to identify the release number for the album.
Files menu? Are you referring to the built-in library field [Comment], visible in Tree > Tags > All Fields or equivalent?
If so, here's a suggestion regarding Relational property of the field:

[Comment] is Relational: Not Relational (Store one value for each file)

Create a new custom field, for example [Album Comment], which is Relational: Store one value for each album.

Then select a commented album, and in the Tree find (or add to your favorite subsection) the tag [Album Comment], and initialize the new tag with =[Comment].

Now set a column of your Album Inventory view to [Album Comment] and your comment should be visible.

If it works (as it did for me), then select all your albums and initialize [Album Comment] in one fell swoop with the =[Comment] syntax.

As always:  good idea to do Library Backup before messing around.

Logged

Zootsuit

  • World Citizen
  • ***
  • Posts: 139
  • too cool for school
Re: Album Inventory Comments
« Reply #2 on: November 26, 2022, 08:04:47 am »

Thanks - I'll give it a try. I assumed that data entered in a specific  field for one view would automatically be viewable in the corresponding fields of all views.
Logged

markf2748

  • Regular Member
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 825
Re: Album Inventory Comments
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2022, 09:15:32 am »

Thanks - I'll give it a try. I assumed that data entered in a specific  field for one view would automatically be viewable in the corresponding fields of all views.
Well I think that is still true.  Any view which shows individual tracks should correctly show [Comment] when it is assigned to a column.

However, I suspect your Album Inventory view only lists albums, not their tracks.  In this case, a [Comment] column shows up empty.  At least this is the behavior I am seeing.  Indeed this surprised me, but I found an apparent "work around" by defining an album relational field as described above.

Caveats:
  • I kind-of-assume that every track in a given album has the same value of [comment].  This would be the case, for example, if you selected an album (i.e. effectively selected all tracks) and then filled in [comment].
  • If you have different albums with the same name, it is possible their [Comment] fields may be linked - I have not tested that.
  • There may be a way to use an expression column to display the string from [comment] without defining a new field, but I have not had any success doing that.
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up