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[Nolonemo]

This is a followup to my earlier post, in which I wrote:

I have created an extened tag, "bios" so artist bios can display in the excellent MultiInfo plugin (created by Cascius & DJ_Hazelwood).  The tag type is "string" and "large value"

My main collection is stored on my desktop and mirrored to another networked PC, but I also have a copy of MC on my laptop, which is what I use to rip, do tag clean-up, etc. before moving the mp3 files over to the desktop's HD.

Consequently, in the Options menu, I've created a "bios" tag field on both the desktop and laptop copies of MC.  The parameters are, as far as I can tell, identical, and the "include tag in file" box is checked on both. 

I use TagInfo to enter the artist biography into the "bios" field for a particular album on the laptop, where it works as expected.  However, it seems that when I copy the albums to the desktop, and import the new files into the desktop MC library, the bio information does not appear.

To try to determine if the issue was the info not being saved in the tag or the other copy of MC not reading the tag, I tried a little experiment.  I tagged an album on the laptop and copied (using Windows Explorer) over to the desktop.  The "bios" field showed as empty.

Then I copied the album back from the desktop to the laptop, reimported into the laptop MC, and lo and behold, the bio tag was empty. 

Then I repeated this with an album whose bio was quite small, about the size of the largest paragraph in this post.  In that case, the bio did appear in the desktop MC after transfer, so it evidently was stored in the file.

From this I deduce that there is a maximum amount of information you can store in a single tag.  Does anyone know what this amout is?

Thanks.

From this I deduce that the information is not being saved in the tag.  Is there any way to save the info in the tag?

[KingSparta]

what type of file is it

it should save in a mp3

[Nolonemo]

what type of file is it

it should save in a mp3

files are mp3s.  Some are VBR and some CBR, but I don't see why that (or bitrate) should make a difference.  The thing that has me thrown right now is why small ones "bios" fields are copying but not large ones.

[Nolonemo]

Marko, thanks, but it's been large value from the beginning.

But - 

It turns out that there were non-standard-ASCII characters in some of the bios (or a least characters above the 128 basic character set).  When the non-standard character was present, none of the text would save in the tag.  When I edited out the non-standard characters, the text would save.

(I've been using artist bios from allmusic.com.  When I cut and paste the text, some characters, for example dashes, which display as  — in text editors (and in this forum) display as narrow blocks instead of the characters).

I don't understand why this is happening, but at least I know the workaround for it.  I will investigate more....

[Nolonemo]

OK, further testing and investigation. 

WHen the "edit type" is set to "standard," the dash character displays correctly in the tag field and the tag saves in the file, but there seems to be a size limit?

When the "edit type" is set to "large value," the dash character displays as the graphic in the tag field, and the tag will not save in the file.

Anyone at MC, is this a bug or the result of some spec that is being followed?

Thanks,

Nolo

[KingSparta]

there seems to be a size limit?

there is, the complete beatles bios will not fit into the bios field.

i think "large value" is for numbers and not for text

[Nolonemo]

RIght you are, King, if you try to paste the entire allmusic.com Beatles bio into my "bios" field, it cuts off the last part.  However, what is accepted into the tag field will save into the file if and only if you have removed the dashes in the bio or replaced them with an ASCII character in the 1 to 127 range.

So what I was experiencing was not a size issue, but was related to the presence of the non-basic-ASCII-set character in the text.  I'm interested to see what the MC folks have to say about this, whether it's a coding glitch or what.   As I pointed out above, if the tag is given the "standard" type instead of the "large value" type, this doesn't happen.

Cheers,

Nolo

[Nolonemo]

Marco, what plugin did you use for the bio?  From your screenshots, it looks like the dashes in the AMG bio were converted to double hyphens, which would fix my problem re saving the tag in the file.

When I tried to cut and paste the AMG bio into the bios field in MC, it dropped the last couple of paragraphs.  Perhaps something about the plugin works around this.

I would like to hear from someone at MC about the dash issue, though.

Nolo.

[KingSparta]

one of the things that can affect this is LF (line feed) And CR (Carriage return).  Sometimes both would be used.  In Visual basic it would be a command "VBNewLine" where both would be included on a new line.

I am not sure of what else could be done to take less room in the bios, notes and lyrics. and if doing so would it change the layout of the lyrics.

[Nolonemo]

This thread has suffered from topic drift, my original post was not about plugins but cutting and pasting information directly into MC fields....  The thread does not really belong in the third party plugins forum as I am still waiting for a reply from MC about the problem -- the source of which I spent several hours of experimenting to pinpoint.

[KingSparta]

I thought all your questions have been answered.

you can cut and past to the bios field, but you must do it thru

Action Window, File Properties, Tag Info, Bios, Edit

[Nolonemo]

you can cut and past to the bios field, but you must do it thru

Action Window, File Properties, Tag Info, Bios, Edit

Just to move this back onto the original topic, the problem not been an inability to cut and paste to the bios tag, which is no problem, but that the information pasted to the tag is not saved in the file if it contains ASCII characters above 127.

KingSparta has very kindly been trading PMs with me on the issue, and I have resolve the issue to my satisfaction by using a plugin to fill the bios field, so no further response required.

Thanks again to KingSparta for taking the time on this.

[KingSparta]

thanks for pointing out the problem in MC with The Lyrics, Bios And Notes Edit boxes with some Ascii Chrs.

Note: This may not get fixed in MC11

Imput from all users is Important To JRiver

Mark