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[Quixote]

Quix Tag Cloner  0.5.0 alpha
     Quix Tag Cloner is an advanced "Copy Fields" plug-in that enables you to clone (copy) one or more fields from a set of files from a Source playlist and match them to mulitple files sets in a Target playlist.  Common uses include copying multiple fields from a single track into the rest of the files from that album.  Quix Tag Cloner works well when you need to rerip any CD's in your collection and want to preserve all your former tags.

Download here: http://www.tbsmedia.com/downloads/qTagClonerSetup0.5.0.exe

Features:

• Quickly copy multiple fields from multiple files to multiple file sets
• Source files grid view and Target files grid view have customizable fields
• Preview Changes before applying new tags has customizable grid fields
• Supports Default and User Created library fields
• Step-by-Step walkthrough
• Debug logging
• Hover over controls for help
• Source files can be removed on the fly
• Light error descriptions

Usage:
The most complicate thing to understand is how to create Unique Keys to make Source files match up to the Target files.  If you have a set of files in the Source playlist make sure you select the fields in the Keys checklist where the fields in the Target playlist will match.  The Walkthrough helps with this part if there are any problems.
(Need to write more... if any has a better way to describe this, I'm open to suggestions.)

Notes & Warnings:

• This plugin hasn't been broadly tested yet, so BE CAREFUL with what you do with it (make library backup, yada yada...).
• The plugin allows you to copy into READ-ONLY fields.  As far as I know, this only changes the Media Center library and not the file itself.  If you reimport the file, the former read-only properties should be restored.
• The plugin also hasn't been idiot-proofed yet, so don't be lazy when you're cloning tags (i.e. using Select All button when choosing fields to copy.  "Hmmm... What happens when I try to copy the filename field to these other 10 files..."  Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.)
• C# was used to program this. Muchos thanks to Mr ChriZ (and others) for the startup template and KingSparta for his other useful plugins.
• King Dork is an awesome book

Future Features: (needs user input)

• On the fly filtering
• Undo changes

Please post any bug and text changes in this thread.  Thanks and Happy Tagging!

[Quixote]

(Screenshots: stay tuned)

[spanky1406]

Nice Plugin, thanks for writing it   

I used it today to manage some re-rips.
Is it possible to save the settings for the source, target and preview tabs? I tried to click "save settings" but it's greyed-out.

Spanky

[DJ_Hazelwood]

Thanks for the plugin.

In my first tests I used it the following way:

I created a new library field called 'Reference Artist'.
Only for 1 file per Artist I set the content of this field to 'yes'.

Then I created a smartlist to filter all these 'reference files'. This is my source files playlist.

After that I created a smartlist that contains all the files of my library. This is my target files playlist. This playlist is very large, so it takes a long time to fill the target files playlist in the plugin. Maybe I can find a better way to filter the target playlist. It should only contain files of artists that occur in the source files playlist. It's not a real problem because the plugin detects the Orphans. For my tests I changed it from a smartlist to a playlist and included only a few test files.

Ok, now I changed the Plugin-settings:

Source Files Playlist: my smartlist # 1
Target Files Playlist: my smartlist # 2
Fields - Copy: Bios
Fields - Keys: Artist
Fields - Source: Artist, Bios
Fields - Target: Artist, Bios
Fields - Preview: Artist, Album, Name, Bios

Question: Are the Source/Target/Preview selections only for the display? They don't effect the result, right?

After pressing 'Fill Source/Target' the first time the Plugin filled the grids and wrote an error-message into the bottom right area.
But only the first few characters of this message were readable: 'You have U ....'
After that I changed the settings and checked 'Allow <Preview> and <Apply> to Ignore Orphans'.
Ok, this was the problem. The 'Preview Changes' button got active now. I pressed it.
The preview marked all the affected files. This gave me the ability to check if everything will run the way I want it. Very powerful 
Pressed 'Clone All'. And the Plugin did exactly what I expected it to do.
After leaving it MC began to update the tag-informations.
DONE!



What I will do next:

Create a new library field called 'Reference Album' and use it the same way.

And find a way to filter the target-playlist to get a better performance.
Question to all the MC Expression-Gurus out there:
Do you know a way to build a smartlist that only contains files from artists that occur in another smartlist ?



Suggestions for the Plugin:

As there can be different ways of using the Plugin, I think it would be great if we could save different settings, some kind of 'Sets'.
In my example I would have 2 Sets:
A Set for tagging all the Artist fields with Source Files Playlist 'REF Artist' and Key 'Artist' and Copy 'Bios,Bornformed,Dieddisbanded,....'
A Set for tagging all the Album fields with Source Files Playlist 'REF Album' and Key 'Artist,Album' and Copy 'Album review,Styles,Tones,....'


Ok, that's it so far. I will do some more tests now. 

Thanks again for this Plugin.

[Quixote]

Thanks for trying this plug-in out spanky and DJ.

The Source/Target/Preview tabs are only for the display grids.

I'm currently adding some XML support for the plug-in so you can save profile settings and will allow for an undo (right now it's using a cludgy INI scheme for settings).   I'm also fixing the error reporting area.

Look for it by the end of the weekend.

[dcwebman]

When I first saw this plug-in, I thought that it was for those times when I need to do multiple Copy Fields within the same file like every time I import songs because I copy certain fields to other user defined fields within the file. But I learned the real use when I tried using it.

I had the intended need today for a podcast as I wanted to rename newly downloaded files with the previous changes I had done for Artist and Album. The real problem I had was that it requires 2 playlists/playing now. I was listening to some music so didn't want to use Playing Now. I moved all the podcast files to a playlist and thought I was set until I realized that I couldn't have the source and target files in the same playlist. I ended up having to create a dummy playlist for a target.

Once I got everything set up with the correct parameters (you were right it was somewhat complicated in figuring out the key), everything copied fine. I like how you thought ahead and put various Sort functions in to make things easier to find. It would be nice if it remembered the sort setting though instead of having to hit the Sort button every time.

Granted this was a simple test and it took awhile to understand the plug-in but I think next time the need arises it should be easier.