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[risingdamp]

I just upgraded to MC12 and am trying to see if DataMaster can do for me what Chart Finder did on MC11.  I'm wanting to update the comments tag with 'charted at xx in YYYY', the Year tag and a custom field called Chart Pos with the chart position.  I expect I'll have to go through several steps to get there but can DataMaster help me get started?

[KingSparta]

I expect I'll have to go through several steps to get there but can DataMaster help me get started?

No, Yes

Create A User Field Called "Chart Data" Check It In The Field List

Thats It.

[risingdamp]

Ok but how can I get the Chart Pos out of there and into another field and can data master update the year field for me? If not is there a neat way to copy the year part of 'Chart Data' to another field?

[KingSparta]

I think you could do that with my other plug-in replace master.

this program just takes and saves data from and to fields how and where other users have it.

It does no formatting of anything.

[risingdamp]

Thanks King.

So do you mean I could copy part of a field e.g. characters represented by something like mid([field name],10,3), to another field?

If so that sounds perfect. I notice Replace Master is still beta and recommended for 'test files only'.  How comfortable are you with it's reliability right now?

Thanks for helping.

[KingSparta]

So do you mean I could copy part of a field e.g. characters represented by something like mid([field name],10,3), to another field?

That Would be Nice, How Ever A bit Different

If so that sounds perfect. I notice Replace Master is still beta and recommended for 'test files only'.  How comfortable are you with it's reliability right now?

I have not Seen Any Problems Lately, But As I Said Test It On A Few Files, To See How It Works For you.

There Is No "Undo" However.

[risingdamp]

That Would be Nice, How Ever A bit Different

Not quite sure what you mean King?  Is there any way to do it?  If not with ReplaceMaster can MC do it some other way?

Due to Chart Finder I have a number of view schemes that use the chart position.  I'd also like to be able to correct the year field based on chart position even if I have to do it 'semi-manually'.

[KingSparta]

Is there any way to do it?

I Just Looked Into it, So yes And No

you must use parts of a phrase that may be in the field to cut, replace, move to another field etc...

I am not sure what your looking for other than move the chart Pos to another field.

maybe I can add something to make this easy-er

Edit: I Think I Will Work On this Soon, This Is Oviously Something We Need To Do.

[risingdamp]

Thanks King.

Just to be clear what I want to do...

Data Master has put the chart position (3 characters) in positions 10 to 12 of the field called Chart Data.  I want to copy those 3 characaters to a custom field called Chart Pos.  I also want to copy the year from positions 23-26 of the Chart Data field to the Date (Year) field.

[risingdamp]

Ahhh...  There is a big problem with this though.  I just noticed that Chart Data is a long field and Data Master adds data for several charts over several different lines.  This means the UK chart (the only one I'm interested in) maybe on lines 1, 2 or 3 and you have no way of knowing which one.  I can see how DataMaster will be very useful for somethings but for Chart Data it's a big step backwards IMO as you can no longer customise it's behaviour specifically for chart info. 

It's a shame you deactivated the old plug in.  This could look for any chart you wanted, correct the year and save the chart position to a separate field.  Any chance of getting it back?

[KingSparta]

Any chance of getting it back?

no, the folders\data were wiped about a year ago.

I will think of something....

I really don't like the way datamaster works anyway.

[risingdamp]

Ok cheers King.

What I'd really love is a plug in that can simply update fields of my choice based on data found in a CSV file or other spreadsheet by lookup against artist & name fields.  So for example the CSV file might have columns headed artist, name, chart position and year.  In MC I would create custom fields called chart position and year.  In the plug in I would specify the location of the CSV file and tell it to look up chart position and year and it would then populate the custom fields of the same name if any data is found.  I guess this must be similar to what DataMaster is doing anyway except with the flexibility to look at a local file rather than a remote database.  The could have all sorts of uses as a batch update facility.

[risingdamp]

Found the perfect download for UK chart data here.  This is why I'd love a plug in that was able to update from a file I can manipulate manually.

[KingSparta]

Ok cheers King.

What I'd really love is a plug in that can simply update fields of my choice based on data found in a CSV file or other spreadsheet by lookup against artist & name fields.

yes, i am thinking the same thing

[ghappe-MC]

Hello all,

It would, in fact, solve a lot of problems if users could update the library, based on an external file.

This file could be as simple as CSV and have, in its simplest form, only two values, being a key value, to compare and find a record in the library, and a value to write to the "receiving" field in the record.

The plug-in would need only to know the field that holds the key value (that should be unique) and the name of the field that is to receive the new value, and of course the name and location of the batch file.

Everything else can be done either in MC or in an external application preparing the batch file.

A more luxurious version of such a plug-in could support things like, preview, step by step execution and, potentially, more than one field to update, or things like prepend and append in the receiving field.

However, if a, as simple as possible, version would be made available it would already solve all my problems and I would also be willing to pay for it to. (Provided it actually works)

So if anyone would or could produce this miracle then, yes please.


Kind greetings,

Guido

Note: It might be a good idea to introduce, like I did, a unique numeric value to each record in the library, like a DB-Key, that always uniquely identifies a specific record, regardless of any changes made to it by editing the tags. (Filling it with such a number can be done by switching values with the "track #" field and running "fill track number from list order" and then flip-flopping it back.)

[KingSparta]

I think it would be hard to find anyone to dedicate a server to do this.

[ghappe-MC]

Hello King,

Sorry, but i'm not talking about a server, just a stand alone, local, plug-in (like for example, the replacemaster), but if people are willing to share input files containing interesting data there can be space made available, but I don't think that sharing info is going to help others out al lot since most people have slightly different notations and formats for tags (Not to speak of the difference in Localized products).

However, if anyone wants to share information they could copy the Library to a textfile and send/post it so that others can use the data utilizing such a plug-in.

Greetings,

Guido

 

[KingSparta]

well I was thinking, that if a generic plug-in with the ability for not only external datafiles, but a way for users to setup it up on there own server may be the right answer.

[risingdamp]

Maybe that could be phase 2?  I think there would be a lot more interest initially in a plug in that can batch update tags from a local file.

[ghappe-MC]

Yes, I agree, and perhaps this functionality could be made a part of the, already extensive,
replace-master, which would give us, together with data-master, both a local and a remote tool to work on our tags.

Greets,

Guido

[KingSparta]

By The Way The Server Was Down For A Bit Due To A Raid Drive Failure.

I will think about this for the next version

[ghappe-MC]

Thanks King,

Please let me know if you do, i'll be happy to do some, extensive, testing.

Greetings,

Guido

[KingSparta]

the only problem with this is if lets say you have data like file size and bit rates, you would not want to overwrite this data (not sure mc will or not, but i think it would) so this could be very dangerous.

and how would you tell one version of the same song from another? if you can not then the wrong data could be applied to the wrong file.

[ghappe-MC]

Hello King,

First of all I don't think anyone would import these values but with a power tool like replace master you need to back-up your Lib first and always use your brain a bit on the side as well.

As I pointed out earlier in this topic you would need to come up wit a unique key to the records, like the db-key field I use, but a working storage field like the concatenation of [artist]+[album]+[track #]+[name] would also be an acceptable candidate-key.

Still, all that is actually done here is uploading data since all the manipulation, editing, matching etc, is done on the batch file OUTSIDE of MC, and therefore the upload, including overwrites want do anything unpredictable.

In any case it is better to start with unload/exporting al relevant data from the Lib to an ASCII file first, do the magic on this data in an SQL aware environment, and then build a Bach file to load it back to MC.

Of course the ultimate solution would be to have MC utilize an existing SQL-aware database to store its data but that's wishful thinking.

I’ve been experimenting with Music Library and Media monkey a bit in the past, both use an Access database as file system, but they're no match for MC and therefore I dropped them both from my software stack.

The use of SQL on tag data is specifically useful to obtain calculated data like [Artist-Rating] or [Composer-Index] and these fields are very useful in creating al kinds of access paths to your data once your collection passes the 100.000 files mark. ) (mine is 150k mp3 files which makes manual update a heavy burden.)

Greets,

Guido

[risingdamp]

the only problem with this is if lets say you have data like file size and bit rates, you would not want to overwrite this data (not sure mc will or not, but i think it would) so this could be very dangerous.

and how would you tell one version of the same song from another? if you can not then the wrong data could be applied to the wrong file.

Good points.  Maybe just keep it simple and make it just for specific purposes e.g. Chart data, artist bios, etc but with the ability for people to use their own local data.  Personally I would only use it for Chart Data and would really like the ability to keep this upto date on an ongoing basis from data available on the net without having to rely on a remote server being updated all the time.

[ghappe-MC]

King, Risingdamp,

Maybe it's an idea to make a dedicated, local, version of the, good old, chart finder plug-in, since I assume King will still have the code lying around somewhere, it could be a minor modification to make it look at, and work with, a local web server, and then all you need is a few people surfing the net for chart-data and someone to format this and do the distribution.

If so, I'll volunteer to lend some help,

Greetings,

Guido