Topic: nestable fields: wow! + tips (Read 8586 times)

rjm · « **on:** January 29, 2008, 10:24:42 pm »

I had a feeling nestable fields were something significant but have been avoiding trying them because I did not understand the concept when they were announced, and I was scared about doing some damage to my precious library and views.

I just spent 30 hours over the last 3 days experimenting with nestable fields and ended up completely reorganizing my library with them.

In a word, WOW! Let me say it again, WOW! This is THE most important new feature I have seen in 3 years. Yes, even bigger than tabs.

I encourage any of you that have not tried them yet to give them a go. You can do amazing things with nestable fields to improve the visibility of your library content, and to greatly simplify complex custom views you may have created.

Also complements to the development team on the stability of this new feature. I pushed the hell out of it for 3 days and it did not burp once. Not once. And I'm still using 12.0.404.

Here are tips on 3 cool ways to use nestable fields.

1) Simplify View Schemes (by collapsing pains)

Say you have a Genre pain for music and Topic pain for books. You can collapse these fields (and more) into one pain. First create a new library field called say Subject. Then select all of your music and fill Subject with the expression "=Genre\[Genre]". Now select all of your books and fill Subject with the expression "=Topic\[Topic]". Now delete the Genre and Topic pains from your view scheme and add a Subject pain. Voila, you're done.

2) Assign Multiple Values to the Same Group

Say you have music track that you would like to classify as both Pop and Rock. Simply set the value of Subject (or whatever you called your custom field) to "Genre\Rock;Genre\Pop". Try it, you'll be amazed!

3) Assign Different Values to Multiple Groups

Say you organize your books by Topic such as non-fiction, biography, etc. Say you also want to organize your books by something searchable in the title such as encyclopedia, for dummies, etc. Simply select all of your books and fill Subject with the expression "=Topic\[Topic]". Now do a search for one of your types, such as "encyclopedia", and fill Subject with the expression "=Type\Encyclopedia;[Subject]". This is so cool... and easy.

So what could be done to make nestable fields better? Not much, they are darn near perfect as is. I guess that's the mark of brilliant software. I do have one small suggestion. I wish there was a way to force the sort order of values. I currently prefix names with a space or period to force them to the top but it is a bit of a kludge. I was thinking maybe an escape character could be defined to force a sort order such as:
Topic\01!First Name
Topic\02!Second Name
The digits and ! escape character would not be displayed.

Thanks for an awesome feature!

DWAnderson · « **Reply #1 on:** January 30, 2008, 12:17:07 am »

Nice tips. Why not add them to the Wiki?

hit_ny · « **Reply #2 on:** January 30, 2008, 12:25:56 am »

Great for photos & docs.

I don't see much use for Audio only.

rjm · « **Reply #3 on:** January 30, 2008, 12:34:24 am »

Quote from: hit_ny on January 30, 2008, 12:25:56 am

Great for photos & docs.

I don't see much use for Audio only.

You are mostly right, however I did come up with a useful application for music only. I have about 30 genres in my music collection but I am a Rock & Pop guy most of the time. So I created the following nested fields:

Genre\Favorites
Genre\Favorites\Rock
Genre\Favorites\Pop
Genre\Other\Gospel
Genre\Other\Opera
Genre\Other\Blues
Genre\Other\Cajun
Genre\Other\Bluegrass
etc.
etc.

Works great for me.

And if your audio only collection includes audiobooks with music, there are a many applications for nestable fields.

hit_ny · « **Reply #4 on:** January 30, 2008, 01:49:58 am »

I've got 75 genres, i suppose i can reduce a few in this manner but then you have to remember in which group it belongs to. For lists > 100 items it could be more useful but i still think this is limited in comparison to Matt's intro example where entire panes could be replaced. Easier to do with media with looser associations than Audio.

I suppose with most new things it will take time for it to sink in and come up with better ways to use it.

rjm · « **Reply #5 on:** January 30, 2008, 10:37:49 am »

Quote from: DWAnderson on January 30, 2008, 12:17:07 am

Nice tips. Why not add them to the Wiki?

I've never edited a Wiki. How long does it take to become proficient?

John Gateley · « **Reply #6 on:** January 30, 2008, 11:06:23 am »

Quote from: RJM on January 30, 2008, 10:37:49 am

I've never edited a Wiki. How long does it take to become proficient?

It's easy, a lot like posting here on Interact in many ways...

j

datdude · « **Reply #7 on:** January 30, 2008, 06:42:10 pm »

I'm still totally confused on this. How would I take my genre and styles field and nest them together with the data that is allready there? Same thing for Artist and Album? Is this possible to combine those together, or do I have to nest them one by one?

What are the exact steps?

Thanks

datdude · « **Reply #8 on:** January 30, 2008, 06:55:33 pm »

When I follow the example of the first tip, the pane creates the nested levels, but does not pick up the data i.e. it just shows one field of '[Genre]' and the nested '[Styles]'

Should I set the main Subject field to a different data type?

rjm · « **Reply #9 on:** January 30, 2008, 06:58:02 pm »

Quote from: datdude on January 30, 2008, 06:42:10 pm

I'm still totally confused on this. How would I take my genre and styles field and nest them together with the data that is allready there? Same thing for Artist and Album? Is this possible to combine those together, or do I have to nest them one by one?

What are the exact steps?

Thanks

Are you asking how to display the following in one pane?

Genre
Rock
Pop
etc.
Style
Style1
Style2
etc.

If not, what are you asking?

rjm · « **Reply #10 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:00:38 pm »

Quote from: datdude on January 30, 2008, 06:55:33 pm

When I follow the example of the first tip, the pane creates the nested levels, but does not pick up the data i.e. it just shows one field of '[Genre]' and the nested '[Styles]'

Should I set the main Subject field to a different data type?

Sorry, can't visualize what you are saying. Can you type little example?

datdude · « **Reply #11 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:01:08 pm »

No, but I can't even get that to work.

Right now it just shows

Genre
[Genre]

I would like it to show:

Rock
Alternative
Punk
etc...

rjm · « **Reply #12 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:16:46 pm »

Quote from: datdude on January 30, 2008, 07:01:08 pm

No, but I can't even get that to work.

Right now it just shows

Genre
[Genre]

I would like it to show:

Rock
Alternative
Punk
etc...

I should have been clearer in my tips. Do not enter the quotes around my example expressions. To achieve what you want, select all your files and fill Subject with "=Genre\[Genre]\[Style]" or "=[Genre]\[Style]" if you do not want the Genre header.

datdude · « **Reply #13 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:17:15 pm »

Ok here is something that is confusing, you say to make a new field, but of what data type? Then you say to enter in an expression as its value, I selected all my files and did that in the Tag AW and I get the results I posted above. It's like it doesn't understand that I am referring to specific fields and just treats it as a string, so maybe I am not entering in the expression in the right spot?

datdude · « **Reply #14 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:19:11 pm »

I get the same results without the quotes. It does nest though, just doesn't populate with the data! Very strange...

rjm · « **Reply #15 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:21:37 pm »

I used data type List with no values assigned. Try this and let me know if it works.

rjm · « **Reply #16 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:32:42 pm »

Quote from: RJM on January 30, 2008, 07:16:46 pm

I should have been clearer in my tips. Do not enter the quotes around my example expressions. To achieve what you want, select all your files and fill Subject with "=Genre\[Genre]\[Style]" or "=[Genre]\[Style]" if you do not want the Genre header.

Or if you want to get fancy and display all combinations in the pane, assign the following to your custom field:

=Genre\[Genre];Style\[Style];Genre & Style\[Genre]\[Style];Style & Genre\[Style]\[Genre]

datdude · « **Reply #17 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:36:31 pm »

I appreciate your help RJM.

Here is what I am seeing:

What am I doing wrong?

thx

datdude · « **Reply #18 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:38:20 pm »

I even put in =[Genre]\[Styles], and it gives the same results but with the = sign in front.

rjm · « **Reply #19 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:46:41 pm »

Quote from: datdude on January 30, 2008, 07:38:20 pm

I even put in =[Genre]\[Styles], and it gives the same results but with the = sign in front.

hmmm....

I do all my tag editing in a column. Try adding Test as a column to your view scheme, then click an item in the Test column, then ctl-a select all files, then press F2 enter the expression I gave you, and press return.

And you did set Test to List data type, correct?

datdude · « **Reply #20 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:09:47 pm »

That did it, so that means there is a bug in the Tag AW.

The only problem now, is that not all files are getting the first level Genre field. (Note all files do in fact have Genre data.) What this results in is a lot of Styles not being nested, so it looks like this

Rock
Alternative
Punk

Alternative
Punk

Wonder why that is? Genre is a string, and Styles is a list.

rjm · « **Reply #21 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:11:24 pm »

Filter on Alternative and have a look at Genre. I'll bet you've got some empty Genre fields.

datdude · « **Reply #22 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:20:14 pm »

Nope I thought that might have been the case.

Here is one of the results I get in the list for a specific file:

Alternative Metal;Rock\Heavy Metal;Thrash

You can see it is not nesting all the items in the list with 'Rock'.

rjm · « **Reply #23 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:28:06 pm »

ahhh...

You've got mulitple items assigned to Style. I have not yet figured out how to handle these automatically. What I would do is sort the Test column and then do some strategic group editing and/or find & replace.

What you want to end up with is:

Rock\Alternative Metal;Rock\Heavy Metal;Rock\Thrash

So you could find and replace Thrash with Rock\Thrash etc.

datdude · « **Reply #24 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:30:11 pm »

Exactly.

Hopefully Matt is reading this!

rjm · « **Reply #25 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:55:42 pm »

I remembered reading about a new ListCombine function. Just had a look at it but it does not do what we want. Looks like we need a new SuperDuperListCombine function.

datdude · « **Reply #26 on:** January 30, 2008, 08:57:28 pm »

Now that I have this setup, if I then click on my newly created artist/album pane, and I select an item, then start typing in it hoping it will scroll the appropriate item in the pane, it instead crashes MC.

rjm · « **Reply #27 on:** January 30, 2008, 09:02:34 pm »

Never tried that until now. Can't make it crash on my system and it works as expected. (I'm running 404)

eba · « **Reply #28 on:** January 31, 2008, 07:48:48 am »

I didn't really like the feature when it was first introduced, as I generally hate having anything in a tree, and prefer multiple panes. However, I have finally conceded that it does make my videos view scheme a lot neater.

The only problem is in rename files from properties. I have a big long expression that renames all of my files, whether they be audio, video or image, in a nice way. Potentially, nestable fields could make the video section a fair bit simpler, but it seems to put underscores in place of nestings rather than new folders.

My old setup would rename to, for example:
TV Series\Dr Who\Series 1\06 - Dalek.avi
Music Video\Pink Floyd\Pulse - Disc 1\VIDEO_TS\...
Shorts\Antiboredom Campaign.wmv

i.e. different numbers of folders for different folder types, which did demand a complicated expression, but now I should just be able to use my new Videos field, except I get:
TV Series_Dr Who_Series 1\06.Dalek.avi
etc.

Is it possible to change this?

darichman · « **Reply #29 on:** January 31, 2008, 07:59:25 am »

Quote from: eba on January 31, 2008, 07:48:48 am

The only problem is in rename files from properties. I have a big long expression that renames all of my files, whether they be audio, video or image, in a nice way. Potentially, nestable fields could make the video section a fair bit simpler, but it seems to put underscores in place of nestings rather than new folders.
....

i.e. different numbers of folders for different folder types, which did demand a complicated expression, but now I should just be able to use my new Videos field, except I get:
TV Series_Dr Who_Series 1\06.Dalek.avi
etc.

Is it possible to change this?

It would be good to be able to treat the "\" as a directory slash...
It would also be good to be able to pull the value from a single level of the "tree"... eg [Keywords!2] could pull "Dr Who" from your example above...

Thoughts?

eba · « **Reply #30 on:** January 31, 2008, 09:30:09 am »

Quote from: darichman on January 31, 2008, 07:59:25 am

[Keywords!2] could pull "Dr Who" from your example above...

That would also be useful

rjm · « **Reply #31 on:** January 31, 2008, 12:28:07 pm »

Quote from: darichman on January 31, 2008, 07:59:25 am

It would be good to be able to treat the "\" as a directory slash...
It would also be good to be able to pull the value from a single level of the "tree"... eg [Keywords!2] could pull "Dr Who" from your example above...

Thoughts?

Excellent ideas. I am keep my directory structure synchronized with nested fields but it is a very tedious manual process.

lise · « **Reply #32 on:** January 08, 2009, 07:18:25 pm »

EDIT -- Ha. Got it to work BUT it only works in string fields, not in delimited list fields. Since it was clear in this thread that the field type had to be list, I'm totally confused...
_______________________

Ok, I've just spent hours trying to get this to work, and only way I can create nested items is if I manually add an item to a pane (populated with a list field) ending with \, and then create other items under it.

I have tried every conceivable way to enter things like =[Genre]\[Subgenre] into my custom TEST field (delimited list)with no success.

When I select files to test, I select about 4 of them, ensuring that the fields I use in my test are populated. Furthermore, I ensured that the fields used only contain 1 item to eliminate that being the issue. For this reason, I tested with =[Artist] which I KNOW includes only one item.

I have been entering =[Artist] (I also tried genre, subgenre, and many variations thereof) in my TEST field (delimited list type) in the following ways:

1. Select files, press F2 in my TEST column, type =[Artist]
2. Select files, go to my TEST pane, select Enter New Item, type =[Artist]
3. Select files, go to my TEST pane, edit a previously entered item and rename =[Artist]
4. Select files, go to TAG in Action Pane, enter =[Artist]

Nothing works. I always end up with =[Artist] displaying in my pane, rather than the column being populated with the Artist's name.

Variations I've tried:
=[Artist]
[Artist]

Note than when I tried two fields, like =[Genre]\[Subgenre] I do get the nesting, but the nesting displays as
[Genre]
[Subgenre]
and yes, the brackets show up in the list. More important, neither field is ever populated--I never get

Blues
Contemporary Blues

I read this post in its entirety (and all others I could find), and the trick that worked for datdude didn't work for me.
I'm running 12.0534

Does anyone know what else I can try?

(When I displayed an expression in my pane, I got that to work, but then it just lists everything side by side instead of displaying in a nice nested format; ie Blues\Contemporary Blues\Modern Electric Blues for Genre\Subgenre\Style)

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: nestable fields: wow! + tips (Read 8586 times)