Then someone new to expressions can have a resource instead of re-inventing the wheel.
Funny you should use that expression (no pun intended
).... From waay back in 2003....
Why reinvent the wheelIt didn't really take off back then, and the reasons for that are still valid today... We have such joyous free reign over how we build our libraries that expressions and smartlists invariably revolve around, or involve in some way, shape or form, custom library fields added by the user for a specific reason suited for them.
The expressions or smartlists created are brilliant and just work, but to post them, then explain their use, along with the reason behind any given number of custom fields involved, is just tiresome, and for the most part, pointless, as the given string won't really be of any use to anyone else.
Expressions and smartlists can be fun. It's not popular, but really, the best way to learn is, if you have a goal you want to achieve with your library, and think it can be achieved via expressions or smartlists, just ask...
You will normally be answered extremely quickly, and if you then take the time to understand why a given answer works, you will begin to grasp the possibilities open to you, and before you know it, you'll be joining the fun of working out the solutions to other users expression / smartlist questions.
I've just read this back to myself, and I use "You" a lot... I'm talking to anyone who thinks an expression might help them get to where they want, but is afraid to ask!!
There haven't been many "smartlist help" questions asked of late... we must have done a wonderful job getting everyone up and running over the years and made ourselves redundant!!
The key thing to remember is that smartlists and expressions cannot compare groups of files, they can only work on individual files...
For example, it is impossible to to get a smartlist to return albums that have more than three files rated three or more stars, but you can get a smartlist to return all files rated three or more stars.
We've not had a smartlist smackdown for a while, gappie's always up for one of those, rick's pretty awesome too, and without MrC, all that Regex goodness would be completely wasted on the rest of us. Vagskal is MrC's regex apprentice, and also well capable of answering or offering regex solutions... We're ready, let's have some questions...
-marko