Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[KDPearson]

I've created several user created library fields.  Most of them are comma delimited lists.  Is there a way of specifying a default value?

For example (although this isn't a user created field) when I rip an CD I would prefer to have it automatically assign 3 stars to every song by default.  And then I would go back and adjust the value up or down for the songs that are better or worse than average.  There are a number of fields that would speed tagging if I could specify a default value.

I have figured out how you can select all fields and set the value with one click, but that is different and slower than a default value.  Thus no default value is not a big deal, but it would slightly speed up the process if I could set one.

Thanks.  Kent

[bunglemebaby]

If you are using Auto-Import, it is possible. Go to Options > Library & Folders > Configure Auto-Import
Assuming you already have a folder (or multiple), select one and press the Edit... button. Go to the Apply these tags (optional): box at the bottom and click the Add... button. Choose custom and enter your desired fields and default values.
Now whenever anything imports, the default value will be applied. You can get much fancier with this and have rules applied based on file paths and names. There is a thread with detailed information about this, located here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=68462.0
-JB

[KDPearson]

Cool.  Thanks for the answer.  I wouldn't have thought to look there.  Now they programmers just need to add a default value field to the Library Tags menu.  Kent

[glynor]

Cool.  Thanks for the answer.  I wouldn't have thought to look there.  Now they programmers just need to add a default value field to the Library Tags menu.  Kent

I agree.

It would be nice to be able to set a default value for fields other than empty/zero in the Library Tags dialog.

You can "hack" it by using two custom fields (one that stores your data, and another that checks that field and does an If(IsEmpty) calculation).  But that is clunky because to change the data you can't use the calculated field, you have to change the "source" field.

[rick.ca]

I'm having difficulty understanding the practical use of this. If, for example, [Rating] defaulted to '3', how do I distinguish unrated items from those I've actually rated as '3'? A text value could default to 'unknown' or 'not available', but isn't that clearly implied by a blank field? Maybe I'm just distracted by a bad examples. Are there a better ones?

[bunglemebaby]

I'm having difficulty understanding the practical use of this. If, for example, [Rating] defaulted to '3', how do I distinguish unrated items from those I've actually rated as '3'?

I use a default rating because for me a song deserves that default rating until it proves itself otherwise. For me it's a default of 2, but the idea is the same. I don't want to bother individually rating 75% of my songs as a 2 just for the sake of knowing for sure I wanted it to be a 2. I update ratings constantly though, so I would guess that it's a different mindset. I'm sure there are other examples too though.

[glynor]

I default rate mine as "2" as well.  My "system" for the rating stars is:

5. The best songs in my Library by my favorite bands.  These are rare.  You can't get a 5-star rating unless I've had the album for months or years and still love the track.
4. The best songs that don't quite rise to the level of a 5-star, or maybe I haven't had it long enough to decide yet (because that initial blush of greatness can fade with familiarity).
3. Above Average track.
2. Average, regular, run-of-the-mill track.
1. Bad track that I don't want to delete (because I want to keep a "full album" or something, or for humor value), but which is excluded from essentially all of my auto-generating lists.

There's no particular reason to default it to 2 instead of leaving it unrated, but since I have a wide swath of auto-playlists that work based on rating, the Expression logic is a tiny bit simpler if I don't have to account for unrated tracks.

Simpler expressions are always better for me.  Not because I can't figure it out once, but because I still have smartlists in my library that I designed literally 6 years ago.  In 6 years, will you still remember how that smartlist expression works (or why) intuitively?

To me, that is a very important design consideration when I'm structuring my library.

[rick.ca]

There's no particular reason to default it to 2 instead of leaving it unrated, but since I have a wide swath of auto-playlists that work based on rating, the Expression logic is a tiny bit simpler if I don't have to account for unrated tracks.

Yes, I suppose if I weren't importing an album rating from AllMusic (which I refer to when manually setting initial [Rating] values) I'd consider doing it this way. Generally, however, I find it easier to let empty fields tell me my tagging is incomplete. And if there's good reason to leave something incomplete, then I'll likely consider it worthwhile to handle the empty values with an expression, if necessary.

Regardless of how [Rating] is handled, I wish there were an automatic [Date Rating Changed] field.

Simpler expressions are always better for me.  Not because I can't figure it out once, but because I still have smartlists in my library that I designed literally 6 years ago.

Sometimes, expressions I created 6 days prior are completely incomprehensible to me. But, for the most part, they do worthwhile things, without problems, indefinitely. It reminds me we can argue endlessly on the meaning of "simplicity" in systems design. I lost the argument that in a meta data retrieval system it means getting all the available data for a source and providing a mechanism for the user to map it wherever they wanted it. And that if the mapping could be done with an expression, while being "less simple," that would reduce the overall simplicity of the system—because it would make it easier for users to solve "problems" and get the results they want. Instead, the system we've got is only "simple" in the sense it hides a bunch of complex (and sometimes arbitrary) logic from the user. As a result, if it doesn't produce the result the user expects, it's usually very difficult to determine whether one is SOL or just failing to understand how it works. Simpler is not always better.