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[struct]

Hi,
I think I am missing something obvious...

I have a panes view with Genre as a category.  Genre is a List (semi-colon delimited) [I think this is the default?].

I have some files that have Genre tags Classical;Opera.  I want to add to the Genre list "Romantic", and this exists as a Genre.  I select the files and then hit the "Romantic" tick box and all it does is set the files to have "Romantic" as the only Genre (i.e. it removes the Classical and Opera).  But what I want to do is to add to the list.

Initially I thought I could simply go and click on each of the three genres, but it only allows you to select one (ctrl or shift don't seem to work).  In any event this would be useless if I have make a selection of files that have a variety of different existing Genres but want to add "Romantic".

This seems like a pretty common thing to want to do with a list field and panes.  What am I doing wrong?

Thanks
Craig

[Matt]

It's connected to the edit type of the field.

Genre and artist use a 'standard' edit type, not 'list'.

This was the compromise to make artist and genre a list field without making them overly complex to use.

[struct]

thanks for reply.

hmmm...  So does this make pane tagging basically useless with list fields that are not list edit types?  I only half followed some of the discussion around the change for artist and genre so I assume there is a good reason, but .... this compromise appears to result in a loss of MC's very cool pane tagging.  I would also think this counter intuitive behavior with Panes is more confusing than the really easy tick boxes in the tag dialog? 

Can the edit type of the Genre field be made modifiable (is that a real word:)) to let each person choose their compromise.

Only other thing I can think of is to make a new field .myGenre and use it for day to day editing and then combine with genre in .mycombinedGenre for views.  But this would not let me remove existing errors in Genre, it would only let me manage change from now on.  Any other suggestions?

Thanks

[rick.ca]

I think you'd be better off restricting the stock [Genre] to a one-value per file attribute. If you prefer to use a multiple-values per file value, use a custom list field (and that can be an artist- or album-related field). Either way, you'll also find it more versatile to save different kinds of attributes in different fields. For example, if 'classical' is a genre, then 'opera' is something else. (I call it a [Style]. There may be a better terms, but that's sufficiently vague it works for the full range of music genres.) Again, that something else could be a single- or multiple-value field, and be Artist- or Album-related (or not).

When structured this way, the data is easier to maintain, allows for more specific filtering of files, and you can still display or use the data together as lists or formatted strings using expressions. That might be '[Genre]\[Style]&DataType=[List]' for a nested list in a pane, or '[Genre]: Replace([Styles], ;, / • )' for an info panel (e.g., 'Classical: Opera • Symphony').

[struct]

Thanks rick. Although i like the idea i have used musicbrainz (or freedb if absolutely necessary) to populate the metadata and they both use multiple genres.  thus the data is in and it is really just some tidying  up of the freedb data and other rogues.

Can i copy data from one field to another. I could then use this to tidy and use some expressions for future updates and viewing.

Would seem that given many people will have existing data that the very flexible mc should be flexible here also.

I can understand the need for a simple default, but what was the logic in locking down the genre field.  surely a warning of consequences of change would suffice?

Thanks again.

[Vincent Kars]

Can i copy data from one field to another

In Tools > Library Tools you find Copy/Move.

[rick.ca]

Thanks rick. Although i like the idea i have used musicbrainz (or freedb if absolutely necessary) to populate the metadata and they both use multiple genres.  thus the data is in and it is really just some tidying  up of the freedb data and other rogues.

In that case, there is a simple solution. Create a custom list field [Genre.edit] with an edit type of 'list'. Save it, then edit it, changing it to an expression field using [Genre]&DataType=[List]. If you like, add a pane for [Genre.edit]. This field will support list editing, and will update [Genre] with any changes made. The pane can be used for Pane Tagging.

[struct]

Excellent.  Thanks very much Rick, that does the trick.

Also thank you Vincent, I guess I should have found that one

Craig