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Author Topic: Using tag info  (Read 2132 times)

rafverhoogen

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Using tag info
« on: November 19, 2013, 03:34:54 pm »

I keep a lot of info about music, and before i started to use mc i kept this info in collectorz,where i could report (print/pdf/html) on it as i wanted.
When i started to use mc i fhought i could store all this info in the library which is true, the tagging possibilities are great, however visualising this information is not ok!  I had found in the windows version that you could create great views on other than the traditional info in a great way.
The exports of playlists to html (which would also be a great way) is realy ugly, and i have no idea how i could create my own view in web gizmo (which is not working in the last 3 versions by the way)

I found this very dissapointing. 

Is there anyone who has the same kind of concerns and maybe even found a solution ?
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rafverhoogen

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2013, 12:05:07 pm »

I was wondering, if it would be possible to adapt the html of web gizmo in order to display all the needed tags, this would already be a huge improvement.

Also i found an html playingnow.html but i have  no idea where web gizmo calls this file.  It uses as a default play_html5.html

all idea's are welcome !!!!!
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MrC

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2013, 01:15:54 pm »

How about exporting the metadata into a CSV file and use a spreadsheet program to consume/print?
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rafverhoogen

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2013, 08:52:51 am »

The csv gets confused with the separators, namely in the lyrics there are sometimes separators and then it starts to split at the most weird places.
It would be a great addition if in the export MC would allow to define separators and quotes for text.

I also tried using the xml export and using a XSL sheet to convert this to html but in the xml i get errors as well during parsing.  Also i store my artwork in the FLAC/M4A's and these are not exported during the xml export.
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MrC

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2013, 11:14:02 am »

What program are you using to open the CSV file?  I've been able to use Google Docs, Excel, and Libre Office's Calc.

The following change logs items indicate that MC19 Windows code has RFC 4180 clipboard compliance.  I don't know if the MC19 changes are on the Mac side though (and these are for the copying rows to the clipboard):

Quote
19.0.37 (9/5/2013)

2. Changed: The CSV text copied to the clipboard when copying from a list uses tab instead of comma as the delimiter.

19.0.36 (9/4/2013)

2. Changed: Copying list items to the clipboard generated RFC 4180 compliant CSV data (previously some special characters, newlines, etc. were not formatted for RFC 4180 compliance).
3. Changed: Copying list items to the clipboard puts CSV into the text area of the clipboard (instead of having different text and CSV formats).

Quote
17.0.95 (2/24/2012)

8. Changed: The text output in the Export Playlist tool creates standard CSV output (RFC 4180 compliant).
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rafverhoogen

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2013, 03:12:44 pm »

I have the impression this has not been done in the mac version.
XLS and Numbers give problems
so far i have been able to take out the fields that cause problems and i have a working solution.  However i feel it is tedious to start exporting, importing and exporting to html when all the info is in the library.
Thought on using the track info visualisation (this would be the best solution) but not implemented in mac.  Then i went to web remote where i am working on changing the html (thanks for the help by the way) and getting more info onto the web, but there i am now stuck on the java part of it. 
The getinfo  command generates a file and works different then the info command and since i am not a java person (i have to do it with or html or xsl)

i am now starting to wonder if perhaps i should wait for track info visualisation to be present in the mac version, but i have no idea if this will come and if yes when this will come.
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MrC

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2013, 05:55:11 pm »

I'm able to export correctly to CSV, even field that contain multi-line data (such as Lyrics).  Both Numbers 3.0.1 and 2.3 open the format the file correctly.  I'm not saying you aren't having a problem, but in general it works.

I can't respond to when visualizations will be ready.  I'd imagine it will be a while though.

There currently is no print capability in MC on the Mac, so there's no Print List command like on the Windows version.

GetInfo generates an MPL file.  This is a format commonly used by MC.  It is a simple XML file, where each Item represents a track, and each Field within the Item represents an MC field.  They are pretty easy to parse, but I can imagine it more troubling if you are trying to use JavaScript.  (I parse or generate them frequently, but am using Perl and XML parsing code).

If you have a Windows box, you could enable Library Server on the Mac MC, and connect a Windows MC client to it, and print from there.

I'm not really certain what you're ultimately trying to do - I think you're wanting to print out an inventory with pictures, or generate HTML to view your library outside of MC.   If I don't have this correctly, maybe you can elaborate.
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rafverhoogen

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2013, 02:29:41 pm »

Thanks Mrc

Maybe i should try in Perl so if you allow me another 2 questions :

1. do you have a small example perl script
2. in the mac where do you store the scripts ?  in the package content ? since that is where the rest of web stuff is saved

thanks
raf
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MrC

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2013, 02:59:15 pm »

I'm happy to help where I can.  I'm still at a loss as to what you're ultimately trying to accomplish (see my last sentence above).  You can elaborate?
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vagskal

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Using tag info
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2013, 06:47:36 pm »

I am also not sure what you are trying to do.

When I checked out software to use (which resulted in me selecting MC) I think I had a look at Collectorz and it was based on a relational database if I am not mistaken. MC is not, but can do a lot of other cool stuff. However, you cannot get all your established relationships in a relational database to the (flat) database MC is using if that is what you are trying to accomplish.

PS. I see now that this is the forum section for the Mac version, which I do not use. I, however, doubt that the database design in MC has changed between the Win and Mac versions.
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rafverhoogen

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #10 on: November 24, 2013, 01:16:35 am »

Firstly, i also have a license of Collectorz but i do  not want to continue with this, and as far as the choice voor MC i do not regret this at all, is is great.  I would be able to do everything i want in the windows version.  And though i use windows professionally i DO NOT want to reintroduce windows at my home. 
my digital music is on a nas, which feeds to mc 19 to a mac mini (no screen, no mouse, no keyboard) that is connected to an Audio Research Dac and from there "there is great sounding music :-)


So what do i want to achieve, basically 2 things :

1. printing, however this is now under control, i managed to get the export working and can do all the reports i want in :
   - numbers
   - xsl:fo
i found the fields causing problems with funny characters.

2. reading the liner notes (or other info)
the first thing i do when i listen to a cd or lp is read the liner notes.  This is not possible of course with digital stuff.  Therefor i was thinking on creating the liner notes on the fly with all the information in the tags.
- i do not want to use the tag box at the left of the screen in a client version, this is does not give the liner note feeling
- i was able to achieve what i wanted in the windows version (i downloaded a trial and tried in there) with track info visualisations, but this is on my professional pc and i do not want to use that for listening to music (i can send some screenshots from work tomorrow)
- i switched to jremote and foud it ok to work with, however did not get the Liner note feeling either the tags are represented as a list and it is just not the same

then webremote came to my attention it was basically doing what i wanted it to do, show what you are listening to, and give some information about it.  I managed to change the layout, fonts, colorschemes, etc.  Which was easy.  When i started adding the tags i wanted i saw that some i succeeded and others not.  I found out that this was because web remote is using Playback/Info?Zone=-1&Token=  in the java script and MrC and Matt pointed me to get info which should be able to do all i want to do and i was a bit optimistic to think that i could simply change the MCWS command in the java script, and it would run but it did not of course, it gives the info in an MPL that is downloaded.  that is where i am stuck. 

Even though i work in an a software company i am not a technical person, well in any cas not in any programming language that would be useful here (well actually some of there reports i made are done in SAS :-))

My knowledge is limited to :
HTML
XSL (to convert xml's)
i can tweak the odd java script, but can not write them

i hope this is a clear overview of what i want to achieve,
if this can be done, i  an stop using collectors and centralise all my music information in MC which i find very good for playback, and better than any other MAC alternative for cataloging.  If i can get around visualising the info in MC the next step is to get all the info now in Collectorz into MC but there is lots of info on interact on this and i'm sure this will work ok for me.

thanks
raf

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rafverhoogen

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Re: Using tag info
« Reply #11 on: November 29, 2013, 08:22:58 am »

Nobody can help here ?
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