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[zeltak]

Question: since i want to somehow keep the time albums were acquired to my collection prior to moving back to MC, can one copy album/file mtime to library import time field?
is that in anyway possible?

best

Z

[Spike1000]

I *think* if you create a custom field in MC of EXACTLY the same name (and format?) as the tag field you wish to bring across it will get imported into MC. You'll then need to edit your views to show the custom field.

This has come up a number of times before so there should be some useful threads on this kind of thing. Possibly under previous versions of MC in the Forum.

Try one or two files before you do large imports. You can backup your library too so you can always restore it if it goes awry.

Spike

[zeltak]

thx Spike

that seems like a good idea yet it seems like i cant edit the import date via the tag editor. is that correct?

Z

[swiv3d]

The import date field cannot be edited in MC - but you could set up a user field called date acquired and put the information you want into there. You might be able to this with MP3Tag using a batch file  - but @Spike1000 is the expert there I think.

[Spike1000]

I'm now not sure why you'd want to edit this field. . .. 

I can understand that MC can't edit the 'custom field' containing the import date (I haven't actually tried this)
Copying from the custom field to the user field would be a case of putting =[custom field name] into the new user field in the tag editor. Try one or two first then if it works you can select all files and do them all in one hit.

Personally, I would do it in MP3Tag and then run an MC import to update all the tags in MC. . . A little 'dirty' but I use MP3Tag to edit my tags as I'm used to the big 'table' style layout, sorting by columns, macros etc etc.

If you have to do this for new albums there may be a way to automate this as it's a bit on an overhead. If it's a one off it doesn't really matter how it's done as long as it works.

It sort of depends what you're trying to achieve. . .

Spike

[blgentry]

A 3 tiered system for this is probably the best idea.  I'm always using this approach with MC to emulate the relationship between [Album], [Album Artist], and [Album Artist (auto)].  [Album Artist (auto)] takes the value that's in [Album Artist].  If [Album Artist] is empty, then it takes the value in [Album] instead.

This is really elegant because you can just use [Album Artist (auto)] anywhere you need it and it will normally use the value of [Album].  But if you have exceptions (like albums with guest artists), then you can put your exception in [Album Artist] and it will just magically show up in [Album Artist (auto)].  With that logic in mind, I propose:

[Date Acquired]
[Date Acquired Override]
[Date Imported]

[Date Acquired] would be your master sort field for sorting albums by the date that you got them.  It would take the value of [Date Acquired Override] if it exists.  If not, then it takes the value of [Date Imported].  That way it always has the same value as [Date Imported], but you can OVERRIDE it with the [Date Acquired Override] field any time you need to.

Brian.